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Frank Zappa plays bicycle on Steve Allen. I know this has been through a couple of rounds of linkage, but it's a must-see, especially if you like Zappa. As a square-looking, preternaturally calm 22 year old, before the long hair and "freak" trappings appeared, his contradictions are strikingly clear. A condescending snot, with a streak of incredible generosity who wanted everyone to be a musician. An arch-controller spouting facts and statistics, who loved to instigate all-hell-breaks-loose chaos scenarios that were an absolute blast for everyone involved. A great American artist, more sadly missed than ever.
Update: YouTubes removed for "terms of use violation." More of our heritage flushed...for what reason exactly? YouTube is a joke.
Update: Sigh, it's back up again, worse quality. [Part 1 of 4]
Paul has spotted DEVO 2.0 at Disney online. It's kids lipsynching to fairly tight, "family friendly" versions of the songs, with backing tracks re-recorded by the original band. As Paul notes, the lyrics have been changed: it's not just taking out the dirty words, but "removing or reversing their original core meaning."
I watched the "Freedom of Choice" vid and I don't think I can go on. It's well done and fun, and you can't fault DEVO for selling out--in essence, they inoculated themselves from that criticism early on by tying their concept of "Devolution" to a general decline in culture and intelligence, INCLUDING becoming commercial hacks--"We're devolving, see?"
But as an early fan of the band it's just too painful to hear the lines "Freedom of choice is what you've got/Freedom from choice is what you want" changed so that the "from" in the second line becomes a second "of." Or the lyric about the dog "who sniffs one bone, then licks the other, then spins in circles till he drops dead" changed to "he drops down."
Choice killed the dog, OK? Is that too much for a kid to grasp?