Dear Nathaniel,
Hello my angel, I love you. I've been all over today, I got the passport back from the Australian embassy which feels great. Not sure when to go to Norway for a week to scope things out, it really depends on what we decide over the coming days in regards to timings. I hope we'll be able to move without much trouble when we finally get down to it.
I know I said we'd move onto fusion but I just really fancied this album for tonight as a little interlude. Freak Out! is not only an amazing album but it has many distinctions. Not only is it one of the first Concept Albums, it is one of the first double albums, and it's also the first album featuring Frank Zappa. At the time the band was simply called the Mothers of Invention after being called something altogether much cruder. Since Frank Zappa was essentially the band even though he was the newest member of the band, it is currently considered mostly just a Frank Zappa album.
I find it interesting that the Mothers of Invention are now mostly just remembered as Frank Zappa albums, even last.fm gathers all of his albums, including those with the mothers as simply Frank Zappa albums. I really love this album, it's an interesting social commentary and parody of popular music of the time. As such it features a very eclectic mix of musical styles that is not only quite funny but also really nice to listen to. Of course this isn't our first meeting with Frank Zappa since we had previously listened to Apostrophe ('). Over time we'll be able to hear all of his albums, hopefully more than once but there's no way we're going through all of them at once like with Led Zeppelin.
This album was incredibly influential in the UK and became essentially the earliest example of raw progressive rock, Zappa was experimental in nature and it was all about creating music that wasn't like anything that been heard before, which is the essence of progressive rock, avant-garde and experimental music. All of which can be associated quite heavily with Frank Zappa. I can never decide what I like most about Frank Zappa, because not only was he a brilliant and unique composer he could also be incredibly funny and cutting with his satire.
I think there's something horribly wrong with how few people are aware of who Frank Zappa even is, let alone have heard any of his music. It's so hard to introduce people to Zappa and have them appreciate the genius behind the man without them being willing to invest quite a lot of time becoming familiar with his music and style of humour, especially if they're not used to anything unorthodox. I hope you like it my angel.
Not quite sure what I'll play tomorrow, we will eventually move towards fusion with some prog rock scattered in between. Goodnight my angel Nathaniel.
Love from Dad.
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