Frank Zappa's 1977 "Baby Snakes" is a pure performance, satirical take on the lives' of musicians, ownership, poodles, technicians, and of course the many wakcy stories thats Frank has created featuring the mind-blowing clay-animations of Bruce Bickford. Bruce and Frank worked so well together because of several factors. Frank had been injured (by a fan having thrown him off stage) prior to working with Bruce (allowing them to work long hours in an isolated studio because Frank was immobile). Bruce was a massive fan of Frank's work and had longed to work with him. Bruce admits to have taken drugs before and shares one of this experiences on "Baby Snakes". Having opposed drugs all his life Frank still admired Bruce's nack for claymation.
Zappa's film crew were able to capture the raw (and humurous) emotion found behind and on stage during their 1977 Halloween Concerts in New York's Palladium theatre. One of the most interesting things about Frank Zappa's videos is that he is HUGE on synergizing the visuals with his sounds & music. There is no use trying to uncover what is Diagetic and None-Diagetic.
This was one stage of Zappa's career where he incorporated stage-antics, props, audience participation. He worked with other musians such as Keyboardest Tommy Mars (who is personalyl my favorite classically-trained keyboard player), drummer Terry Bozio, and Adrian Belew. All thrown toegther in Zappa's black-hole of rock'n roll, be-bop, funky, medieval-space-jazz-maddness!
Frank Zappa sometimes reminds me of another group known as THE RESIDENTS who have kept their identity since 1969. I was able to catch them at Montreal's CLUB SODA in February. They are simliar because they are both very odd and satirical. Not to mention they both create far-out videos that display a considerable amount of picture and sound SYNGERY. One example is a video taht can easily be found on youtube : The Residents - Skinny.
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