Something 4 The Weekend # 69

You know, this is post #444 here at HOT POOP, but it is only the 9th post with the zappa tag, which seems pretty damn lame when you consider this blog is named after a Frank Zappa tune, and the "information is not knowledge" subtitle is his as well...That's something like 2%, if I did the math right...Hell, I don't even drink 2% milk...Strictly whole milk for me, cuz what's the point otherwise? It's like non-alcoholic beer, margarine, Diet Coke...Not Dogs...ultra-light cigarettes...

Anyway...

So then, an old friend commented on Wednesday that I'm still up to no good, spreading filth and lies and love and smut around here, except I'm not really, am I? And even if I am, this blog could probably use some more filth and smut...

And so, like the crass manchild that I typically am, it seemed S4TW # 69 should be dirty...And my first instinct was to stream "Butter Of 69" by Butter 08, a side project of the ladies from Cibo Matto, but that song isn't nearly filthy enough for this special occasion...

No, this very special post #444 + S4TW #69 should feature a Zappa tune...One of his smutty songs, and it seems only natural that this song should be "Bobby Brown Goes Down" from his 1979 album Sheik Yerbouti, because that album was my formal introduction to Frank, the first Zappa album I ever bought...

Frank Zappa: Sheik Yerbouti: "Bobby Brown Goes Down" [mp3]

To be honest, I bought the Sheik Yerbouti album because of the song "Dancin' Fool", which I had heard on the Steve & Garry Show, a legendary radio show syndicated outta Chicago back then...Two of the pioneers of the whole "morning zoo/shock jock" oeuvre of FM radio, the guys Howard Stern stole half of his schtick from, imho...

Steve Dahl was the disc jockey responsible for Disco Demolition Night at Comiskey Park in the summer of '79...Essentially he blew up a giant pile of disco records out in centerfield between the two games of a planned doubleheader...The records blew up, hundreds of fans stormed the field in drunken revelry, the field was ruined, the second game was postponed. Overnight, Dahl and his new sidekick Garry Meier became national sensations...Whether they were heroes to the anti-disco contigency that was popular among classic rock and punk fans, or merely clowns, remains open to debate.

At the age of 13 I wholeheartedly embraced the anti-disco fever and I loved "Dancin' Fool", but I also loved comedy and sex...Every 13 year old boy does...Yeah, yeah, so do most 50 year old men with healthy prostates, I know...

And so here was this Zappa album with songs like "Broken Hearts Are For Assholes", "Jewish Princess", and of course, "Bobby Brown Goes Down", and that stuff was right up my alley, so to speak...Funny and dirty, like my dad's Cheech y Chong and George Carlin records...But the truth is, at that time, the music didn't do much for me...Most of it, these dirtier songs, anyways, were accessible enough, but songs like "Rat Tomago" or "Tryin' To Grow A Chin" were well beyond my fragile teenaged mind...I wasn't ready for Frank, full-blown, quite yet...

Five years later I was living in the dorms at UW-Madison, and the guy across the hall had an electric piano in his room, and he played along to Zappa records all the time. That's literally the ONLY thing he ever did on that thing, and at first it was an annoyance, I gotta admit. But something clicked that year, eventually, and here I am, with a blog named after a Zappa song...

And because this is the very magickal 444-69 post, here's a stream of the inspirational song in question.

Frank Zappa: We're Only In It For The Money: "Hot Poop" [mp3]

It's about record producers, and how they like to turn knobs.

Hotcha! Hank