The impulse for artists and musicians to form their own
record labels are many. But often these endeavours are little more than vanity
projects for which enthusiasm wanes when the first rush of releases fail to
take off - leaving charity stores and flea markets awash with the unsold booty
of such initially ambitious enterprises.
But on
occasion proceedings in a side-line of this nature can prove not just
sustainable but fascinating, profitable and wholly worthwhile; a task made a
little easier when the boss is a bit smarter than the average guitar hero!
So it was
with Frank Zappa. Desperate to remove himself from his original deal with Verve
Records, in 1968 he set up the Bizarre and Straight labels in league with
manger Herb Cohen, and so began a string of
releases which remain extraordinary
in the extreme.
Records by
Frank himself and with his Mothers of Invention would rub shoulders in the
label's racks with releases by notorious paranoid schizophrenic and part time
songwriter, Wild Man Fischer, ex-groupies; the all female GTOs, acapella gospel
collective The Persuasions, the first clutch of Alice Cooper records, Tim
Buckley's enigmatic Starsailor, live recordings by Lenny Bruce and
Lord Buckley, and a range of other musical oddities, generally of a quite
startling quality despite their oft-eccentric content.
But it
would be a 1969 release by the Mother Superior's old teenage buddy Don Van
Vliet - by then long re-christened Captain Beefheart - that would provide the
art-statement for which the Bizarre/Straight enterprise is remembered best, and
which remains to this day the pinnacle of achievement, not just at the House of
Zappa & Cohen, but, for many, also within the normal confines of the genre
loosely termed 'Rock & Roll'. To suggest that Trout Mask Replica -
for it is this sonic marvel of which we speak - moved-the-goalposts is akin to
claiming Jack the Ripper had 'an eye for the ladies'!
This film
revisits and reviews the astonishing music that came out on Bizarre and
Straight, and reveals the background, operations and, crucially, the lives of
the musicians, performers and management who made these labels the legendary
reality they became.
The film
contains exclusive interviews with many of the labels' contributors including,
Pamela Des Barres, John French, Jerry Lawson, Jeff Simmons, Dennis Dunaway, Neal
Smith, Essra Mohawk, Miss Mercy, Kim Fowley, Bill Harkleroad plus authors Ben
Watson, Barry Miles, Mark Paytress, Billy James and Ritchie Unterberger. Also
includes rare footage, archive interviews, location shoots, extras - and of
course the music that made it all worthwhile.
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