Years within the making, 1971’s 200 Motels was one of the crucial bold tasks of Frank Zappa’s exceptional profession. It will definitely took the type of a groundbreaking characteristic movie and a daring and eclectic double album on which electrical blues and psychedelic pop rubbed shoulders with nods to fashionable classical composers Edgard Varèse, Igor Stravinsky, and Anton Webern. It may solely have been made by Frank Zappa in 1971 – an uncompromising satire of the music enterprise demonstrating the composer’s distinctive and vivid expertise.
The music Zappa composed for 200 Motels was delivered to life by The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, however its beginnings have been much less refined, as he advised Coq in 1974, “I’ve been writing music in hotel rooms for years and years. I wanted to find some way of getting it played… So I devised a screenplay that chronicled in an abstract way the activities of the group on the road for a certain period of time and used the music that had been written in the motels as the scoring for the film.”
A few of Zappa’s motel music was aired publicly way back to October 28, 1968, when the Moms Of Invention carried out with 13 musicians from the BBC Symphony Orchestra on the Royal Pageant Corridor, London. Elements of 200 Motels tracks “Restaurant Scene,” “This Town Is A Sealed Tuna Sandwich,” and “What’s The Name Of Your Group” featured within the set, which was later launched on the 1993 set, Forward Of Their Time. And a Might 1970 efficiency by The Moms and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra in LA included a 49-minute set referred to as “Excerpts From 200 Motels.”
A Dutch TV particular showcasing the brand new music was mooted however fell by way of. Undeterred, in November 1970, Zappa submitted a 10-page film therapy to a number of main movie studios. In response to Zappa, the studios, “just didn’t want to know. As soon as we’d start to explain what we wanted to do, they’d go into a state of shock.”
United Artists’ president David Picker understood Zappa’s imaginative and prescient, “We gave him a tape that had a half-hour’s worth of songs on it, a 10-page treatment of the plot line, and some clippings and a couple of photographs. He studied it for about five days. [We] walked into the office, and before we even sat down, he said, ‘We’ve got a deal.’”
200 Motels was recorded at Pinewood Studios, Iver Heath, England, between January 28 and February 5, 1971, with overdubs recorded at Whitney Studios, Glendale, California, in April 1971. The album was launched, alongside the movie, in October 1971. Zappa advised the Worldwide Instances in 1971 that the choice to make 200 Motels in England was monetary, “The main enticement was the cost of the orchestra. We got the Royal Philharmonic for a thousand pounds a session… for a hundred men.”
The filming
200 Motels suffered a setback earlier than filming even started with the departure of Moms bassist Jeff Simmons. Sadly for Zappa, Simmons was one of many central characters within the film. When the Moms acquired the 200 Motels script in early January 1971, they have been shocked – Zappa had drawn on years of working with musicians for the fabric, which had lower too near the bone for some, “They couldn’t believe what they had in their hands,” Zappa advised Grapevine in 1971, “it was everything they always said, and I’d just stored it up.” In response to Zappa, Simmons give up after the second studying.
With simply weeks until the beginning of the shoot, a alternative was wanted urgently. “I thought if you were going to replace Jeff Simmons with a long-haired guy, where are you going to get a guy who’s as funny as him or so unique?” Zappa advised Grapevine, “So I invented a character who was supposed to be the world’s oldest bass player in rock’n’roll.” Wilfred Bramble – finest identified within the US for his position in A Onerous Day’s Evening as Paul McCartney’s spotlessly clear grandfather – was recruited and impressed throughout the preliminary rehearsals. However on the final minute, Bramble bailed, leaving Zappa going through a disaster, “We’re at the studio ready to shoot, and we’ve got a $679,000 budget to make a movie, and there isn’t anybody to play the main character.”
Determined instances referred to as for determined measures. When Ringo Starr’s chauffeur Martin Lickert arrived at Pinewood with the previous Beatle, who had already signed up for the film, the driving force was press-ganged into studying for the half. “Everybody just went, ‘You! Read this!’ and grabbed him… He was fantastic. Then we found out that he had played the bass in some little band in Birmingham, and so he might be usable… He was still working for Ringo and memorizing the script and learning the bass parts, but he did it under the most insane pressure that could be put on anyone. We shot the movie in seven days.”
When filming fell not on time, United Artists refused to finance extra taking pictures. Zappa later estimated that roughly one-third of the script wasn’t filmed in any respect, which meant that solely seven of the 13 suites of music earmarked for the film have been recorded of their entirety. Precedence was given to the scenes that featured music requiring an orchestra – it was Zappa’s first likelihood to file with one, and he wasn’t going to waste it. And the fragmented nature of the footage dictated {that a} new plot needed to be pieced collectively within the modifying suite. In 2021, the 6CD 200 Motels fiftieth Anniversary Version gave listeners the fullest image but of Zappa’s authentic intentions, with demos, outtakes, and dialog safety reels that recommend a fuller plot, fairly than an enjoyably disjointed assortment of comedic and surreal set-pieces, animations, and band performances.
The soundtrack
Whereas the film was groundbreaking – it was the primary full-length characteristic movie to be shot fully on videotape – the multitudes of setbacks affected its cohesiveness and it turned a cult favourite, fairly than a field workplace hit. However there was no doubting the standard of the music. 200 Motels boasted the appreciable skills of the Moms line-up at that time – George Duke (keyboards, trombone), Aynsley Dunbar (drums), Howard ‘Eddie’ Kaylan (vocals), Ian Underwood (keyboards, saxophone), Mark ‘Flo’ Volman, Frank Zappa (vocals, guitar)… and, after all, Martin Lickert (bass). Additionally at Zappa’s disposal have been the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and a refrain of ten male and ten feminine singers.
From the grand brass fanfare that heralds the opening “Semi-Fradulent/Direct-From-Hollywood Overture,” 200 Motels is an exhilarating exploration of Zappa’s compositional expertise, expertise for arranging and modifying, and the Moms’ dynamism. “Mystery Roach,” “She Painted Up Her Face,” and “Magic Fingers” present that Zappa may ship muscular and melodic psych rock on the drop of a hat. “Tuna Fish Promenade” and “What Will This Evening Bring Me This Morning” are dizzying chamber pop songs. In the meantime, “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy” is a easy R&B delight, sung with gusto by Flo & Eddie.
Elsewhere, “Dance Of The Just Plain Folks,” “Touring Can Make You Crazy,” and “Lucy’s Seduction Of A Bored Violinist & Postlude” are playful, advanced, and cinematic items of experimental orchestral opulence. There may be nice magnificence, too, within the chic “Would You Like A Snack.” On “Lonesome Cowboy Burt,” Zappa even gave us a knee-slapping, straw-chewing nation pastiche. However the true show-stopper got here with the magnificent 11-minute “Strictly Genteel (The Finale),” a grandiose and tongue-in-cheek anthem for the underdog.
Lyrically, 200 Motels just isn’t for the faint-hearted. Zappa doesn’t maintain again when giving the lowdown on the lifetime of a touring rock’n’roll band within the 70s, notably their lustful predilections. In that respect, 200 Motels must be seen as a interval piece, a fantastically unapologetic doc of a bygone period.
On the entire, 200 Motels is Zappa at his most bold and experimental. The movie stays a curiosity, a chaotic overspill of concepts and half-realized plot. However the soundtrack album is densely filled with great music, delivered with wild vitality. It confirmed that Zappa was a compositional drive to be reckoned with, able to turning his hand to something. From this level on, the chances have been limitless.
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