200 Motels is a 1971 movie featuring Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, produced at Pinewood Studios, England. Directed and screenplay by Tony Palmer and Zappa. Actors included Ringo Starr, Theodore Bikel and Keith Moon. A double album of the soundtrack was released in same year.
Film
If someone were to record several albums worth of material with a live band and a large orchestra, both separately and together whilst simultaneously filming a movie as if a television special; if that could be done, it would be a fair description of 200 Motels. The low filming budget involved a reputed $600,000, a seven-day shoot and 11 days editing; these factors contributed to the sort of insanity which the movie attempts to evoke musically. Although the movie's central theme is about "life on the road" for a touring rock musician in the late Twentieth Century, thematic references to Mephisto, Kafka, Kubrick's 2001, work re-education/concentration camps and an innovative animation sequence are featured as part of the zany video/musical collage.
The film includes the Mothers of Invention and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the actor Theodore Bikel and rock-stars Ringo Starr as Larry the Dwarf and The Who's drummer, Keith Moon in drag as a nun. The plot is either nebulous or nonexistent as a narrative but as a series of vignettes and production numbers it is unlike anything else released in film at the time.
According to Zappa only a third of the script he wrote ended up being filmed. The director, several actors and a bandmember quit in the middle of production. These calamities accounted for changing things radically at the last moments. The movie was all shot on videotape and transferred to film after editing, a cinematographic first. There will probably never be a re-mastered or re-edited version as all of the original master tape and the unused scenes were later erased and sold as bulk video tape.
Soundtrack
The fact that both the film and a musical score filling an entire double album were completed in a single week is tribute to Zappa's hard-working creativity. The production took place at Pinewood studios in England and the recording of the band without the orchestra took place after the day's filming was complete. This was done with a rented remote recording studio/truck owned by the
Rolling Stones which was driven into the movie studio and parked there for a week. According to Zappa, not all the music in the movie is on the album, and not all the music on the album is in the movie.
The Mothers of Invention are in fine form throughout the recording, the primary focus being Flo and Eddie's vocals. Aynsley Dunbar lays down solid drumming for the band and Ruth Underwood plays the orchestra drum set within the enormous Royal Philharmonic. A large variety of musical styles and satirical parodies of musical styles on the album, including the faux country "Lonesome Cowboy Burt" with a perfect, sandpaper vocal by Jimmy Carl Black. Rock band selections include "Do You Like My New Car," "She Painted Up Her Face" and "Magic Fingers." Little space is given to guitar solos on the album and lyrics throughout the album are typically obssessed with sexual behaviour, critical of American society and in their day howlingly funny too.
There is a unique complexity in Zappa's orchestral music, especially in giant production numbers like "Penis Dimension" or "Semi-Fraudulent Direct from Hollywood Overture." Zappa's orchestral compositions, the first to be recorded, exhibit the influence of composers he admired such as Varese, Stravinsky and Webern. The soundtrack also includes operatic vocals by a group of "serious" singers on some pieces and the entire panoply of modern chamber music, twentieth century orchestra, avante-garde and twelve-tone repertoire are also represented on the soundtrack.
There have been numerous often abysmal couplings of rock musicians with orchestras since 1971, but the soundtrack of 200 Motels remains highly original and a fine example of the surreal, creative genius of Frank Zappa.
Track Listing
Disc 1
- Semi-Fradulent/Direct-From-Hollywood Overture (2:01)
- Mystery Roach (2:32)
- Dance of the Rock & Roll Interviewers (:48)
- This Town Is a Sealed Tuna Sandwich (Prologue) (:55)
- Tuna Fish Promenade (2:29)
- Dance of the Just Plain Folks (4:40)
- This Town Is a Sealed Tuna Sandwich (Reprise) (:58)
- The Sealed Tuna Bolero (1:40)
- Lonesome Cowboy Burt (3:54)
- Touring Can Make You Crazy (2:54)
- Would You Like a Snack? (1:23)
- Redneck Eats (3:02)
- Centerville (2:31)
- She Painted up Her Face (1:41)
- Janet's Big Dance Number (1:18)
- Half a Dozen Provacative Squats (1:57)
- Mysterioso (:48)
- Shove It Right In (2:32)
- Lucy's Seduction of a Bored Violinist & Postlude (4:01)
Disc 2
- I'm Stealing the Towels (2:15)
- Dental Hygiene Dilemma (5:11)
- Does This Kind of Life Look Interesting to You? (2:59)
- Daddy, Daddy, Daddy (3:11)
- Penis Dimension (4:37)
- What Will This Evening Bring Me This Morning (3:29)
- A Nun Suit Painted on Some Old Boxes (1:08)
- Magic Fingers (3:53)
- Motorhead's Midnight Ranch (1:28)
- Dew on the Newts We Got (1:09)
- The Lad Searches the Night for His Newts (:41)
- The Girl Wants to Fix Him Some Broth (1:10)
- The Girl's Dream (:54)
- Little Green Scratchy Sweaters & Corduroy Ponce (1:00)
- Strictly Genteel (The Finale) (11:08)
- Coming Soon! [Cut 1] (:56)
- The Wide Screen [Cut 2] (:57)
- Coming Soon! [Cut 3] (:31)
- Frank Zappa's 200 Motels [Cut 4] (:11)
- Magic Fingers [Single Edit] (2:57
Personnel
- Bob Auger - Engineer
- Theodore Bikel - Narrator
- Jimmy Carl Black - Vocals
- George Duke - Trombone, Keyboards
- Aynsley Dunbar - Drums
- Howard Kaylan - Vocals
- Barry Keene - Overdubs, Remixing
- David McMacken - Design, Illustrations
- Patrick Pending - Liner Notes
- Jim Pons - Voices
- Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
- Cal Schenkel - Design
- Ian Underwood - Keyboards, Woodwind
- Ruth Underwood - Drums
- Mark Volman - Vocals, Photography
- Frank Zappa - Bass, Guitar, Producer, Orchestration
External link
Last updated: 10-16-2005 07:30:57
