“Frank Zappa - 1969-1973: Freak Jazz, Movie Madness, and Another Mothers” DVD

Superb and focused historical document of Zappa jazz

Despite Sexy Intellectual's releases being "unauthorized" biographies, their works are often labors of love, and quite well-researched. This exhaustive documentary is no exception, and holds up as one shining example of a comprehensive and well-done “fan-made” document.

Centering on Zappa's work from 1969 to 1973, this 2.5 hour film interviews Zappa's bandmates, associates, and session musicians (as well as the usual journalists and music historians). There are plenty of video and audio clips to illustrate the story and background behind the recording of seminal jazz/fusion albums like "Hot Rats" and “The Grand Wazoo”.

Any serious fan or student of Zappa’s intelligent and baffling proto-jazz experiments should make this an essential viewing. Very worthy!

Sexy Intellectual / Chrome Dreams

Zappa family website

"From Straight To Bizarre: Zappa, Beefheart, Alice Cooper, and LA's Lunatic Fringe" DVD

This nearly 3-hour unauthorized documentary does an admirable job compiling a history lesson on the short-lived, but influential labels set up by Frank Zappa and manager Herb Cohen in the late 1960s. Straight Records and Bizarre Records both were showcases for some of the wildest and most unusual sounds to come from the era.

Featured here are looks at the artists who benefit from Zappa's tutelage, from the medically-diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic Wild Man Fischer to Captain Beefheart to Alice Cooper, Lenny Bruce, Tim Buckley, and others. As with most of the releases from Sexy Intellectual, there are plenty of interviews with friends and acquaintances, though particularly absent are words from the most pivotal players. Nonetheless, this is an interesting document and a fine history lesson, especially to fans of Zappa. (Sexy Intellectual via MVD Visual)

Zappa website

Tom Waits - "Under The Influence" DVD

These unauthorized critical examinations are really well-done, but generally essential only to the already-devoted fan. This is no exception. Waits, it needn't be said, is an enigma, and an American songwriting legend at this point. His music is instantly identifiable, from his gruff froggy vocals to his ramshackle, old-time vaudeville vagabond beat-poet persona. "Under The Influence" tackles exactly what inspired Waits through the years, and through the eyes of his collaborators and journalists, we see some of the jumping-off points that led Waits to forsake "pop culture" and embrace a timeless, historical context within his music and art. Beginning with the beat poets (especially Jack Kerouac), we get portraits of writers like Charles Bukowski and Ken Nordine, and musicians like Captain Beefheart, the Rolling Stones (chiefly friend and collaborator Keith Richards), avante-composer Harry Partch, and European songwriters Kurt Weill and Bertold Brecht. Waits' widely-disparate influences make sense, and this DVD does a fine job examining, and proving these inspirations to be likely truths. That's not to say that Waits has emulated any of these composers too greatly, as his vision and personality are uniquely his own. Well worth a look to any Waits collector, but if you don't consider yourself already interested in the man's impressive body of work, this won't convince you. (Chrome Dreams via MVD Visual)