BABY SNAKES is an over-long movie of Frank Zappa's 1977 Hallowe'en concert at the Palladium Theater in New York City. There is concert footage, back-stage footage, and very good claymation segments by Bruce Bickford. This self-indulgent film is only suitable for Zappa fans, and perhaps rock music fans in general.
Frank Zappa (1940-1993) was a musical and lyrical genius. For BABY SNAKES he was singer, guitarist, keyboard player, bandleader, director, producer, screenwriter, editor, music composer, and main performer. The cinematography was done by Phil Parmet and Richard Pearce.
This film is supposed to offer a peek at "people who do stuff that is not normal". In this regard, it's not very impressive. BABY SNAKES is not as good as Zappa's 200 MOTELS (1971), which is OK. And it's not quite as good as his concert video DOES HUMOR BELONG IN MUSIC? (1984). Frank Zappa says, "God made three mistakes. First was man. Second was the wo-man. Third was the poodle. He meant to make a German Shepherd, but he f**ked up." Referring to a stuffed animal's posterior, he says, "We're gonna call this part Burbank." He tells the audience, "I'll prove to you that I'm bad enough to go to Hell... Yeah! Because I have been through it! Yeah! I have seen it! Yeah! It has happened to me!' Yeah! Remember... I was signed with Warner Brothers for eight f**kin' years!"
"Baby snakes
Late at night is when they come out
Baby snakes
Sure you know what Im talkin about
Pink n wet
They make the best kinda pet
Baby, Baby, Snakes"
The cast includes: Frank Zappa, Ron Delsener, Johnny Psychotic, Donna U. Wanna, Diva Zappa, Adrian Belew (guitar, vocals), Bruce Bickford, Dale Bozzio, Terry Bozzio (drums, vocals), Vinnie Claiuta, Warren Cuccurullo, Roy Estrada (vocals), Jennifer James, Phil Kaufman, Ed Mann (percussion), Tommy Mars (keyboards, vocals), Patrick O'Hearn (bass), John Smothers, and Peter Wolf (keyboards).
The 21 songs performed are: "Baby Snakes", "Titties 'N Beer", "The Black Page 2", "Jones Crusher", "Disco Boy", "Dinah-Moe-Humm", "Punky's Whips", "I Have Been In You", "I'm So Cute", "City Of Tiny Lites", "Dancin' Fool", Duck Duck Goose", "Yo' Mama's Rubber Shirt", "Return Of The Son Of Shut Up And Play Your Guitar", "Whatever Happened To All The Fun In The World?", "Wait A Minute...We Gotta Get Into Something Real", "Revenge of the Knick Knack People", "(The Adventures Of) Geggery Peccary", "Sexual Harrasment In The Workplace", "Hot Poop", and "Time Is Money".
Zappa is raunchy, obnoxious, deliberately offensive, and sometimes silly. At every opportunity the bass player sneaks "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" and "Sunshine of Your Love" into every song possible. "Punky's Whips" and "Titties 'N Beer" (the best song, sung by Terry Bozzio in a devil's mask) are very funny. For "Dinah-Moe-Humm" Zappa grabs a guy from the crowd and makes him dance and lip-synch while he sings. Adrian Belew dances around in a dress. The band plays rock, fusion, solos, and there is participation by Zappa's audience of devoted fans. Bickford's grotesque claymation segments are freaky, with people and situations morphing into one another. BABY SNAKES ends with a Grand Finale.
The original running time was 183 minutes, which was edited down to 166 minutes. No film distributor was interested in BABY SNAKES, even after it was cut down to 91 minutes in 1984. Zappa distributed it with his own Intercontinental Absurdities production company and made a profit. A short CD (7 songs) was released in March 1983.
I've alway admired Frank Zappa for his unique image, outspoken brutal honesty, scathingly satirical songs, and artistic genius. But he was too intellectual for a music career, and he was sometimes arrogant, cold, cruel, mean-spirited and scatological. As a singer he had a pitch accuracy of + or - 15%, which he said disqualified him from singing in his own band. However, uniqueness is the most important asset for a rock singer, and Zappa's voice is very distinctive. Some of Zappa's guitar playing is quite good, but as a proficient guitarist myself, I must say that Zappa was a third-rate "blooze" guitarist with improper fingering technique. There are other famous guitarists who hold their plectrums backwards or use a coin instead. They may be successful, but in my opinion they don't know how to play the guitar and they have my contempt. Frank Zappa inspired me to feel comfortable with my contempt.
BABY SNAKES won first prize at The Internation Festival of Musical Films in 1981. The film was released on DVD on December 9, 2003 and the sound quality is superb. There are no overdubs whatsoever--it is a completely accurate recording of the live concert.
Frank Zappa quotes:
"Remember, Information is not knowledge; Knowledge is not Wisdom; Wisdom is not truth; Truth is not beauty; Beauty is not love; Love is not music; Music is the best."
"Remember, there's a big difference between kneeling down and bending over."
"Government is the Entertainment Division of the military-industrial complex."
"Rock journalism is people who can't write interviewing people who can't talk for people who can't read."
"Communism doesn't work because people like to own stuff."
"Drop out of school before your mind rots from exposure to our mediocre educational system. Forget about the Senior Prom and go to the library and educate yourself if you've got any guts. Some of you like pep rallies and plastic robots who tell you what to read. Forget I mentioned it... Rise for the flag salute."
"Fact of the matter is, there is no hip world, there is no straight world. There's a world, you see, which has people in it who believe in a variety of different things. Everybody believes in something and everybody, by virtue of the fact that they believe in something, use that something to support their own existence."
"In the fight between you and the world, back the world."
"You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline--it helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer."
"Art is making something out of nothing and selling it."
"Most people wouldn't know good music if it came up and bit them on the ass."
"The United States is a nation of laws: badly written and randomly enforced."
"Rock music was never written for or performed for conservative tastes."
"If lyrics make people do things, how come we don't love each other?"
