Video From Hell

VIDEO
FROM
HELL

Previews Of
The Newest Releases
From
HONKER
HOME
VIDEO

Music And
Video Concepts
By
FRANK ZAPPA

G-SPOT
TORNADO
JAZZ FROM HELL

FRANK ZAPPA
Sigma TV Interview
December 19, 1986

FZ: So, things in America can be From Hell, like we . . . right now we have a President From Hell, and the National Security Council From Hell, so we should add Jazz From Hell also.

Excerpt From
SECRETS OF THE U.M.R.K.

BOB STONE
U.M.R.K. Recording Engineer

Bob Stone: Okay, if we did two passes we could also get the violence in at the same time . . .
FZ: That's good! Well let's take . . . the first percussion track would have the violence, alrightall right? We'll take that. Adjust this one for violence.

ADJUSTING MORALITY NOW

SATAN'S SNOOFER
PG-13 ROCK

Bob Stone: That's definitely more violent.
FZ: Yeah, I think so. And (ahem) it's a good thing we're computerized to do this, because manual violence is very, very time consuming, and with labor costs the way they are, too expensive.

======================
*** MIX AUTOMATION ***
======================

1 - PROFANITY
2 - EXPLICIT SEX
3 - DRUGS
4 - ALCOHOL
5 - OCCULT
6 - VIOLENCE

--------------------------------
(A) 0-5 (B) 5-11 (C) 11-15
(D) 15-18 (E) 18-21 (F) OVER 21
--------------------------------
ENTER AGE BRACKET TO CORRUPT
AND MORAL AREA TO ENHANCE
(A-F), (1-6)....

U.M.R.K. "666"
Youth Behavior Modification
Software in action

Interviewer: Do you have a fascination for the this instrument, and why?
FZ: Well, the guitar solo is the exception to the album, I mean I would have done the whole album with that machine, but I wanted to include one song performed by musicians.

ST. ETIENNE
JAZZ FROM HELL

Shot with a Hitachi home
video camera,
by Thomas Nordegg
during the concert in
St. Etienne, France
May, 1982

EXOTIC FRENCH
SIDEWALK ENTERTAINMENT
Inserted here for diversion
while we re-synchronize
original VHS footage to
the Digital Audio Master.

FZ: There have been a number of requests to include some kind of guitar stuff on the album. So, there it is. Um, but there's going to be another guitar box coming out next year. Another three record box. So, that'll, that'll be all guitar.

STEVIE'S SPANKING
THE NEXT GUITAR BOX

Live duet version,
Rome, Italy,
July 10, 1982

featuring
STEVE VAI

THOMAS NORDEGG
Video-Obsessive

Thomas Nordegg: I think he did a hundred and twenty shows if I counted that right . . . that's, there's pretty nice results out of it . . . I've improved that camera already the, the thing with double lens was that uh, with the regular lens on, whatever lens you may have on that, you're real limited and you operate only that parameter that the lens offers you, and with that semi . . . you pop that on it, you sort of create a second camera image, specially because with that lens you don't have to focus, you just leave it all open, and you get this kind of semi distorted angles which, uh, you know, music video . . . itself . . .

A Video-Obsessive
is a person who takes
VHS pictures of himself
pretending to play
"MUFFIN MAN"
in a hotel room
on his day off in Paris.

Thomas Nordegg: Yeah, I think, you know, for whatever I do, I'll always wanna be . . . full on . . . really get into it and uh, it's like obsession, I think this is the one word for it, it mights, you know, apply it. In other ways, you know . . . just vegetating, that's, that's, I mean, I, I, I, when I, when I sleep . . . I really, I get like almost depressed and think, oh, well, what could I've done . . . sleep too . . .

PRESIDENT FROM HELL

DON PRESTON
in a scene from
"UNCLE MEAT"
THE MOVIE

Don: Boy, we really need a hit single . . . Just think, I mean, the way the world's going today . . . with all the problems in it . . . I bet I could actually change the world, because it's the young people that really need to be changed, and, and you could really do that through music and everything . . . This was our last hit single . . . it was really a bummer, they wouldn't even play it on the radio . . . Oh, well, gotta come up with something better than that . . .

NITE SCHOOL
JAZZ FROM HELL

RINGO STARR as
LARRY THE DWARF in
THE TRUE STORY of
"200 MOTELS"

ELGAR HOWARTH
conducting
The Royal
Philharmonic
Orchestra

KEITH MOON as
The Perverted Nun

MARTIN LICKERT and
KEITH MOON
at breakfast,
6:50 am next morning

MISS LUCY and
IAN UNDERWOOD
on the bus to
PINEWOOD STUDIOS

FLO & EDDIE
singing
"LONESOME COWBOY BURT"

Meanwhile . . .
the jolly lads of the R.P.O.
cavort with depraved
abandon, shredding
their rented tuxedos
in an act of revenge.

Gary pretends
to be dismayed.

The movie is over.
Now they can go home.

Don: We're coming to the beginning of a new era, wherein the develop—, the development of the inner self . . . will be . . .
FZ: "Will be our most important asset"
Don: Will be our most important asset.
FZ: Do it again. "We're coming . . . "
Don: We're coming to the beginning of a new era, wherein the development of our inner self will be the most important asset. And improvising to music like this is part of that development. Now, if I take the sock and put it over here . . . 'n put it right there, that . . . Now that's commercial. But if I take the sock and put it here, now, now that's underground. We want something commercial, because we want a hit single on the radio . . .
FZ: Country & Western.
Don: Yeah, Country & Western, probably, that's the hanger the kids are really digging today. So, I'll put the uh, sandwich . . . Ah, God! Oh . . . I think . . . I need a new bird . . . or maybe another bird, where do we get a bird?
FZ: On the road.
Don: On the road . . . I'm sure we can find one on the road. If you've ever been on the road you know what I mean!
FZ: You've found that bird on the road, that's where you got all birds . . . !

DOG BREATH
(In The Year Of The Plague)
UNCLE MEAT

MANFRED LERCH
JIMMY CARL BLACK
MOTORHEAD SHERWOOD
BERLIN 1968

Mothers Of Invention
Los Angeles, 1968
Photographed
(and developed at home)
by
CAL SCHENKEL

Australian TV, 1973

Ernie Sigley: As if an intro!How's that for an intro?
FZ: Great. I like the that sax noise note at the end.
Ernie Sigley: Yeah. You, 'cause you do some pretty well wild intros yourself on stage, don't you?
FZ: Oh yeah, and some outros too.
Ernie Sigley: Yeah?
FZ: Mm-hmm.
Ernie Sigley: What's the wildest sort of entrance you've ever done on a stage? Oh . . . told me you slipped down a wire thing once or something.
FZ: No, that's not true.
Ernie Sigley: It's not?
FZ: No. In fact, many of the things you might have heard about me in the program are probably not true.
Ernie Sigley: . . . you'd rather talk about, mh . . .What is your program about? Or would you rather not talk about it, and let people see it?
FZ: Well uh, I could uh, demonstrate some of the things that we do, you know, in theory I can demonstrate it with what you have here. If you allow you'd like me to.
Ernie Sigley: Yeah, if you could, yeah, I would.
FZ: OKOkay. Sometimes during our show we'll uh, conduct the audience as a musical instrument, that's uh, like I have hand signals that I use to conduct the band uh, that give some gives 'em cues to make musical sound effects and so forth and uh, sometimes these cues are extended to the audience, if we have an audience that's, that's in the mood for it. And uh, let's . . . looks like you guys might be in the mood for it, some of you anyway (laughter). Uh, what I'll do is demonstrate first of all what the cues are and then I'll show you how they are to be applied to make a piece of music out of absolutely nothing. OKOkay? First of all, ONE one finger means: "Get ready to applaud." Now, ordinarily in TV you got a fine sign that lights up and it says: "Clap your hands." However, for this exercise one finger means: "Get ready to applaud," and uh, I'll point to one part of the audience and you start applauding over here, and as my finger goes across you stop clapping and the people over here start clapping. So you can move the applause around the room like stereo (laughter). And it's . . . and it's . . . you know, it sounds, it sounds very interesting and you can also uh, get the uh, loudness and softness of the applause and uh, it works it'll work pretty nice. Let's try it. This means: "Get ready," you start right over here on this side. and If the people on the front row start clapping and stop as my hand goes across like that. Let's try it . . . (applause) No, as, as, as the hand goes across you stop so thethat it, the sound travels over there. You have mono TV, folks, so you can't really hear . . . (laughter) Well, OKokay, try it again . . . (applause) You, you clap . . . See, you up on the top row now! (more applause). That's the most simplistic one. Now, the next is TWO two fingers, and this requires that you make a very low noise. You can go: "PRT!" (laughter) A— any low noise that you want to make with your mouth. On cue, for two fingers like this. Are you ready? Everybody at once. (low noises & laughter) AlrightAll right, now, you guys . . . wait for just a second. Now, if the band would will watch, two fingers DOWN down like this means to play any low note on your instrument, just a sort of a bump cut-off, you know, like an exclamation point. So the drummer would probably hit the kick drum, the floor tom, and uh, the guitar player can play uh, a low E, and you can hit your low E and everybody else play a pedal tone, just a little toot like that. Try it one time . . . (low notes) But really short and solid . . . (low note) OKOkay. Now here is just the opposite of that, the highest possible note on your instrument . . . (laughter & high notes) You know, Now we, we have four possible signals: GRUNT, PEEP, CLAP & POOT (laughter) OKOkay? That's your odd, OKokay? Now let's try and make something out of Grunt, Peep, Clap & Poot. OKOkay, we'll start with the Peep . . .

FZ: That's your poot.

FZ: OKOkay, now, awright, now we're gonna, we're going to enrich our musical texture now by including a chord in which you may choose any note of your . . . anyone you like, folks. Attack any pitch and increase the volume. This is "Increase the in volume," and this is "Bend the pitch down," and this is "Bend the pitch up." So, any note . . .

FZ: Let, let the pitch fall off and just move it like that, so that it's like a wave . . .

FZ: There you go.

FZ: One more time now!

Ernie Sigley: That's far out. All right.

NYC Palladium,
Oct. 31, 1978
Excerpt from
"BABY SNAKES"
THE COMPLETE VERSION

ROY ESTRADA

MOTHER PEOPLE
We're Only In It For The Money
(Old Masters Box II)

Mothers Of Invention 1969
8mm Home Movies
Provided by
MOTORHEAD SHERWOOD
from
UNCLE MEAT

PHYLLIS ALTENHAUS
star of
UNCLE MEAT

Phyllis: Hi, I'm Phyllis Altenhaus, and I'm working with Frank Zappa on his film Uncle Meat, in Hollywood. I'm a little nervous doing this 'cause it's the first time I'd even been a star in a film. I originally started working for Frank as his assistant editor on the film Uncle Meat, and one day we were sitting around watching the Festival Hall shots, the rushes, and I saw Don come on the screen—Don Preston plays the monster—and I said, "Frank, look at Don! He's turning into a monster! I'm gonna vomit!"
FZ: When she sees him turning into a monster she has to vomit.
Phyllis: Frank said, "That's it, that's the opening of the line, that, that, I mean, that's the opening of the picture." I said, "Frank, I can't be in your picture, first of all, I have such a bad Brooklyn accent, I'm embarrased by the whole thing!" And he said, "Don't worry, you'll do it." So, you know, with Frank, he has a certain way about him, I mean he just gets people to do these things.
Don: He just makes me sick when he changes into a monster.
Phyllis: Why? Why does he make you sick?
Don: Oh, can't you see it how, how . . . ugly it is that, being that monster? Oh, just, I can't stand it, I, I think I'm gonna be sick, I have to vomit.

Phyllis: So I figured, "Okay, I have nothing to lose," right? Well, first day shooting came around I was a nervous wreck, you see? Ow, what I wanted to say was, originally, how I came to know Frank and everything, you see? I worked for MGM Records, oh, I, I think it was 1967, I worked for Tom Wilson, you remember he was gonna run in for President? Well uh, Tom was producing Frank's albums, the Mothers of Invention, and uh . . .

1967 Recording Session
for
We're Only In It For The Money

Phyllis: I started getting to know the Mothers and thought that they were funny, one summer I spent practicly all, every night at the Garrick Theatre, I lived there in the West Village at the time, and I used to come by and drop in, and one night Frank even got me on stage, and I felt like a real jerk, but, it was okay, you know, I saw he had this power to do these things.

The Garrick Theater
Greenwich Village, 1967
MR. GREEN GENES
UNCLE MEAT

Eat your greens
Don't forget your beans & celery
Don't forget to bring
Your fake I.D.
Eat a bunch of these
MAGNIFICENT
With sauerkraut
MMMMMMMMMMM
Sauerkraut
Eat a grape, a fig
A crumpet too . . .
You'll pump 'em right through
Doo-wee-ooo

Eat your shoes
Don't forget the strings
And sox
Even eat the box
You bought 'em in
You can eat the truck
That brought 'em in

We're Only In It For The Money
Album Cover Photo Session

Garbage truck
MMMMMMMMMMMMouldy
Garbage truck
Eat the truck & driver
And his gloves
NUTRITIOUSNESS
DELICIOUSNESS
WORTHLESSNESS

FZ: Do you have any idea what this thing is? This is the BRAINS of our P.A. system from the Garrick TheaterTheatre, where we used to work in uh, in New York, in '67. The whole band ran through this box and a couple of speaker column . . .

ELLIOT INGBER
Rhythm Guitarist
for
The Original
Mothers Of Invention

Elliot Ingber: . . . And I know, what's this thing you have in anyway, Frank? Is that a movie, man? Wow, shit, man, I figured as long goes there's a tape recorder and movies always on! You know? What's always on, man, I mean, you know, you just talk in that, man . . .

AL MALKIN
"I NEED YOUR LOVE"

Al Malkin: Yeah, well . . . anyway, this is Fantasy Time for me. I'm gonna have a fantasy in my life right now. I'm gonna actually fulfill my fantasy, one of my sexual fantasies that they told me I do have which I . . . I mean . . . blowing. This is the way I think a girl should do it to me . . . for me, but you know . . . Wow! Almost drop my weenie there! Okay, now. I hate to get . . . I never like to touch it, you know, and, and . . . alrightall right, here we go . . . even got . . . It's been uh, you know, sanctified, circumcised, whatever that word is, as you see the little hole which I didn't even noticed, there is a little hole there, folks, you see? The little hole?
Voice: (The word is circumcise)
Al Malkin: It's circum-skies, C . . . Believe me, I know I told you I spell good . . . Okay, you know, this is the way I like it done to me, okay. This, all you girls out there, and this is the way I want . . . to do it. You slowly take your head, right? And, just very slowly you tease me with it . . . you just move your head around at first, see, like this, uh? This is your head and this is my . . . thing. Okay? We call it thing 'cause it's no better name for it, but . . . the thing. And you put your head around it, teasing me, with the aura of your mouth being near it, and then you slowly take your mouth, right? Slowly, and make all kinds of sort of sucking kind of . . . And then, you take your tongue, it doesn't matter which size . . . you just give it a quick caress in, you know? Right . . . then you, you know, you turn me on, and I get all excited and hard and stuff, and then that's when you do it again, you go . . . a taste of what you gonna . . . soon slowly have . . . now, as you slowly put your mouth . . . you, sort of suck . . . and you get a . . . then you roll it in your teeth, sort of brush your teeth with it, up and down and front and then you go . . . and then you . . . Yeah, oh! I ate it! Girls, one thing you never . . . Don't chew it, you know, don't take a bite . . . because the guy gets very mad!

"Bloooow-job?"

KING KONG
"YOU CAN'T DO THAT
ON STAGE ANYMORE"
Metz, France
June 22, 1982

"Bidet!"

Bidet!
(Sport shirt)
BLOOOW-JOB
Jambon
(Corn-hole!)
(Sport shirt!)
Bidet!
(Corn . . . hole)
Jambon
BLOOOW-JOB
(Corn-hole!)
Bidet!
(Sport shirt)
Bidet!
(Sport shirt, sport shirt, sport shirt, sport shirt)
Bidet!

OOO-AHH!!

Bidet!
Bidet, bidet, bidet, bidet, bidet, bidet, bidet, bidet, bi . . .
(Corn-hole . . . corn-hole . . . )
(Sport shirt, sport shirt, sport shirt, sport shirt, sport shirt . . .)
BLOW-JOB! BLOW-JOB! BLOW-JOB!
Jambon, jambon, jambon, jambon . . .

Elliot Ingber: Very sick people. Very sick, very sick.

Bidet! Bidet!
(Sport shirt, sport shirt)
Cooooorn-HOOOOLE!

Elliot Ingber: . . . of that shit again, man. A dangerous shit, man. Mr. Zappa is gonna serve the dog shit one more time, just to see uh, just to see how far out it gets . . .

Ed:
Thank you
Oh thank you, you're really too kind

Excerpt from
AN AMERICAN DISSIDENT

FZ:

It's It is my personal feeling that lyrics uh, would will not harm you. There is no sound that you can make with your mouth, or word that will come out of your mouth, that is so powerful that it'll make you go to Hell. It's not gonna do it. It's also not gonna turn you into a social liability.

Zappa Testimony
before the
Maryland State Legislature.
February 14, 1986

Disturb Disturbed people can be set off on the a disturb disturbed curse course of action by any kind of stimulus.

A bill proposed by
Delegate Judith Toth
to modify the existing
pornography statute
so as to include
records, tapes and CD's
has been passed by the
Maryland House of Delegates.

If they are prone to be being anti-social, or schizophrenic or whatever, they can be set off by anything, including my tie, or your hair, or that chair over there, or anything.

To become law,
it must pass the
Senate Judiciary Committee.

Anything can set it off. You can't point this to statistics of people uh, doing strange things in the vicinity of rock music, because all you gotta do is look around at all the normal kids who listen to it, and live with it every day, who do not commit suicide, they don't commit murder, and they grow up to be, in some cases, legislators.

Delegate
JOSEPH OWENS
Chair. Judiciary Committee

Mr. Owens: This is probably the worst type of child abuse we've got in this State, because it hits all the children. This is mass child abuse, and that's what it is. When they uh, throw some of this slime at these children is it's abuse.
FZ: To say that rock music is the worst form of child abuse, and that it's mass child abuse, I would call that sky high retoricsky-high rhetoric.

Delegate
JUDITH TOTH
(D) Montgomery County

Ms. Toth: We're not talking about references to sex, we're talking about references to incest. Incest, and incest do with kids is fine. We're talking about rape and sexual violence. It's illegal in this State, but these records get out there and they say, "Do it, kids, it feels good, it's fine, it's okay." You gotta read this stuff to know just how dirty it is.
FZ: You guys read this? . . . Or did you read the synopsis?
Ms. Toth: This is pornography!
FZ: This is censorship. AlrightAll right, I I'll have to talk louder. Uh, I oppose this bill bec—, for a number of reasons. Uh, first of all, there's no need for it. The idea that the lyrics to a song are going to cause anti-social behavior, and is as an exclusive cause of anti-social behavior, I think it's is not supportable by science.

The laughing gentleman is
Bruce Bereano
Attorney for the RIAA
(Record Industry
Association of America)

Ms. Toth: This bill is constitutional, we're talking about minors in the first place, stop worrying about their civil rights, start worrying about their mental health, and about the health of our society.
FZ: In the part where it talks about uh, the . . . it says, "In the this section the following words have the meaning meanings indicated," the, the bill sneaks seeks to uh, keep you from seeing, renting, buying or listening to material described as "depicting illicit sex." And the description of what "illicit sex" as per this bill, here's the description, descriptions: "Human genitals in a state of sexual stimulation or arousal." Is that illicit sex? Perhaps in Maryland! "Acts of human masturbation," not animal masturbation, this is talking 'bout human masturbation, you can't see that but, in the any other kind that's supposed I suppose you could see. Mechanical masturbation, perhaps. Or . . . acts of government. "Sexual intercourse or sodomy." Why, why do they indicate that sexual intercourse is illicit sex and put it next to sodomy in the same line? The next line,: "Fondling or other erotic touching of human genitals." That is illicit in the State of Maryland [...] according to the law is as already written?
Mr. Owens: The thing is they know what they've got, they know what they're selling, and that's what they're trying to sell because that's the only thing they could sell to these minors.
FZ: And then, "3. Nude or partially denuded figures means less than completely and opaquely covered human genitals, pubic region, buttocks, or female breast below a point immediately above the top of the areola." Now, I like nipples, I think they look good and that . . . and if you are going to look at a woman woman's breast, if you take the nipple off, which is the characterising determining factor, what you got is a blob of fat there. Okay? And I think that when you're a baby, probably one of the first thing things that you get interested in is that nozzle right there, and you get to have it right up in front of your face, okay? You grow up with this it, so to speak, and then you grow up to live in the State of Maryland and they won't let you see the little brown thing anymore.
Ms. Toth: I'm not against artistic creativity, I'm not in censorship, I think adults have the right to listen or to see whatever they want. But we're talking about children here, this is to protect children.
FZ: Some people, when they start talking about pornography, and saving the children, and the rest of this stuff, in the desire to help the a child, sometimes use choose some strange ways to express it, and, what I know about this bill basicly basically is what I see on this paper and things that I've read in clippings sent to me from Baltimore papers. And some of the statements made in support of the bill, for example uh, I hope I'm not in—, incorrectly quoting you, Delegate Toth, in the reference to uh, rock music being "the major cause of incest in the home," did you say that? There, I'm sorry if I'm misquoting you, somebody reported to me that you have had said that, nowand I've, you know, I've been baffled by it ever since. But, if you had said it . . . you know, well I won't even bother to answer what it since you didn't say it, but is it true that someone has said, I believe it was uh, Delegate Owens, that rock music is "the worst form of child abuse, big mass child abuse"? I think you have problems in the law as it already exists, let alone ammending amending it to include audio references to the things that are already in this document. Then, because it talks about not be being able to advertise matter containing these objectionable topics. It topics, it opens up the possibility for this,: a person wearing a Mötley Crüe T-shirt, if Mötley Crüe was [...] adjudged, by whatever form forum is gonna make these decisions, to be a pornographic act, then if the person who's is wearing the T-shirt, theoretically he could be fined a thousand dollars or go to jail for a year for his wardrobe. And if you he wore it twice, it's, "Five thousand dollars or imprisonment not to exceed two three years or both unless otherwise provided."

Judith Toth's bill was killed
in the Maryland State Senate
Judiciary Committee.
Other states have considered
similar legislation.
Delegate Toth has vowed to
re-introduce her bill in order to
"Bring the record industry
to its knees . . . "

FZ: One example of censorship? Okay, th—, the, censorship doesn't always work like a guy takes a pencil and cross it, or a black marker and takes a line out of a book, or forces a record off the shelves. It doesn't always work that way. Here's a good example that is localized: I offered the Peabody Conservatory my services to teach for a couple of weeks, okay? They wouldn't bring me in to do it, because they were afraid that they would lose their funding from the State, because the people that supported the censorship bill that was uh, going on before, they were afraid that those same forces would remove funding from the entire Peabody Conservatory if I were brought there to teach.

MUSIC BY
FRANK ZAPPA

FILM CAMERAS:
HASKELL WEXLER
FRANK ZAPPA
CAL SCHENKEL
ED SEEMAN
RAY FAVATA
TOM MANGREVEDE
PETER BOS
HERMANN JAUK

VIDEO CAMERA:
VAN CARLSON
THOMAS NORDEGG

EDITORS:
RAYMOND BUSH
BOOEY KOBER

ASSISTANT EDITORS:
FRED SIMON
LEWIS BATES

AUDIO:
BOB STONE
ARTHUR SLOATMAN

TELECINE:
JOE FINLEY
JACK TISMEER
COLOR TIMING:
RICK DALBY

POST PRODUCTION
ENGINEERS:
TERRY BROWN
MARTIN SOLOWAY
LARRY EASTTEAM
CHUCK SLEZAK
SAM THOMPSON
TOM HOUGHTON

ASSOCIATE PRODUCER
JILL SILVERTHORNE

SPECIAL VIDEO EQUIPMENT
SUPPLIED BY
SONY BROADCAST

MELTED WAX
TITLE SEQUENCE:
BRUCE BICKFORD

RECORDING FACILITY
UTILITY
MUFFIN
RESEARCH
KITCHEN

POST PRODUCTION FACILITY
PACIFIC
VIDEO

PRODUCED & DIRECTED
by
FRANK ZAPPA

ALL COMPOSITIONS
PUBLISHED AND
CONTROLLED FOR
THE WORLD BY
MUNCHKIN MUSIC ASCAP

IT'S A
HONKER
HOME VIDEO

© 1987 FRANK ZAPPA
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED