News from the darkest corners...

When an artist, regardless of his significance, lists his favourite musicians and performers it is usually met with little fanfare, as over time the names mentioned are almost certainly going to change. But when Frank Zappa did likewise, and actually published a record of his most important influences on the inside cover of his debut album, it became a road map to the music he was to make over the following forty years. Even in the early 1990s, when asked about his most-loved composers, musicians and artists, he would repeat names from this, by then legendary, index.

This film explores the musical roots of Frank Zappa by putting The Freak Out List under the microscope and tracing the lineage from the most pivotal names thereon to the recordings and performances of the man himself. Featuring rare footage of Zappa and the Mothers plus archive film of Freak Out List artists, exclusive interviews with The Mothers Of Invention’s Ian Underwood, Don Preston and George Duke, 1950s Doo Wop legends, The Cadillacs, contributions from Zappa biographers Ben Watson and Greg Russo, Edgard Varèse biographer Alan Clayson, experimental modern music historian Professor David Nicholls, soul and R’n’B expert Robert Pruter, and many others.

Also features numerous seldom seen photographs, news archive, radio spots and a host of other features which all together make for a fascinating, unique and hugely watchable programme.

Extra features include: extended interviews; featurette ‘Frank Zappa’s Record Collection’; illustrated contributor biographies; and more.

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