Baby Snakes

Wow!

I just saw this movie for the first time today. I had already seen SOME parts of it, but never THE WHOLE MOVIE. It's great to see Frank Zappa work with his band and enjoying himself. He does a few very interesting guitar solo's, which I think are GREAT to experience. Some parts of this movie are backstage events. Some parts are clay-animation, which is done really nice!

The movie ends with a GRAND FINALE, that takes about an hour of uninterrupted live footage, which does get quite intense at some points.

Glad this movie was made!

i love frank zappa. I didn't really know much about frank zappa the first time i watched this video. I was in a friends apartment and everybody fell asleep while watching it except me and another guy. We were glued to it. The muscianship is unmatched by any video i have seen accept maybe sign of the times or rashaan roland kirk at the montery jazz fest. i was so impressed with what i saw and heard that i was instantly transformed into a zappa fan. If you don't like this video but are still interested in zappa you should check out something from one of his other periods. I most like the funk/fusion sound of the early 70's ie live at the roxy and elsewhere. but the pure zanyness of we're only in it for the money is unique and wonderful. babbbbbieeee snnnaaaaa-eaaaaa-eaaa-eaaakes!

Like anything else that Frank Zappa did, if you don't understand it you won't like it. And it's really easy to miss Frank's point sometimes. "Baby Snakes" is simply footage of a Zappa Halloween show cut with Bickford claymation footage. Good if you like that kinda stuff, but dreadfully dull for everyone else. The best place to start learning about Frank Zappa is from his albums, NOT from the videos.

For Zappa fans, the footage is great, and the sound quality is excellent (much better than "200 Motels"). The animation doesn't make much sense. Plus, this video has the great scene of legendary drummer Terry Bozzio singing "T*****s and Beer" in a devil mask.

Nearly all aspects of Zappa creativity are reflected here: Several really long guitar solos, the classic "goofy" crowd pleasing songs, amazing playing by the band (Black Page 2 and many others), funny monologues, on-stage audience participation bits as well as some amazing conducting on some free-form pieces. It's also interesting to compare this to "Does Humor..." which I also love. It's true that in "Does Humor..." the video quality is cleaner, but I actually like that slightly fuzzy older look. But more importantly, in BBSNX Zappa is much, much more energetic, and in addition, the individual talents of the band members really shine here: Tommy Mars has a truly amazing keyboard solo and Terry Bozzio is utilized to the max, including performing, possibly, the best drum solo I've seen on video. I also liked the fact that the audio/video sync is pretty much 99.9% right on. No overdubs, no nothing - what you hear is what you see ("The Song Remains The Same" comes to mind as an unfortunate example of the opposite). I read some complaints about the back stage antics and the claymation stuff (which I liked). keep in mind though, this DVD is so long that even if you skip those things you still get two full hours of first rate concert footage. Enjoy!

How I miss Frank... Can you imagine what he may have had to say today about the state of music, politics and everything in between?

A must-see for every Zappa fan. This film must be seen in its original 3-hour version if possible. The live concert footage shows perfectly what an incredible musician/composer/bandleader Zappa was. The rest of the band (featuring Adrian Belew, Tommy Mars and Terry Bozzio) put in great performances as well. I wish the re-release of the "Baby Snakes" CD from four years ago was expanded to include more concert footage from this movie.