Another episode in a ongoing series that takes a casual look at the members of the Frank Zappa Freak Out List. In the spirit of aimlessness, the list has been randomized.

Bülent Arel was a Turkish composer and music educator.

He worked at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center, taught at Yale and started the electronic music program at the State University of New York at Stony Brook…(all gleaned from wiki).

It seems that Arel is primarily remembered for electronic music but, he composed a number of other interesting, yet “modern”, works for more traditional instruments. This one has tinges a ragtime and even a taste of boogie woogie piano…

Conceptual Continuity:

Well, we can presume that FZ may have been interested in Arel’s music. Possibly, Frank was aware that he had worked with Edgard Varèse.

It is also interesting that Arel was a bona fide sound engineer and is credited with inventing a splicing tape dispenser which, a known splicer like Zappa may just have used himself.

This piece features some edit and sound sculpture that might have appealed to a young FZ…

That’s what Cee Lo Green informs us the Billboard Milestone Award is about as he announces the winner, Justin Bieber.

Rather than trying to wrap your head around the concept of a teenage purveyor of corporate sugar pop being rewarded for ingenuity and innovation, just watch and appreciate the surreal quality of the clip.

I thought for a brief second it would escalate in to an audience wide, “Network” like, “We’re mad as hell!” moment. When it didn’t, I thought it would turn in to that Twilight Zone episode, “It’s A Good Life” and the kid would just wish them in to a corn field when he doesn’t get his way…

The devil doesn’t stand on political correctness…

Powerball jackpot is at $600 MILLION!

What you do with your turquoise in your free time is your own business…

I always find myself thinking, “I hope it’s not about Miles”.

I just turned on MSNBC to see some coverage about the House Ways and Means Committee hearings with the IRS guys. Right off the bat they went to the man on the scene, Luke Russert, and he went in to a whole bit about how the hearings quickly became partisan.

Every time I turn on the news it seems like partisan and bi-partisan are the two most important words in the English language.

I can’t recall an actual conversation with an actual human being that was about partisanship.

This thing with the IRS is about the arrogance of authority. And, believe it or not, that IS something that I find coming up in actual conversation.

Mike Kelly got it right while raking Steven Miller over the coals. If you are short of time, the best part starts at around the 4:30 mark…

Ginger Baker has been doing some interesting press for the movie “Beware of Mr Baker”. Take a look at this Q&A…

Michael Hann of the Guardian, the guy given the task of “conducting” the presser, said…

The video above doesn’t really capture the full horror of my thankfully brief time with Ginger Baker. It was an onstage Q&A at the Curzon Soho cinema in London, after a screening of the excellent documentary Beware of Mr Baker, and the best that can be said is that – having already seen the film – I knew what to expect…

…We were introduced, briefly, before the Q&A. Baker was reclining, eyes closed, in an armchair in the cinema’s bar. A man from the film’s distributor attempted to introduce me – so we could get the measure of each other – and received the barest twitch of an eyelid. I sat down next to him and said I would be doing the Q&A with him. No response – he’s hard of hearing these days – so I repeated myself. Eventually I got the response: “No you’re fucking not. The audience is.” OK.

In Baker’s defense, Hann went in with understandably negative preconceptions but, he also mentioned that Ginger was “never my hero”…sometimes that sort of thing gets transmitted without being said.

But, the video is compelling. And not in the watching a train wreck sort of way. He’s a real deal player. Baker is interesting because, when he talks about music, he’s blatantly honest and that’s the part that sometimes offends. Early rock and rollers and Hawkwind weren’t heroes of his and in his mind, Jimi Hendrix, Art Blakey and Elvin Jones carry much more artistic weight.