Ahead of Their Time
American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms:
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ahead of one's time
In advance of current ideas, customs, or methods, as in His treatment of light showed this painter to be well ahead of his time, or Wearing trousers and smoking cigars marked Amy Lowell as a woman ahead of her time. This idiom uses time in the sense of "era" or "generation," a usage at least a thousand years old. The phrase is usually but not always used to express approval. [First half of 1900s]
AMG AllMusic Guide: Pop Albums:
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Ahead of Their Time
- Artist: The Mothers of Invention
- Rating:
- Release Date: March 23, 1993
- Total Time: 67:27
- Type: Live
- Genre: Rock
Review
The date is October 28, 1968. The Mothers of Invention are playing the Royal Festival Hall in London. Frank Zappa has booked 14 musicians from the BBC Symphony Orchestra to accompany them during the first part of the show. He had been writing chamber music pieces in the hotel rooms he visited and wanted to try them out. He strung them together by devising a psychodrama he called "Progress?" This was meant (and indeed turned out) to be a one-time performance, so he made sure to record it. He released the whole thing as Ahead of Their Time 25 years later. The first half of the disc is comprised of the "play." A faction of the Mothers want to play conservative concert music. Don Preston advocates progress with his avant-gardist electronics. He and pianist Ian Underwood battle it out while other frivolous characters (played by members of the Mothers) intervene. It must have been a lot of fun to watch (and it was filmed; parts of it appeared in the movie Uncle Meat), but some of the more visual scenes translate poorly on record. More important is the music itself, which definitely points toward the score to 200 Motels -- it even includes "Holiday in Berlin," which will eventually become a central theme of the film music. The second half of the CD presents the rock part of that night's concert. All instrumental and very focused, it presents Zappa's best tunes from 1967-1968, including the complete sequence that includes "Let's Make the Water Turn Black," "Harry You're a Beast," "The Orange County Lumber Truck," and "Oh No." The sound quality is far from perfect, but this is a crucial document that fans of the '60s Mothers will enjoy. ~ François Couture, Rovi| Ahead of Storm (2004 Album by Cory Wells) | |
| Ahead of Their Time!: Full Force's Greatest Hits (2001 Album by Full Force) |
Wikipedia on Answers.com:
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Ahead of Their Time
| Ahead of Their Time | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Live album by The Mothers of Invention | ||||
| Released | March 23, 1993 | |||
| Recorded | October 25, 1968 | |||
| Genre | Jazz fusion, progressive rock, art rock, experimental rock | |||
| Length | 67:39 | |||
| Label | Barking Pumpkin | |||
| Producer | Frank Zappa | |||
| Frank Zappa chronology | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   [1] |
Ahead of Their Time is a live album by The Mothers of Invention. It was recorded at the Royal Festival Hall, London, England, on October 25, 1968 (although the notes say 28),[2] and released in 1993 on CD by Barking Pumpkin. It was subsequently reissued on Rykodisc in 1995.
The first part of the set is a one-off performance of a musical play retrospectively entitled Progress?, and featuring members of the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Portions of this performance originally found their way on to the Mystery Disc contained on the second box of The Old Masters and the Honker Home Video release of Uncle Meat. Much of the humor and storyline of the play is lost to the casual listener due to primitive recording techniques and the visual nature of some of the performance, necessitating extensive liner notes by Zappa. The remainder of the set is "A fair – not outstanding – 1968 Mothers of Invention rock concert performance" (Frank Zappa – Ahead of Their Time liner notes). Different edits of snatches from the second part of the performance ("The Orange County Lumber Truck" and "Prelude To The Afternoon of a Sexually Aroused Gas Mask") were originally released on Weasels Ripped My Flesh.
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Contents
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Track listing
- "Prologue" – 3:07
- "Progress?" – 4:44
- "Like It or Not" – 2:21
- "The Jimmy Carl Black Philosophy Lesson " – 2:01
- "Holding The Group Back" – 2:00
- "Holiday in Berlin" – 0:56
- "The Rejected Mexican Pope Leaves the Stage" – 2:55
- "Undaunted, the Band Plays On" – 4:34
- "Agency Man" – 3:17
- "Epilogue" – 1:52
- "King Kong" – 8:13
- "Help, I'm a Rock" – 1:38
- "Transylvania Boogie" – 3:07
- "Pound for a Brown" – 6:50
- "Sleeping in a Jar" – 2:24
- "Let's Make the Water Turn Black" – 1:51
- "Harry, You're a Beast" – 0:53
- "The Orange County Lumber Truck (Part I)" – 0:46
- "Oh No" – 3:22
- "The Orange County Lumber Truck (Part II)" – 10:36
Personnel
- Frank Zappa
- Ian Underwood
- Bunk Gardner
- Roy Estrada
- Euclid James "Motorhead" Sherwood
- Don Preston
- Arthur Dyer Tripp III
- Jimmy Carl Black
- Members of the BBC Symphony Orchestra
References
External links
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American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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AMG AllMusic Guide: Pop Albums
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