A few paragraphs and Q&A segments from the recent Guitar Legends Rock In Peace edition.



It's the first time this 1988 interview has appeared in it's entirety. A portion of it originally appeared in Musician magazine.

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It's hard to fathom that nearly 16 years have gone by since Zappa passed away, succumbing to prostate cancer at age 52 on December 4, 1993. Because he was so hardworking and prolific during his lifetime, we've been continually blessed with posthumous releases of brand-new Zappa music in the years since his death. But what we've been sadly deprived of is the benefit of Frank's intelligent, highly original take on the phenomenon we call reality, and his tireless crusading against stupidity in all its infinite manifestations.

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Raunchier than the Stones, more experimental than the Beatles, more dangerous than the Velvet Underground, uglier than sin, Zappa and his hirsute cohorts blended populist forms such as doo-wop and blues with highbrow art tactics like Dadaism and musique concrete [the art of capturing and manipulating raw sounds on tape-Ed.], dramatically expanding rock's musical lexicon. Early Mothers of Invention albums lambasted the mainstream American society of the Sixties, with its racial tensions, imperialist aggression (the Vietnam war was raging), sexual hang-ups and boozy hypocrisy. But Zappa was equally hard on the emergent Sixties counterculture, suggesting that maybe hippies weren't any brighter than their parents. Resolutely drug-free all his life, a clear-headed champion of independent thinking, Zappa never joined anyhone's movement, party or fashion parade.

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GL: What about targeting the "youth market"?
FZ: Well, the problem with the youth market is the fact that they go to U.S. schools. And the United States' school system has been turned into a kind of assembley line for really ignorant little consumer clones. I was lucky. I got out of school back when they were still teaching kids to read and write. The market you're talking about now is basically people who can't spell, can't count, don't know anything about economics and think the most important thing in the world is dressing properly and having a party. So your guess is as good as mine as to what sort of music will fulfill the emotional needs of those people. I just think they've been cheated by the government. They're talking about yet another budget cut for education. And things are ugly enough already.


GL: Who are some of your all-time favorite guitarists?
FZ: I like Wes Montgomery, Johnny "Guitar" watson, Allan Holdsworth, Jeff Beck, Guitar Slim and Walter Gerwig-he plays the lute. I'm sure there are a few others, but that's who comes to mind first.


GL: There was plenty or AOR and MOR pap in the Seventies as well, but a lot of it was still guitar music.
FZ: Yeah, but not like the guitar music of today. The Seventies stick out in my mind as the years when corporate rock was invented. And the people decided that that's the only kind of rock the human race would ever hear from then until the end of time. Except for the heavy metal bands, who were doing their vision of beauty. But then that pretty much became a formula too. Heavy metal took a real downturn when videos came in. It wasn't so much how well you could play as how tremendous you looked in front of a camera. So obviously the most important member of every heavy metal band is the hairdresser, the unsung hero of rock and roll.

GL: If you had come along today as a brand-new, 20-year-old artist doing what you did when you were a brand-new, 20-year-old artist...
FZ: I wouldn't get a contract.

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tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431

Frank says:

Couldn't have been more prophetic.

Timmy84 said:

Co-sign. Frank understood the negatives of the music industry better than most people within that system.

Timmy84 said:

TonyVanDam said:

You both can say that again.

GL: Is there a reason why you've been so active lately in releasing live concert recordings that you've done over the years, and reissuing your older albums?
FZ: The reason we are releasing those older albums is that people want them on CD. I've got one major problem in life, which is the bootleg situation. Every time I step out the door, somebody is bootlegging what I do. I'm finding discs of interviews that I've done that have been bootlegged. CDs of interviews going years back! And concerts all over the place are bootlegged. So rather than just give up and let the bootleggers handle my musical output, I feel I should release something. Hardcore fans are already buying these bad-quality recording of the live concert material. The best thing I can do right now is give them the best versions and the best recording quality I can provide.


GL: So has reissuing all this stuff prompted you to go back and reevaluate the early phase of your career?
FZ: Well, you can't help but think something about it when you're remastering it. Most of the time, I'm just glad I don't have to do that anymore: don't have to play with those musicians; don't have to work in those studios, under those budgets; don't have to deal with the business people I was dealing with in that period of the time. The general experience that I had was not pleasant at all. It's not fun to redo those things.


GL: What's your opinion of the music though?
FZ: Well, some of it's good and some of it's not. The problem with all recordings during that period of time was that your were stuck with a fixed budget to make an album. Which meant that you might want to perfect a performance or a mix, but you could not. When the dollars were gone you were out of the studio and whatever stage the record was in, that's what got released. That's the thing that's most troublesome for me about listening to the stuff. I know what it could have been. But there are a lot of people who love those albums. So there they are.


GL: I think they're among the best records that came out in that era.
FZ: Just imagine what they would have sounded like if I would have had the same budget as some of the supposed "big" groups had at that period of time. For all the early Warner Bros. albums, the total budget for the whole thing was $27,500, maximum. And [dripping with sarcasm] the really "important" groups had budgets four and five times that amount. And my middle period Warner Bros. albums had budgets of $65,000 to $80,000. Again, the big groups were spending half a million to $750,000. So it's a little different situation now that I have my own company and I have a pressing and distribution deal. I just keep working on something until it's done. Hopefully I can sell enough units on the thing when it comes out to pay off what it cost to make it.




tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431

theAudience said:

I love Zappa interviews!!! I'd love to have some kind of giant two volume set:

"'Frank' discussions:Things Frank said"(vol.1) and "More Frank" (volume 2)


That last section reminded me of something Pat Metheny was talking about: As a musician,you're appreciative of fans loving your early work, but at the same time, you're on a quest to become a better player/writer/composer, etc, or you know what sounds in your head you're really searching for...so you're not really satisfied with that stuff; you're constantly searching for that sound that personally satisfies you...








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[Edited 5/17/09 4:14am]

Well that's the bane of a true artist's existence. Their perspective on their own work will be far more demanding than those of us who are not judging the "finished product."

They know that a particular work will most likely never be finshed, just released.


LOved Zappa's clear perspective on this. Great stufff, tA. Thanks for posting it.

Zappa is a time capsule....

I love and miss Frank terribly..

how could someone be so fng articulate musically, and then put you in your place in a debate on just about anything.

When I go back in read the interviews from 20+ yrs ago, f*ck nostradamus, this guy is spot on most predictions.

Audience, is that the entire interview?

I like his take on bootlegs--release the things: Note to Prince.

Fortunately quality is not determined exclusively by those who mostly only hear the missed opportunities.

Frank's unique brand of objectivity and perfectionism are super refreshing to read, but things aren't always made more soulful, more truthful, more incisive, by applying everything learned.

I really, really miss Frank Zappa! I have been a devoted fan of his since I discovered "The Adventures of Greggery Peccary" on his 1978 release "Studio Tan", even went to a FZ concert at the Hollywood Palace in the mid-80's. These interview excerpts only make me realize how much I've missed him.

Subsequent to his death, I couldn't even listen to his music until just a few years ago, it was just too heartbreaking. But not only am I listening to his music again, I'm just realizing that he still has brand new music being released on an ongoing basis. "Civilization Phaze III" (the last album he completed before his death in 1993, released posthumously in April 1995) is mind-boggling genius. Though I always wanted to hear a Frank Zappa/George Clinton collaboration. Oh well, I can still hold out hope for a Prince/Bootsy collaboration, lol.

Thanks for this post. Frank was from another world, and way ahead of his time.

2freaky4church1 said:

There's much more.


tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431

PDogz said:

Yes, unbelievably so. Did you know that he came up with a business plan for a music streaming service in 1983?

http://www.techdirt.com/a...l#comments

ReddishBrownOne said:

No, but I'm not surprised, lol. I also like how he locked down his music tight enough in order to take care of his family for generations to come. He took the business of music seriously, not unlike Prince. Thanks for sharing this information.

god, i love zappa.