by Neil Slaven
Back in Los Angeles, Frank worked as hard as his health permitted. "The minute somebody tells you you have cancer, your life changes dramatically, whether you beat it or you don't," he said. "It's like you have a fucking brand put on you. As far as the American medical profession goes, you're just meat. It complicates your life because you have to fight for your life every single day, besides doing your shit. To do the music is complicated enough, but to think of doing things that involve travel and other kinds of physical stress is too much. Whatever medication you take fucks you up, too."6
On October 26/27, he was interviewed by Co de Kloet for a four-hour radio programme, Supplement, to be transmitted by Dutch NOS radio on December 21, Frank's 50th birthday. When asked what music he listened to, Frank replied, "I'm making music, not listening to it. The only time I have to listen to it is when I'm not watching the news. So, given the choice between listening to music and watching the news, I usually watch the news these days."7
The main reason for watching the news was the developing situation in the Middle East. Throughout the Eighties, Iran and Iraq had been at war, and America had pumped billions of dollars into Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's war effort. By 1988 the conflict abated, with both sides exhausted. To generate finance, Hussein demanded that OPEC countries cut their oil production, increasing the price and thus Iraq's income. Led by Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, his Arab brothers refused. He then demanded from Kuwait the return of certain oilfields and strategic islands lost to Iraq when the existing boundaries between the countries were established in 1922.
Hussein's warlike intentions were no secret; the US Ambassador to Iraq told him that America 'had no opinion' on what it saw as a boundary dispute. Hussein's forces seized Kuwait on August 2, taking control of one-fifth of the world's oil reserves. Given America's proprietary attitude towards Middle East oil, the Bush administration could no longer just send lawyers, guns and money. Troops arrived in Saudi Arabia and ultimatums were issued. Frank saw through his country's motives. "They're not going there to protect democracy, because Kuwait is not a democracy and neither is Saudi Arabia. Both of these countries have very, very strict regimes, and to listen to speeches giving any other reason for this force in the Gulf other than protecting US oil interests is totally fake."8
Interviewed by Trevor Lofts and Steven Homan four days before his birthday, he warmed to his theme: "... when they start talking about, 'Well, it's just about aggression. You know, the very idea that somebody would just go charging into somebody else's country.' Wait a minute! Yesterday was the first anniversary of 'Operation Just Cause', when we went blasting into Panama to arrest their president [Manuel Noriega]! For what? So we can stick him in jail and tape his conversations?"9 The resulting conflict, named Desert Storm, was brief, environmentally catastrophic and ultimately inconclusive.
WHEN NO ONE WAS NO ONE
Frank was also feeling contained. Dweezil had been on tour in Australia, accompanied by Ahmet; at the same time, Gail, with Diva in tow, was having meetings with Festival Records. "We were seriously discussing the possibility of moving my business down there, and I told Gail to look for some property." He visited the Australian consulate in Los Angeles to see what incentives their government might offer to move his business to Australia. He also wanted to discuss a project he'd had in mind for some time, of setting up a modern-day Bauhaus where artists of all types could meet and co-operate. "After I'd explained to [this man] all the things I was interested in, he began with his lecture about Australian unions. He basically made it very clear that nothing that I ever wanted to do in life could ever be done in Australia because of [the] union situation."10
Birthdays were going to be important events from now on, and for his fiftieth Frank bought himself a brand new Synclavier 9600. "It's twice as big, in terms of storage," he told Den Simms, "and it also has a direct to disc system, so it can do a lot more than the old one."11 However, it was going to necessitate getting a new mixing console, in order to accommodate the increase in sound quality. That, in turn, was going to put back the mixing of any Synclavier material until it was installed.
On the record front, Frank announced The Best Band You Never Heard In Your Life had been reduced to a 2-CD set, but the remaining material would become another 2-CD set, Make A Jazz Noise Here. The one piece of bad news was that Ahead Of Their Time was on indefinite hold, largely due to the settlement of the lawsuit with the original Mothers, which had been ongoing since February 1985. In it, the Mothers had staked their claim to 'unpaid royalties' earned from the reissue of the albums which featured them. "All I want," Jimmy Carl Black told the Austin Chronicle, "is what's coming to me, and that could be a lot of money. I don't want any of Frank's, I just want what's coming to me. I think that's only fair."12 That was only a part of the $16.4 million mentioned in the lawsuit.
Details of the settlement were not made public, but Frank picked up the tab for the legal fees and Ahead Of Their Time went into turnaround. "I'm not sure I want to spend my life trying to make those guys any more famous than they already are," he said. "I just think that it was such a stupid thing to begin with, and even though it's all over, as far as I'm concerned, there's plenty of hard feelings on my side."13 Eventually, he relented and Ahead Of Their Time was issued in April 1993.
The Best Band You Never Heard In Your Life was also issued in April. Its 28 tracks combined "concert favourites and obscure album cuts, along with deranged versions of cover tunes and a few premiere recordings." Frank's note continued, "In a world where most of the 'big groups' go on stage and pretend to sing and play, we proudly present this quaint little audio artefact. Yes, once upon a time, live musicians actually sang and played this."
The musicianship was indeed dazzling, as those who'd witnessed the shows already knew. The versatility and skill of his musicians was matched by the breadth of their repertoire. The 'cover tunes' included Johnny Cash's 'Ring Of Fire', 'I Left My Heart In San Francisco', Ravel's Bolero, 'When Irish Eyes Are Smiling' and the themes from The Godfather and Bonanza. There was also Ike Willis' Thing-Fish medley of 'Purple Haze' and 'Sunshine Of Your Love' (the latter with Mike Keneally's bizarre 'Johnny Cash' for good measure), from a sound check in Linz, and Led Zeppelin's 'Stairway To Heaven', with the brass section playing Jimmy Page's original guitar solo note for note.
Towards the end of the second CD, there were 'Swaggart' versions of 'Lonesome Cowboy Burt', 'More Trouble Every Day' and 'Penguin In Bondage', during which Frank provoked as much laughter on stage as there was in the audience by incorporating various details of Swaggart's disgrace into the lyrics. 'A Few Moments With Brother A. West' was a cod 'sermon' from the man who'd illustrated The Real Frank Zappa Book. Frank announced later in the show that the 'sermon' was in fact a satire on the spurious moral hysteria of the religious Right.
On Monday, April 15, Frank appeared on Berkeley's Radio KPFA for a combined interview and phone-in with Charles Amirkhanian, the inventor of a musical form he called 'textsound', during which he revealed that he might enter the following year's Presidential race. "I don't want to be connected with any party. In fact, I think that the condition of politics in the United States right now is so drastic that any thinking individual who still says he belongs to a party is just kidding himself, because neither party is doing anything for anybody except their buddies."14 Thereafter, for several months there was talk of a feasibility study, which fell victim to the weight of work and Frank's uncertain health.
During a second appearance on Amirkhanian's programme on Monday, May 20, there was mention of what was to be the last major event in Frank's musical life. "On Thursday, there's a group of people who are coming to visit me from Germany, and they've invited me to write a major piece for the Frankfurt Festival for 1992."15 At the meeting with Dr Dieter Rexroth, in charge of the Festival, film-maker Henning Lohner and Andreas MolichZebhauser, manager of the Ensemble Modern, it was agreed that instead of one large orchestral work, Frank would prepare a set of compositions, some of which
would receive their premiere. The 18-strong Ensemble would come to Los Angeles for two weeks in July, so that both parties could assess the potential of their collaboration.
Another project nearing fruition was a stage presentation of Broadway The Hard Way, already postponed twice from October 1990 and March 1991. It was the brainchild of conductor Joel Thome, with whom Frank had collaborated ten years previously on a tribute to Varese. By May, the project had broadened. "Almost two years have gone by [since the original idea]," Mike Keneally explained, "and so it makes more sense to do a lot more music from a lot more phases of Frank's career."16
"This is a wonderful opportunity to pay tribute to Frank," said Thome. "He's such an important force in music with such a passionate vision, so it's our way of saying, 'Thank you'."17 By September, the show had been renamed Zappa's Universe and Zappanauts would be attending The Ritz in New York City for four days beginning on Thursday, November 7.
Make A Jazz Noise Here, released in June, concentrated on instrumentals, including 'Big Swifty', 'King Kong', 'Dupree's Paradise' and 'Strictly Genteel', which gave individual members of me band generous solo space. 'When Yuppies Go To Hell' was an outstanding representation of the group improvisation that took place every night. The almost 15-minute collage began with a theme written during the tour which Frank entitled 'Desiccated', while later parts were taken from performances of 'A Pound For A Brown On The Bus'. Scott Thunes contributed arrangements of the Royal March from Stravinsky's L'Histoire Du Soldat and the theme from Bartok's Piano Concerto No. 3. Unfortunately, copyright problems with these and Ravel's Bolero on Best Band subsequently led to public apologies and a temporary withdrawal of stock.
As Make A Jazz Noise Here was released, Jimmy Swaggart was caught with another prostitute. "It comes out on the market," Frank said to me, "and they catch him again. Some things never change." You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore 4 was issued at the same time. Its time-frame ran from 1969 to 1988, with almost half the tracks taken from 1984 performances. Of particular interest were the original 1976 version of 'The Torture Never Stops' with Captain Beefheart's vocal, a guest appearance by saxophonist Archie Shepp on 'Let's Move To Cleveland', and the marathon guitar duel with Steve Vai on a Rome recording of 'Stevie's Spanking'.
On June 20, Frank flew to Russia once more, and four days later arrived in Prague to join the celebrations marking the departure of Soviet armed forces from Czechoslovakia. Later, at a concert headed by Michael Kocab's group, The Prague Selection, he strapped on a Fender Strat for the first time in three years, soloing on a reggae instrumental. Before playing, he told the audience, "I'm sure you already know it, but this is just the beginning of your new future in this country, and as you confront the new changes that will take place, please try to keep your country unique. Don't change into something else. Keep it unique."18 At the next election, the country split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
A few days later, he journeyed on to Hungary, where the mayor of Budapest, Gabor Demszky, repaid the courtesy he'd received when he'd been a guest at Frank's house earlier in the year. Once again, he took up his guitar to perform with a local band at the Tabanban, near Budapest. Photographs taken during the visit hint at the toll the cancer treatment was taking on Frank, overweight and with a haunted look in his eyes when not in the public gaze. While his hair was as luxuriant and unruly as ever, his sideburns were white, his moustache grey-flecked. It was as if the ageing process was accelerating.
Frank returned via France and London, where on July 3 he appeared on BBC Radio 4's Midweek with guests including the Chieftains. Presenter Libby Purves asked about his Presidential aspirations and Frank replied he was still doing "a feasibility study". Nine days later, in a recorded interview for Radio l's News 91, he commented, "We had kind of a chimpmaster turned President for eight years, and now we have a spymaster turned President . . .
We've seen the results in the US of a world invented for us by a former used car salesman, and you can see the result of that. So, how can a person from the world of culture make it any worse than it already is?"19
By then, he and the Ensemble Modern were ensconced in Joe's Garage, rehearsing and improvising. During a two-week stay, the musicians were also 'sampled' at UMRK, so that Frank's eventual compositions, developed in the Synclavier, would reflect their individual capabilities. At the same time, the Ensemble's copyist, Ali Askin, was recruited to prepare arrangements of previous Zappa work for inclusion in the 90-minute programme. Frank responded to the musicians' enthusiasm with some bizarre experimentation. "There are two people in this group who play didgeridoos," he told Don Menn. "One of them is the woman from Australia who is also the oboe player [Catherine Milliken] ... I imagined this awful sound that could be created if one were to take a didgeridoo and play it into a partially filled coffee pot. And I asked her whether she would do it. She said, 'Yes', and let me say, it is truly nauseating. I was laughing so much I had to leave the room."20
Zappa fans didn't laugh when a set of Zappa bootlegs was released in October. Rhino had announced in March that they'd teamed up with Frank on a separate deal for a 10-LP box-set entitled Beat The Boots! Release on the Foo-eee label had first been scheduled for June. Frank had his reasons: "The only real answer to bootlegging is the use of tactical nuclear weapons but short of that, the Foo-eee project is the most humane solution. In a 25-year career, I've experienced the phenomenon of vast quantities of boots being recorded, really bad recordings that pissed me off. . . That's a pretty strong motivation to get back at these guys, and that's where I got the idea to bootleg the boots."21
The final selection, made by the Zappa office from albums supplied by Rhino employee Tom Brown, comprised, As An Am (New York, 1981), Live At The Ark (Boston, 1968), Freaks & Motherfuckers (New York, 1971), Unmitigated Audacity (Indiana, 1974), Any Way The Wind Blows (Paris, 1979), 'Tis The Season To Be Jelly (Stockholm, 1967), Saarbrucken 1978 and Piquantique (Stockholm/Sydney, 1973). The vinyl and cassette versions came in a cardboard box with a T-shirt and button, the eight CDs in just their jewel-cases. "I haven't heard them myself, nor do I intend to," said Frank. "I make no claim that any of the material contained on these records is of any musical value whatsoever. Besides, if you want crap, now you can get fully authorised affordable crap, and maybe put some sleazebag out of business."22
In November, Zappa's Universe brought together the Orchestra Of Our Time, conducted by Joel Thome, vocal groups The Persuasions and Rockapella, and a band consisting of Mike Keneally, Scott Thunes, keyboardists Mats Oberg and Marc Ziegenhagen, drummer Morgan Agren and percussionist Jonathan Haas. Guests included Steve Vai, Denny Walley, Dale Bozzio, Lorin Hollander, and Moon, Diva and Dweezil. Each show, featuring some 30 of Frank's compositions, began with a performance of Erik Satie's Socrate, a work Thome thought appropriate. "In Satie, all the works add up to a single, powerful, evolving idea. A similar thing happens with Zappa. Taken together, Frank's works add up to one extraordinary opera."23
The first concert was filmed for video release, and both this and the second night were recorded for CD release by Verve. Both packages were issued in 1993, and as usual with Zappa releases, their contents were sufficiently dissimilar to make it necessary for fans to buy both. Drew Wheeler thought, "Thome's orchestrations had the right Zappaesque flair,"24 taking particular notice of 'Nite School', 'Waka-Jawaka' and 'Brown Shoes Don't Make It'. Richard Gehr picked out the same three numbers in his review, reckoning that the first sounded "like a skittering skateboarder hanging ten on an ice floe".25
Frank had been expected to attend, but mechanical problems with his plane and the onset of flu kept him in California. Even so, Moon and Dweezil had a more serious task when they called a press conference at The Ritz on the afternoon of the first performance. "We're here to make a statement on behalf of our family," Moon began. "Although Frank was looking forward to being here and really intended to be here, unfortunately he's not here. As many of you know he's been diagnosed by journalists as having cance
r. We'd like you to know his doctors have diagnosed prostate cancer which he's been fighting successfully and he has been feeling well and working too hard and planned to attend. Up until the last minute we were still hoping he would feel well enough to get on a plane and come here. There are occasional periods where he's not feeling as well and it's really unfortunate it happened to coincide with this event."26
So the news was finally out. Newspaper reports had Frank at death's door with weeks to live. The truth, though serious, was less alarming. "Although a bad day rolls around every couple of weeks, it hasn't interrupted his work schedule, which is feverish to say the least," said Frank's publicist, Sean Mahoney. "The stories of him being in the hospital in critical condition are totally exaggerated. He's in the studio most of the day, and when he's not, he's glued to C-SPAN or CNN."27
Apart from preparing the final volumes of You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore, Frank was hard at work on the scores for the Frankfurt Festival. I talked with him during the afternoon of November 30. For the first three hours, we talked about his career, and then our conversation moved on to wider topics, including what he saw as the "plague" of "affirmative action" and the breakdown of an education system which produced school-leavers who were "ignorant with style". "It's 52 per cent illiteracy here in the United States by the latest estimate. When you figure that that number is arrived at by averaging things out, that means that in some places the literacy is 99 per cent, in other places it's 9 per cent or 2 per cent. Hollywood is probably at the lower end of the scale."
Why did no one pursue excellence anymore? "They don't dare. Excellence costs money and not everybody can do it. There is no governmental mandate that every manufacturer should have a certain number of people that are excellent. You must have a certain number of people of a certain colour and a certain sex but none of them must be excellent. In fact, if they are, you're in big trouble.