by Neil Slaven
"How can you compete with countries that make products which are in fact excellent, when you have a non-excellent workforce, with non-excellent designers and non-excellent managers making non-excellent decisions to steer the path into a non-excellent future? You got it, we got it. It's because Thatcher and Reagan took all those rides in that fucking golf-cart together. I just want to know which one had their hand on the little steering stick." A bit later, he added, "The damage has been done to this country since Reagan took office actually, the shit hit the fan with Richard Nixon, the first major imperial presidency. And then Reagan and now Bush, this pitiful, ignorant . . .," he let out an anguished sigh, "it just makes my flesh crawl to think of what he's doing in there."
As 1992 began, there was talk of a second Beat The Boots! set to be released in May, comprising Disconnected Synapses (Paris, 1970), Tengo Na Minchia Tanta (New York, 1970), Electric Aunt Jemima Denver, 1968), At The Circus (Munich, 1978), Swiss Cheese/Fire! (Montreux, 1971), Our Man In Nirvana (Fullerton, 1968) and Conceptual Continuity (Detroit, 1976). Since its release, the first vinyl set had gone through three pressing runs totalling 20,000 units. Geoff Gans, art director of the project, had been nominated for a Grammy in the 'best album art' category. Despite the sales, Frank's opinion had not improved: "Let's say you had a turd. If you took the turd and buffed it, you'd still have a turd. And that's what you have with these releases — a digital replication of a buffed turd."28
During the same interview, he anticipated the September concerts: "This is a special thing for me. The Frankfurt Festival is investing an enormous amount of money to do an entire week of my music ... I think the project in Frankfurt is going to open the door for a lot more work in the classical music field. You know, if you're my age, that's not a bad age to be a classical composer. But it's a terrible age to be a rock'n'roll musician."29
The Ensemble Modern concerts were now set for September 17-19 at Frankfurt's Alte Oper, September 22/23 in Berlin's Philharmonie, and September 26-28 in Vienna's Konzerthaus. In addition, the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie would perform 'Bogus Pomp' at the Alte Oper on September 20. With some reluctance, Frank had acquiesced in naming the concerts The Yellow Shark. On seeing the yellow fibreglass fish in Frank's listening room, Andreas Molich-Zebhauser had taken it as an appropriate symbol for the event, even if its sailfin identified it as a marlin. He took its humorous representation of a predator to be a metaphor for some of Frank's own character traits. Made from a surfboard, it had been created in 1986 by Mark Beam and left in the Zappas' driveway as an anonymous Christmas present.
On July 13, Frank, accompanied by Gail and Moon, flew to Frankfurt for two weeks of preliminary rehearsals with the Ensemble. Eight days later, he held a press conference at the Hotel Frankfurter Hof, telling reporters that each concert would be "an evening of entertainment, with a lot of different aspects to it." All of the shows in the concert series would be recorded live, and with improvisation taking place every night. "We think that by the time that all of the material is collected, it will be enough for two CDs." Asked if this was the end of his career as a rock'n'roll musician, he laughed and replied, "God, I hope so. At 51,1 better be looking for another job."30
The final volumes of You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore were released in August. 5,000 copies of YCDTOSA 5 & 6 came in a pink storage box that could house all six double-CDs. Fans with less money could buy YCDTOSA 5 straight away but had to wait until November to get YCDTOSA 6 as a separate item. YCDTOSA 5 devoted one disc to the 1982 band with Steve Vai. For the other disc, he showcased the 1969 band, adding a 1965 Fillmore West recording by the original band with Elliot Ingber. Noting the sound was not exactly 'hi-fi', he'd compiled the tracks "for the amusement of those collectors who still believe that the only 'good' material was performed by those early line-ups".31 Disc One of YCDTOSA 6 featured songs "dealing generally with the topic of sex (safe and otherwise)", including 'The M.O.I. AntiSmut Loyalty Oath', 'The Madison Panty-Sniffing Festival', 'Make A Sex Noise' and 'I Have Been In You'. There was an aroma of Halloween to Disc Two, with six of its 15 tracks recorded over several such nights at New York's Palladium. The monumental series bowed out with a 1981 Halloween version of 'Strictly Genteel'.
Frank returned to Frankfurt early in September for final rehearsals with the Ensemble Modern. Marten were complicated by the use of a six-channel playback system which surrounded the audience for which each musician was miked up and channelled to a particular speaker. A further refinement was 'the hoop', a ring of six microphones which could be lowered over a musician's head, so that the house mixer could cross-fade from the entire Ensemble down to one instrument. There was also the Canadian dance troupe, La La La Human Steps, three male and three female dancers who Frank had seen on video and requested their involvement.
The final programme fully repaid the effort put in by everyone involved. Many compositions received their world premieres: 'Amnerika', 'Beat The Reaper' (for Synclavier and dancers), 'Food Gathering In Post-Industrial America', 'Get Whitey', 'N-Lite' (for Synclavier), 'Pentagon Afternoon', 'Ruth Is Sleeping' (for two pianos), and 'Welcome To The United States'. There were also new arrangements of 'Dog/Meat', 'Be-Bop Tango', 'G-Spot Tornado', 'The Girl In The Magnesium Dress', 'None Of The Above' (for string quartet), 'Outrage At Valdez', 'A Pound For A Brown On The Bus' and 'Times Beach' (for wind quintet).
On the opening night, Frank conducted the improvised Overture and later, 'Food Gathering' and 'Welcome To The United States'. Otherwise, Peter Rundel, the Ensemble's usual conductor, led the proceedings. The evening's climax was a manic performance of 'G-Spot Tornado' with dancers and an even faster encore of the same piece minus the dance troupe. An ailing Frank received a standing ovation from the audience. The news that he wouldn't attend the second night came as no surprise, although the rest of the Zappa family were present, as they were for each concert. "If I hadn't been sick," he said later, "the experience would have been exhilarating. Unfortunately, I felt so excruciatingly shitty that it was hard to walk, to just get up onto the stage, to sit, to stand up. You can't enjoy yourself when you're sick, no matter how enthusiastic the audience."32 He was able to attend the final Frankfurt performance, but then had to return home on September 22, missing the performances in Berlin and Vienna.
The first night was videotaped and broadcast live on Premiere, Germany's pay television channel. Peefeeyatko, Henning Lohner's film about Frank, was shown in the foyer of the Alte Oper each evening. In the run-up to the shows, German television showed a pair of documentaries, Anything, Any Place, Any Time, For No Reason At All and Kulturplus, covering the preparations for The Yellow Shark. The final section of Anything contained an unreleased 1988 guitar solo accompanying footage of the LA riots incited by the police beating of Rodney King. "We had television sets in the bar during intermission showing the finest of American cultural entertainment. On one set, nonstop riot. On another, nonstop televangelists. On another, C-SPAN. On another, Desert Storm. You got to have your light beer and watch the American media at its finest."33
Health had become the determining factor in his work rate. "Some days you can do more than others. Part of the problem is that it hurts to sit some days, and this work is done sitting at a computer terminal. I used to be able to work 16, 18 hours a day and just get up from my chair and go to sleep and go back to work, and it was fine. But some days I can't work at all. Some days I can work two hours. Some days I can work ten."34
Before leaving for Frankfurt, he'd prepared Playground Psychotics for release in October, a double-CD combining 1971 gigs by the Flo & Eddie band at the Fillmore East, UCLA's Pauley Pavilion and the ill-fated Rainbow Theater, with on-the-road dialogue recorded by Frank and Mark Volman and sections of soundtrack from The True Story Of 200 Motels video. Taking its title from a chance remark by Jeff Simmons, the collection's highlights were a 30-minute version of 'Billy The Mountain' and Frank's mix of the jam session with John Lennon and Yoko Ono. As Frank noted, the latter was "substantially different"
from what had appeared on Some Time In New York City.
ZAPPA!
Throughout the previous spring, as preparations for the Frankfurt Festival went ahead, Frank had also been interviewed for a special magazine to be jointly published by Guitar Player and Keyboard. Beginning in April, editor Don Menn conducted a series of talks with Frank, culminating in a week of interviews during June. From being a tribute to Frank's career, the project grew to encompass the whole of his enterprises. As well as interviews with every member of the Zappa family, all his technical staff at UMRK and Joe's Garage explained their functions. Nicholas Slonimsky, Kent Nagano and Andreas Molich-Zebhauser lent their weight to Frank's status as a leading American composer, while Warren De Martini and Aynsley Dunbar reinforced his rock credentials. In all, Menn recorded between 40 and 60 hours of material, some with assistance from The Simpsons cartoonist Matt Groening, from which the 100-page Zappa! was culled.
As public awareness of his condition increased, he had to contend with the attentions of the world's press. He told David Sheff he'd become "very time-budget conscious. Certain things are very time-consuming and the time spent doing them is productive. Other things are time-consuming and it's like being hijacked. I have a low tolerance for wasting time. I try not to be irritable about it, but it's my main concern. I'm trying to live my life the same way that I lived it before."35
At the time of the interview, he was 40 pounds overweight, "a walking balloon", from medication that filled him up with water. "The week before last I found myself in the hospital for three days riddled with morphine. That was definitely an experience I don't want to repeat. When I got out, it took almost ten days to get the residue of all the drugs they'd given me out of my body." Worst of all was the effect that drugs had on his ability to make decisions of any kind. "If you can't trust your own judgement, that's really hard. When you're writing music, every note you put down is a judgement call."36
In February 1993, an impromptu recording soiree was arranged, bringing together the disparate forces of The Chieftains, L. Shankar, Terry Bozzio, Johnny 'Guitar' Watson and a trio of Tuvan throat singers, brought along by Matt Groening. The session was videotaped by a BBC crew for inclusion in a BBC2 Late Show tribute that was broadcast on Thursday, March 11. The 40-minute programme combined archive film and video footage and interviews with Groening, Jim 'Motorhead' Sherwood, Ruth Underwood, Steve Vai, Dweezil and Ahmet. For his own interview, Frank appeared wan and bloated but his tongue was as sharp as ever, even if his humour was now more waspish than cynical.
It was increasingly apparent that only so many projects would be completed before his health deteriorated completely. "I used to be a night owl, but now I'm usually in bed by six or seven in the evening. It's hard for me to work a real long day anymore. I'm up at 6.30 in the morning. If I can do a 12-hour shift, then I feel I'm really doing something."37 Critical judgement was hard to sustain. "During one period, I was working on some pieces that I let go before their time. Since they hadn't been released yet, as I gradually felt better, I went back and worked on them to make sure that the level of competence was maintained."38 Projects included the ongoing Civilization: Phaze III, The Lost Episodes and Dance Me This, an album of Synclavier music designed for modern dance groups. The first had become an 'Opera Pantomime' which Frank hoped would be performed in May 1994 as part of the Vienna Festival.
Other plans included further collaboration with the Ensemble Modern. Andreas Molich-Zebhauser discussed the possibility of Frank preparing a 22-minute video for a concert the group would play in Cologne in May, and there was talk of the Ensemble playing an evening of Zappa 'theatrical works' such as 'Billy The Mountain' and 'Brown Shoes Don't Make It' in May 1995. In July, he and the Ensemble recorded The Rage And The Fury: The Music Of Edgard Varese. "Frank didn't want to call it a tribute," said engineer Spencer Chrislu. "He felt Varese is completely misunderstood, and he didn't think the music had ever been performed properly. At one point," Chrislu added, "Frank told the Ensemble, 'You're all wonderful, technical musicians. But now it's time to put some eyebrows on it.' He wanted them to feel the music and get in touch with the emotions waiting to come out of it."39
As spring became summer, his face adorned the covers of a number of magazines, among them Rock CD, Guitarist, Cutting Edge and the weekend supplement of The Guardian. For the cover of Pulse!, photographer Aldo Mauro managed to get a fully bearded Frank to smile, but the sombre portrait inside caught a more haunted and pained expression. He also submitted to a Playboy interview but didn't make the cover. Inevitably, interviewers brought up the subject of his health, with varying degrees of tact. Asked by Joe Jackson if his condition was terminal, Frank replied, "Everything is terminal. But as to the question of whether it is in the short term, the only thing I can say is that I hope not. It all depends. That's why, right now, I've got to leave you and go into my bedroom and have a blood transfusion."40
Alex Kershaw eschewed a direct question but portrayed the reality of Frank's condition: "The real Frank Zappa finally stands up, simply a man racked with pain, awash with drugs, and slowly climbs up stone steps leading to the kitchen, his fingers gripping the brick wall as if he were clinging to life itself."41 Earlier in their conversation, Frank had disparaged the recent election that had put a Democrat, Bill Clinton, into the White House. One outcome had been the resignation of Tipper Gore from the PMRC, now that husband Al was Vice-President. "The media likes to give the illusion that [she] and I are mortal enemies. That's not a fact. She sent me a sweet letter when she heard I was sick, and I appreciate that."42
As 1993 drew towards its close, so did Frank's life. "Even when he couldn't get out of bed much, I would go up and see him," said Chrislu, "and he would want a full report of what was being done in the studio. He definitely wanted to be part of it."43 The Yellow Shark was issued to critical acclaim on November 2: Frank Zappa the American composer had finally found a group of musicians who were capable of accurately interpreting some of his most difficult music. When he became bedridden, friends from the old days would gather at his bedside and listen with him to the doo-wop records that had been his early inspiration and an enduring pleasure.
On Monday, December 6, the Zappa family issued a statement: "Composer Frank Zappa left for his final tour just before 6 pm on Saturday, December 4, 1993, and was buried Sunday, December 5, 1993, during a private ceremony attended by the family. He was with his wife Gail and four children, Moon, Dweezil, Ahmet and Diva at home in Los Angeles at the time of his death."
22:
OUTRO
Here lies a cavalier of fame, Whose dauntless courage soar'd so high, That death, which can the boldest tame, He scom'd to flatter, or to fly. A constant bugbear to the bad, His might the world in arms defy'd, And in his life though counted mad, He in his perfect senses dy'd.
Don Quixote, Book Four, Chapter 21
Miguel de Cervantes
(Translated by Tobias Smollett, 1755)
Both the Los Angeles Times and the Daily News put Frank's death on the front pages of their December 6 editions. To one, he was the "Iconoclast of Rock", to the other, an "Offbeat musician/composer". Both quoted friend and journalist Rip Rense, "As a musician, as a composer he was absolutely driven. The man lived to create art. If he loved anything better than art, it was his life, it was his family." The announcement came too late for the British daily press, but Monday's Evening Standard ran a piece that paraphrased quotes from the Daily News.
The following day, the Calendar section of the Los Angeles Times carried an appreciation by Daniel Schorr, senior news analyst for National Public Radio. In a piece that had been commissioned some months in advance, he described how he and Frank had become friends. "It took me a long time to realise that behind the angry dirty words about conspiratorial government and the mediocrity of the world around him was hidden a true musical genius who cared a lot about young people. Like a Pied Piper, he wanted to use music to lead young people to an interest in politics."
Schorr went on: "Frank also liked being contrary. If you talked about his success, he said he was a failure. If you noted his popularity, he said he was lonely. Maybe he was. The world around him contained too much crassness, too much mediocrity, too much homogenisation. It could not offer enough scope for his enormous creativity and individuality. So he denounced it with dirty words. But, I imagine that the quickest thing about Frank Zappa to fade from memory will be all the windmills at which he tilted. What will be remembered is his restless search for new forms, his open mind for new musical meanings. And his dedication to 'kids', his own and the world's."1
A penchant for "dirty words" and mythologised dirty deeds were an inescapable ingredient in British press obituaries, which varied from sound-bite trivia in The Sun to comprehensive coverage in The Times, with an obituary (which called him "an obstreperous and delightfully barking mad spirit"), a perceptive appreciation by music journalist David Toop and an article on prostate cancer. Every journal struggled to make a coherent whole of Frank's many disparate achievements. Typically, the Daily Mail called him "America's sonic satirist", "brilliantly avant garde, he never outgrew a fondness for smut".
In the Daily Mirror, The Guardian, The Independent and the following weekend's Sunday Times, Frank was the "father of invention'; for Today, he was the "rock perfectionist who didn't care how he was remembered." All referred to his fight against censorship and his defiant political stance. The Daily Express repeated a 1988 quote from LA's Daily News: "I was asked, 'Don't you think you should be more subtle in your approach?' With reading and listening comprehension where they are in the United States, it is time to get out the baseball bat."