Electric Don Quixote: The Definitive Story of Frank Zappa

by Neil Slaven

  While several papers mentioned it, the Daily Telegraph reproduced the 'Phi Zappa Krappa' poster alongside Charles Shaar Murray's appreciation. Robin Denselow quoted Frank on the subject in The Guardian: "I'm very famous, but the number of people who know my music as opposed to seeing a poster of me sitting on the toilet is very disproportionate." In the same edition, Adam Sweeting thought "Zappa was too inquisitive and provocative to be easily pigeonholed, and it will take years for his achievements to be fully appreciated."

  Back in Los Angeles, Jack Skelley began his LA Reader obituary: "Frank Zappa was the strange uncle in the family of late-20th century music. Misunderstood by most of the relatives but held in awe by those too young or tolerant to be put off, he was never given his proper seat at the table." People managed to extract a suitable coffee-table cliche from Alice Cooper: "Everybody that was considered a genius, from The Beatles to Brian Wilson, looked to Zappa as the genius."

  Further afield, the December 20 New Yorker had two tributes: Matt Groening reckoned, "What kept me and so many other people percolating to Zappa's music for the past 27 years was the thrill of hitching a ride with a critical mind that was always pushing into uncharted territory." Vaclav Havel evinced Frank's stature in the Czech underground and his sincere interest in the country's future as a democratic state. "I thought of Frank Zappa as a friend. Meeting him was like entering a different world from the one I live in as President. Whenever I feel like escaping from that world in my mind, at least -1 think of him."

  The February Musician carried tributes from ex-bandmembers Mark Volman, Ruth Underwood, Bruce Fowler, Adrian Belew, Chad Wackerman and Mike Keneally, as well as (Miss) Pamela Des Barres, Cal Schenkel, Matt Groening and Daniel Schorr. Pierre Boulez called Frank "an exceptional figure" in both the pop and classical worlds. "His musicianship was very extensive. He did not say much but he knew much more than one could have thought." Mike Keneally was infuriated that Frank had been misunderstood: "He was always fond of saying that his life was a series of failures. Every artist has a lot of projects that never quite get off the ground. But when you see what he did accomplish and how many people it reached, I'd say that his career was a massive success." Joel Thome was succinct: "The silence of Frank's voice is deafening; the sound of his music will live forever."

  Considering the abrasive nature of his relationship with Rolling Stone, the magazine's five-page tribute in RS 674, written by David Fricke, was generous. Or perhaps it was compensation for the fact that, though a nominee for the 1994 awards, they'd neglected to induct him into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame while he was still alive. After all, his opinion of such events was scathing: "Taste is reinforced by what gets broadcast, and it's reinforced by who receives those stupid awards on those horrible award shows that keep coming up over and over and over again."2 When the likelihood of him boycotting or disparaging the event was gone, he was inducted into the hallowed portals on January 12, 1995, with Moon accepting on her father's behalf. By an exquisite irony, the inductor was Lou Reed, who called Frank "a force for reason and honesty in a business deficient in these areas." Downbeat critics had elected him with less ceremony into their own Hall of Fame in September 1994.

  A more celestial honour had been bestowed in July, when Minor Planet 3834 was designated Zappafrank. Dr John Scialli, a psychiatrist from Phoenix, Arizona, had intended to attach Frank's name to one of the three known planets to orbit another star, a pulsar in the Virgo constellation. However, a radio contest opted for naming them after the Three Stooges. In the end, an asteroid discovered in May 1980 by L. Brozek at Klet Observatory in Czechoslovakia was donated, in recognition of the fact that Frank had been regarded as 'a symbol of democracy and freedom' during the Soviet occupation of the country.

  Another albeit transient memorial arrived on American television screens on March 5, 1994, when a new cartoon series debuted on the USA Network. Duckman, his tubular head topped off with an extended quiff of orange hair, his eyes set in spectacles halfway down his beak, was a 'Private Dick/Family Man'. That family consisted of Aunt Bernice, twin sister of his dead (by his own hand) wife Beatrice, children Ajax, Charles and Mambo, 'three sons in two bodies', and the comatose Grandmama, whose only utterances were skirt-fluttering farts.

  Created by the animators of The Simpsons, the first episode, I, Duckman, had Frank Zappa all over it. The opening sequence featured Senator Paula Hawkins' 'fire and chains' soliloquy from 'Porn Wars' as well as 'Let's Make The Water Turn Black', and the soundtrack ended with Louis Cuneo's maniacal laughter. It was 'Dedicated with fond memories to Frank Zappa'. Frank's music was used 'by appointment to Her Majesty The Scarlet Pimpernel', while original music was provided by Scott Wilk and Todd Yvega. Dweezil supplied the voice of Ajax, a polite but mentally challenged teenager who couldn't always remember not to knock on his own bedroom door.

  IT JUST MIGHT BE A ONE SHOT DEAL

  In the relatively short period since his death it's not possible to quantify Frank Zappa's achievements or what impact his compositions, of all kinds, will have on the history of music. Throughout his career, he maintained that he wrote music in order to hear what it sounded like. We bought his records to see whether we liked them. That was the contract. The pragmatism of his methods of composition indicated that the results shouldn't bear the weight of anything other than musical analysis.

  Those who dip their hand in the bran-tub of philosophical reasoning to bring forth a gaudy package of deeper meaning in Frank's music should bear in mind the words of Robert De Niro's character Michael in The Deer Hunter, as he gesticulates with a bullet: "This is this. It ain't somethin' else. This is this." Frank told his last interviewer the colour purple was just the combination of red and blue. It had no other significance, and liking its hue revealed nothing about an individual's character. Similarly, Frank's significance is how he lived and the music he wrote. Any attempt to force that through a distorting prism of supposition and speculation is unlikely to bear consumable fruit.

  Frank's 'serious' orchestral music was written under the influence of Varese, Stravinsky, Webern and others. Nicholas Slonimsky found "the configuration of notes and contrapuntal combinations" of his scores "remarkably Varesian".3 As such they weren't innovative, but whether Frank was an original or a pasticheur ultimately doesn't matter. Where he was innovative is in the way he applied his compositional skills to explore the Synclavier's potential, its capacity to create new sound textures and bizarre melodies, above all its capacity to create complex rhythms beyond human execution. One interviewer noted, "He exults in the heady freedom that his instrument confers."

  "I've done things like 88 tuplets: 88 notes in the space of three quarter notes as a regular feature, played versus 35 notes. Thirty-five over 88!"

  What does that do to you? he was asked. "What does it do ? It makes me want to dance!4

  "Machines like this have made it possible for me to hear things I never dreamed I would hear in terms of air molecules in life," he added. As the available software became more sophisticated, so his ideas and explorations proliferated. Civilization, Phaze III, his last major original work and one it had taken him more than a decade to complete, was released a year after his death. In it, he tied up the loose ends that Lumpy Gravy had left dangling 26 years previously and provided a chilling soundscape to underline his contention that society's evils had worsened in the interim. "I think it's very much about finishing his life," Gail told the Los Angeles Times. "He said that after he finished this, he had nothing more to do. I asked him, 'Is there anything else you want to tell me about?' He said, 'No. I've done everything that I can.' "5

  Each disc of the 2-CD set contains a major composition, 'Beat The Reaper' and 'N-Lite', the latter a continuous 18-minute work in six parts. To scotch speculation about its title, he explained, "It was put together out of two unrelated sequences. There's a group of notes in front of this one sequence that just happens to sound like 'In The Navy' from that Village People song. You don't realise it until it's gone by,
and then that's 'In The Navy'! So that's the 'N' and the 'Lite' part is this sequence that was basically a bunch of very fast and short synthesiser pockets that had the computer title, 'Thousand Points Of Light'."6

  Phaze III is the proof that, before he died, Frank had stepped across the threshold of a new musical vocabulary, which hopefully won't have died with him. "There is nothing else in contemporary music like it," Matt Groening asserted. "It's very thick and dense and overpowering. Even if you think you know Frank Zappa's music, I don't think anybody could be sufficiently prepared for the powerhouse that this thing represents."7

  "I think [it] has a lot to do with Frank knowing that he wasn't going to be able to realise a lot of the things that he wanted to," Gail said. "I don't think he was in a hurry, as much as he was pragmatic and said, 'I can do this.' I see it as a big-time 'Thanks for the Memories' in some ways."8

  There was no such sentiment on Frank's behalf for the world that he was leaving. It had long since lost any power to impress or surprise him. During his BBC2 interview, he'd held up a glossy magazine, Future Sex, and said, "Look, here it is the Nineties, here's where we are. Shouldn't somebody say something about people who will buy $1,000 dildo things that they plug into their computer to do stuff to them with 3-D goggles attached to it?" Then he used the situation to deliver a warning: "I think that if you need a $1,000 dildo with a helmet, you'd better get it. Get it now. Wear it to work. Stay happy. Because the Nineties are not going to be a happy time. This may be your last chance."9

  He'd made a more serious observation three years before: "I think that what is being lost during this tail end of the 20th century is the will on the part of the average American to be an individual. The people seem to be too willing to just conform and be moulded into some bland, obedient nothingness."10 Despite his pessimism about the future, he'd made sure that his family would be provided for. On October 7, 1994, Rykodisc announced it had purchased the entire Zappa catalogue of more than 60 albums from the Zappa Family Trust. The price was undisclosed but in order to gain sole ownership, Rykodisc had to undergo a $44 million corporate restructuring. Billboard reported the purchase in its October 29 edition, during which it mentioned that Frank had re-mastered the albums for a second time, including an original two-track master of We're Only In It For The Money to replace the overdubbed version. The deal also covered a number of then unissued projects, including The Lost Episodes and Have I Offended Anyone?

  By her own admission, Gail had evinced little interest in selling the catalogue, but Frank had been adamant. "He said, 'I want you out of this business. I want you to relax and have a good time,'" she told Drew Wheeler. "I very much appreciate that he was so forceful about establishing how he wanted it sold."11

  How has America fared since he left on his last tour? In one of his last interviews, Frank anathematised its politics: "Hypocrisy is not the special province of any one party or movement. It seems to be rampant everywhere. The Republicans represent pure unbridled evil and the Democrats wish they were Republicans. Up until this [1992] election, they hadn't proved they had the mechanical skills to execute the kind of trickery that makes the Republicans what they are."12

  On April 22, 1994, 14 days after Kurt Cobain achieved nirvana with the aid of a 20-gauge shotgun, Richard Nixon made a slightly more dignified exit. His funeral was an over-emotional orgy of tributes to a dignified statesman of unimpeachable character, rather than that of the only president forced to resign office to avoid impeachment. Hunter S. Thompson redressed the balance in Rolling Stone: "He was a swine of a man and a jabbering dupe of a president. Nixon was so crooked that he needed servants to help him screw his pants on every morning. Even his funeral was illegal. He was queer in the deepest way. His body should have been burned in a trash bin."13 'Dickie's Such An Asshole' wasn't part of the funerary music.

  "There's been an incredible rise in racist and fascist attitudes here," Frank told Dan Ouellette, "most of them being helped along by the Republican Party. That Republican National Party Convention last summer [1992] was just unbelievable. Even the set decor looked like a Nuremberg rally. Hatemongers like Pat Buchanan and Pat Robertson and the rest of the featured speakers were convinced they were going to win again."14

  When Bill Clinton proved to be as unfortunate a President as Jimmy Carter, the previous Democratic incumbent, the Republicans took their revenge in the 1994 mid-term elections, gaining possession of the Senate and the House of Representatives. In a landslide victory on November 8, Newt Gingrich deposed Democrat Tom Foley to become the first Republican Speaker of the House for several decades. He immediately announced his 'Contract With America', a programme of reforms that prompted his identification by one political commentator as "a talented reactionary in the vengeful tradition of Gov. George Wallace and Sen. Joseph McCarthy."15

  One of the few Republican aspirants to fail was Oliver North, the man who'd avoided punishment for lying to Congress over the Iran-Contra scandal on a legal technicality. He and Democrat Charles Robb turned the Virginia election into a slanging match.

  North couldn't even be gracious in defeat, neglecting to wish his opponent well as tradition demanded. Perhaps his disappointment stemmed from the fact that he thought he'd had God on his side, or at least His earthly manifestation in the person of Pat Robertson, failed presidential candidate in 1988 and the dubious hero of 'When The Lie's So Big' and 'Jesus Thinks You're A Jerk'. Robertson regrouped after his failure and formed the Christian Coalition in 1989, dedicated to 'reclaiming America' for the religious right. Its executive director, Ralph Reed, announced after the election that 44 of 52 new Republican House members had been elected with its support. The 'fascists with a cross' are still on the march and they mean to keep their cash from the undeserving poor. But this time around, Frank Zappa won't be there to add his weight to the drive to neuter Gingrich and his self-serving crusaders.

  That wasn't the only proof that gullibility and blind allegiance are still mainstays of the American psyche. In the summer of 1994, a film starring Tom Hanks, 'a half-wit's version of the American Dream'16, took an initial $240 million at the American box office. The book by Winston Groom on which it was based satirised the very things that its audience scarfed up as readily and unquestioningly as they did their Diet Coke and popcorn. And when Oscar time came around, Hanks clutched the trophy that confirmed that acting stupid brought rich rewards.

  It was 'Valley Girl' gone nationwide. And it begged the question:

  Whatever would Frank Zappa have made of Forrest Gump?

  Notes

  INTRODUCTION

  1. The Wire, 34/5, 1986, "The All American Composer", interview by Steve Lyons and Batya Friedman.

  2. Playboy, 1982, "20 Questions Frank and Moon Unit Zappa", interview by David and Victoria Sheff.

  CHAPTER 1 WHAT'S NEW IN BALTIMORE?

  1. No Commercial Potential, David Walley (Dutton, 1972).

  2. Spin, July 1991, "Signs Of The Times", interview by Bob Guccione, Jr.

  3. BBC-TV interview by Nigel Leigh.

  4. Los Angeles Times Magazine, October 30, 1988, "Democracy's Pitchman", interview by Joe Morgenstern.

  5. ibid.

  6. See Note 1.

  7. See Note 2.

  8. BBC-TV interview by Nigel Leigh.

  9. Society Pages, 6, "Ode To Gravity".

  10. BBC-TV interview by Nigel Leigh.

  11. Playboy, April 1993, "The Playboy Interview", by David Sheff.

  12. ibid.

  13. Bat Chain Pulley, "Rock & Roll In The Age Of Celebrity" (St Martin's Press, 1990), 1988 interview by Kurt Loder.

  14. BBC-TV interview by Nigel Leigh.

  15. Beat The Boots! Vol. 2 (Foo-eee Records) Scrapbook.

  16. Playboy, April 1993, interview by David Sheff.

  17. BBC-TV interview by Nigel Leigh.

  18. Guitarist, June 1993, "Unholy Mother", interview by David Mead.

  19. BBC-TV interview by Nigel Leigh.

  20. ibid.

  2
1. Song Talk, Vol. 4, Issue 1, "The Song Talk Interview", by Paul Zollo.

  22. Zappa! (Miller Freeman, 1992), "The Mother Of All Interviews".

  23. The Real Frank Zappa Book, by Frank Zappa with Peter Occhiogrosso (Poseidon Press, 1989). This is actually adapted from "Edgard Varese, Idol Of My Youth", which Frank wrote for the June 1971 issue of Stereo Review.

  24. See Note 21.

  25. Frank Zappa In His Own Words, edited by Miles (Omnibus Press, 1993), unattributed 1970 interview.

  26. Los Angeles Times Magazine, October 30, 1988, "Democracy's Pitchman", by Joe Morgenstern.

  27. BBC-TV interview by Nigel Leigh.

  28. See Note 25.

  29. BBC-TV interview by Nigel Leigh.

  30. See Note 17.

  31. See Note 14.

  32. No Commercial Potential, David Walley Putton, 1972).

  33. Q, December 1989, "Frank's Wild Years", by Andy Gill.

  34. ibid.

  35. Pulse! August 1993, "A Rare Interview With Pop's Philosopher-King", interview by Dan OueDette.

  36. See Note 21.

  37. ibid.

  38. BBC-TV interview by Nigel Leigh.

  39. See Note 31.

  40. Society Pages, 8, quote from TV interview, "Class Of The 20th Century", (A&E Network).

  41. See Note 22.

  42. Rolling Stone, July 20,1968, "The Rolling Stone Interview", by Jerry Hopkins.

  43. See Note 14.

  CHAPTER 2 CRUISE*' FOR BURGERS

  1. NME, August 9, 1986, "Go Van Go!", interview by Kristine McKenna.

  2. Interview, "Don Van Vliet, Captain Beefheart", interview by John Yau.

  3. Rotting Stone, 38, May 14, 1970, "The Odyssey Of Captain Beefheart", by Langdon Winner.