Zappa.com

What do you think about Frank in this interview?
http://wiki.killuglyradio.com/wiki/Zappa_Digs_Sabs_Shock!

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RZZZZZ!

He loves people too!
(is on cloud 9)

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Join the PackardGoose forum! Send me a PM!

Dam it I I'm RVI'd and the company filter is blocking me!

There are no good rock journalists
Nobody understands his music
His musicians don't care about his music
Nobody is as intelligent as he is

Cal your up for the cynic of the week award...

You haven't read the interview yet I take it? This is exactly what he says. Again, it's not me.

He obviously had a personal distaste for that person interviewing him, but the questions were banal. There are other interviews Frank gave where he is very engaged. This just ain't one of 'em.

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If we're dumb . . .
Then God is dumb . . .
(An' maybe even a little bit ugly on the side)

Jesus, he was fucking arrogant. He's acting there like he's the only genuine human being alive. He's doing his thing for the love of it and everyone else is doing it just for money. That's just bullshit.

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The way I see it Barry, this should be a very dynamite show.

Zappa: ... (holds up sleeve design for 'Läther' album).
Was it already the same as today?

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I've wondered about this as well. Wasn't the "cow cover" thought up by Dweezil, and then altered with a computer to give the appearance of Italy on it's side? Perhaps the original cover idea (what Frank held up) was rejected?

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Wtf are you guys talking about?!

This is a GREAT interview. I couldn't care less if FZ was arrogant because what he said was so full of truth and brutal honesty, that you really can't deny it (apart from the comments stating that all musicians are only in music for the money). Isn't that one of the things we love about him?

You know, most of the time when I watch/read an FZ interview, he's just so dead on it (especially the quote regarding rock journalism that is featured in my signature below) that I want to high-five someone right afterwards. And despite the fact I've read this interview before, this is one of those times. Who's up for a high-five?!

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"...I'm absolutely a Libertarian on MANY issues..." ~ Frank Zappa, Rochester, NY, March 11, 1988

I thought this was a good interview...
No-one cut Frank any slack. They "called him out" on shit.
I'd say that was a great angle so he couldn't bullshit.

Anyone about to interview Zappa KNOWS what they're getting into!!
He was a Curmudgeon.
I'd say Frank ALWAYS gave journalists good stuff to sell their publications or whatever...
Nobody wants to read interviews with polite, agreeable politically correct twats!

Genesis P-Orridge! Surprisingly timid for a transvestite industrial proto shock rocker.

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We make a special art in an environment hostile to dreamers. Frank Zappa, 1971

I don't like this arrogant side of Zappa.
anyone else in his place would have had nothing but praise for Ian Underwood. Whilst sleeping on the floor of that shared bedroom (remember, from Pauline's book?) dedicating himself to Frank and his music? Yeah, just doing it for the money

He could come across like a tosser sometimes

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"drums are too noisy, 'n you've got no corners to hide in"

I remember well how he was perceived in the European music press around 1978/79, because that was exactly when I was getting into Zappa. As a teenager I was equally interested in punk/new wave, and found it hard to reconcile Zappa's views on that scene with my own interest. You are right - he did come off as a tosser sometimes, and particularly at this time. His attitudes were in a way more punk than punk - Johnny Rotten dug We're Only In It For The Money - and with the death of the rock dinosaurs at the end of the Seventies, he should have become the king of rock'n'roll. It didn't happen, because a 39 year old pro can't beat the kids at their own game. With the Läther fiasco and punk/new wave flood happening at the same time, Zappa some times came off as a bitter old fart. Sub specie aeternitatis he didn't do so badly, and later the working relationship with Jello Biafra established a real connection to the new wave/punk ethos. But at this point in time - 1978/79 - Zappa lost considerable status with his core following of progressives and anarchists. I felt that I was in a small minority of my generation of rebels to recognize Zappa's genius. But even I was looking mostly back into the old catalog at that time, while waiting until the 2000's before I caved in and bought Tinseltown Rebellion, f'rinstance.

Recently I read a Norwegian novel from this period (by Ragnar Hovland, published in 1982) - which may refer to this interview. One old anarchist says something like: "What the fuck is going on with Zappa? That's one guy I thought you could trust, but now he's just full of crap." - Character's taste in music 1978 - Sex Pistols, Clash, The Damned and so on. - I had one old RiO/Prog Rock friend, and his complete Zappa collection ended abruptly with Sheik Yerbouti, because he felt that Zappa had lost it. He continued getting records by bands like The Fall, This Heat, Metabolist, Cabaret Voltaire - and Throbbing Gristle - Genesis P-Orridge's group.

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We make a special art in an environment hostile to dreamers. Frank Zappa, 1971

Yea that was FZ, but it is also ZFT to an extent, so wtf

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"I'm interested in the capitalistic way of life, and the reason I like it better than anything else I've seen so far is because competition produces results."

It must of been a 1978 thing

"Frank Zappa came to the House before going down to the stage. He arrived with a six foot, bald headed, coloured bodyguard, weighing at least seventeen stone, who will always be remembered at Knebworth House as the man who ate all David's favourite Swiss liqueur chocolates, a present from Zurich. They were on a table in the drawing room and he devoured them all by the handful. Zappa went out of his way to be disagreeable; he looked at our Long Picture Gallery Drawing Room, festooned with gilt framed ancestors, and remarked "Hmmm - this could be quite a nice room if you got rid of all those pictures". He asked for some coffee. I was in a rush to get back to the arena, so I made him some Nescafé. He took one sip ... "Instant coffee, how disgusting. I knew I should have brought my own," he said, leaving the rest. I felt like saying he was lucky to get anything at all, when I had 40,000 people in the park to worry about. But I left him and went back to the arena"

from Knebworth Rock Festivals by Chryssie Lytton Cobold.

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Arf you out of your fucking mind.

The other thing I note about this interview is that FZ never missed an opportunity to market his own persona, which he clearly felt advanced his sales amongst his fans. Frank did what he wanted, but his music changed over time and he exploited his share of trends, WOIIFTM, as an album wouldn't have made any sense if hippies were not the news stories of the time. Conehead, Valley Girl, Dancing' Fool - all of these and more showed him to be an astute observer of then-current pop culture, then taking a point of view that was his own but would also appeal to his fan base.

Finally, we know he respected the musicians who played with and for him, since many of them played with him off and on over his lifetime.

I always read his interviews with ane eye to the impression he wanted to make, not just what he said...

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If we're dumb . . .
Then God is dumb . . .
(An' maybe even a little bit ugly on the side)

I posted this in another thread but it seems to apply here also...

In the Freak Out Book by Pauline Butcher she mentions several times that neither Frank or anyone in his posse watched TV, listen to the radio, went to the movies, read books, read newspapers, magazines, and only listened to music in his personal collection...and she could never figure out how they kept up on current events, and their music always seemed to reference timely topics…

Ahhhhh, Frank weren't no perfect person. He was just this guy, y'know? At the time of this interview, he may have simply been upset/angry about something, and it bled into his entire mood.
After all, Ade Belew had left to join Bowie a few months earlier. All Frank would need is attitude from one more band member for him to get pissed off and say "Fuck 'em all!".

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You're probably wondering why I'm here
(not that it makes a heck of a lot of a difference to ya)

FZ went through a whole bunch of bullshit in the time of the interview, all the stuff that was happening with warner brothers and the leather album. This might excuse the arrogance in this special interview a little bit.
I think , it weren't bad questions: who else is on your level? Whats about Ian Underwood? ...
I also think it is very funny to remember the story of FZ asking the soul giants to play his music to become rich and famous. The only 1 who then became rich was FZ, who says, they only played for the money...
Disregarding the interview: If any1 knows more about the original sleeve of the läther album, show and tell. I wanna see it right now with a bullet!

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Well, you're also a fan of Peart, so we know you like arrogant musicians.

cool!!! (A lot of the boys in the crew love leather . . .)

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Zing!!!

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The way I see it Barry, this should be a very dynamite show.