Quote Again.

"Zappa's lyrics were ultimately unimportant; it is the music that will last."

Miles, p. 235.

The Performer.

To go back a little on what I have briefly mentioned on my previous post, I would like to take a minute and talk about Zappa as a performer...

He often said that he nearly despised his fans, accusing them of not truly understanding the satirical critical aspect of his work or not being interested in his more 'serious' music, which is to say his compositions. He thought of them as ignorant, pitiful drug abusers and did not think much of them.
But! He did wanted to give them the best show possible every night. For him, it was a question of giving the best service to someone buying a good. They were buying tickets to his shows, therefore he needed to provide them with the best entertainment possible. On this basis of commodity exchange, Zappa developed, from the early days of the first Mothers, a passion for performance on stage.
Soon enough, the shows became little theatrical performances of their own rather than a mere succession of songs played on stage.
The first Mothers of Invention were truly the most entertaining musicians Zappa had, and they were building performances around inflatable animals balloons, girls dancing on stage, and whatever else they could think of. "Kids go to see their favorite acts, not to hear them... We work on the premise that nobody really hears what we do anyway (...)" (Miles 185) he finally dismissed the original MOI.
After a few years came the second band Zappa formed, the Flo & Eddie band. New comers were introduced to the band but Volman and Kaylan (ex members of The Turtles) were truly the most theatrical of the group, participating in the creation of sketches with Zappa. "Mark and Howard brought a different, younger, dumber, more sexually explicit humor to the group." (Miles 202) A formula of 30 minutes sketches were brought into the shows. Volman: "We existed in that band of humor, but not necessarily for the audience's humor, but for Frank's humor." (Miles 204)
After rather comical and theatrical performances, Zappa went on tour with his 'Wazoo' lineup and was rather disappointed by the dullness of it all. "This was not a theatrical group." (Miles 238) Fans too, who were expecting something like the previous shows, ended up being disappointed.
Frank was getting older, and his fans too. He wasn't into the same kind of 'show humor' anymore... He took a more satirical approach to lyrics and songs, parodying voices and gestures on scenes with his lead signers such as White or Ike, but it was never the same thing as the MOI or Flo & Eddie tours. Ultimately, Zappa introduced more and more guitar solos into his performances, and even if he never truly got the 'performer' out of the stage, since his music and lyrics were all about impersonation and social criticism, he never reacheived the level of pure entertainment first introduced in his early career...

Zappa the Bitter/Sweet.

Zappa is honestly one of the most complicated artist that I've been asked to study. It seems that everything revolving around him is in a constant, never ending duality. Not that he contradicts himself per se, but he seems to be very keen on certain principals that he does not even follow himself.

I realize that by now this blog is nearly all about these constant contradictions surrounding his life, but it is what I find the most interesting about the man himself. How can a figure be so mysterious and yet express his opinions in dozens of forms (interviews, music, film, etc.)? How come nobody agrees on who truly was Zappa?
Here's a couple of examples of how this duality plays out concretely:
- Frank not liking his fans but wanting to create the best show and best material for their money value.
- Frank choosing to make commercial albums to self-finance his 'serious' orchestral music.
- Frank appropriating ideas from his band members but composing his material exclusively to fit their capacities (and push them to the limit).
- Frank not spending time with his family but stating that he is a family man.
...
The mystery of the man will probably forever stay hidden though, as nobody seems to be able to truly size who was that man, who was the composer, who was Zappa. Like any individual, he has his qualities and flaws, his personality traits and his preferences...  But his mythical status affect our judgment and memories. I don't know how much of every testimony I should believe. Everybody Zappa met could have a reason to detest the man as much as loving him. Nobody seems to be interested in presenting his true portrait. Or rather, nobody knew enough of Zappa to present his true self. 

'Frank did not love.' Gail told interviewer George Petros.
'Frank and I try to talk to each other as little as possible. We make an effort not to speak.' Again from Gail, this time talking to Victoria Balfour.

What the heck were they married for then?!

quoted from Barry Miles' biography, p. 285.

Zappa, the Family Man?

It seems that these last few weeks I'm mainly focusing on Zappa's dark side rather than anything else he did.
I could talk about his musical creativity.
I could talk about the entrepreneur he was, investing all his earnings in other musical projects.
I could talk about his great sense of satire...
No.
Instead, I'm talking about the 'Man'. What seems to interest me the most is the 'Frank' rather than the 'Zappa', and I must say there are loads of material for discussion on that topic only.

Today, my concern is on his family. In interviews and in his own biography, he shouts to anyone willing to hear him that his only true friends were his family. Nobody else. Althought it needs to be taken as a rather radical comment not exactly reflecting the truth, Zappa was indeed not famous for his attendance at parties and his social abilities.
But further readings of Miles' biography leaves me, once again, quite perplex towards this statement. I'll throw my questions to the open.
How can a man consider himself as a 'family guy' if he works more than 14 hours a day locked up in a recording studio?
How can he be a 'family man' if he does not respect his wife and collects sexual adventures?
How can he see his kids grow if he's on tour for 6 months, then back in a studio for the rest of the year?...
Moon Unit and Gail have commented on the fact that nobody was aloud in Frank's office located in the basement (although that Lennon kid lived there for more than a month). Moon also adds that their biggest fear was to disturb their dad while he was working (which is... always!).
Maybe I'm not far enough in my reading of his biography to truly understand the 'family guy' he was. Maybe his cancer changed things. Maybe, as he grew older by the end of the 80's, he was more present in his children's life. But I'm not to that point of his biography now, and I must say that from what I've read so far, I have quite a negative view of Frank as a 'man'.

But this opinion is just like my blog: in constant evolution. In two weeks time I'll probably say just the opposite of what I've just written. Man, I love contradictions!

Infiltration.

During a guest lecture he was hosting at the London School of Economics, Frank gave his idea on how individuals should think of changing the world...

"The best way to achieve lasting results is to infiltrate where you can. People should go into the communications and the military and change them from the inside. I'm afraid that everyone will have a revolution and make a mess of it. (...) The only way to make changes that will last is to do it slowly. (...) You have to use the media. The media is the key and you have to use it."

Zappa, as written in Barry Miles' biography. (p. 191-192)

And Perplexity Continues!

I'm getting more and more confused, I must say.
Maybe I'm becoming a victim (as I wrote earlier) of Miles' 'negativism' in relation to whom he thought Zappa was as a man.
Or maybe, after all, Miles was right to write all these rather harsh, or at least direct comments towards him.
My father (who first introduced me to the Man) always depicted him as the Family Guy par excellence, loving his children and wife very much, respecting them and seeing them as his only true treasure in his life. I even wrote a short post about his relationship with Gail...
I already knew, when I wrote it a couple of weeks ago, that Frank cheated on her in many occasions while on tour. But I'm now seriously doubting of the true sincerity and integrity of Zappa towards his family, particularly towards his wife. I mean, how can you represent a perfect couple when the man is running around with any groupie he can find, or with any girls at all? His story with Nigey Lennon is quite disturbing, I must say, especially since Gail had already given birth to two kids, and that Nigey was more than 10 years younger than Zappa (oh, and as a minor side fact: a MINOR). What is even more intriguing is to read Nigey's comment on Frank sexual preferences... which, true or not, I'm not going to quote here.

I understand that a couple can be open-minded, that a guy (or a girl) can make mistakes and realize the importance of his family. I also know that Zappa always said that a healthy sex life would heal America of its impotence and depression and that his only true love was with music... But how far are you willing to go, really?
Miles writes that Gail seemed to be really annoyed by his husband running around. I wonder if something will make him change, will make him go back to his family for good.
I haven't read that part yet, and I'm really wondering what will come next.

Quote... Or Not.

I just read Miles' passage on the separation of the first Mothers of Invention band (p. 185 and later).

I must say that I am quite perplex regarding the situation. It seems that it left everyone bitter towards Zappa. I first wanted to quote the passage, since it is quite self-explanatory, but it would almost be a matter of copy/pasting 2 or 3 pages... Might as well read the whole thing from the book itself!

Anyhow, from what we know today, I think it is easy to understand the band's feelings regarding Zappa. But my comment will not be on these feelings per se. Because what I sense from the conflict is more than a question of "who did this to whom and for what motive"... 

Now this is just what I perceived from my readings and research (and is merely simply an opinion), but it feels that it is impossible to get an impartial view of the conflict, which gives it an even bigger dramatic proportion. On one side, you have Zappa, on the other, the frustrated band members. But there's also a third party: the writer. I will take Miles as an example since he's the primal reading material we have to do for the course. 

What I mean by a "third party" is that you can sense that Miles does not take an objective point of view when he writes about the conflict. But it is also impossible to know on what side he is truly on. 

The few pages relating the separation are filled with quotes of Zappa and Jimmy Carl Black. Miles (who I'm guessing chose the quotes) exposes the worst in both, creating an instant debate between everyone's argument. Why would he do such a thing? Why would he accentuate a conflict by purposely showing the selfish side of Zappa and the greediness of Black? Did he do that to highlight the conflict? To present it as a lost cause that was fated to end this way? Or does he rather want to make a "greater" comment on  the characters, like destroying a legend?

From what I've read so far, I think it is obvious that Miles is not trying to adulate the character of Zappa. Without saying he's constantly critical, he sure sees the good and the bad in everything he did, adding his little "grain de sel" to the persona. His thesis seems to be centered around this duality and he wants to prove it to the reader, at any cost. He accentuates the "dark side" of Zappa in situations relating his control freak attitude, his strict anti-drug policy, and his general lack of interest in interpersonal relationships. These rather negative views can be founded on true events, but do clash with the over-all biographical tone of the book. 

I'm not trying to say that Zappa was a perfect man, gifted with incredible musical talent... First, we all know perfection does not exist. Second, we also know that Zappa had the career he had mainly because of his focused (one could say authoritanist) attitude towards work. But my problem is not on the man himself. It is rather on who has the authority to judge another. I think you can relate the truth of an individual's life (the good and the bad) without imposing your judgement on the reader - or without subtly adding hidden opinions which could lead to such an interpretation... I think Miles is so focused on imposing the truth (or destroying the 'perfect' myth of Zappa) that it transcend too much in his book. 

The problem with that is the following: ultimately, instead on focusing on Zappa's true flaws, I tend to focus on Miles' opinions on such flaws...

Zappa's "Project/Object".

"It's all one album. All the material in the albums is organically related and if I had all the master tapes and I could take a razor blade and cut them apart and put it together again in a different order it still would make one piece of music you can listen to. Then I could take that razor blade and cut it apart and reassemble it a different way, and it still would make sense. I could do this twenty ways. The material is definitely related."

Zappa on conceptual continuity, from Barry Miles' biography, p. 160.

*More on C.C. coming soon. I shall talk more about it, since it's a primordial aspect of Zappa's work.

Absolutely Free in London.

"(...) I need to know about the scene here. I've got to know enough about it to convince the British audiences that they need to know the things we have to say. And what we have to say can be useful to any young person in any country in the world if that person wants to get a true picture of the environment and society that was established by his fathers, and which he'll have to take over."

Zappa talking to Nick Jones from Melody Maker, in Barry Miles' biography, p. 150.

Quotes.

From now on, I'll be posting some interesting quotes from Barry Miles' biography on Zappa. It's a idea I should have had a long time ago... I had a flash when I read two REALLY interesting passages in less than 20 pages. I was like: "Gee, why not quote the man!..."

So here they are. Enjoy them as they come!

Love... Or Something Like It.

Zappa curiously says of his family that they are his only friends... This tells us a lot on what kind of man he was. Or at least, how he thought of himself.
He must have not been that bad, since a beautiful groupie named Gail fell in love with him and his dubious hair/goatie due. She saw more in Zappa than the image.

In fact, Barry Miles recalls Gail's first impression of his husband-to-be as a dirty-looking, weird-smelling guy. They met in 1966 and a that odd appearance didn't stop them from getting married a year later, in September, while she was pregnant with their first child.
Zappa himself said that they only married because of their religious families and background. It also would have been hard for Gail to be admitted in a hospital for her delivery if the child she was carrying was to be born outside the bonds of marriage...
After a not-so-fruitful first wedding, Frank Zappa finally found the love of his life in the person of Gail. Their union would be responsible for the birth of Moon Unit, Dweezil, Ahmet and Diva. Four kids (with weird names, yes) and different talents.

I'm guessing that, in a way, they both found themselves attracted to the originality of the other... and their love for music, obviously. These two shared an idea of the world that not many people could have followed. Today, Gail still manages Zappa's image and musical heritage. She had a tremendous respect for her husband's work and would do anything to protect it. Zappa's legacy has nothing to worry about. 

The Multi-Facets Man.

Formal Stuff.

Here are the topics I should include in my entries over the semester:

— Zappa the composer.

What I have discovered about Zappa’s creative contribution to music, i.e. the compositions he wrote and the recordings he made?

— Zappa the musician-performer.

As a guitarist, band leader and stage performer, what did Zappa bring to the concert medium, show business and music-making in general?

— Zappa the entrepreneur.

How did Zappa balance art and commerce throughout his career?

— Zappa the social critic.

Through his lyrics, interviews, album art and other media, how did Zappa communicate his views on society and culture during his lifetime?

— Zappa the man.

In terms of background, personal philosophy and other aspects of who Zappa was, how did Zappa’s personality affect his work and legacy?

ZAPPA & High School.

This is such a broad subject... There is so much to say about it that I don't even know where to start.

Reading from Barry Miles' book on Zappa, I was struck by the time he spent on describing and recreating Frank's early years of life. Why is it so important for us to know that he lived in Baltimore, in Florida, in California? Why is it important for us to know that he intended ten-ish schools throughout his youth?

Soon enough, you realize why it is so crucial. Soon enough, you understand why Miles spends so much time (and details) on this particular era of the composer's life...

Zappa became Zappa because he was shaped by these years of moving in and out, of having to adapt to new environments, friends, schools, teachers, neighbors, you name it. In fact, who wouldn't be drastically marked by that? Frank was to be permanently scared by this period and would evolve as a young adult and artist keeping these memories in head.

Consequences of his father accepting different jobs here and there in the country include many of the following: young Zappa was hardly able to make friends, he lost interest in school, he wouldn't have a "regular" teenage social life, and he would always be treated as the weirdo and different soul around by the other kids, etc. All of these are interrelated and led him to a certain degree of isolation and to a premature critical view of our society.

Now, I'm not trying to say that Zappa was not always a little cynical, bad-tempered or anti-social. Some traits belong to each of us as individuals and there's nothing we can do to change them. Although it is also true to say that life can sometimes bring you events and challenges that amplify certain personality traits of a human being. But I do think that what Zappa lived in this 10 or 15 years life-span was crucial to determine and accentuate these characteristics...

He often refers to his teenage high school years in later songs (a good example would be 'Status Black Baby' from Absolutely Free - 1967). From what we understand, Zappa never truly wanted to be accepted by the "cool gang" in high school. He already found them shallow and uninteresting... But there is also a sense of bitterness coming from him when he makes allusions to these years and people he use to frequent every day in school. As if being the loner all the time was a heavy burden sometimes which enhanced this cynical aspect of his personality.

It is also curious to think that such a brilliant mind barely finished his high school diploma. He wasn't stimulated enough with school subjects (except for his early affinity with music, naturally). The fact that his family moved around all the time certainly didn't help him to stay focused on his studying. Again, it was like society had failed him...

Estrangement and disappointment were certainly two important key words of Zappa's youth which became as equally important when he stepped into the real world a few years later to pursue his life-time goal: enlightening the American population by exploring different types of music and socially engaged lyrics, as well as being able to finance his own projects by himself (in other words, to make money) to create the music he really wanted to do.

Introduction.