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Frank Zappa




Frank Zappa (December 21, 1940 - December 4, 1993) was an American rock
musician, composer and satirist.

Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Zappa was raised in California where he grew up
influenced in equal measures by avant garde composers such as Edgar Varese
and Igor Stravinsky and the local rhythm and blues and doo-wop groups.

After a short career as a professional songwriter (his elegiac "Memories of
El Monte" was recorded by The Penguins) Zappa joined a local R&B band as a
guitarist. A short time later he re-christened the band "The Mothers" (and,
later still, "Frank Zappa and the Mothers Of Invention" at the insistence of
the record company.)

The Mothers were signed by well known producer Tom Wilson, and soon produced
the double album Freak Out (1966) a mixture of often topical R&B and
experimental sound collage. The similarly eclectic Absolutely Free and Lumpy
Gravy followed the next year. Zappa also recorded We're Only In It For The
Money, a withering satire on both flower power and the prevailing mood of
mainstream America; the cover parodied that of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's
Lonely Hearts Club Band, replacing flowers with vegetables.

After several more albums with the Mothers including the Doo-Wop flavoured
Cruising With Ruben And The Jets, Zappa released the solo instrumental album
Hot Rats, featuring his free jazz inflected guitar playing, as well as a
live set recorded at the Fillmore East and featuring John Lennon. He
continued this high rate of production through the early 1970s, including
the excellent and accessible albums One Size Fits All and Apostrophe, with a
new versions of the Mothers. See Tom and Jerry for an anecdote from this
era.

After a break Zappa returned, and much of his later work was influenced by
his use of the synclavier as a compositional and performance tool and his
mastery of studio techniques for producing specific instrumental effects.
His work was also more explicitly political satirising the rise of
television evangelists and the Republican party.

On September 19, 1985, Zappa testified before the US Senate Commerce,
Technology, and Transportation committee, attacking the Parents Music
Resource Center or PMRC, a music censorship organization founded by Al
Gore's wife Tipper Gore and including many other political wives, including
the wives of five members of the committee. He said,

     "The PMRC proposal is an ill-conceived piece of nonsense which fails to
     deliver any real benefits to children, infringes the civil liberties of
     people who are not children and promises to keep the courts busy for
     years dealing with the interpretational and enforcemental problems
     inherent in the proposal's design.

     "It is my understanding that, in law, First Amendment issues are
     decided with a preference for the least restrictive alternative. In
     this context, the PMRC's demands are the equivalent of treating
     dandruff by decapitation."

In the early 1990s Zappa devoted almost all of his energy to modern
orchestral and synclavier works. In 1992 he was diagnosed with prostate
cancer, a disease which caused his death on December 4, 1993. His last tour
in a "rock band format" took place in 1988 with a 12-piece group which was
reported to have a repetoire of over 800 (mostly Zappa) compositions, but
which split acrimoniously before the tour was completed. The tour was
documented on the albums The Best Band You Never Heard In Your Life (Zappa
"standards" and obscure cover tunes), Make a Jazz Noise here (mostly
instrumental and experimental music) and Broadway The Hard Way (new original
material), with bits also to be found on You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore
Volume 6.

On his death in 1993, Frank Zappa was interred in the Westwood Village
Memorial Park Cemetery in Westwood, California.

Zappa was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995. That same
year the only known cast of Zappa was installed in the center of Vilnius,
the capital of Lithuania. Konstantinas Bogdanas, the most renowned
Lithuanian sculptor who had previously been casting portraits of Vladimir
Lenin immortalized Zappa.

Quotes

     "Information is not knowledge. Knowledge is not wisdom. Wisdom is not
     truth. Truth is not beauty. Beauty is not love. Love is not music.
     Music is THE BEST..." - from Packard Goose

Discography

   * Freak Out! (1966)
   * Absolutely Free (1967)
   * Lumpy Gravy (1967)
   * We're Only In It For The Money (1968)
   * Cruising With Ruben & The Jets (1968)
   * Uncle Meat (1969)
   * Mothermania (1969)
   * Hot Rats (1969)
   * Burnt Weeny Sandwich (1969)
   * Weasels Ripped My Flesh (1970)
   * Chunga's Revenge (1970)
   * Fillmore East - June 1971 (1971)
   * 200 Motels (1971)
   * Just Another Band From L.A. (1972) (See 1972 in music)
   * Waka/Jawaka (1972) (See 1972 in music)
   * The Grand Wazoo (1972) (See 1972 in music)
   * Over-Nite Sensation (1973) (See 1973 in music)
   * Apostrophe (1974)
   * Roxy & Elsewhere (1974)
   * One Size Fits All (1975)
   * Bongo Fury (1975)
   * Zoot Allures (1976)
   * Zappa In New York (1978)
   * Studio Tan (1978)
   * Sleep Dirt (1979)
   * Sheik Yerbouti (1979)
   * Orchestral Favorites (1979)
   * Joe's Garage (1979)
   * Tinseltown Rebellion (1981)
   * Shut Up 'N' Play Yer Guitar (1981)
   * You Are What You Is (1981)
   * Ship Arriving Too Late To Save A Drowning Witch (1982)
   * The Man From Utopia (1983)
   * Baby Snakes (1983)
   * London Symphony Orchestra vol 1 (1983)
   * The Perfect Stranger (1984)
   * Them Or Us (1984)
   * Thing-Fish (1984)
   * Francesco Zappa (1984)
   * FZ Meets The Mothers Of Prevention (1985)
   * Does Humor Belong In Music? (1986)
   * Jazz From Hell (1986)
   * London Symphony Orchestra vol 2 (1987)
   * Guitar (1988)
   * You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore vol 1 (1988)
   * You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore vol 2 (1988)
   * Broadway The Hard Way (1989)
   * You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore vol 3 (1989)
   * The Best Band You Never Heard In Your Life (1989)
   * You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore vol 4 (1991)
   * Make A Jazz Noise Here (1991)
   * You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore vol 5 (1992)
   * You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore vol 6 (1992)
   * Playground Psychotics (1992)
   * Ahead Of Their Time (1993)
   * The Yellow Shark (1993)
   * Civilization, Phaze III (1994)
   * Strictly Commercial (1995)
   * The Lost Episodes (1996)
   * LŠther (1996)
   * Mystery Disc (1998)
   * Everything Is Healing Nicely (1999)
   * FZ:OZ (2002)

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