One point that Frank didn't mention is that when he was signed, there were literally hundreds of record companies. Now there are 3, maybe 4, huge conglomerates. Back then you had some options.
He was so articulate, funny, brilliant, and he really knew what he was talking about. On top of that he was an amazing composer, a great guitarplayer and singer and an amazing musician. One of the greatest men of all time.
Frank was an Icon. Frank had guts, brains & mad skills. Many of us miss him greatly. Check his CD called "Guitar" (no words), it will change your life! lol a MUST, for guitar players.
@SwordInAir Because people who don't think they know best are more likely to make happy mistakes - like releasing albums by the Mothers of Invention. There is not a chance in hell that Zappa would be signed today, or if signed, to a deal longer than a single album. Back in the day, there were such things as "prestige artists" - people who didn't sell millions, but the label was proud to represent. Now, it is only about the money - screw art.
That's contrary to what Frank said in this interview. He is actually saying that we were better off when those MBA business types were the record executives. They didn't understand music and thus took greater chances. It was when the "hip" non-business types took over the record industry that it was decided that they understood what was "hip" and "cool".
It's SO funny how they beep out "Masturbation"! How uptight this show was! ROTFLMAO! Frank Zappa is and always was right. 100%. I miss that guy a LOT. We need more people like him. Or at least kind of like him.
Frank was actually getting into some serious economic politics in Czechoslovakia a year before he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. The United States government threatened the Czech government and forced them to stop associating with Zappa. Frank wasn't afraid to criticize the US government and they weren't happy about that.
Following up... I don't believe Zappa had any particular responsibility to his former band members, no matter what hard, early years they shared. For one, he never sold enough records to afford to keep a band on the payroll between tours. And, for another, there are few items one can put on a rock music resume more impressive than "former Zappa player" - something that indicates you can play rings around anyone else. Most ex-Zappa players are still making a living playing Zappa music.
In the recent news from the UK there was a story of a still employed man celebrating his 101st birthday and he drank and smoked all his life! The singer Perry Como smoked 4 packs of cigarettes a day and he lived until he was 84! The fact that a person smokes doesn't mean they'll contract cancer or die from cancer at an early age.Also the smokers who do die from cancer die from cancer of the mouth,throat or lungs not of the prostate gland!
We are in the Information Age right now. The fact that someone can produce a CD for a couple thousand dollars and make it accessible to the masses is a good thing. There is more variety in music now then there ever has been. I posted that comment 4 months ago but im willing to rehash this conversation. Executives are less relevant now.
The video is as it was originally aired on TV. The broadcaster cut in bits of Zappa's video for "G-Spot Tornado" - for no particular reason. The only change I made was to take several interview clips interspersed in the original show and put them together.
Reminds me of the movie They Live when they were in the homeless camps and there were TVs playing with pirate TV channels of dudes warning every body of alien takeover. Frank told the truth.
what does masturbation mean? lol Zappa was so talented and intelligent in so many ways.I still can't beleive he's gone. thanks for posting anything on Zappa is worth watching and learning from and of course his music was so great.the video was one one of the greatest inventions to keep the past present to learn and enjoy from!!!
he's so right about record companies these days,there was a time when groups like the Stooges and the Sex Pistols,got record deals,-I recently heard of band bragging kind of that some of their material just so happened to get listened to by the prez of Geffen,and then all of a sudden they were back on a label,without hardly trying. I thought to myself-I don't think you want the prez. of a record company being into your band if your kids-then I thought it' s probly more like he knew it'd sell.
No, there's a statute in Bad Doberan Germany where they have the yearly Zappa festival known as Zappanale. I've never seen it myself, but it featured in the movie "Rock School" (NOT to be confused with the movie starring Jack Black).
Jim, I'm really not sure if yr joking and looking to see how many reactions you'll get. On one hand, there really is great profundity to your comment about direct human interaction, on the other there's the pure absurdity of suggesting the internet's responsible for destroying great art. The net's the ultimate niche market and the fact that you'd make such a comment in an area which keeps Zappa's obscure yet brilliant notions alive is funny indeed. I applaud yr brilliant sense of irony! :-D
I watch Zappa Interviews and they MAKE SENSE I listen to the music and it makes sense.. I think Zappas are Important in this world!..what are your other favorite things that SIR Franko Zappa managed to do with himself?
I recall even Billy Joel using the word "masturbate" in one of his early songs...can't remember which...it was jarring the first time you heard it...but then just became part of the song..
A lot of original music now is created, produced, released and sold by musicians themselves--a contemporary phenomenon thanks to the Internet. Most of what is put out by major labels now is, as Otto so poetically put it, "barfy lame pussy swill". I believe Frank would have approved of the current trend totally. But--I'd love to hear his take on, for example, Bush, Cheney, Gonzales...we need a voice like Zappa's in the pop culture now more than ever!!!!!
It's a mess with RU-vid, because sometimes your comments simply disappear or they appear in positions where you didn't comment - completely out of the context. That's confusing !
We have enough people like him. But you won´t see them on TV in these days. People just hang around on forums or youtube comment side, because more and more become ancioux about what happens if they go out on the streets. I´m one of them and i´m not proud...
@Practical Skeptic Basically he saw the media and corporate music industry for what is was. Pretty much everything he said in that interview is woefully apparent today.
you need to check what side your on, this is a new era of enlightenment. We are liberating art. We are on Zappa's side. Why should some record exec be deciding what the kids are listening to! The internet allows for people all over the world to be influenced by great art.
I read Frank's book once ("The Real Frank Zappa Book") and I sometimes wondered if the CIA or FBI was somehow responsible for his untimely death? Like Frank could have been slipped some radioactive isotope in his food or drink?
Probably not. Zappa had so much respect for Ertegun that he named one of his sons after him. But he was the type of record executive will to release things that he didn't completely understand, and was willing to stand by music that he believed in and give an artist more than a single chance. Albert Grossman, the founder of Bearsville Records, probably fit that stereotype more closely, but still allowed artists to experiment and even fail.
I'm not saying smoking doesn't cause cancer,it does,but not in every case plus smoker's contract mostly lung,mouth or throat cancer not prostate cancer. My original specualtion,was that maybe the FBI/CIA eliminated the controversial Zappa by poisoning him with a radioactive substance that caused his prostate cancer rather than "accepting" someone else's contention that Franks's smoking was to blame for his prostate disease!
I disagree. Zappa was a serious composer who worked with rock musicians rather than classical musicians for one reason - they were cheaper. He spent hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to get his serious works performed, and all the orchestras seemed to care about was overtime and tea breaks. Only later was he taken seriously enough that orchestras wanted to perform his work rather than look at him as a mark to be fleeced. By favorite of his works is The Yellow Shark and G-Spot Tornado.
Someday he will be taught in school like Mozart and Beethoven, maybe a hundred years from now. Hell maybe even like Nostradamus, except his prophecies had a higher rate of coming true.
is the word "Masturbation" censored? I don't get it. Zappa is just talking about not to exclude "words" because a bunch of XV Century brains wants to do that. Zappa was one of the best composers and also one of the best thinkers of the XX Century. And the guy putting those "blips" was a thoughts killer.
Yeah, but who's the real artist in this portrayal? Zappa or the censor? I support cinematic verisimilitude as much as the next bloke, but you gotta ask who is more influential, the guy who has the audacity to say 'masturbation' or the guy who has the audacity to think he can control what goes into the public's ears?
HE REALLY TELLS IT LIKE IT IS...cigar chomping old guys in charge DID foster more musical freedom within the "mainstream" !...today it's MUCH TOO controlled. (however, there are still some genuine FREE artists out there...probably starving)...even many so-called independent artists are trying to emulate the mainstream medias' tactics/musical styles.
The broadcaster. I'm half tempted to find a recording of Frank saying "masturbation" and dubbing it over the beep. But I'm too dedicated to cinematic verisimilitude to alter the original artistic intention of the censor.
@jimlovesearth2 The internet helped music flourish I have no idea what you're talking about. The internet allows even the smallest most specific niches of music to see the light of day, and lets its fans find it easier. Record labels are not necessary for music production anymore. As far as no scene goes, you must have no friends because there are still many "scenes" and much social interaction taking place around music. Many people (myself and many friends included) go to live shows, etc.
It's silly to think that every word said by a character in one of Frank's songs is expressing Frank's opinions. Hollywood screenwriters write about murderers all the time without personally endorsing murder.
Smoking? Bad for you? What the fuck... I guess I just never knew. No one ever talks about how smoking is bad for you. Ever. Maybe I should quit! But then the cool kids wouldn't like me...
Years of sucking in carcinogens and carbon monoxide is supposed to have no ill effects? Are you claiming that Frank's cancer was completely unrelated to daily consumptions of a cancer-causing substance?
The PMRC won. They even bleeped out "masturbation" which is not and has never been a dirty word. "Ass" is also bleeped out because it's such an ugly animal. I've never heard anyone bleep out "donkey" before....
i disagree. human interaction is abundant on the internet despite your apparent contempt of it (perhaps out of a conservative view?). it is also, as you said before, a fertile ground for ideas, ideologies and different people to mix and create together. I myself, without it, would of never even heard of this fellow, Frank Zappa, and many others. besides, at it's very least the internet allows for people in the same vicinity to find each other easily in the real life.
That would be my critique of him as well, his songs are so poorly mixed, and they're almost proudly poorly mixed, I don't think he ever met a digitally produced track he didn't like. And his whole appearance of big loud bright colors remind me of my hipster kids I know but would rather not hang out with.
Hey! Let's censor Zappa! Masturbation! Ass! Shit sake.. does anybody get this. Why beep anything? Whoever edited those words out hasn't a clue. Question everything! Censor nothing!
