Frank Zappa: The SongTalk Interview - Revision history

Spider of Destiny at 18:12, 4 August 2026

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Jason.Kreitzer at 20:27, 14 September 2021

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Jason.Kreitzer at 18:51, 30 July 2021

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Jason.Kreitzer at 02:46, 22 July 2021

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Jason.Kreitzer at 22:19, 21 July 2021

2021-07-21T22:19:59Z

Spider of Destiny at 04:57, 23 February 2021

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Spider of Destiny at 02:49, 27 October 2020

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Spider of Destiny at 02:48, 27 October 2020

2020-10-27T02:48:27Z

Spider of Destiny at 20:55, 26 October 2020

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Spider of Destiny at 20:09, 26 October 2020

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 '''I know [[Edgard Varèse|Varèse]] was a major influence.<br>
-Well, see, in those days, albums were very expensive, and there were no albums of rock and roll music. The rock and roll album was something that came along long after the rock and roll single was invented, and the original first rock and roll albums were just compilations of hits. If the label had a bunch of hits they would just stick them onto an album. The first one that I ever saw was called Teenage Dance Party that had a bunch of songs from a New York label – I can see it now, it's orange – that was the first one I got. I think the wisdom in the marketplace was that the teenagers wouldn't spend money on albums, they'd spend it on a single but it was a major investment to spend more money on a big record to play it on a slower machine. Remember – most teenagers in those days had 45 rpm record players with a big nozzle in the middle of it that you can't play a LP on. So only a few of the consumers in the rock and roll marketplace actually had a machine that could play an album.
+Well, see, in those days, albums were very expensive, and there were no albums of rock and roll music. The rock and roll album was something that came along long after the rock and roll single was invented, and the original first rock and roll albums were just compilations of hits. If the label had a bunch of hits they would just stick them onto an album. The first one that I ever saw was called [[Teenage Dance Party]] that had a bunch of songs from a New York label – I can see it now, it's orange – that was the first one I got. I think the wisdom in the marketplace was that the teenagers wouldn't spend money on albums, they'd spend it on a single but it was a major investment to spend more money on a big record to play it on a slower machine. Remember – most teenagers in those days had 45 rpm record players with a big nozzle in the middle of it that you can't play a LP on. So only a few of the consumers in the rock and roll marketplace actually had a machine that could play an album.
 Anyway, I was not really financially in good condition in those days, but I managed to buy two contemporary classical LP's that I listened to day and night, because it was the only two albums I had. I had a cheap recording of "[[The Rite Of Spring]]" on Camden budget line. It was the "Worldwide Symphony plays the Rite of Spring". And the other one I had was "The [[Complete Works Of Edgard Varèse, Volume 1]]," which is on some obscure label called EMS.

@@ Line 5: / Line 5: @@
-When [[Biography|Frank Zappa]] was thirteen years old and living in San Diego, he read an article in [[Look|Look Magazine]] praising the record merchandiser [[Sam Goody]]. It claimed that Goody was such a genius that he could sell any album no matter how ugly it was musically. And the album they chose as an example of this ultimate ugliness was ''[[Complete Works Of Edgard Varèse, Volume 1]]'', which featured a percussion piece called "[[Ionisation|Ionisations]]." The writer described the piece as "a banging and clanging with sirens and stuff." When young Frank read this he said to himself', "Yeah! That's what I want!" He made the trek to what was then referred to as the local "Hi-Fi shop," where records were played on the new equipment to demonstrate the magic of Hi-Fi.
+When [[Biography|Frank Zappa]] was thirteen years old and living in San Diego, he read an article in [[Look|Look Magazine]] praising the record merchandiser [[Wikipedia:Sam Goody|Sam Goody]]. It claimed that Goody was such a genius that he could sell any album no matter how ugly it was musically. And the album they chose as an example of this ultimate ugliness was ''[[Complete Works Of Edgard Varèse, Volume 1]]'', which featured a percussion piece called "[[Ionisation|Ionisations]]." The writer described the piece as "a banging and clanging with sirens and stuff." When young Frank read this he said to himself', "Yeah! That's what I want!" He made the trek to what was then referred to as the local "Hi-Fi shop," where records were played on the new equipment to demonstrate the magic of Hi-Fi.
 "Apparently, the guy had gotten this thing because the percussion was supposed to be spectacular," Zappa remembered, smiling warmly beneath his huge mustache. "But whenever he played it he didn't make any sales so the album was listed at $10.95, an exorbitant price for a 13-year-old. I walked into the store and saw this album with a black and white cover and a guy on the front who looked like a mad scientist. And I knew from the minute I saw it that it had to be the one. So I asked the guy how much it was and he told me and I didn't have the money, so I negotiated with him. And he was so happy that anybody would buy it to get it out of there, that he sold it to me for six dollars just to get it off his hands. I took it home and listened to it day and night for years."
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 No, those are the only ones I liked. I generally liked the [[The Rolling Stones|Rolling Stones]] better than the Beatles during that era; they were a little bit more to my taste because they were more involved in the blues.
-I like the group [[wikipedia:Them (band)|Them]], with [[Van Morrison]]. And the other thing that I really enjoyed were the early compositions of David and [[Burt Bacharach|Bacharach]]. I thought that they were so good because prior to that time there had been little of bitonal or polytonal harmonic implication in American pop music, and we are to thank them for providing them through those early Dionne Warwick recordings.
+I like the group [[wikipedia:Them (band)|Them]], with [[Van Morrison]]. And the other thing that I really enjoyed were the early compositions of David and [[Wikipedia:Burt Bacharach|Bacharach]]. I thought that they were so good because prior to that time there had been little of bitonal or polytonal harmonic implication in American pop music, and we are to thank them for providing them through those early Dionne Warwick recordings.
 '''What do you think of the New York school of composers, such as [[wikipedia:Phillip Glass|Phillip Glass]]?<br>

@@ Line 5: / Line 5: @@
-When [[Biography|Frank Zappa]] was thirteen years old and living in San Diego, he read an article in ''Look'' magazine praising the record merchandiser [[Sam Goody]]. It claimed that Goody was such a genius that he could sell any album no matter how ugly it was musically. And the album they chose as an example of this ultimate ugliness was ''[[Complete Works Of Edgard Varèse, Volume 1]]'', which featured a percussion piece called "[[Ionisation|Ionisations]]." The writer described the piece as "a banging and clanging with sirens and stuff." When young Frank read this he said to himself', "Yeah! That's what I want!" He made the trek to what was then referred to as the local "Hi-Fi shop," where records were played on the new equipment to demonstrate the magic of Hi-Fi.
+When [[Biography|Frank Zappa]] was thirteen years old and living in San Diego, he read an article in [[Look|Look Magazine]] praising the record merchandiser [[Sam Goody]]. It claimed that Goody was such a genius that he could sell any album no matter how ugly it was musically. And the album they chose as an example of this ultimate ugliness was ''[[Complete Works Of Edgard Varèse, Volume 1]]'', which featured a percussion piece called "[[Ionisation|Ionisations]]." The writer described the piece as "a banging and clanging with sirens and stuff." When young Frank read this he said to himself', "Yeah! That's what I want!" He made the trek to what was then referred to as the local "Hi-Fi shop," where records were played on the new equipment to demonstrate the magic of Hi-Fi.
 "Apparently, the guy had gotten this thing because the percussion was supposed to be spectacular," Zappa remembered, smiling warmly beneath his huge mustache. "But whenever he played it he didn't make any sales so the album was listed at $10.95, an exorbitant price for a 13-year-old. I walked into the store and saw this album with a black and white cover and a guy on the front who looked like a mad scientist. And I knew from the minute I saw it that it had to be the one. So I asked the guy how much it was and he told me and I didn't have the money, so I negotiated with him. And he was so happy that anybody would buy it to get it out of there, that he sold it to me for six dollars just to get it off his hands. I took it home and listened to it day and night for years."
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 '''And there's no one way that makes you feel the most comfortable?<br>
-It depends on what the end result is going to be. A song like "[[Strictly Genteel]]," for example, which has not only a fairly dense orchestral texture, but it's got complicated words, there's no way that I could have done that without the help of a piano, because the piano part is so integral to the thing. I don't play piano – can plunk things out slowly and write down exactly what the thing is supposed to be.
+It depends on what the end result is going to be. A song like "[[Strictly Genteel (The Track)|Strictly Genteel]]," for example, which has not only a fairly dense orchestral texture, but it's got complicated words, there's no way that I could have done that without the help of a piano, because the piano part is so integral to the thing. I don't play piano – can plunk things out slowly and write down exactly what the thing is supposed to be.
 Oftentimes, though, unless you have really skilled musicians in the band, you can't have the piece rendered properly because it takes a certain amount of skill to be able to do those things, and people with that kind of skill generally don't gravitate towards rock and roll. But I've been really lucky in having people available for auditions that want to go into the band and play hard music and actually turn out to be roadable people that can do it. And so I write for them.

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 No, I was buying rhythm and blues records and avant-garde 20th century classical music at the same time and loving both.
-'''I know [[Edgar Varèse|Varèse]] was a major influence.<br>
+'''I know [[Edgard Varèse|Varèse]] was a major influence.<br>
 Well, see, in those days, albums were very expensive, and there were no albums of rock and roll music. The rock and roll album was something that came along long after the rock and roll single was invented, and the original first rock and roll albums were just compilations of hits. If the label had a bunch of hits they would just stick them onto an album. The first one that I ever saw was called Teenage Dance Party that had a bunch of songs from a New York label – I can see it now, it's orange – that was the first one I got. I think the wisdom in the marketplace was that the teenagers wouldn't spend money on albums, they'd spend it on a single but it was a major investment to spend more money on a big record to play it on a slower machine. Remember – most teenagers in those days had 45 rpm record players with a big nozzle in the middle of it that you can't play a LP on. So only a few of the consumers in the rock and roll marketplace actually had a machine that could play an album.

@@ Line 5: / Line 5: @@
-When [[Frank Zappa]] was thirteen years old and living in San Diego, he read an article in ''Look'' magazine praising the record merchandiser [[Sam Goody]]. It claimed that Goody was such a genius that he could sell any album no matter how ugly it was musically. And the album they chose as an example of this ultimate ugliness was ''[[Complete Works Of Edgard Varèse, Volume 1]]'', which featured a percussion piece called "[[Ionisation|Ionisations]]." The writer described the piece as "a banging and clanging with sirens and stuff." When young Frank read this he said to himself', "Yeah! That's what I want!" He made the trek to what was then referred to as the local "Hi-Fi shop," where records were played on the new equipment to demonstrate the magic of Hi-Fi.
+When [[Biography|Frank Zappa]] was thirteen years old and living in San Diego, he read an article in ''Look'' magazine praising the record merchandiser [[Sam Goody]]. It claimed that Goody was such a genius that he could sell any album no matter how ugly it was musically. And the album they chose as an example of this ultimate ugliness was ''[[Complete Works Of Edgard Varèse, Volume 1]]'', which featured a percussion piece called "[[Ionisation|Ionisations]]." The writer described the piece as "a banging and clanging with sirens and stuff." When young Frank read this he said to himself', "Yeah! That's what I want!" He made the trek to what was then referred to as the local "Hi-Fi shop," where records were played on the new equipment to demonstrate the magic of Hi-Fi.
 "Apparently, the guy had gotten this thing because the percussion was supposed to be spectacular," Zappa remembered, smiling warmly beneath his huge mustache. "But whenever he played it he didn't make any sales so the album was listed at $10.95, an exorbitant price for a 13-year-old. I walked into the store and saw this album with a black and white cover and a guy on the front who looked like a mad scientist. And I knew from the minute I saw it that it had to be the one. So I asked the guy how much it was and he told me and I didn't have the money, so I negotiated with him. And he was so happy that anybody would buy it to get it out of there, that he sold it to me for six dollars just to get it off his hands. I took it home and listened to it day and night for years."
@@ Line 17: / Line 17: @@
 When we first interviewed him a few years ago, the [[Synclavier]] was giving him a liberty that Varèse never shared, to not only compose and experiment with new musical sounds and shapes, but to be able to hear the fruit of these labors instantly. He had just completed the wondrously instrumental [[Jazz From Hell]] when we met, and was in the midst of extending those discoveries into further realms of compositional exploration which he was happy to generously share with us in the warm inner sanctum of his home studio.
-We conducted the following interview with Zappa for ''SongTalk'' in 1987, at a time when he was publicly fighting [[Tipper Gore]]'s [[PMRC]] and their attempts to place warning labels on albums. Because of this political activity, Zappa was seen to be a little too controversial to be featured on the cover of this journal published by a non-profit organization, and was relegated instead only to our inner pages. It's a belated honor for us at this moment in history to pay tribute to the astonishing musical legacy of Frank Zappa by finally featuring him on our cover.
+We conducted the following interview with Zappa for ''SongTalk'' in 1987, at a time when he was publicly fighting [[Tipper Gore]]'s [[Parents Music Resource Center|PMRC]] and their attempts to place warning labels on albums. Because of this political activity, Zappa was seen to be a little too controversial to be featured on the cover of this journal published by a non-profit organization, and was relegated instead only to our inner pages. It's a belated honor for us at this moment in history to pay tribute to the astonishing musical legacy of Frank Zappa by finally featuring him on our cover.
 What follows is our original interview with Zappa, first printed in ''SongTalk'' in 1987, Volume 2, Issue 5. It happened to be one of the very first interviews I conducted for ''SongTalk'' soon after I became editor. It led me to believe that all interviews could be set up as easily, and that all interview subjects would be as gracious, humorous and brilliant. Of course, I was wrong. There is nobody else like Zappa.

@@ Line 217: / Line 217: @@
 '''How do you look at it?<br>
 Well, all of the songs that were dealing with sociological topics were things that needed to be said at the time. The comments made then still remain true today and will probably remain true as long as we have bad government and ignorant religion working in America. And on that basis I think they serve a sociological function as an encouragement to other people who have a similar point of view.
 [[Category:Interviews with Zappa]]

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 Well, see, in those days, albums were very expensive, and there were no albums of rock and roll music. The rock and roll album was something that came along long after the rock and roll single was invented, and the original first rock and roll albums were just compilations of hits. If the label had a bunch of hits they would just stick them onto an album. The first one that I ever saw was called Teenage Dance Party that had a bunch of songs from a New York label – I can see it now, it's orange – that was the first one I got. I think the wisdom in the marketplace was that the teenagers wouldn't spend money on albums, they'd spend it on a single but it was a major investment to spend more money on a big record to play it on a slower machine. Remember – most teenagers in those days had 45 rpm record players with a big nozzle in the middle of it that you can't play a LP on. So only a few of the consumers in the rock and roll marketplace actually had a machine that could play an album.
-Anyway, I was not really financially in good condition in those days, but I managed to buy two contemporary classical LP's that I listened to day and night, because it was the only two albums I had. I had a cheap recording of "[[The Rite Of Spring]]" on Camden budget line. It was the "Worldwide Symphony plays the Rite of Spring". And the other one I had was "The [[Complete Works Of Edgard Varèse, Volume One]]," which is on some obscure label called EMS.
+Anyway, I was not really financially in good condition in those days, but I managed to buy two contemporary classical LP's that I listened to day and night, because it was the only two albums I had. I had a cheap recording of "[[The Rite Of Spring]]" on Camden budget line. It was the "Worldwide Symphony plays the Rite of Spring". And the other one I had was "The [[Complete Works Of Edgard Varèse, Volume 1]]," which is on some obscure label called EMS.
 '''Yeah? And you liked it?<br>

← Older revision		Revision as of 20:55, 26 October 2020
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−	When [[Frank Zappa]] was thirteen years old and living in San Diego, he read an article in ''Look'' magazine praising the record merchandiser [[Sam Goody]]. It claimed that Goody was such a genius that he could sell any album no matter how ugly it was musically. And the album they chose as an example of this ultimate ugliness was ''[[Complete Works Of Edgard Varèse, Volume ~~One~~]]'', which featured a percussion piece called "[[Ionisation\|Ionisations]]." The writer described the piece as "a banging and clanging with sirens and stuff." When young Frank read this he said to himself', "Yeah! That's what I want!" He made the trek to what was then referred to as the local "Hi-Fi shop," where records were played on the new equipment to demonstrate the magic of Hi-Fi.	+	When [[Frank Zappa]] was thirteen years old and living in San Diego, he read an article in ''Look'' magazine praising the record merchandiser [[Sam Goody]]. It claimed that Goody was such a genius that he could sell any album no matter how ugly it was musically. And the album they chose as an example of this ultimate ugliness was ''[[Complete Works Of Edgard Varèse, Volume 1]]'', which featured a percussion piece called "[[Ionisation\|Ionisations]]." The writer described the piece as "a banging and clanging with sirens and stuff." When young Frank read this he said to himself', "Yeah! That's what I want!" He made the trek to what was then referred to as the local "Hi-Fi shop," where records were played on the new equipment to demonstrate the magic of Hi-Fi.

	"Apparently, the guy had gotten this thing because the percussion was supposed to be spectacular," Zappa remembered, smiling warmly beneath his huge mustache. "But whenever he played it he didn't make any sales so the album was listed at $10.95, an exorbitant price for a 13-year-old. I walked into the store and saw this album with a black and white cover and a guy on the front who looked like a mad scientist. And I knew from the minute I saw it that it had to be the one. So I asked the guy how much it was and he told me and I didn't have the money, so I negotiated with him. And he was so happy that anybody would buy it to get it out of there, that he sold it to me for six dollars just to get it off his hands. I took it home and listened to it day and night for years."		"Apparently, the guy had gotten this thing because the percussion was supposed to be spectacular," Zappa remembered, smiling warmly beneath his huge mustache. "But whenever he played it he didn't make any sales so the album was listed at $10.95, an exorbitant price for a 13-year-old. I walked into the store and saw this album with a black and white cover and a guy on the front who looked like a mad scientist. And I knew from the minute I saw it that it had to be the one. So I asked the guy how much it was and he told me and I didn't have the money, so I negotiated with him. And he was so happy that anybody would buy it to get it out of there, that he sold it to me for six dollars just to get it off his hands. I took it home and listened to it day and night for years."

← Older revision		Revision as of 20:09, 26 October 2020
Line 5:		Line 5:


−	When [[Frank Zappa]] was thirteen years old and living in San Diego, he read an article in ''Look'' magazine praising the record merchandiser [[Sam Goody]]. It claimed that Goody was such a genius that he could sell any album no matter how ugly it was musically. And the album they chose as an example of this ultimate ugliness was ''[[~~The~~ Complete Works Of Edgard Varèse, Volume One]]'', which featured a percussion piece called "[[Ionisation\|Ionisations]]." The writer described the piece as "a banging and clanging with sirens and stuff." When young Frank read this he said to himself', "Yeah! That's what I want!" He made the trek to what was then referred to as the local "Hi-Fi shop," where records were played on the new equipment to demonstrate the magic of Hi-Fi.	+	When [[Frank Zappa]] was thirteen years old and living in San Diego, he read an article in ''Look'' magazine praising the record merchandiser [[Sam Goody]]. It claimed that Goody was such a genius that he could sell any album no matter how ugly it was musically. And the album they chose as an example of this ultimate ugliness was ''[[Complete Works Of Edgard Varèse, Volume One]]'', which featured a percussion piece called "[[Ionisation\|Ionisations]]." The writer described the piece as "a banging and clanging with sirens and stuff." When young Frank read this he said to himself', "Yeah! That's what I want!" He made the trek to what was then referred to as the local "Hi-Fi shop," where records were played on the new equipment to demonstrate the magic of Hi-Fi.

	"Apparently, the guy had gotten this thing because the percussion was supposed to be spectacular," Zappa remembered, smiling warmly beneath his huge mustache. "But whenever he played it he didn't make any sales so the album was listed at $10.95, an exorbitant price for a 13-year-old. I walked into the store and saw this album with a black and white cover and a guy on the front who looked like a mad scientist. And I knew from the minute I saw it that it had to be the one. So I asked the guy how much it was and he told me and I didn't have the money, so I negotiated with him. And he was so happy that anybody would buy it to get it out of there, that he sold it to me for six dollars just to get it off his hands. I took it home and listened to it day and night for years."		"Apparently, the guy had gotten this thing because the percussion was supposed to be spectacular," Zappa remembered, smiling warmly beneath his huge mustache. "But whenever he played it he didn't make any sales so the album was listed at $10.95, an exorbitant price for a 13-year-old. I walked into the store and saw this album with a black and white cover and a guy on the front who looked like a mad scientist. And I knew from the minute I saw it that it had to be the one. So I asked the guy how much it was and he told me and I didn't have the money, so I negotiated with him. And he was so happy that anybody would buy it to get it out of there, that he sold it to me for six dollars just to get it off his hands. I took it home and listened to it day and night for years."