KPFM-FM Radio Interview, 84/5 - Revision history

Spider of Destiny at 23:36, 27 January 2025

2025-01-27T23:36:33Z

Jason.Kreitzer at 18:04, 21 October 2021

2021-10-21T18:04:35Z

Jason.Kreitzer at 20:11, 20 October 2021

2021-10-20T20:11:18Z

Jason.Kreitzer at 15:21, 19 October 2021

2021-10-19T15:21:11Z

Jason.Kreitzer at 17:16, 7 October 2021

2021-10-07T17:16:26Z

Jason.Kreitzer at 20:29, 1 October 2021

2021-10-01T20:29:04Z

Jason.Kreitzer at 15:48, 30 September 2021

2021-09-30T15:48:37Z

Jason.Kreitzer at 23:48, 11 September 2021

2021-09-11T23:48:16Z

Jason.Kreitzer at 23:25, 11 September 2021

2021-09-11T23:25:19Z

Jason.Kreitzer at 03:07, 22 July 2021

2021-07-22T03:07:19Z

@@ Line 13: / Line 13: @@
 Frank's gonna be presenting a variety of recent music, all in digital sound on a special playback system made by ''John Meyer's Sound Lab,'' and the program begins with excerpts from [[Lumpy Gravy]], remastered in digital sound, soon to be re-released in – as I understand – in a box set of records from the old days, and then there'll be excerpts from his classical pieces, works for [[Synclavier]] and orchestrations of music by his name-sake from the 18th century, [[Francesco Zappa]], who flourished in the 18th century, but who is going to flourish again in San Francisco this Sunday night.<br>
 Frank, let's talk a little bit about the program at the ''The Exploratorium.'' First of all, because a lot of people are anxious to know what exactly you're planning for the evening. Ah, how did you arrive at this selection of things? There is such a variety.<br>
-'''FZ:''' Well, that's the point, a lot of people don't know what kind of variety is available. But, ah, I think that they'll get a good whiff of that on Sunday ... and also it's sequenced to ... ah ... give people some kind of insight into how the writing for instruments other than guitar, bass and drums has progressed since the days of ''Lumpy Gravy'' ... and ... ah ... there's a lot of surprises in it, and ... should be fun to listen to. I mean, I've listened to the tapes right through just to check it out to make sure they was ok, and so ... interesting program.<br>
+'''FZ:''' Well, that's the point, a lot of people don't know what kind of variety is available. But, ah, I think that they'll get a good whiff of that on Sunday ... and also it's sequenced to ... ah ... give people some kind of insight into how the writing for instruments other than guitar, bass and drums has progressed since the days of ''[[Lumpy Gravy]]'' ... and ... ah ... there's a lot of surprises in it, and ... should be fun to listen to. I mean, I've listened to the tapes right through just to check it out to make sure they was ok, and so ... interesting program.<br>
 '''CA:''' I walked up to the ticket office where they're selling tickets the other day in Union Square and a guy said, ''"Oh yeah, well, he's not playing anything, it's just a lecture."''<br>
 '''FZ:''' He's so entirely too incorrect!<br>
@@ Line 101: / Line 101: @@
 '''FZ:''' No. The band in ... ah ... that we're taking out for the rest of this year is [[Chad Wackerman]] on drums, [[Scott Thunes]] on bass, [[Ray White]] on guitar and vocals, [[Ike Willis]] on vocals, [[Napoleon Murphy Brock]] on sax and vocals, [[Bobby Martin]] on keyboards and vocals. And we're still auditioning for another keyboard vocalist. The rehearsals start on monday.<br>
 '''CA:''' Really, right after ...<br>
-'''FZ:''' Yeah, so if, y'know, you got somebody out there who can ... ah ... play ... ah ... very proficient ... ah ... synthesizer and keyboards, and also happens to be able to sing like [[wikipedia:Frankie Valli|Frankie Valli]] ...<br>
+'''FZ:''' Yeah, so if, y'know, you got somebody out there who can ... ah ... play ... ah ... very proficient ... ah ... synthesizer and keyboards, and also happens to be able to sing like [[Frankie Valli]] ...<br>
 '''CA:''' High? [''laughs'']<br>
 '''FZ:''' Yeah, right, we need ... 'coz everybody else is singing in low, we need some more in the high vocal department. Tell 'em t' call your ... ah ... station and I'll arrange for an audition if he's really competent.<br>

@@ Line 113: / Line 113: @@
 [''both laughing'']<br>
 '''CA:''' Ah, really amazing music. It was ''Envelopes'', composed some times ago? Or is it ...<br>
-'''FZ:''' ''Envelopes'' was written in 1968 or '69 and it was originally ... we tried to record it with that band with [[Mark Volman|Mark]] and [[Howard Kaylan|Howard]] and [[George Duke]] and there ... there are still tapes from that recording session that had never been released, because they couldn't play it right. – So finally we have at least some version of it on tape.<br>
+'''FZ:''' ''Envelopes'' was written in 1968 or '69 and it was originally ... we tried to record it with that band with [[Flo & Eddie|Mark and Howard]] and [[George Duke]] and there ... there are still tapes from that recording session that had never been released, because they couldn't play it right. – So finally we have at least some version of it on tape.<br>
 There is another difference between the LSO-version and the ... ah ... Rock 'n' Roll-version. The LSO-version has completely different harmony for the melody line, which is something that you can do when you got a hundred and eleven guys sitting around: You can do strange harmony. A little bit different when you have an 8-piece band.<br>
 '''CA:''' The ... ah ... I recently heard a performance here in San Francisco of [[Amériques]] of [[Edgard Varèse|Varese]], who is one of the people you referred to in some of your writings as an influence and ... it was amazing to hear all those massed instruments, although – with all the to-do about it – it was hard to pick out the unusual wind instruments and so forth ...<br>

@@ Line 146: / Line 146: @@
 '''FZ:''' Oh, it was a musical instrument.<br>
 '''CA:''' Yeah, exactly. You're talking about your collage work with tape recorders ...<br>
-'''FZ:''' Yeah. On the [[Mystery Disc]], that's gonna be included in the first ... ah ... seven record box set of those [[The Old Masters, Box I|Old Masters]], there is a ... there's an example of one of my first collages based on material recorded the night that I took over occupancy at [[Studio Z]], my first recording studio. We had a party there with a bunch of ... ah ... strange people including [[Captain Beefheart]] and this guy named [[Bob Narciso]], who is doing [[wikipedia:Pachuco|Pachuco]] comedy about ten years before [[Tommy Chong|Cheech & Chong]], and I chopped all this conversation up and there's a part about three minutes segment of that in there.<br>
+'''FZ:''' Yeah. On the [[Mystery Disc]], that's gonna be included in the first ... ah ... seven record box set of those [[The Old Masters, Box I|Old Masters]], there is a ... there's an example of one of my first collages based on material recorded the night that I took over occupancy at [[Studio Z]], my first recording studio. We had a party there with a bunch of ... ah ... strange people including [[Captain Beefheart]] and this guy named [[Bob Narciso]], who is doing [[wikipedia:Pachuco|Pachuco]] comedy about ten years before [[Cheech & Chong]], and I chopped all this conversation up and there's a part about three minutes segment of that in there.<br>
 '''CA:''' And that was from '62 or something?<br>
 '''FZ:''' Yeah, it's about '62.<br>

@@ Line 115: / Line 115: @@
 '''FZ:''' ''Envelopes'' was written in 1968 or '69 and it was originally ... we tried to record it with that band with [[Mark Volman|Mark]] and [[Howard Kaylan|Howard]] and [[George Duke]] and there ... there are still tapes from that recording session that had never been released, because they couldn't play it right. – So finally we have at least some version of it on tape.<br>
 There is another difference between the LSO-version and the ... ah ... Rock 'n' Roll-version. The LSO-version has completely different harmony for the melody line, which is something that you can do when you got a hundred and eleven guys sitting around: You can do strange harmony. A little bit different when you have an 8-piece band.<br>
-'''CA:''' The ... ah ... I recently heard a performance here in San Francisco of [[Ameriques|Amériques]] of [[Edgard Varèse|Varese]], who is one of the people you referred to in some of your writings as an influence and ... it was amazing to hear all those massed instruments, although – with all the to-do about it – it was hard to pick out the unusual wind instruments and so forth ...<br>
+'''CA:''' The ... ah ... I recently heard a performance here in San Francisco of [[Amériques]] of [[Edgard Varèse|Varese]], who is one of the people you referred to in some of your writings as an influence and ... it was amazing to hear all those massed instruments, although – with all the to-do about it – it was hard to pick out the unusual wind instruments and so forth ...<br>
 '''FZ:''' That's a matter of the mix though ... ordinary thing loss (?)<br>
 '''CA:''' Well, probably the hall ... I was sitting in the orchestera section in Davy's hall, and just ... everything were right over my head whereas people on the balcony could really differentiate the sound a lot better, but in comparing that piece to ''[[Arcana]]'', which is written years later, it seemed like ''Arcana'' was so much more developed and so much more exciting to me ... ahm ... but Varese really had a wonderful idea with these sound clusters sort of placed against one another ... and ... ah ...<br>

@@ Line 154: / Line 154: @@
 '''CA:''' There's some stuff going on that I know I couldn't do with my stuff that I had those days, I ... it seems like you were taking some of the ... ah ... tape sounds of the voices and the ... well I guess you've speed change in them and doing some other blending with it, it sounded a little bit more ... polished, than a lot of similar work that composers I knew were doing, so ...<br>
 '''FZ:''' Well, get a good razor blade and a Roberts tape recorder and get in there and start choppin' it up. I'd ... I learned how to edit it at ''Three and Three Quarters(?).'' And if you can hit ... if you could cut dialog at ''Three and Three Quarters'' and make it sound seemless you can edit 8-mm movies.<br>
-'''CA:''' [''laughs''] Which you did, I'm sure. Ahm, if I do, I might do once again with Frank Zappa's appearing at the ''Speeking Of Music'' series at the ''Exploratorium'', actually the ''Palace of Fine Arts'' theatre next door. You can catch that Sunday night at 8 o'clock and he's gonna be playing some incredible tapes, ten or so pieces of various kinds from his symphonic music to his rock music, and also talking about his work, and [[Calvin Ahlgren]] is gonna join us, he's gonna read ''The Life of Francesco'', which is about [[wikipedia:Francesco Zappa|Francesco Zappa]], who is the real 18th century name-sake of our guest this program. Francesco Zappa wrote string trios and lived the life of an obscure Italian composer and Frank Zappa's written a marvelous [[Them Or Us (The Book)|play]] about it, which Calvin Ahlgren is going to read, so it's part of the program on Sunday night. Tickets available at the Stubs Box Office on Union Square or you can get them at the door, tickets go on sale at 6:30 Sunday night. Be early or don't be there at all, because there won't be any tickets left.<br>
+'''CA:''' [''laughs''] Which you did, I'm sure. Ahm, if I do, I might do once again with Frank Zappa's appearing at the ''Speeking Of Music'' series at the ''Exploratorium'', actually the ''Palace of Fine Arts'' theatre next door. You can catch that Sunday night at 8 o'clock and he's gonna be playing some incredible tapes, ten or so pieces of various kinds from his symphonic music to his rock music, and also talking about his work, and [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm6143175/ Calvin Ahlgren] is gonna join us, he's gonna read ''The Life of Francesco'', which is about [[wikipedia:Francesco Zappa|Francesco Zappa]], who is the real 18th century name-sake of our guest this program. Francesco Zappa wrote string trios and lived the life of an obscure Italian composer and Frank Zappa's written a marvelous [[Them Or Us (The Book)|play]] about it, which Calvin Ahlgren is going to read, so it's part of the program on Sunday night. Tickets available at the Stubs Box Office on Union Square or you can get them at the door, tickets go on sale at 6:30 Sunday night. Be early or don't be there at all, because there won't be any tickets left.<br>
 We gonna continue with a couple of selections from the [[The Man From Utopia|Man From Utopia]] album and if you haven't seen the drawing on the cover, it's worth that just for the price of the album to get the album cover, but the music is also exciting. And I, you know, you get the idea from looking at the cover that it might have been a live album. It wasn't recorded live ...<br>
 '''FZ:''' No, what the cover is commemorating, is the riot in Palermo.<br>

@@ Line 40: / Line 40: @@
 '''FZ:''' Well, that's because I respect the people in the audience who like this kind of music and I'm in, let's face it, I need all the friends I can get. So, if you can't do a good job for them, then who else are gonna do it for 'em.<br>
 '''CA:''' We're talking with Frank Zappa, who is appearing at the ''Exploratorium'' Sunday night at 8 pm, for tickets you can go to the Stubs Box Office in Union Square or there'll be a few tickets on sale at the door if you get there at ... ah ... let's say seven. ... Next due the tickets go on sale is on six thirty. This is one of the few times, that I know, that, if you've talked in front of an audience at all, you do this ... have you done this before?<br>
-'''FZ:''' Very seldom. The most recent event was the [[A Conference Of Composers|thing]] that I did at the American Society of University Composers in Columbus, Ohio, which is about five weeks ago. And I'll be making some references to that appearance. And ... ah ... maybe even read some excerpts from the speech that I gave there, because it has ... ah ... some funny lines in it that even people in San Francisco could ... identify with.<br>
+'''FZ:''' Very seldom. The most recent event was the [[A Conference Of Composers|thing]] that I did at the [https://wp.societyofcomposers.org/ American Society of University Composers] in Columbus, Ohio, which is about five weeks ago. And I'll be making some references to that appearance. And ... ah ... maybe even read some excerpts from the speech that I gave there, because it has ... ah ... some funny lines in it that even people in San Francisco could ... identify with.<br>
 '''CA:''' Ha! As I understand that you're ... couple o'years you dropped touring with a band and ... and now ... ah ... you're dropping the classical music world and going back to touring. What happened?<br>
 '''FZ:''' Well, I spent two years in the classical music world so-called, ah ... the last two years, and I met a bunch of people that I thought were really not too pleasant, and experienced some things that I thought were ... ahm ... really not too classical and not too evolved either, in fact pretty much retarded compared to the way things are in the ... ah ... crass and ignorant world of Rock 'n' Roll. I found many things in the serious music world to be even more depressing than that. And I'd already feel at home in the world of so-called serious music and the denizens that inhabit that, it's not the kind of a ... erm ... real might feel comfortable functioning in so ... after these events here on the Bay Area, which includes the stuff that's gonna happen in June, that's about it. I have no plans to ever write another piece of orchestral music in my life, and ... ah ... I have had it, that's it.<br>

@@ Line 74: / Line 74: @@
 '''CA:''' You just heard ''We Are Not Alone'' from the ''Man From Utopia'' album, Frank Zappa's music, and Frank's with us here, KPFA, to introduce some of his recordings and also talk about recent activities and upcoming events as such as tonight's concert at the Herbst Theatre, Jean-Louis LeRoux conducting his [[Dupree's Paradise]] and other works and then ... ah ... that's repeated on Saturday night. <br>
 Sunday night he's at the [[Speaking Of Music]] series at the ''Palace of Fine Arts'' Theatre at 8 pm, and ... it's gonna be interesting. Lots of recordings of recent pieces, some for Synclavier, others from the old albums and some from the [[London Symphony Orchestra (The Orchestra)|London Symphony]] sessions. And also we're gonna hear something which [[Pierre Boulez]] recently conducted in Paris, hn?<br>
-'''FZ:''' That's right, you'nna hear [[Naval Aviation In Art]], this is from an album, that's gonna be released on [[Angel Records|Angel]] in the United States.<br>
+'''FZ:''' That's right, you'nna hear [[Naval Aviation In Art]], this is from an album, that's gonna be released on [[Wikipedia:Angel Records|Angel]] in the United States.<br>
 '''CA:''' Is that your first album then for another label in long time ...<br>
 '''FZ:''' Yes, it wouldn't have been an album for another label if ... problems hadn't arisen with [[CBS Records|CBS]], who'd originally planned to record the stuff and I would 've released it on [[Barking Pumpkin Records|Barking Pumpkin]] through CBS, but what happened was, at the last minute [[EMI]] saved the day and they came in, paid for the recording sessions and so they have the rights to release it and on EMI outside the US and on Angel inside the US.<br>

@@ Line 10: / Line 10: @@
-'''Charles Amirkhanian:''' Welcome to our program with [[Biography|Frank Zappa]], who is visiting the Bay Area for performances with the [http://www.sfchamberorchestra.org/ San Francisco Chamber Orchestra] directed by [[Jean-Louis LeRoux]] on Saturday evening and also tonight, and, ah, they gonna be doing [[Dupree's Paradise]] along with the program of other classical music at the [[wikipedia:Herbst Theatre|Herbst Theatre]], then on Sunday, the main event, of course, [[Speaking Of Music]], with Frank Zappa at the ''The Exploratorium's'' program at the ''Palace Of Fine Arts'' at 8 pm.<br>
+'''Charles Amirkhanian:''' Welcome to our program with [[Biography|Frank Zappa]], who is visiting the Bay Area for performances with the [http://www.sfchamberorchestra.org/ San Francisco Chamber Orchestra] directed by [https://www.discogs.com/artist/1243510-Jean-Louis-LeRoux Jean-Louis LeRoux] on Saturday evening and also tonight, and, ah, they gonna be doing [[Dupree's Paradise]] along with the program of other classical music at the [[wikipedia:Herbst Theatre|Herbst Theatre]], then on Sunday, the main event, of course, [[Speaking Of Music]], with Frank Zappa at the ''The Exploratorium's'' program at the ''Palace Of Fine Arts'' at 8 pm.<br>
 Frank's gonna be presenting a variety of recent music, all in digital sound on a special playback system made by ''John Meyer's Sound Lab,'' and the program begins with excerpts from [[Lumpy Gravy]], remastered in digital sound, soon to be re-released in – as I understand – in a box set of records from the old days, and then there'll be excerpts from his classical pieces, works for [[Synclavier]] and orchestrations of music by his name-sake from the 18th century, [[Francesco Zappa]], who flourished in the 18th century, but who is going to flourish again in San Francisco this Sunday night.<br>
 Frank, let's talk a little bit about the program at the ''The Exploratorium.'' First of all, because a lot of people are anxious to know what exactly you're planning for the evening. Ah, how did you arrive at this selection of things? There is such a variety.<br>

@@ Line 78: / Line 78: @@
 '''FZ:''' Yes, it wouldn't have been an album for another label if ... problems hadn't arisen with [[CBS Records|CBS]], who'd originally planned to record the stuff and I would 've released it on [[Barking Pumpkin Records|Barking Pumpkin]] through CBS, but what happened was, at the last minute [[EMI]] saved the day and they came in, paid for the recording sessions and so they have the rights to release it and on EMI outside the US and on Angel inside the US.<br>
 '''CA:''' So Barking Pumpkin's not ... ah ... the records are no longer distributed through CBS?<br>
-'''FZ:''' No. Only this [[Boulez Conducts Zappa: The Perfect Stranger|Boulez album]] is going to be on ... on Angel and all the rest of the Barking Pumpkin product which is about to be released will go out through [[MCA]].<br>
+'''FZ:''' No. Only this [[Boulez Conducts Zappa: The Perfect Stranger|Boulez album]] is going to be on ... on Angel and all the rest of the Barking Pumpkin product which is about to be released will go out through [[Wikipedia:MCA Records|MCA]].<br>
 '''CA:''' How, how is it seen at now, is it all mail order from your own business or ...<br>
 '''FZ:''' 's right! It's mail order now.<br>