Pulse Interview - Revision history

Jason.Kreitzer at 03:26, 13 July 2025

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Jason.Kreitzer at 21:15, 30 November 2021

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2021-10-03T04:58:19Z

Jason.Kreitzer at 18:57, 2 October 2021

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Jason.Kreitzer at 15:04, 4 August 2021

2021-08-04T15:04:39Z

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Spider of Destiny at 07:11, 14 November 2020

2020-11-14T07:11:56Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 03:26, 13 July 2025
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 "I never had any intention of writing rock music," says Zappa. "I always wanted to compose more serious music and have it be performed in concert halls, but I knew no one would play it. So I figured that if anyone was ever going to hear anything I composed, I'd have to get a band together and play rock music. That's how I got started."
-If ever a long-term plan paid off, it has to have been Zappa's – his list of official accolades and honors seems limitless: Renowned conductor [[Kent Nagano]] calls him a genius. Zappa won a Grammy in 1987 for his Synclavier-driven [[Jazz From Hell]] album, and he was chosen to play [[John Cage]]'s controversial and perhaps most famous piece 4'33" for the upcoming various-artists Cage tribute album, [[A Chance Operation]]. His works have been performed by a number of esteemed 20th century ensembles; [[Pierre Boulez]] commissioned him to score a symphonic work which resulted in [[Boulez Conducts Zappa: The Perfect Stranger]] album; the European contemporary music group [[Ensemble Modern]] commissioned him to put together a concert's worth of his orchestral works for the Frankfurt Festival last year; and in February, the prestigious Lincoln Center in New York City presented an evening of Zappa's serious music in its Great Performers series. Even [[The Simpsons]]' creator [[Matt Groening]] is on record as saying, "Frank is my Elvis."
+If ever a long-term plan paid off, it has to have been Zappa's – his list of official accolades and honors seems limitless: Renowned conductor [[Kent Nagano]] calls him a genius. Zappa won a Grammy in 1987 for his Synclavier-driven [[Jazz From Hell]] album, and he was chosen to play [[John Cage]]'s controversial and perhaps most famous piece 4'33" for the upcoming various-artists Cage tribute album, [[A Chance Operation - The John Cage Tribute|A Chance Operation]]. His works have been performed by a number of esteemed 20th century ensembles; [[Pierre Boulez]] commissioned him to score a symphonic work which resulted in [[Boulez Conducts Zappa: The Perfect Stranger]] album; the European contemporary music group [[Ensemble Modern]] commissioned him to put together a concert's worth of his orchestral works for the Frankfurt Festival last year; and in February, the prestigious Lincoln Center in New York City presented an evening of Zappa's serious music in its Great Performers series. Even [[The Simpsons]]' creator [[Matt Groening]] is on record as saying, "Frank is my Elvis."
 Not bad for a guy who began his musical career as a drummer in a San Diego r&b group called the Ramblers in 1956 ("I played one or two gigs with them, but I wasn't very good so they fired me"), recorded parody and instrumental doo-wop tunes in Cucamonga, California and leased them to record companies like Original Sound in Los Angeles in the early '60s, and led the charge into the experimental and distinctly weird rock music of the late '60s with his seminal band of renegades and freaks, the inimitable [[The Mothers|Mothers of Invention]]. His formative years as a musician came during his high-school days at Antelope Valley High in Lancaster, a remote Mohave Desert town in California that he refers to as a cultural wasteland. A fan of r&ampb singles and composer Edgar Varèse's innovative and dissonant early-20th-century classical music, Zappa was a drummer in the school band where he was even allowed to do a bit of composing and conducting. But that's also where he began to suspect that he was destined t o live a life deviating from the norms of Americana. "I had no outlet in music then to express my discontent. So my aggravation with the way things were festered throughout my high-school years. The only reason I got training as a musician was because the school needed a marching band at its football games. It was just another tool to support the sports program. I never did enjoy sports. So I looked at all that and thought that there certainly must be more worthwhile educational investments besides new helmets. That really got me thinking – how can you take any of this seriously?"

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 Of all the collaborations and bizarre tours he went on, which performances from his huge catalog is he most proud of? "I enjoy listening to some recordings more than I do others," he says. "I can't stand to hear some of my classic albums because I remember the horrible conditions under which they were recorded. It hurts to listen to them. But what I like the best doesn't depend so much on the quality of the composition as it does on the memories of how much fun they were to record. I'm especially thinking of some of the live shows with the 1984 band that were recorded in the [[You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore Sampler|You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore]] series. We had a lot of laughs. For example, one night in Seattle, in the middle of the show (guitarist) [[Ike Willis]] started to do an imitation of the Lone Ranger, blurting out, '[[Hi-ho, Silver! Away!|Hi, ho, Silver!]]" I still don't know why it happened, but I cracked up every time he did it. It must have been road fatigue. He'd keep yelling in the most inappropriate places. The whole show was riddled with bad Lone Ranger jokes and me not being able to sing the right words. I enjoyed that night.
-"Zappa continued touring until 1988, when his road band self-destructed before the tour reached most of the planned U.S. dates. The tour, captured on the excellent [[The Best Band You Never Heard In Your Life]] double CD, could have been the last time Zappa played guitar in concert. Nowadays, Zappa hardly plays his guitars (he cites lack of motivation), which is surprising given his prowess on the instrument and the fact that he released several impressive guitar albums, including the twin-CD [[Shut Up 'N Play Yer Guitar]]. A guitar hero who rarely if ever recorded a cliched riff, he learned to play as a kid by swiping blues licks from r&b greats like [[Guitar Slim]], [[Johnny "Guitar" Watson]] (who worked with Zappa in the mid '70s) and [[Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown]].
+"Zappa continued touring until 1988, when his road band self-destructed before the tour reached most of the planned U.S. dates. The tour, captured on the excellent [[The Best Band You Never Heard In Your Life]] double CD, could have been the last time Zappa played guitar in concert. Nowadays, Zappa hardly plays his guitars (he cites lack of motivation), which is surprising given his prowess on the instrument and the fact that he released several impressive guitar albums, including the twin-CD [[Shut Up 'n Play Yer Guitar|Shut Up 'N Play Yer Guitar]]. A guitar hero who rarely if ever recorded a cliched riff, he learned to play as a kid by swiping blues licks from r&b greats like [[Guitar Slim]], [[Johnny "Guitar" Watson]] (who worked with Zappa in the mid '70s) and [[Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown]].
 But Zappa – who has been fascinated with and influenced by such classical composers as [[Igor Stravinsky]], [[Edgard Varèse|Varèse]], [[Pierre Boulez|Boulez]] and [[John Cage]], in addition to having his bands perform arrangements of pieces by [[Béla Bartók|Bartok]], [[Maurice Ravel|Ravel]], [[Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky|Tchaikovsky]] and [[Igor Stravinsky|Stravinsky]] – hastens to note that these days he mostly writes orchestral compositions on his [[Synclavier]] 9600, the high-tech digital keyboard and sampling computer that's plugged into his home studio, the [[Utility Muffin Research Kitchen]]. That's where Zappa's newest soon-to-be-released gem of an album of his dissonant, whimsical and haunting orchestral works, [[The Yellow Shark]], was conceived. Performed in concert by the 25-member European contemporary classical music group [[Ensemble Modern]], The Yellow Shark is a suite-like collection of new arrangements of such classic Zappa pieces as "[[Dog Breath|Dog Breath Variations]]" and "[[Be-Bop Tango]]" and such new works commissioned for the project as "[[Get Whitey]]" and "[[None Of The Above]]." EM and its conductor [[Peter Rundel]] spent two week s in 1991 in Los Angeles at Zappa's Joe's Garage studio rehearsing the difficult pieces and then spent another two weeks supervised by the perfectionist composer last summer in preparation for the series of eight concerts in Frankfurt, Berlin and Vienna. The album represents the best performances of each piece from the different concert venues.

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 When Czech playwright/former president [[Václav Havel]] wanted to make Zappa Czechoslovakia's special ambassador to the West on trade, culture and tourism, the composer reluctantly yielded to Bush administration pressure to ditch the idea.
-"Although I resent government," Zappa says, "I can't imagine an effectively functioning society without some machinery to make it work, even if it's incompetent machinery – because the species hasn't evolved to the point where it can take care of itself. So I'm what I call a practical conservative, which means smaller government and lower taxes. What do you call a system that seeks a bigger government and more taxes? Insanity."In many ways Zappa could be a model figure for the rugged individualist of American myth. "... It's not completely true," says Zappa. "I have lots of people helping me to call the shots." Yet in his pre-Mothers' days, he owned his own recording studio, [[Studio Z]], which was where the surf hit "[[Wipe Out]]" was recorded. In 1989, his biography, authorized to be written by [[Peter Occhiogrosso]], was transformed into the compelling and hilarious autobiography [[The Real Frank Zappa Book]] after the subject found Occhiogrosso's style flat and lacking Zappaesque flair. Today, Zappa, who has released well over 50 albums, maintains his own publishing rights, records on his own [[Barking Pumpkin Records|Barking Pumpkin]] label, runs a mail order and merchandising company called Barfko-Swill and operates the [[Honker Home Video]] arm of the Zappa empire. He has a CD re-release deal with [[Rykodisc]], as well as the six-volume series [[You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore]] (double CDs) for Ryko, and has thwarted the efforts of bootleggers by authorizing [[Rhino Records]] to release two series of Zappa-approved bootlegs. he maintains his own hotline message, 818-PUMPKIN, to keep his fans up to date.
+"Although I resent government," Zappa says, "I can't imagine an effectively functioning society without some machinery to make it work, even if it's incompetent machinery – because the species hasn't evolved to the point where it can take care of itself. So I'm what I call a practical conservative, which means smaller government and lower taxes. What do you call a system that seeks a bigger government and more taxes? Insanity."In many ways Zappa could be a model figure for the rugged individualist of American myth. "... It's not completely true," says Zappa. "I have lots of people helping me to call the shots." Yet in his pre-Mothers' days, he owned his own recording studio, [[Studio Z]], which was where the surf hit "[[Wipe Out]]" was recorded. In 1989, his biography, authorized to be written by [[Peter Occhiogrosso]], was transformed into the compelling and hilarious autobiography [[The Real Frank Zappa Book]] after the subject found Occhiogrosso's style flat and lacking Zappaesque flair. Today, Zappa, who has released well over 50 albums, maintains his own publishing rights, records on his own [[Barking Pumpkin Records|Barking Pumpkin]] label, runs a mail order and merchandising company called Barfko-Swill and operates the [[Honker Home Video]] arm of the Zappa empire. He has a CD re-release deal with [[Rykodisc]], as well as the six-volume series [[You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore|You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore]] (double CDs) for Ryko, and has thwarted the efforts of bootleggers by authorizing [[Rhino Records]] to release two series of Zappa-approved bootlegs. he maintains his own hotline message, 818-PUMPKIN, to keep his fans up to date.
 Zappa also exercises strict control over performances of his orchestral material. "You'd be surprised at how many orchestras and chamber groups all over the world play my music every year. I get requests for scores all the time. But I won't grant a permission if I feel there's not enough money budgeted for proper rehearsal time. I'd rather not have the music played that have it performed in a sloppy way." Any unusual requests? Zappa laughs and says it happens all the time. "The most recent was from the President's own US. Marine Corps Band in Fairfax, Virginia. They want to play '[[Dog Breath|Dog Breath Variations]].' It seems a couple of gunnery sergeants in the ensemble are fans. So we sent them the music. Then there's one from a young filmmaker in upstate New York who wants to use "[[Elvis Has Just Left The Building]]" from the [[Broadway The Hard Way]] album to conclude a mock documentary he's making of current Elvis sightings.

@@ Line 72: / Line 72: @@
 When Czech playwright/former president [[Václav Havel]] wanted to make Zappa Czechoslovakia's special ambassador to the West on trade, culture and tourism, the composer reluctantly yielded to Bush administration pressure to ditch the idea.
-"Although I resent government," Zappa says, "I can't imagine an effectively functioning society without some machinery to make it work, even if it's incompetent machinery – because the species hasn't evolved to the point where it can take care of itself. So I'm what I call a practical conservative, which means smaller government and lower taxes. What do you call a system that seeks a bigger government and more taxes? Insanity."In many ways Zappa could be a model figure for the rugged individualist of American myth. "... It's not completely true," says Zappa. "I have lots of people helping me to call the shots." Yet in his pre-Mothers' days, he owned his own recording studio, [[Studio Z]], which was where the surf hit "[[Wipe Out]]" was recorded. In 1989, his biography, authorized to be written by [[Peter Occhiogrosso]], was transformed into the compelling and hilarious autobiography [[The Real Frank Zappa Book]] after the subject found Occhiogrosso's style flat and lacking Zappaesque flair. Today, Zappa, who has released well over 50 albums, maintains his own publishing rights, records on his own [[Barking Pumpkin]] label, runs a mail order and merchandising company called Barfko-Swill and operates the [[Honker Home Video]] arm of the Zappa empire. He has a CD re-release deal with [[Rykodisc]], as well as the six-volume series [[You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore]] (double CDs) for Ryko, and has thwarted the efforts of bootleggers by authorizing [[Rhino Records]] to release two series of Zappa-approved bootlegs. he maintains his own hotline message, 818-PUMPKIN, to keep his fans up to date.
+"Although I resent government," Zappa says, "I can't imagine an effectively functioning society without some machinery to make it work, even if it's incompetent machinery – because the species hasn't evolved to the point where it can take care of itself. So I'm what I call a practical conservative, which means smaller government and lower taxes. What do you call a system that seeks a bigger government and more taxes? Insanity."In many ways Zappa could be a model figure for the rugged individualist of American myth. "... It's not completely true," says Zappa. "I have lots of people helping me to call the shots." Yet in his pre-Mothers' days, he owned his own recording studio, [[Studio Z]], which was where the surf hit "[[Wipe Out]]" was recorded. In 1989, his biography, authorized to be written by [[Peter Occhiogrosso]], was transformed into the compelling and hilarious autobiography [[The Real Frank Zappa Book]] after the subject found Occhiogrosso's style flat and lacking Zappaesque flair. Today, Zappa, who has released well over 50 albums, maintains his own publishing rights, records on his own [[Barking Pumpkin Records|Barking Pumpkin]] label, runs a mail order and merchandising company called Barfko-Swill and operates the [[Honker Home Video]] arm of the Zappa empire. He has a CD re-release deal with [[Rykodisc]], as well as the six-volume series [[You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore]] (double CDs) for Ryko, and has thwarted the efforts of bootleggers by authorizing [[Rhino Records]] to release two series of Zappa-approved bootlegs. he maintains his own hotline message, 818-PUMPKIN, to keep his fans up to date.
 Zappa also exercises strict control over performances of his orchestral material. "You'd be surprised at how many orchestras and chamber groups all over the world play my music every year. I get requests for scores all the time. But I won't grant a permission if I feel there's not enough money budgeted for proper rehearsal time. I'd rather not have the music played that have it performed in a sloppy way." Any unusual requests? Zappa laughs and says it happens all the time. "The most recent was from the President's own US. Marine Corps Band in Fairfax, Virginia. They want to play '[[Dog Breath|Dog Breath Variations]].' It seems a couple of gunnery sergeants in the ensemble are fans. So we sent them the music. Then there's one from a young filmmaker in upstate New York who wants to use "[[Elvis Has Just Left The Building]]" from the [[Broadway The Hard Way]] album to conclude a mock documentary he's making of current Elvis sightings.

@@ Line 50: / Line 50: @@
 So what is the creative process of Zappa the punster, the satirist, the humorist? He hearkens back to the old days when he was doing a lot of lyric writing: "I'd write lyrics when I was travelling. I was on a flight back from Germany when I came up with the idea for the song '[[Dumb All Over]]'. I scrawled out three pages' worth of ideas on the plane. I couldn't wait to get into the studio to record it. The reverse of that happened with '[[Inca Roads]].' I came up with the melody first. I took it as a challenge to find words to go with it. A lot of songs may start with one or two words. You hear a funny expression and away you go. Some lyrics were based on folklore from the band when we were touring. '[[Punky's Whips]]' is an example of an absurd situation that happened to be a true story. All I had to do was find some musical way to dramatize it."Zappa's career catapulted in the mid '60s as a result of his wildly experimental and unpredictable band the Mothers of Invention. On Mother's Day, 1964, the name "the Mothers" was coined. The group had evolved from a bar band called the Soul Giants that had recruited Zappa as a substitute guitarist after their regular guitarist got into a fistfight with another band member. Soon after, Zappa pushed for playing original material, and the rest was outlandishly weird music history. Early Mothers-inspired "freak outs" in Los Angeles made the local authorities nervous, so Zappa and crew headed to New York in 1967. There they worked the Garrick Theater on Bleeker Street as an improv house band, performing experimental music with satirical and impromptu slapstick for several months with special sit-in guests, including Jimi Hendrix on one occasion.
-Returning to Los Angeles the following year, Zappa and the Mothers formed the nucleus of a musical community that [[Pamela Des Barres]] of the Zappa-discovered [[GTO's]] (Girls Together Outrageously) recalled in the liner notes to Rhino's promotional Bizarre/Straight sampler, Zapped: "Somehow in some mysterious and mystical way, a little crack formed in the Americana prefab facade that allow true, far-fetched inspiration to peek, sneak, leak through for an infinitesimal period of time; a drop in the bucket that made a might splash. I am proud and honored to have been a part of the streaming baptism of lunacy that attempted to shake, rattle and roll the fictitious foundation of normalcy." Zappa gathered as many bizarre acts as he could find and formed his own record companies (Bizarre, Straight) with the help of his then-manager Herb Cohen. Among the Zappa proteges were [[Tim Buckley]], [[Tom Waits]], The GTO's ([[Jeff Beck]] and Rod Stewart performed without credit on their Zappa-produced debut), [[Alice Cooper]] (Zappa is said to have encouraged Cooper to dress in women's clothes) and Zappa's high school friend, Don Van Vliet, aka the great [[Captain Beefheart]]. Beefheart, who Zappa remembers in the early days as carrying his worldly possessions – his art, poetry books and a soprano sax – around in a shopping bag, recorded his dada-esque masterpiece [[Trout Mask Replica]] for [[Straight Records|Straight]] in 1969. Produced by Zappa as an anthropological field recording in Beefheart's house, the album was deemed the year's "most unusual and challenging musical experience" by rock writer Lester Bangs. After a few days of using a portable taping system that recorded the different instruments in various room sin the house, Zappa compiled with Van Vliet's paranoid demands that the rest of the sessions take place in a real studio, where all his vocals were captured.In addition to Beefheart, Zappa has worked with a wildly diverse crew of artists, ranging from [[L. Shankar]] and [[John Lennon]] and [[Yoko Ono]].
+Returning to Los Angeles the following year, Zappa and the Mothers formed the nucleus of a musical community that [[Pamela Miller|Pamela Des Barres]] of the Zappa-discovered [[GTO's]] (Girls Together Outrageously) recalled in the liner notes to Rhino's promotional Bizarre/Straight sampler, Zapped: "Somehow in some mysterious and mystical way, a little crack formed in the Americana prefab facade that allow true, far-fetched inspiration to peek, sneak, leak through for an infinitesimal period of time; a drop in the bucket that made a might splash. I am proud and honored to have been a part of the streaming baptism of lunacy that attempted to shake, rattle and roll the fictitious foundation of normalcy." Zappa gathered as many bizarre acts as he could find and formed his own record companies (Bizarre, Straight) with the help of his then-manager Herb Cohen. Among the Zappa proteges were [[Tim Buckley]], [[Tom Waits]], The GTO's ([[Jeff Beck]] and Rod Stewart performed without credit on their Zappa-produced debut), [[Alice Cooper]] (Zappa is said to have encouraged Cooper to dress in women's clothes) and Zappa's high school friend, Don Van Vliet, aka the great [[Captain Beefheart]]. Beefheart, who Zappa remembers in the early days as carrying his worldly possessions – his art, poetry books and a soprano sax – around in a shopping bag, recorded his dada-esque masterpiece [[Trout Mask Replica]] for [[Straight Records|Straight]] in 1969. Produced by Zappa as an anthropological field recording in Beefheart's house, the album was deemed the year's "most unusual and challenging musical experience" by rock writer Lester Bangs. After a few days of using a portable taping system that recorded the different instruments in various room sin the house, Zappa compiled with Van Vliet's paranoid demands that the rest of the sessions take place in a real studio, where all his vocals were captured.In addition to Beefheart, Zappa has worked with a wildly diverse crew of artists, ranging from [[L. Shankar]] and [[John Lennon]] and [[Yoko Ono]].
 Of all the collaborations and bizarre tours he went on, which performances from his huge catalog is he most proud of? "I enjoy listening to some recordings more than I do others," he says. "I can't stand to hear some of my classic albums because I remember the horrible conditions under which they were recorded. It hurts to listen to them. But what I like the best doesn't depend so much on the quality of the composition as it does on the memories of how much fun they were to record. I'm especially thinking of some of the live shows with the 1984 band that were recorded in the [[You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore Sampler|You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore]] series. We had a lot of laughs. For example, one night in Seattle, in the middle of the show (guitarist) [[Ike Willis]] started to do an imitation of the Lone Ranger, blurting out, '[[Hi-ho, Silver! Away!|Hi, ho, Silver!]]" I still don't know why it happened, but I cracked up every time he did it. It must have been road fatigue. He'd keep yelling in the most inappropriate places. The whole show was riddled with bad Lone Ranger jokes and me not being able to sing the right words. I enjoyed that night.

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 "Zappa continued touring until 1988, when his road band self-destructed before the tour reached most of the planned U.S. dates. The tour, captured on the excellent [[The Best Band You Never Heard In Your Life]] double CD, could have been the last time Zappa played guitar in concert. Nowadays, Zappa hardly plays his guitars (he cites lack of motivation), which is surprising given his prowess on the instrument and the fact that he released several impressive guitar albums, including the twin-CD [[Shut Up 'N Play Yer Guitar]]. A guitar hero who rarely if ever recorded a cliched riff, he learned to play as a kid by swiping blues licks from r&b greats like [[Guitar Slim]], [[Johnny "Guitar" Watson]] (who worked with Zappa in the mid '70s) and [[Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown]].
-But Zappa – who has been fascinated with and influenced by such classical composers as [[Igor Stravinsky]], [[Edgar Varèse|Varèse]], [[Pierre Boulez|Boulez]] and [[John Cage]], in addition to having his bands perform arrangements of pieces by [[Béla Bartók|Bartok]], [[Maurice Ravel|Ravel]], [[Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky|Tchaikovsky]] and [[Igor Stravinsky|Stravinsky]] – hastens to note that these days he mostly writes orchestral compositions on his [[Synclavier]] 9600, the high-tech digital keyboard and sampling computer that's plugged into his home studio, the [[Utility Muffin Research Kitchen]]. That's where Zappa's newest soon-to-be-released gem of an album of his dissonant, whimsical and haunting orchestral works, [[The Yellow Shark]], was conceived. Performed in concert by the 25-member European contemporary classical music group [[Ensemble Modern]], The Yellow Shark is a suite-like collection of new arrangements of such classic Zappa pieces as "[[Dog Breath|Dog Breath Variations]]" and "[[Be-Bop Tango]]" and such new works commissioned for the project as "[[Get Whitey]]" and "[[None Of The Above]]." EM and its conductor [[Peter Rundel]] spent two week s in 1991 in Los Angeles at Zappa's Joe's Garage studio rehearsing the difficult pieces and then spent another two weeks supervised by the perfectionist composer last summer in preparation for the series of eight concerts in Frankfurt, Berlin and Vienna. The album represents the best performances of each piece from the different concert venues.
+But Zappa – who has been fascinated with and influenced by such classical composers as [[Igor Stravinsky]], [[Edgard Varèse|Varèse]], [[Pierre Boulez|Boulez]] and [[John Cage]], in addition to having his bands perform arrangements of pieces by [[Béla Bartók|Bartok]], [[Maurice Ravel|Ravel]], [[Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky|Tchaikovsky]] and [[Igor Stravinsky|Stravinsky]] – hastens to note that these days he mostly writes orchestral compositions on his [[Synclavier]] 9600, the high-tech digital keyboard and sampling computer that's plugged into his home studio, the [[Utility Muffin Research Kitchen]]. That's where Zappa's newest soon-to-be-released gem of an album of his dissonant, whimsical and haunting orchestral works, [[The Yellow Shark]], was conceived. Performed in concert by the 25-member European contemporary classical music group [[Ensemble Modern]], The Yellow Shark is a suite-like collection of new arrangements of such classic Zappa pieces as "[[Dog Breath|Dog Breath Variations]]" and "[[Be-Bop Tango]]" and such new works commissioned for the project as "[[Get Whitey]]" and "[[None Of The Above]]." EM and its conductor [[Peter Rundel]] spent two week s in 1991 in Los Angeles at Zappa's Joe's Garage studio rehearsing the difficult pieces and then spent another two weeks supervised by the perfectionist composer last summer in preparation for the series of eight concerts in Frankfurt, Berlin and Vienna. The album represents the best performances of each piece from the different concert venues.
 Zappa, who conducted the whirlwind "[[G-Spot Tornado]]" on opening night, is pleased with the results, but notes, "I was only able to attend the first and third performances in Frankfurt. I got sick and had to fly home. If I hadn't been sick, the experience would have been exhilarating. Unfortunately, I felt so excruciatingly shitty that it was hard to walk, to just get up onto the stage, to sit, to stand up. You can't enjoy yourself when you're sick, no matter how enthusiastic the audience."
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 Zappa also exercises strict control over performances of his orchestral material. "You'd be surprised at how many orchestras and chamber groups all over the world play my music every year. I get requests for scores all the time. But I won't grant a permission if I feel there's not enough money budgeted for proper rehearsal time. I'd rather not have the music played that have it performed in a sloppy way." Any unusual requests? Zappa laughs and says it happens all the time. "The most recent was from the President's own US. Marine Corps Band in Fairfax, Virginia. They want to play '[[Dog Breath|Dog Breath Variations]].' It seems a couple of gunnery sergeants in the ensemble are fans. So we sent them the music. Then there's one from a young filmmaker in upstate New York who wants to use "[[Elvis Has Just Left The Building]]" from the [[Broadway The Hard Way]] album to conclude a mock documentary he's making of current Elvis sightings.
-As for future projects, Zappa's slate is full. He continues to dig into his audio archives to issue old material. Just released as the [[Ahead Of Their Time]] CD of a 1968 Mothers concert in London, where 14 members of the BBC Symphony joined the group to provide the Zappa-composed musical accompaniment to a play the band members acted out. Next year Zappa promises another CD of unreleased studio cuts called [[The Lost Episodes]]. Then there's a CD of music for modern dance called [[Dance Me This]] that he's working on. But what Zappa is most excited about are a couple of projects [[Andreas Mölich-Zebhauser]], business manager for [[Ensemble Modern]], talked about during a visit just a couple of days earlier. "Andreas told me about an interview [[Edgar Varèse|Edgar Varèse]] gave once where he envisioned a film to accompany his piece '[[Déserts|Desert]].' I had never heard of that before. Varese said that the images didn't need to relate to the music. Well, the Ensemble is booked for a concert in Cologne, Germany on May 27, 1994. Andreas thought of the extensive data bank of video images I've collected and got the idea to commission me to do a 22-minute film. The other project we discussed was for May 1995 when the Ensemble would perform an evening dedicated to my theatrical works like "[[Billy The Mountain]]" and "[[Brown Shoes Don't Make It]]" arranged for classical ensemble. I think it will make for an entertaining evening and an entertaining CD." After talking for 90 minutes, Zappa answers a final question: Given that his music over the span of nearly 30 years has remained fresh, relevant, challenging and on-the-fringe, to what does he owe his career longevity? Opinionated on so many other subjects, Zappa displays a rare moment of humility. "I don't know how it's happened. How have I survived? I guess by word of mouth, but I don't know. I got lucky."
+As for future projects, Zappa's slate is full. He continues to dig into his audio archives to issue old material. Just released as the [[Ahead Of Their Time]] CD of a 1968 Mothers concert in London, where 14 members of the BBC Symphony joined the group to provide the Zappa-composed musical accompaniment to a play the band members acted out. Next year Zappa promises another CD of unreleased studio cuts called [[The Lost Episodes]]. Then there's a CD of music for modern dance called [[Dance Me This]] that he's working on. But what Zappa is most excited about are a couple of projects [[Andreas Mölich-Zebhauser]], business manager for [[Ensemble Modern]], talked about during a visit just a couple of days earlier. "Andreas told me about an interview [[Edgard Varèse|Edgar Varèse]] gave once where he envisioned a film to accompany his piece '[[Déserts|Desert]].' I had never heard of that before. Varese said that the images didn't need to relate to the music. Well, the Ensemble is booked for a concert in Cologne, Germany on May 27, 1994. Andreas thought of the extensive data bank of video images I've collected and got the idea to commission me to do a 22-minute film. The other project we discussed was for May 1995 when the Ensemble would perform an evening dedicated to my theatrical works like "[[Billy The Mountain]]" and "[[Brown Shoes Don't Make It]]" arranged for classical ensemble. I think it will make for an entertaining evening and an entertaining CD." After talking for 90 minutes, Zappa answers a final question: Given that his music over the span of nearly 30 years has remained fresh, relevant, challenging and on-the-fringe, to what does he owe his career longevity? Opinionated on so many other subjects, Zappa displays a rare moment of humility. "I don't know how it's happened. How have I survived? I guess by word of mouth, but I don't know. I got lucky."
 [[Category:Interviews with Zappa]]
 [[Category:1993]]

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 Zappa, who conducted the whirlwind "[[G-Spot Tornado]]" on opening night, is pleased with the results, but notes, "I was only able to attend the first and third performances in Frankfurt. I got sick and had to fly home. If I hadn't been sick, the experience would have been exhilarating. Unfortunately, I felt so excruciatingly shitty that it was hard to walk, to just get up onto the stage, to sit, to stand up. You can't enjoy yourself when you're sick, no matter how enthusiastic the audience."
-The public response to and concern about the composer's health problems have been overwhelming. Even [[PMRC]] head [[Tipper Gore]], who was at the helm of the late-'80s warning-sticker movement that Zappa so vehemently opposed, contacted him when she hear he had cancer. Zappa says, "The media likes to give the illusion that Tipper Gore and I are mortal enemies. That's not a fact. She sent me a sweet letter when she heard I was sick, and I appreciate that."
+The public response to and concern about the composer's health problems have been overwhelming. Even [[Parents Music Resource Center|PMRC]] head [[Tipper Gore]], who was at the helm of the late-'80s warning-sticker movement that Zappa so vehemently opposed, contacted him when she hear he had cancer. Zappa says, "The media likes to give the illusion that Tipper Gore and I are mortal enemies. That's not a fact. She sent me a sweet letter when she heard I was sick, and I appreciate that."
 When asked what he thinks of a recent article that quoted a friend of his saying, "[Frank's] just not going to be bothered by something as stupid as cancer," he pauses, then soberly responds, "Well that's pretty fucking optimistic. Let me tell you. Cancer can bother you. It can just bother you to death. I'm fighting for my life. So far I'm winning." He laughs, then continues, "I've already beaten the odds. When the cancer was first diagnosed, the doctors didn't give me too long to go. But I've surprised everybody by sticking around this long."

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 th-century popular music's philosopher-king (or its [[wikipedia:Harvey Kurtzman|Harvey Kurtzman]]) has inspired independence movements in Eastern Europe and lampooned stupidity in the west. Now he faces his most serious challenge.
-It's April, and Los Angeles is nervously awaiting the outcome of the second Rodney King beating trial. A car heads toward [[Frank Zappa]]'s Laurel Canyon home blaring the song "[[Trouble Every Day]]" from the first [[The Mothers|Mothers of Invention]] album, [[Freak Out!]] Written by Zappa in '65, while the [[wikipedia:Watts Riots|Watts riots]] were escalating out of control, the song is eerily appropriate nearly 30 years later, when the city is once again bracing for the worst. With wailing harmonica and turmoiled bass in the background, the lyrics ominously and prophetically tumble out,
+It's April, and Los Angeles is nervously awaiting the outcome of the second Rodney King beating trial. A car heads toward [[Biography|Frank Zappa]]'s Laurel Canyon home blaring the song "[[Trouble Every Day]]" from the first [[The Mothers|Mothers of Invention]] album, [[Freak Out!]] Written by Zappa in '65, while the [[wikipedia:Watts Riots|Watts riots]] were escalating out of control, the song is eerily appropriate nearly 30 years later, when the city is once again bracing for the worst. With wailing harmonica and turmoiled bass in the background, the lyrics ominously and prophetically tumble out,
 <blockquote>"It's the same across the nation<br>
 Black and white discrimination<br>

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