The Mother of All Interviews (Part 1) - Revision history

Spider of Destiny at 18:11, 15 August 2026

2026-08-15T18:11:39Z

Spider of Destiny at 16:35, 15 August 2026

2026-08-15T16:35:24Z

Spider of Destiny at 22:02, 6 August 2026

2026-08-06T22:02:57Z

Spider of Destiny at 20:58, 1 August 2026

2026-08-01T20:58:46Z

Spider of Destiny at 17:05, 5 July 2026

2026-07-05T17:05:04Z

Spider of Destiny at 16:46, 23 May 2026

2026-05-23T16:46:04Z

Jason.Kreitzer at 14:42, 5 November 2021

2021-11-05T14:42:26Z

Jason.Kreitzer at 13:31, 1 October 2021

2021-10-01T13:31:25Z

Jason.Kreitzer at 05:49, 5 September 2021

2021-09-05T05:49:47Z

Jason.Kreitzer at 20:40, 3 September 2021

2021-09-03T20:40:41Z

@@ Line 209: / Line 209: @@
 Okay. Well, thanks to democracy, we now have a freely elected Fascist government in the United States, elected by just plain folks – same people you graduated from high school with.
-'''How big is the work that you're composing for the Frankfurt Festival? Is it several little pieces?<br>
+'''How big is the work that you're composing for the [[Frankfurt]] Festival? Is it several little pieces?<br>
-They asked for 20 minutes of music to be divided into four or five sections, but it's not just the one piece, because what I've designed is a whole evening's worth of entertainment, including some older pieces that have been re-orchestrated for this particular group, and pieces from the [[Synclavier]]. For the concerts, we will be joined onstage by a Canadian dance troupe called La La La Human Steps. They're quite unbelievable. The other thing that's going to be interesting about the presentation is the six-channel P.A. system. I don't think anybody's ever heard anything quite like this in a live situation. It's set up with a stereo pair in the front, a stereo pair in the middle, and a stereo pair in the rear.
+They asked for 20 minutes of music to be divided into four or five sections, but it's not just the one piece, because what I've designed is a whole evening's worth of entertainment, including some older pieces that have been re-orchestrated for this particular group, and pieces from the [[Synclavier]]. For the concerts, we will be joined onstage by a Canadian dance troupe called [[La La La Human Steps]]. They're quite unbelievable. The other thing that's going to be interesting about the presentation is the six-channel P.A. system. I don't think anybody's ever heard anything quite like this in a live situation. It's set up with a stereo pair in the front, a stereo pair in the middle, and a stereo pair in the rear.
 '''That concept is really going to change sound a lot.<br>
@@ Line 218: / Line 218: @@
 Yeah. Considering the sophistication of today's audio consumer, once you get to the point that you like the sound of CDs and vinyl is an aberration, then you're ready to go the next step, which is to have an audio environment rather than just music-minus-tape-hiss. This is never going to be something for people's homes, because most people don't live in places where you can install this without starting a civil war with either your parents or your neighbors. There are already people banging on the walls if you play your hi-fi too loud with two speakers. What the fuck are they going to do if someone installs one of these?<br>
 What I would like to see happen with it is to have concert halls designed to accommodate performance of six-channel playback, whether it's a six-channel miked ensemble, or pre-recorded material in six-channel. But to have some kind of an installation where people can come and hear it. It could even be like a coffeehouse-type thing, where you have a conversation while surrounded by a composition. That might be a nice environment. That's feasible. I understand that in [[Japan]], at a Kyoto exposition, they had a multi-channel playback system. But it opens up the possibility of special suites in hotels or, if you can imagine, an audio spa.<br>
-The potential of it reminds me of an historic place in [[Vienna]] called the Havelka. It's a coffee shop that has been there since Schubert, I guess, and the main entertainment is newspapers on a stick, and a little classical music in the background, and every known form of coffee and Viennese crullers – little pastry things with some powdered sugar sprinkled on top. This place is so bizarre, because there's not that much conversation, just people reading newspapers on a stick. It's owned by this old woman named Mrs. Havelka, who's been running it since birth, I think, and the walls are covered with things from famous composers and authors who paid their bill by writing "graphic currency." Vienna's funny that way. Apparently [[Richard Wagner|Wagner]] stayed at the Hotel Imperial one time, and to pay his bill he handed over some pages from ''Parsifal'' that are still on the wall in the coffee shop.<br>
+The potential of it reminds me of an historic place in [[Vienna]] called the Havelka. It's a coffee shop that has been there since [[Franz Schubert|Schubert]], I guess, and the main entertainment is newspapers on a stick, and a little classical music in the background, and every known form of coffee and Viennese crullers – little pastry things with some powdered sugar sprinkled on top. This place is so bizarre, because there's not that much conversation, just people reading newspapers on a stick. It's owned by this old woman named Mrs. Havelka, who's been running it since birth, I think, and the walls are covered with things from famous composers and authors who paid their bill by writing "graphic currency." Vienna's funny that way. Apparently [[Richard Wagner|Wagner]] stayed at the Hotel Imperial one time, and to pay his bill he handed over some pages from ''Parsifal'' that are still on the wall in the coffee shop.<br>
-The guy who was the promoter for the first [[The Mothers|Mothers Of Invention]] concert in Vienna was this guy named [https://www.stimmenderwelt.de/ueber_uns.php Joachim Lieben] – otherwise known as Joey Love, the guy with the perpetual ski tan. Joey was not only the only rock and roll promoter in town, he was also on the board of directors of [music publisher] Universal Editions. For me, going to Vienna was like [''dramatically''] "12-Tone Country." A music store in Vienna means there are scores in the window, and I was out of my mind! You can walk down the street, and suddenly here's a little shop with Webern scores in the window. So Joey was the guy who took us over there, because he was split between two worlds. He was bringing in rock groups but at the same time promoting classical concerts, and on the board of this modern music publishing concern.
+The guy who was the promoter for the first [[The Mothers|Mothers Of Invention]] concert in Vienna was this guy named [https://www.stimmenderwelt.de/ueber_uns.php Joachim Lieben] – otherwise known as Joey Love, the guy with the perpetual ski tan. Joey was not only the only rock and roll promoter in town, he was also on the board of directors of [music publisher] Universal Editions. For me, going to Vienna was like [''dramatically''] "12-Tone Country." A music store in Vienna means there are scores in the window, and I was out of my mind! You can walk down the street, and suddenly here's a little shop with [[Anton Webern|Webern]] scores in the window. So Joey was the guy who took us over there, because he was split between two worlds. He was bringing in rock groups but at the same time promoting classical concerts, and on the board of this modern music publishing concern.
 '''Will he be involved in the concerts in September?<br>
-No, the promoter in September – this group has been in existence for ten years, and the guy who did the most to organize and put them on the map was Karsten Witt. He had a real talent for organization and helped them make a deal to get an industrial building on the outskirts of Frankfurt, which is their permanent laboratory. It's fantastic what they've done to it: triple-walled rehearsal studios, a climate-controlled basement full of percussion equipment of every description, a massive collection of really good professional equipment, individual rehearsal halls, a small auditorium for press conferences and recitals on the ground floor. The third-floor offices are all modern office equipment and communications, and the top floor is a concert hall with a 20-foot ceiling with windows that look out over Frankfurt on the top of this industrial building out in cement-plant country, and that's their facility. Anyway, Karsten helped them put this together. When the project first began Karsten was about to turn over the reins to [[Andreas Mölich-Zebhauser]], who's the director now, because Karsten got the job of being the director of the Vienna Festwochen. So when he went to Vienna part of his concert schedule for 1992 was to bring in the [[Ensemble Modern|Ensemble]] with my project.
+No, the promoter in September – this group has been in existence for ten years, and the guy who did the most to organize and put them on the map was Karsten Witt. He had a real talent for organization and helped them make a deal to get an industrial building on the outskirts of [[Frankfurt]], which is their permanent laboratory. It's fantastic what they've done to it: triple-walled rehearsal studios, a climate-controlled basement full of percussion equipment of every description, a massive collection of really good professional equipment, individual rehearsal halls, a small auditorium for press conferences and recitals on the ground floor. The third-floor offices are all modern office equipment and communications, and the top floor is a concert hall with a 20-foot ceiling with windows that look out over Frankfurt on the top of this industrial building out in cement-plant country, and that's their facility. Anyway, Karsten helped them put this together. When the project first began Karsten was about to turn over the reins to [[Andreas Mölich-Zebhauser]], who's the director now, because Karsten got the job of being the director of the Vienna Festwochen. So when he went to Vienna part of his concert schedule for 1992 was to bring in the [[Ensemble Modern|Ensemble]] with my project.
 '''A building like that must be very expensive. They must be well funded.<br>
@@ Line 228: / Line 228: @@
 '''They must be really pulling people in to survive on concert revenues.<br>
-If they do 2,000 people a night, it's a major turnout. I think for modern music, even though it's supported more in Europe than it is here, still if you get more than 500 people at a concert you're doing something special, because there are just too many other things to attract the concert dollar. But this year's budget for the Frankfurt Festival, which is the overall umbrella in which this event is occurring, I think is $6.7 million for the month. And for that amount they have to mount all these concerts for [[John Cage|Cage]], Stockhausen, my stuff, and I think Knaifel. It's a week for each composer, and it coincides with what would have been Cage's 80th birthday.
+If they do 2,000 people a night, it's a major turnout. I think for modern music, even though it's supported more in Europe than it is here, still if you get more than 500 people at a concert you're doing something special, because there are just too many other things to attract the concert dollar. But this year's budget for the Frankfurt Festival, which is the overall umbrella in which this event is occurring, I think is $6.7 million for the month. And for that amount they have to mount all these concerts for [[John Cage|Cage]], [[Karlheinz Stockhausen|Stockhausen]], my stuff, and I think Knaifel. It's a week for each composer, and it coincides with what would have been Cage's 80th birthday.
 '''There's no American city that would ever raise six million dollars for something like this.<br>

@@ Line 231: / Line 231: @@
 '''There's no American city that would ever raise six million dollars for something like this.<br>
-Yeah, and you also have to realize that during this same period of time many other German cities have their own fucking festival going on with equal budgets. Cologne's probably got something just as big and just as elaborate. Berlin has something simultaneously. In fact, one of the orchestras in Berlin is playing my music at the same time. Also during that week in Frankfurt, the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie is playing "[[Bogus Pomp]]" after the Ensemble dates.
+Yeah, and you also have to realize that during this same period of time many other German cities have their own fucking festival going on with equal budgets. [[Cologne]]'s probably got something just as big and just as elaborate. Berlin has something simultaneously. In fact, one of the orchestras in Berlin is playing my music at the same time. Also during that week in Frankfurt, the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie is playing "[[Bogus Pomp]]" after the Ensemble dates.
 '''The series of concerts will be a gratifying honor. Are you looking forward to it, or dreading it?<br>
@@ Line 237: / Line 237: @@
 '''Do you have to pay for a lot of this?<br>
-No. As a matter of fact, for the first time in history, ladies and gentlemen, they have paid me. And they've paid me enough money that I have been able to work on this thing for about a year. But that's just for delivering to them notes on paper. The problems arise when you start trying to figure out how to make the thing sound the way it's supposed to sound in these environments and pick it up and move it to two other locations. Andreas Mölich-Zebhauser, the director of the Ensemble, has been going around Europe trying to find the extra financing to make all this happen. And if he does not succeed in doing that, we'll have to find some kind of a Plan B. [''Ed. Note: According to our sources at Barking Pumpkin, Plan A was enacted, thanks to the Alte Oper and Siemens Cultural Program, among other funding sources.'']
+No. As a matter of fact, for the first time in history, ladies and gentlemen, they have paid me. And they've paid me enough money that I have been able to work on this thing for about a year. But that's just for delivering to them notes on paper. The problems arise when you start trying to figure out how to make the thing sound the way it's supposed to sound in these environments and pick it up and move it to two other locations. [[Andreas Mölich-Zebhauser]], the director of the Ensemble, has been going around Europe trying to find the extra financing to make all this happen. And if he does not succeed in doing that, we'll have to find some kind of a Plan B. [''Ed. Note: According to our sources at Barking Pumpkin, Plan A was enacted, thanks to the Alte Oper and Siemens Cultural Program, among other funding sources.'']
 '''How much impact do daily events, small or large, have on your work as an artist?<br>

@@ Line 188: / Line 188: @@
 '''What do you think happened in this country?<br>
-Well, two important things, and each one of them has only three letters: One was LSD, a chemical which is capable of turning a hippie into a yuppie, one of the most dangerous chemicals known to mankind. And the other is [[M.B.A.|MBA]]. When people started taking MBA seriously, that was the beginning of the ruination of the American industrial society. When all decisions are based on an MBA's concept of numerical reality, you're in deep shit, because the only thing that can be judged as real is that which can be proved by a column of figures. And when all aesthetic decisions are turned over to these kinds of people, who use these criteria to make steering decisions for a company with no regard for people and no regard for what the product really is, and the only thing that matters is maximizing your profit, you have a problem. Because you can't have quality then; you cannot have excellence. Quality's expensive. I think most of these people that come from business schools have the desire to make sure everything is cheesy. That's what happens when you do things that way.
+Well, two important things, and each one of them has only three letters: One was LSD, a chemical which is capable of turning a hippie into a [[Yuppies|yuppie]], one of the most dangerous chemicals known to mankind. And the other is [[M.B.A.|MBA]]. When people started taking MBA seriously, that was the beginning of the ruination of the American industrial society. When all decisions are based on an MBA's concept of numerical reality, you're in deep shit, because the only thing that can be judged as real is that which can be proved by a column of figures. And when all aesthetic decisions are turned over to these kinds of people, who use these criteria to make steering decisions for a company with no regard for people and no regard for what the product really is, and the only thing that matters is maximizing your profit, you have a problem. Because you can't have quality then; you cannot have excellence. Quality's expensive. I think most of these people that come from business schools have the desire to make sure everything is cheesy. That's what happens when you do things that way.
 '''Do you think this problem permeates all establishments?<br>

@@ Line 328: / Line 328: @@
 '''Tell us about your phone call to [[Edgard Varèse]].<br>
-I had received for my 15th birthday $5, and – although I had never made a long-distance call before – I thought that maybe for $5 I could make a call to that mysterious place Greenwich Village, to call Varèse. And my mother said okay. And he wasn't there. He was in Brussels getting the "[[Poème Electronique|Poem Electronique]]" ready for the World's Fair. But I did speak with his wife. And I've spoken to her a couple of times on the phone.
+I had received for my 15th birthday $5, and – although I had never made a long-distance call before – I thought that maybe for $5 I could make a call to that mysterious place [[Greenwich Village]], to call Varèse. And my mother said okay. And he wasn't there. He was in Brussels getting the "[[Poème Electronique|Poem Electronique]]" ready for the World's Fair. But I did speak with his wife. And I've spoken to her a couple of times on the phone.
 '''Did you learn anything that was important to you, other than just to make the call?<br>

← Older revision		Revision as of 17:05, 5 July 2026
Line 541:		Line 541:

	Go to: [[The Mother Of All Interviews (Part 2)]]		Go to: [[The Mother Of All Interviews (Part 2)]]
		+
	[[Category:Interviews with Zappa\|Mother of All Interviews (Part 1)]]		[[Category:Interviews with Zappa\|Mother of All Interviews (Part 1)]]
		+	[[Category:1992\|Mother of All Interviews (Part 1)]]

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 [[Image:Gary_Panter.jpg|frame|Illustration by [[Gary Panter]]]]
 '''The Mother of All Interviews (Part 1)<br>
-By Don Menn<br>
+By [[Don Menn]]<br>
 From ''A Definitive Tribute to [[Biography|Frank Zappa]]'' (Best of Guitar Player, 1994)

@@ Line 254: / Line 254: @@
 I don't think that the guitar superhero mentality is an evil unto itself. We have to go back to the real evil, the MBA mentality, because this phenomenon could not proliferate if it weren't being manufactured, widely distributed, and supported by enormous industrial forces. Otherwise it would be just laughable. You can't look at something like that, which on its face is truly laughable, and laugh at it when so many people with so much money are taking it so seriously. And that's the message that goes out to the next generation of "guitar heroes." In a way, it's like the message in those ads which you'll see if you ever watch television during the daytime to find out what women get to see for commercials. In the middle of the Sally Jessie Raphael show, there are all these commercials for lawyers who will be happy to sue your employer because you felt stress. Have you ever seen these things? One commercial shows a happy couple – you – on the bow of a yacht clinking champagne glasses together because you had the wisdom and fortitude to dial this number and sue your employer because you experienced stress.
-'''In the "Guitar Clone" article you did for [[Guitar Player]], you stated that the entire population, even guitar players, "has been transmuted into a reasonably well-groomed, odor-free consumer amoeba that is kept alive only to service manufacturers and lives its life by the motto: biggest, fastest, loudest, mostest, and best." What a motto. What's a motto that you wish we could substitute?<br>
+'''In the "Guitar Clone" article you did for [[Guitar Player Magazine|Guitar Player]], you stated that the entire population, even guitar players, "has been transmuted into a reasonably well-groomed, odor-free consumer amoeba that is kept alive only to service manufacturers and lives its life by the motto: biggest, fastest, loudest, mostest, and best." What a motto. What's a motto that you wish we could substitute?<br>
 I think we should avoid mottos. Mottos are what you're left with when society becomes freeze-dried. If you can reduce everything to a motto, you're in deep shit. I mean, that's the message. We are in deep shit. And it's getting deeper, and nobody wants to bail it.

@@ Line 150: / Line 150: @@
 All those things can be harmful to a young person's mind. In states like Kansas, you probably get the death penalty for distributing a record like that.
-'''In medieval time, playing a third was ''verboten'' because it was considered too beautiful, and people concluded that it therefore came from the devil. And then later playing a tritone was also ruled ''verboten'' because it heralded the coming of the devil. And even in the South, when [[Robert Johnson]] whanged away on his acoustic guitar, the blues was synonymous with "holding hands with the devil." What is there about music that people consider so scary?<br>
+'''In medieval time, playing a third was ''verboten'' because it was considered too beautiful, and people concluded that it therefore came from the devil. And then later playing a tritone was also ruled ''verboten'' because it heralded the coming of the devil. And even in the South, when [[Wikipedia:Robert Johnson|Robert Johnson]] whanged away on his acoustic guitar, the blues was synonymous with "holding hands with the devil." What is there about music that people consider so scary?<br>
 You have to remember who's writing about it. The real question is, if a person must write about music, why must he often mention the devil in the same context?