FZ – WLIR Interview, Ritz, November 17th, 1981
By Ben Manilla
Mother People, #5, February 1982
In an interview made by Ben Manilla of WLIR after the Ritz (New York) show of
11/17 (around the same time as the John Swenson Guitar World interview) FZ
enlightened the listening audience to some of the evils of the radio/record
industries, as well as views on obscenity, religion, touring, Al Di Meola and
other subjects. The interview was broadcast sometime later. Upfront were some
comments on the Ritz show and of Steve Vai, Zappa said, "He's probably the only guitar player I've met that likes what I do enough to incorporate it into his
own work in an intelligent way."
About Al Di Meola he said that he had never heard him play before. "The only
thing I heard was Warren Cuccurullo's imitation of the way he plays where he
mutes all the notes and just goes whipping up and down the aeolian mode until
your blue in the face." The song written that afternoon of the show, using the
Al Di Meola Secret Chord Progression which is E major, F major, G major, F major,
E major and variations thereof, inserted in the middle, and it came out good.
Of new material Z said that before going on this tour "we did a lot of material
in the studio. I've probably got 5 sides of material already recorded and we've
been recording everything on this tour with my brand new 24-track remote truck." After mention of the home studio, the remote studio, Barking Pumpkin records, Frank commented, "I have an album which is really brilliant which only 2 radio
stations in the United States will play (WLIR & one in Hartford, Connecticut) – You Are What You Is is a total turkey and it's really a good record."
After asking why the Tinsel Town LP wasn't played in L.A.: "Let me tell you
something about the business – maybe you know this already – I'll tell you guys about it. Payola is back! Just like 1950's. When you get the single with the hundred dollar bill stuffed in the sleeve – today it's worse. This is actual cash exchanged in order for people to play records on the radio. You give them money,
you give them quantities of cocaine, and if you don't, you don't get your record
played. And I'm not doin' it." "...but I'm not buyin' anybody any presents, I'm
not sticking things up their nose and I'm not bending over. And if my career
disappears, well tuff tuccas – but I don't like doing business that other way
and I don't want to participate in it."
On obscenity: "You shouldn't use the word obscenity as applied to the stuff that I
do because there is no obscene content. I use beautiful, efficient English
language words that get the point across in a hurry. I talk about things that
other people ignore and sometimes that scares people, but it's not dirty, nor is
there such a thing as a dirty word. And I believe this and I stress this all the
time. There is no word that you can say, nor is there any noise that will come
out of your mouth that is so powerful that it is gonna send the listener to the
Lake Of Fire as soon as they hear it. That kinda stuff is total baloney. And the
myth of obscenity is a myth that is perpetuated in order to keep a censorship
mechanism in place, because as long as there can be censorship for one thing or
another, as long as they can convince somebody that you need to have a watchdog
to keep the dirty words off the air, then some watchdog agency will be able to
keep political ideas that are undesirable or any other kind of social ideas that
are undesirable off the airwaves and that's the real basis for perpetuating
myths of obscenity and all that kind of stuff and I try to attack it as often as
I can."
About 'sticking it' to religion: "The biggest stumbling blocks that
we face in the world today, and it has nothing to do with God, it has to do with
the way that the religion industry is operated. It's designed to keep people
submissive and stupid, and to take their money and to put that money into real
estate. That's the religion business and that's what I hate."
Back to the music 'biz – how it was in the old days, and how it is now: "All
decisions about who gets signed and what happens to the record are made by these
drooling, little, mid-range accountants. And everything is based on the numbers
game in there – and the tastes of the accountants is really what is ruling the
mass media." "It's easier to look like a wise executive by saying no to
something, even if it's just the most minutialy fringoid in terms of content.
Everybody must sound like Pat Benatar, REO Speedwagon, Journey or Foreigner if
it's going to be on the radio today.
"And that's all they wanna sign – is things derived from these molds.
About CBS/Barking Pumpkin: "CBS as a record company didn't want to
sign us directly as an artist because we weren't fashionable enough. We worked out
a deal with them where I supply the music and all they do is
press it and ship it. And it's a one album deal. I don't think they're going to be interested in
anything else after the results of this thing."
The options; no great dilemma: The worst that can happen is that nobody in the
United States will release my records and I'll still be selling records overseas
and it will come in as an import." Whether this would be fair to the fans: "What
can I say? I can't do anything more than that. If somebody doesn't provide me
with the financing to make records, or the vehicle by which to ship them into a store, with some access to airtime
so that people know that they exist, well what am I supposed to do? Go to
everybody's house and whistle it in their ear?"
About the tour: Hartford, Montreal, New York & Chicago were cited as
successful/responsive dates, with some others 'dedicated, small pockets of
resistance', but don't sell as many tickets. The net income was in question and
if there is not enough money in the bank to pay the expenses of a large scale
tour, there will be none next year.
About radio: "I don't think that the people that consume music via radio are aware of what the problem in radio is today, when 150 of the stations that
really matter are controlled TOTALLY by 5 companies who program them. And we've
run into situations where, the best example was, Tucson, Arizona. I flew in from
Las Vegas on my night off to go to a radio station to be a disc jockey, at their
invitation, on the station that was co-sponsoring the concert. I got there, I
asked them if they had my record, they said they did, it had just been sent in.
I put it on – I was playing it,
said hello I was a disc jockey – blah, blah, blah,
the regular guy was sitting right there – soon
as I played my record the phone rang from the program director – said 'don't let him play it!' and I said 'what is this? Your gonna have me on here and I can't
play my own record?' I said 'forget
it' and walked off. And this station was co-sponsoring the concert. They took the
money from the promoter for the advertising time – wouldn't play the record
because they were formatted by the Abrahms chain. This station used to have a
record library of 2000 albums. As soon as they became a formatted station they
threw away 1500 – and in that 1500 were all of my albums. And that's the way it
is. A hundred and fifty stations that really matter, programmed by 5 companies
that tell them precisely what to play
and nobody plays anything other than that on the station – no matter what –
that's called 'freeze dried radio'. Your looking at a situation where for the
rest of your life your going to hear the same 10 songs over and over again until
your blue in the face. And that's what happens. I'm not part of that ecological
chain."
Read by OCR software. If you spot errors, let me know afka (at) afka.net
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