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 1969
March 3
No. 81 Vol. 60
Frank Zappa
By John Lannan, 3 pp
Frank Zappa is probably less of a disappointment to his parents and the grammar
school teacher somewhere, whose favorite he once was, than he is to the love
generation which enthusiastically consumes his music.
Frank writes and arranges most of the music played by his group, the Mothers of
Invention. It is the loud, seemingly unstructured kind of rock that is the
principal art form of the psychedelic subculture. To the unattuned ear it is
weird, grating and distasteful. But then Zappa does not write for the general
public, nor do the Mothers play for it.
The Mothers of Invention are everything a rock group should be. They scream and
gyrate and spew four-letter words. Their
songs abound with sexual reference, they wear tight pants and beads and have
long hair. They look like they smell bad. Even the most enlightened parent must
secretly cringe.
But Frank Zappa is not everything a rock musician should be,
particularly one who is known for packing more shock value than
most. Zappa is a letdown for the public which wants to be appalled
by the freak whose mind has been rendered useless by several
thousand LSD trips.
You expect Zappa to be way
gut, to mumble meaningless things about 'peace and "love," to say "wow" and
address his listeners as "baby." Rock musicians are as predictable as John Wayne
dialogue: they're always stoned. Everyone knows that.
So, when Zappa appears, as he did here last week at the Festival of the Arts,
you feel a little cheated because he does not have glassy eyes and does not
advocate overthrowing the government. (read more)
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