When Captain Beefheart recorded his vocal for Zappas Willie The Pimp at the Hot Rats sessions, Miles was there. (read more)

Source: Fulvio Fiore

HAVING, IT SEEMS, PLAYED HIS last guitar solo, Frank Zappa has retuned to his initial goal: making his mark as a classical composer. After lacklustre LSO sessions and stiffnecked renditions by Pierre Boulez, he has now found musicians who sound like they were born to tackle his complex, modernistic miniatures with fluency and finesse. (read more)

Source: Fulvio Fiore

The Last Days Of Frank Zappa:

It’s rare that any musicians who’ve worked with you do any better when they’re out on their own. If your musicians solo they do so at the peek of their intensity - how do you stop them coasting? Is it a matter of giving them instructions, or just the challenge of the musical environment they’re given?

I don’t understand the question.

Your musicians always play – it seems to me – at the peak of what they’re capable of doing. One of the things I really like about your records is that if there’s a solo people don’t noodle, they don’t coast – they really play hard.

Yeah.

Is that because of whet you tell them before they play? Or is it simply the challenge of the music?

The reason is that I tell them before they ploy and because all the live stuff is edited, so l look for the best work that each musician can do, It’s not just a matter of cloying something together, I try and make the performance of each tune exemplary in some way. So I’m not just optimising what I write, I’m optimising what they improvise. (read more)

Source: zappateers

Review of The Negative Dialectics Of Poodle Play by Ben Watson.

Source: Fulvio Fiore

Full-page drawing on page 103 is by Knopov.

Some albums in this list:

• #89 Hot Rats, p 55
• #64 Clear Spot, p 64
• #55 We're Only In It For The Money, pp 66-67
• #28 Trout Mask Replica, p 76

And of course the cover featuring among other musicians Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart and Zoot Horn Rollo.

Source: Fulvio Fiore

No Zappa content inside

Review of Electric Don Quixote by Neil Slaven. Plus some Zappa-related snippets on pages 40 and 60.

AFTER THE ONSLAUGHT of Rykodisc’s complete remastered Zappa catalogue comes a mail order item “for all of Frank’s fans”, compiled by his son Dweezil. Six of its seven tracks consist of previously unissued live performances and the studio versions ofwhat Frank regarded as his “signature pieces” – those that best displayed his abilities as guitarist and composer. They are: Black Napkins, Zoot Allures and the majestic Watermelon In Easter Hay. Live versions predating their studio realisation have been deliberately chosen to show the creative distance each travelled before achieving Frank‘s approval. The ‘bonus track’, Merely A Blues In A, is a concert encore that repays a debt to Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson.

Source: Fulvio Fiore

Review of No Commercial Potential by David Walley.

In November 1967, a bunch of freaks purchased KPPC in Pasadena from the Presbyterian Church. The station itself was situated underneath the church. On Thursday November 27, 1968, two days before Thanksgiving weekend, Frank dropped by to talk about his forthcoming Ruben and The Jets album, play some old records, send up the station's ads and generally have a ball with DJ Les Carter, host of KPPC's 5-8 pm slot. (read more)

Source: slime.oofytv.set

It’s 1968, at the Laurel Canyon Country Store in the Hollywood hills. Drummer Ansley Dunbar meets a 15-year-old hippie chick named Pattie and asks if she wants to go to a party at Frank Zappa's house. (read more)

"Piece of Cake: 20 Years of Ryko"

The Last Post:

Let’s move on. You seem to be moving away from music and into the world of politics and finance. How do you view the business world?
“Hmmm... I think business is a good thing. Generals could learn a lot from corporate executives. The first rule is, you don’t kill your customers. If there is going to be a World War III then the major weapon is going to be the cash register and not nuclear missiles. People have to think about the business. They have to. I’ve never been shy about saying I was a businessman, even in the ‘60s. It was the last thing in the world that anybody would want to say. I prefer to be able to earn money from what I do rather than take a part-time job in order to afford the pleasure of being a musician. I would rather scale my operation to a size where it can finance itself. And I think that today that there are a lot of people in rock’n’roll who are getting that idea. It’s not bad to look after your own interest.” (read more)

As a teenager John Frusciante made tapes of Zappa's guitar solos and learnt the lot. He also compiled a CD of his fave FZ moments for Rykodisc which has yet to be released. The story of his audition for Frank's band can be found on page 74. Meanwhile here, the nine-minute Son Of Mr Green Genes sees Zappa extending himself into jazz rock territory to fine and fearsome fusionistic effect. 

Some albums from this list you may know:

#49 An Evening With Wild Man Fischer - Wild Man Fischer
#38 Starsailor - Tim Buckley
#23 Lumpy Gravy - Frank Zappa
#1 Trout Mask Replica - Captain Beefheart

Source: Fulvio Fiore

Pimp My Ride
ZAPPA, JOHNNY CASH, PINK FLOYD AND MORE STAR IN THE ROCK PHOTOGRAPHY OF BARON WOLMAN. BY CLIVE PRIOR

AT THE time we were working, we were pretty much alone in the profession," muses Baron Wolman, who between 1967-70 was the main photographer for Rolling Stone magazine. "Now the field is flooded with shooters and their images, the profession is less honoured, and the fun is gone."

Next month a new Wolman exhibition at London's Blink Gallery aims to recall those times. Photos of Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, Johnny Cash, Janis Joplin, Sun Ra, Mick Jagger, Joni Mitchcll, B.B. King and more will be seen, as will this impromptu shot of Frank Zappa messing about on a bulldozer: "We had complete access," adds Wolman, who is president of photography publishers Squarebooks. "We could go backstage, we could go on-stage – in the wings, of course – we could go right up to the front of the stage!"

Another salute to Zappa comes in the form the bottled beer, Lagunitas Freak Out! Ale. Its label is the cover of the 1966 Freak Out!. SoCal bewers Lagunitas will mark other Zappa LP anniversaries with Absolutely Free, Lumpy Gravy and Hot Rats ales.

Behind the CAMERA

Frank Zappa on a bulldozer, Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles, from the cover shoot of the May 1968 Rolling Stone. By Baron Wolman.

Baron Wolman: "Up the hill and behind Zappa's rented house, there was this collection of rusty earth-moving equipment. We just walked over to the machines and he started goofing around and I started shooting photos. It was one of those wonderfully spontaneous photo moments, relaxed and informal and fun – his 'outside the box' behaviour was infectious. We took pictures for about half an hour, before the interview, which was rare. Seldom did I have the subject alone for so long in advance of the sit-down. Though truthfully, his music was pretty much an unknown to me."

Source: Fulvio Fiore

Additionally on p 115 is a review on album Philly '76 and on p 123 review on DVD The Freak Out List. In this issue is also an article on Little Feat/Lowell George on pp 68-75.

I was working with my trio with [violinist] Jean-Luc Ponty in a small rock club in Los Angeles called Thee Experience on Sunset Boulevard, and Frank Zappa came in. (read more)

"The passing of Captain Beefheart on December 17, 2010, robbed music of one of its most unique, mischievous and singular voice. MOJO's 10-page tribute sees his biographer Mike Barnes speak to his associates and salute the man and his myth. Elsewhere. Mark Paytress assesses his key recordings (page 69), P.J. Harvey discusses his impact and friendship (page 67), David Fricke remembers his many encounters with the man (page 68) and Jack White III provides his own epitaph (page 73), as we bid farewell to the artist born Don Van Vliet ..."

Andrew Male speaks to Art Kane's son, Jonathan, about the vision and invention of a great American artist.

Jonathan Kane: "This is possibly my favourite of all images from LIFE Magazine's 'The New Rock' essay, it's so full of life, love and humour. I was there, at age 11, arriving just after the shooting wrapped. Frank Zappa met me at the door of dad's studio with a hug and said, 'Hey man, you should have been here an hour ago, the babies were pissing all over us, we got soaked man!' Twenty-five years later I was playing on a bill with Mothers Of Invention drummer Jimmy Carl Black. At the soundcheck I told Jimmy how Zappa and the band were all so nice to me as a young kid. He replied: 'Why do you think they called us The Mothers, man?'"

See also garylucas.com.

In this issue Frank Zappa was mentioned several times:

• p 9, Ian Anderson declares, that his all-time favourite album is Over-Nite Sensation,
• p 18, Pink Floyd and Frank Zappa at Amougies Festival, 1969, are included into playlist,
• pp 40, 41, Mike Nesmith in his interviews mentions Frank Zappa,
• p 50, picture of Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart, as a part of article on photographer Alec Byrne.

Twenty-five years since his death, an extraordinary unpublished interview with the ailing Frank Zappa is an ornery blast of the fourth MOJO cover star’s unique voice – on music, politics, stupidity, pornography, Anglophobia and more. (read more)

Source: issuu

Source: issuu

Fifty years on from Trout Mask Replica - the weird album's weird album - MOJO finds its cast nearly recovered: "There was so much hell emotionally."

Source: Vitaly Zaremba

The Hot Rats Sessions review and short interviews with Ian Underwood and Ahmet Zappa.

Source: Vitaly Zaremba

Under the off-colour 'folklore' and mind-blowing polyrhythms, what made rock's ultimate refusenik tick? Mark Paytress asks family and bandmates.

Paul Weller was usually on the cover of this publication. But there is another version for collectors with the Frank Zappa cover.

Large format (double A4) wall calendar. Illustrated with 12 covers (one per month) of selected Mojo back issues. March month cover - March 1994 with Frank Zappa.

Source: Fulvio Fiore 

Alex Winter-directed profile of the most singular artist and social provocateur.

After serving in Frank Zappa's Mothers Of Invention, Lowell George - an all-rounder and prime mover from Hollywood - resolved to sample every flavour in the roots songbook.

Page 39, article on Deep Purple:
Whatever happened to Zdenek Spicka? Deep Purple don't know, even though he helped inspire their greatest hit. On December 4, 1971, Spicka, a 21-year-old Czech living in Switzerland, attended a Frank Zappa And The Mothers Of Invention show at the Montreux Casino. Spicka was carrying a flare gun of the kind used to signal distress at sea. During Zappa's song King Kong, Spicka fired the weapon in the air. Its flare ignited the ceiling tiles, setting the whole wooden building ablaze.
"It was a raging inferno," remembers eyewitness and Deep Purple vocalist Ian Gillan. Luckily, Zappa, his Mothers and the audience escaped death or serious injury. A warrant was issued for Spicka's arrest, but he fled Switzerland and was never found.

Frank Zappa is also namechecked on page 122 in article on Grand Funk Railroad.

Zappa is namechecked in article on Monkees, page 72.

Book by Co de Kloet reviewed. 

50th anniversary box-set celebration of Zappa’s jazzer-most period. In December 1971 Frank Zappa was pushed off stage by a fan at London’s Rainbow Theatre, landing in the orchestra pit 10-feet below, left unconscious and with a broken leg. Convalescing back in LA, he wheeled himself into Paramount Studios for sessions that would yield two crucial albums, Waka/Jawaka (his intended sequel to 1969’s Hot Rats) and epic Miles-inspired fusion The Grand Wazoo. Both LPs are remastered from original tapes and are included here in Blu-Ray audio with Atmos and 5.1 options, along with 30 unreleased tracks presented in chronological order across a further four CDs. Two discs provide moments of real revelation and unbridled intoxication: the first features keyboard player George Duke’s super-soulful demos/alt-takes recorded in parallel at Paramount (FZ produces and plays guitar), the second contains the final bow of Zappa’s Petite Wazoo band at San Francisco’s Winterland Ballroom in December ’72. Awreetus-awrightus, as the man himself would say.

On page 20 is Adrian Belew featured.