Zappa Books

• 7 December. "Zappa & Beefheart". A review of the album Bongo Fury, apparently written by a big Beefheart fan. Phonograph Record Magazine, November 1975.

• 5 December. British current affairs magazine Prospect, May 2021. "The importance of being absurdist: Why Frank Zappa’s music holds a lesson for all of us."

• 4 December. British academic journal Popular Music, February 2022. "‘What is music? Anything can be music’: Frank Zappa's theory of art." Indicating a more sympathetic view of popular opinion, distinct from the Adornian condemnation of mass culture with which Zappa is often attributed, this analysis of Zappa's aesthetic beliefs subsequently indicates a position sympathetic to both popular and avant-garde musics.

• 3 December. Zappa, Sting and Bono in one picture. German MusikExpress/Sounds, July 1989. An article about rock stars who have their own record label.

• 3 December. Creem, April 1979. Some photos of Zappa with a female doll and an interview with Captain Beefheart.

• 2 December. Modern Drummer, January 2002. "Joe Travers At The Center Of Zappa's Universe" by Bryan Beller.

• 27 November. Gegen Jede Schablone by Linus Hoffman, is a 90 pages larger format book in German. Published in October 2025.

• 26 November. A review of the album Läther appeared in Rolling Stone Germany in November 1996.

• 26 November. "Due to the upcoming winter, we warn all readers against eating yellow snow". Polish shortliving monthly Muza, December 2003.

• 25 November. Two Music Connection issues from 1993:
  - January 4 : Playground Psychotics (rating 4 out of 10)
  - June 21 : Z in Club Lingerie, Hollywood
  Z was Ahmet Zappa, vocals; Dweezil Zappa, guitar; Mike Keneally, guitar; Scott Thunes, bass; Joe Travers, drums.

• 24 November. US radio tip sheet magazine Walrus! Added 5 issues of the publication from 1979, which contain short summaries of the albums Sleep Dirt, Sheik Yerbouti and Joe's Garage Act I.

• 23 November. Polish Magazyn Muzyczny Jazz, May 1983. A remarkable article "From Beatlemania to Mothermania", published in an Eastern Bloc country 6 years before the fall of the Berlin Wall. "It's truly difficult to imagine what the entire genre would look like today were it not for Bob Dylan's lyrics and Frank Zappa's bold formal experiments. Sticking with The Beatles, whose work is widely considered a symbol of 1960s rock, there's no doubt that without "Like a Rolling Stone" and "Highway 61 Revisited", the songs on Revolver would have been different, and without Freak Out! there would have been no Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." (read more)

• 22 November. The continuing rise of the spotlight kid and the boys in the band. Frendz, no. 26, April 1972.

• 20 November. Two DVD reviews from British Jazzwise:
  - 2005 December : The Dub Room Special
  - 2006 March : The Band From Utopia: A Tribute To The Music Of Frank Zappa; Live In Stuttgart

• 19 November. Polish monthly magazine Rock'n'roll, July 1991. Review of the album Best Band You Never Heard In Your Life.

• 19 November. Rolling Stone India republished in April 2008 a classic Rolling Stone interview with Jerry Hopkins from 1968. This interview is worth reading again.

• 18 November. Somtrês was a Brazilian audiophile magazine whose special editions of giant posters were very popular. We included the relevant ones there.

• 18 November. Billboard announces the formation of the record label DiscReet Records, 8 September 1973.

• 17 November. Frank Zappa Cartoon by Daniel Østvold. Published in Norway at the end of October.

• 17 November. Rockdelux, March 2009. Reviews of three Zappa tribute albums. They were released by Valencia's Hall Of Fame label in their Unmatched series.

• 17 November. Two issues of Record World magazine.
  - 1976 January :  concert review "Zappa: It's Surreal Thing"
  - 1977 November : "Zappa Sues Discreet, Warners"

• 16 November. Nothing But Record Reviews was a zine issued by Mykel Board in New York in the 80s and 90s. The January 1992 issue calls for support for the election of Frank Zappa as president.

• 16 November German Stereoplay, August 2023. Funky Nothingness.

• 16 November. Variety, 20 December 1993. "Rock icon Zappa dies at age 52".

• 16 November. Finnish magazine Suosikki met with Frank Zappa after his Stockholm concert in November 1971. The king of comedy, Frank Zappa, is retiring!

• 15 November. Bomb magazine, Summer 1994. An interview with composer Joel Thome, who worked with Frank Zappa. You'll learn a lot of interesting things, like the presence of twelve-tone music in the song "Brown Shoes".

• 14 November. We are very pleased to add a new country to our database - Colombia. Music Machine Magazine was a free print publication, which issue #11 in 2011 had a nice article on FZ.

• 13 November. Lumpy Gravy reviewed by Charles Shaar Murray. NME, October 1972.

• 12 November. Some publications, however, are getting cooler and cooler. The latest Zappostrophe No. 155 from the Czechia

• 1 November. Review of the album Burnt Weeny Sandwich in the French magazine Rock & Folk, April 1970.

• 31 October. Noë the G, founding editor of Guitar World, visits Zappa and his band during rehearsals before their 1988 concert tour. Guitar World, May 1988.

• 30 October. The April/May 2018 issue of British bimonthly Rock Candy features an interview with Steve Vai, who, among other things, says this: "Frank didn’t just hear your words. He was honing in on the intent behind the words. So you had to be really careful, because he could smell shit a mile away. If anything you were saying smacked of ego or ignorance he’d really let you have it."

• 29 October. The German monthly magazine Eclipsed published two stories in two consecutive issues:
  - 2011 February : Frank Zappa, brain teasers for posterity
  - 2011 March : Captain Beefheart, the zigzag bluesman

• 27 October. Not very often, Billy Joel and Frank Zappa in one picture. Circus, January 1986. 

• 26 October. German Drums & Percussion, September/October 2021. Zappa '88 - The Last U.S. Show. Musik - five stars, drumming - five stars.

• 12 October. Guitar World, November 1989. Broadway The Hard Way. Not since 1979's Sheik Yerbouti has a Zappa album been this crisp, musical, or fun. (read more)

• 11 October. The Arf-Dossier Vol.125, September 2025. Andrew Greenaway's essay about Diva Zappa, Zappanale 34 feedback, pictures, album reviews etc.

• 10 October. Hot Rats review in France's leading music magazine Rock & Folk, January 1970. "This album also confirms a cruelly ignored truth: that Zappa is not just a brilliant conductor, but an instrumentalist with a fertile imagination."

• 8 October. Jazzwise, the biggest UK jazz monthly, published an excellent review of The Hot Rats Sessions in March 2020. "A movie for your ears, a soundtrack for your soul, an experience from another time: oh boy, how much do we need a Zappa for our times."

• 7 October. American music magazine Blender, August 2005. Cillian Murphy talks about Zappa and Hot Rats.

• 5 October. Classic Rock Italia, July 2017. A short review of the album You Are What You Is that ends with the words: "Who knows what would happen to Trump – a symbol of Reaganite hedonism, with a very 1984 twist – in an FZ track today."

• 3 October. "Hubba! Hubba! More Zappa Krappa!" comics by The Mad Peck & Robot A. Hull in Creem, December 1979.

• 2 October. Andrew Greenaway's ebook Frank Zappa FUQ Vol.4 has been published. "Another set of excellent tributes, facts and interviews with Cynthia Plaster Caster, Kris Peterson, Kim Fowley, Johnny 'Guitar' Watson, Ian Underwood and Ed Mann."

• 2 October. Rolling Stone, German edition, had in January 1995 a review of Civilization, Phaze III. Not too optimistic, only two and a half stars.

• 1 October. Zappa Plays Zappa/Hagstrom ad in Guitar World, September 2008.

• 3 September. Two books have been reviewed in Blender magazine.
  - August 2002 : Dangerous Kitchen by Kevin Courrier
  - December 2002 : Bat Chain Puller by Kurt Loder

• 2 September. You Are What You Is reviewed in German Sounds, November 1981.

• 1 September. Californian The Rock-N-Roll News, September 1976. Zappa complains about the company S.I.R. that stores his tour equipment.