"I like to make instant music; I never know exactly what's going on to happen on stage, but believe me, what ever it is, we'll find a way to put it into the music. But most of it is going right over their heads. I talk to a lot of them afterwards, and I know what they see. I know what they hear. it bears very little resemblance to what we do. Audiences are all different, and they're all the same. They don't hear music. They're not trained to hear music. They're trained to be entertained. They come to see a show. The visual aspect of what we do is more accessible to that audience than the audio aspect. Of course it's much better now than earlier; and we're getting through to more people than before, but we've been doing this for five years. We're just now beginning to see it happen. Some of the people in the audience are listening to the music rather than waiting for weird lyrics, or waiting for some kind of bullshit to happen ..." (read more)

Source: zappateers

Round table with John Kay, Country Joe McDonald, Phil Ochs, Frank Zappa. (read more)

Source: The Waldo Scrapbooks

Source: Steve Dirkx

While Just Another Band From L.A. serves up a sexual puzzle, Zappa labors in his basement on a scheme of monstrous proportions.

Source: 45worlds.com

In addition to the article (page 57) on Frank Zappa producing new Grand Funk LP is another article on page 56 by Tim Hogan – "Flo & Eddie Back in the Groove."

Source: slime.oofytv.set

Source: slime.oofytv.set

At first glance, he looks like Carlos Santana with an overgrowth of moustache and chin-patch. But as the figure hustles further into the dim-lit room from the sunny Los Angeles atmosphere, it registers that this character is decidedly Frank Zappa, with his hair pulled back into a ponytail.

In one of the outer offices, a small group of people who were a moment ago discussing the perils of popdom, snaps to a strange attention. Several are waiting to speak to Zappa about one thing or another, but no one makes a move. Zappa notes this within a second, and the next view of him is from the rear, as he scoots into his manager’s off-ice to conduct some fast business. It becomes too much like a scene from some bad movie as the group goes back to chattering about overdoses. (read more)

Frank Zappa once claimed he would never play England again unless he received a personal apology from the Queen. Recently, however, Zappa gave the British one last chance and played four dates at London's Hammersmith Odeon. His two previous visits had been marred – on the first, a spectator pulled him off stage injuring him and causing nine months in a wheel chair; and on the second, Zappa lost a suit for cancellation of a contract and was forced to pay $40,00. This time, however, he was genuinely moved .= by the tremendous response exhibited and, after the third encore at one show, he forgave the English for being, "tensed up, hung up and Neo-Victorian."

Frank Zappa has signed Indian violinist L. Shankar—formerly of John McLauglin's Shakti—to his fledgling Zappa Records label, and says the virtuoso fiddler's first LP will feature Van Morrison singing one tune titled "Dead Girls of London."

Meanwhile, the Zap himself should have a new album out as you read this. Titled Sheik Yerbouti (get it, discophobes?), it'll include such future hits as "Tryin' to Grow a Chin." "Broken Hearts are for Assholes," and, with a bow to Peter Frampton, "I've Been in You."

Besides, anybody who characterizes a wet t-shirt as "a thoroughly soaked, stupid looking white sort of male person's conservative kind of middle-of-the-road COTTON UNDERGARMENT" and makes it work musically, must be OK. (read more)

Source: ebay

A lump of colored clay in the form of a misshapen human face is rapidly transformed into an angry clay cheeseburger that turns to the clay face next to it and quickly devours it like some mad Marquis de McDonald's. Not long after that, a very human Roy Estrada – an ex-Mother of Invention – gives an inflatable life-size rubber doll a grotesquely hilarious bath by stuffing the doll's head facedown in a sink and, with a look of hedonistic glee, turns on the water full blast.

This, apparently, is what Frank Zappa means when he advertises his latest film Baby Snakes as "a movie about people who do stuff that is not normal." What animator Bruce Bickford does with those lumps of clay is worlds away from Disney and what Estrada does with that doll is not exactly standard dating etiquette. But according to Zappa, the film's producer, director, scriptwriter (what script there is), composer, star, and sole financier, there's a lot more to it. (read more)

Source: zappateers