I'll admit that when I interviewed Frank Zappa in 1987, I came to our meeting with a profusion of romantic assumptions about his life, almost all of which he quickly deconstructed. I knew of Zappa in all his incarnations – pop songwriter, modern classical composer, social critic, guitar god – and had arrived at his Laurel Canyon home on this summer night to talk about the lofty places his music had lifted him to over the years. Zappa, however, had little patience for such loftiness and preferred to focus our conversation on earthly and pragmatic concerns, such as the creation, control, and distribution of his music. "There is a practical side to making records," he said on more than one occasion. "The money doesn't fly down from heaven, you know." (read more)