Do you finance all your own projects?

Right. It's the only way to avoid censorship in the United States.

Please elaborate.

If an artist is contracted to a record company, and the record company is acting as his bank, and somebody in that record company decides they don't like what his songs are about, he stands a very good chance of not having his songs reach the marketplace. As long as the marketing entity has your balls in a bear trap with the finances, you can't be truly independent. And, considering the type of stuff I'm interested in working on, it seems to be the only way for me to function. (read more)

20th-century popular music's philosopher-king (or its Harvey Kurtzman) has inspired independence movements in Eastern Europe and lampooned stupidity in the west. Now he faces his most serious challenge.

It's April, and Los Angeles is nervously awaiting the outcome of the second Rodney King beating trial. A car heads toward Frank Zappa's Laurel Canyon home blaring the song "Trouble Every Day" from the first Mothers of Invention album, Freak Out! Written by Zappa in '65, while the Watts riots were escalating out of control, the song is eerily appropriate nearly 30 years later, when the city is once again bracing for the worst. With wailing harmonica and turmoiled bass in the background, the lyrics ominously and prophetically tumble out, "It's the same across the nation/ Black and white discrimination/ ...and all that mass stupidity/ That seems to grow more every day/ Each time you hear some nitwit say/ He wants to go and do you in/ 'Cause the color of your skin/ Just don't appeal to him/ No matter if it's black or white/ Because he's out for blood tonight." (read more)