Relix: I'm interested in your album from 1968, We're Only in it for the Money, with the Mothers of Invention. Bill Graham says that musicians have always been in it for the money but it's only recently that they've admitted it. Do you think musicians have always been in it for the money and just tried to disguise it?"
Zappa: I wouldn't say that was true, because I make a distinction between different types of music.

Relix: But back in the '60s, there was an attitude of 'We're for the people, man, and people like Bill Graham are only in it for the money.'
Zappa: I think what you're trying to do is suit the answer to fit the point you're trying to make as a person. The real answer is, if a person decides he wants to play a harp, I don't think he does that because he wants to make money. If a person decides he wants to play an oboe, he doesn't do that because he wants to make money. Believe it or not, there are some guitar players who pick up the instrument because they want to make music and not money. But you, being a person from the rock and roll journalistic profession, tend to view things in a bit different way. You tend to lump all musicians together as these people who just want to make money. I'm here to tell you that there are many of them who really do only want to make money, but I don't think of them as musicians. (read more)

Source: Fulvio Fiore

Only one photo of FZ in this photo album. FZ in Uptown Theatre, Chicago, November 1980.

Source: slime.oofytv.set 

Source: slime.oofytv.set 

FZ on the cover and 2 photos inside. All taken at The Pier NYC 8/84.

Relix: What do you think caused he Washington Wives to think that Americana should rate their records, and “protect their youth?”

Zappa: Politics.

Relix: How so?

Zappa: Well, it’s a little bit complicated, because the thing didn’t start with the PMRC, the best I can tell, it started with the PTA, last year, or maybe even before that. The PTA took it on, and didn’t have much success with it, but the reason they took it on, I think, was politically motivated by the woman who runs the national PTA, because she acted against the recommendations of at least four highly placed people in the national PTA. But she said, “Nope, I’m going ahead with it” So she did, and she didn’t get anywhere ’cause the record companies laughed her off. Then they joined forces with the Washington Wives, and that got the record industries attention simply because the record industry received a letter signed by the wives of a bunch of legislators who were sitting on committees that had life or death power over several bills that the record industry was trying to get through congress. So that got their attention, because they never denied the political connection between the women and the husbands. Obviously that was an extortionary tactic used to make the record industry pay attention to this supposedly rational demand. What could it possibly harm to let people know what is in a record? The real answer to what can it harm should go back to this question ... What harm is being done? These women have taken a position that is not supported by any medical documentation. That hearing lyrics to a rock song, to any song will make you commit a murder, commit suicide, increase the teenage birthrate, make you use drugs, or damn your soul to hell. So they’re talking about this little warning being placed on a record to be truth in packaging. Well I would rather see some truth in packaging for their claims. (read more)

Source: slime.oofytv.set 

"There's a lot of people who write about me that have this image that if I do a concert that the people who are coming there are dressed up like Grateful Dead followers and there's just old hippies and stuff," he went on. "First of all, we never had a hippie audience. The hippies went directly for the Dead. They didn't stop anywhere, they went straight for the Dead. And they've stayed there and God bless them. Our audience has always been really mixed, in terms of age, in terms of geographical backgrounds, whatever. We have strange appeal, it's really hard to describe. For example, the age range at our concerts could be anywhere from 14 to 60, with a preponderance of the individuals in the concert right around 18 to 25. I don't think very many other groups have that kind of range. Most of the ones who come are new customers. Get it out of your mind once and for all that what we do is to be consumed by people who were going to concerts in 1967. That's not true. (read more)

An article based on the same interview by William Ruhlmann was published in Goldmine, January 1989.

Source: slime.oofytv.set 

Source: Fulvio Fiore

Frank Zappa. Behind his home in Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles, CA, 1968. The writer and I went to Zappa's house for Rolling Stone. Zappa was such an acclaimed eccentric that I was both apprehensive and intimidated about the assignment. As it turned out, Zappa generously directed his creative eccentricity toward the photo shoot and in only three rolls of film we came up with some ”iconic" photos, including the well-known image of Frank on the bulldozer.

Source: Fulvio Fiore

Source: killuglyradio.com

Dweezil Zappa: Return Of The Son Of ... ad. 

Source: Fulvio Fiore

Source: slime.oofytv.set