Zappa Books

New Entries.

• 28 January. The most popular Swedish youth magazine in the 60s Bildjournalen, October 1967. They interviewed Frank Zappa when he was with the Mothers in Sweden. "Frank Zappa - King of Hippieland: Down with the old man rule".

• 27 January. Two issues of the Rolling Stone on 200 Motels film:
  - 1971 February 18 : "Zappa Film Stars Rubber Doll"
  - 1971 December 23 : "200 Motels" by John Weisman

• 26 January. Rolling Stone #34, May 31, 1969. In random notes: "Frank Zappa has become a professional lecturer, popular among college students from coast to coast ...". Plus Uncle Meat reviewed by Alec Dubro.

• 25 January. The quarterly magazine Lizard from Poland. Their current edition, #47, December 2022, is a Frank Zappa special with several articles on FZ.

• 24 January. Free Danish music monthly Gaffa. The July 2013 edition gives five stars to the A Token Of His Extreme.

• 23 January. The once popular Mexican weekly Mexico Canta, #328, May 1971.

• 22 January. The largest newspaper in Canada, Toronto Star, December 23, 1967. A big part of the article "Opera – the next big thing in rock" is about Absolutely Free.

• 21 January. Paternoster was a quarterly review for art and criticism, issued first in Vienna and later in Prague. Some Czechoslovakian young expats visited FZ concerts in 1982 in Vienna and Linz. Their adventures are cronicled in "Interview with Frank Zappa", published in Paternoster #2, 1983.

• 20 January. Portuguese weekly Expresso. Some album reviews that appeared in 1986 in connection with local Portuguese record releases:
  - 1986 March : Ship Arriving Too Late To Save A Drowning Witch
  - 1986 April : Tinseltown Rebellion
  - 1986 May : FZ Meets The Mothers Of Prevention

• 19 January. Frank Zappa in Stockholm, Sweden, in February 1978. "A musical happening" is the concert review in Svenska Dagbladet.

• 18 January. Pelo is probably the most famous Argentinian music magazine of all time. From time to time you can still find new relevant publications.
  - 1970 #1 : Mothers Of Invention as one of the 30 bands of the pop revolution
  - 1970 #7 : Zappa revives the Mothers
  - 1970 #8 : The most important North American bands
  - 1970 #9 : The day Zappa drove the Philharmonic crazy

• 17 January. Greek music monthly Pop+Rok, August 1988. The article is titled "Permanent Freak Out".

• 16 January. A bunch of album reviews from Finnish music monthly Soundi. They are all good read. Try it!
  - 1975 July : One Size Fits All
  - 1976 November : Zoot Allures
  - 1978 July : Zappa In New York
  - 1978 November : Studio Tan
  - 1979 April : Sleep Dirt and Sheik Yerbouti
  - 1980 January : Joe's Garage Acts II & III

• 15 January. Poeira Zine, an independent magazine from Brazil. The introductory edition #0 from 2003 contains a Zappa buying guide.

• 14 January. British trade paper Music Week:
  - 1987 January 10 : Jazz From Hell
  - 1993 February 6 : Music For Nations 10th anniversary
  - 1993 December 18 : laconic full page obituary
  - 1995 April 8 : back catalog ad

• 13 January. Dutch Soundz, #1, 2017. Crusing With Ruben & The Jets.

• 12 January. We added scans of some great editions of the Spanish monthly Vibraciones:
  - 1979 April : "The grandma tales" - Zappa in Barcelona
  - 1980 April : First part of the exclusive Zappa interview "My drug is sex"
  - 1980 May : 2nd part of the exclusive Zappa interview

• 11 January. Guitar Magazin, Japanese monthly magazine "for all guitar players":
  - 1988 April : FZ exclusive interview
  - 2007 July : Zappa's Gibson SG

• 10 January. 1973 September 2, Zürich, Switzerland concert revue. Nouvelle Revue de Lausanne. "This music, this Zappaian theater, is in fact only an immense gag interspersed with sequences where the actors become serious again."

• 9 January. Turkish weekly Rock Kazani, July 11, 1994. One page is dedicated to the children of rock stars: Dweezil and Moon Unit Zappa, Julian Lennon and Jimi Hendrix's son James Daniel Sundquist.

• 8 January. Australian radical counterculture magazine Revolution. 
  - 1970 June : Hot Rats
  - 1970 August : random news
  - 1970 December : Trout Mask Replica
  - 1971 January : Chunga's Revenge

• 7 January. The president of Estonia, Toomas Hendrik Ilves, lived in New York in his youth. In his interview he recalled the Mothers Of Invention concert at the Garrick Theatre. Aplaus, Winter 2013.

• 6 January. Hungarian large format magazine Volt:
  - 1993 April : Review of the Hungarian edition of The Real Frank Zappa Book
  - 1994 March : vecy nicely formed Zappa obituary

• 5 January. Beat, February 1995, from Norway. Civilization Phase III. "Zappa is a part of life".

• 4 January. Some newer issues of the French Rock & Folk:
  - 2019 August : photographer Jerry Schatzberg
  - 2020 February : Eat That Question
  - 2022 May :  the Hot Rats album's cover is reviewed

• 3 January. The May, June, and July 1993 issues of the German monthly magazine Musikexpress/Sounds contained several album reviews, including reviews of The Man From Utopia, The Yellow Shark, and Ahead of Their Time.

• 2 January. In an interview with Hit Parader in July 1969, Henry Vestine revealed that he briefly met Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart for the first time in a jam session at the Sea Witch club in Hollywood in 1963.

• 1 January. Italian giant glossy "rock, pop and progressive music" monthly magazine TOP. A full-page Frank Zappa picture was found in issue number 22, 1987.

• 30 December. Pierre Boulez and Frank Zappa were worlds apart. And yet they came together for a common project. German Fono Forum, March 2016.

• 29 December. "Zappa performance a Shea's crowd-pleaser" in Buffalo State Record, March 11, 1988.

• 28 December. Norwegian Puls, December 10, 1993. Zappa obituary.

• 28 December. Greek Jazz & Tzaz, January 2004. Zappa obituary.

• 28 December. Hungarian art, culture and science magazine Interpress Magazin, March 2004. Zappa obituary.

• 27 December. Spanish long-running monthly Ruta 66. Several editions added:
  - 1993 December : The Yellow Shark
  - 1994 January : Zappa's Universe
  - 1995 April : Captain Beefheart
  - 1996 January : Krautrock guide
  - 1996 December : The Lost Episodes and Läther

• 26 December. Italian weekly Ciao 2001:
  - 1980 February 17 : Joe's Garage I, II, III
  - 1980 February 24 : "America has a voice"

• 26 December. Buffalo State’s student-run newspaper The Record, October 18, 1980. "Zappa music still superior; flaws blamed on audio-overkill". This concert has been officially released in 2007 as Buffalo.

• 24 December. Excellent special issue "The Art Rock" of Juxtapoz magazine. Contains the greatest record covers of all time.

• 23 December. Turkish culture magazine Calinti, April 1995. FZ obituary translated from The Guardian.

• 22 December. Buffalo State’s student-run newspaper The Record, November 30, 1973. "Frank Zappa twitches and tangos with his Mothers in Aud".

• 21 December.  Arf Dossier, "an international insidermagazine", appears in March, June, September, and December. And here is the current number #114.

• 20 December. New Light Music, April 1976. Japanese magazine was started by the world's largest musical instruments manufacturer Yamaha.

• 19 December. The japanese progressive rock quarterly Euro-Rock Press, February 2008 edition, which featured a live report on the Zappa Plays Zappa tour.

• 18 December. Two peculiar concert ads in Shakin Street Gazette, October-November 1973.

• 17 December. Ruta 66 (Route 66) is a Spanish magazine. Added issues #2 from December 1985 and #7 from May 1986.

• 16 December. Interview with Matt Groening. Spin, January 1993.

• 15 December. German Stereoplay, three issues from 1981:
  - 1981 May : 4-page article on Zappa
  - 1981 July : Tinsel Town Rebellion
  - 1981 December : You Are What You Is

• 14 December. Frank Zappa: 1940-1993 is a biography, 790 pages, written by Román García Albertos, who is also the creator of one of the best websites about Frank - El Tercer Poder. Just released in December.

• 14 December. Greek left publication Anti, December 1993. Three pages of Zappa obituaries.

• 13 December. German Musikexpress/Sounds, November and December 1993. These issues contain the list of "100 best albums in Rock History", where Hot Rats, Over-Nite Sensation and Safe As Milk and Trout Mask Replica by Captain Beefheart are presented.

• 12 December. Roll was likely the top rock music magazine in Turkey, running from 1996 to 2009. One notable issue was the September 2002 edition, in which Alice Cooper praised Frank Zappa, stating "I would sit next to him like a little mouse and watch how it worked..."

• 11 December. Spanish Mundo Musical, November 1974. FZ at the press conference held at the Manila Hotel in Barcelona, prior to the concert in Badalona; comments on the concert itself by Jaime Martín and post reflection by Gaspar Fraga who is also the author of the photos and author of Zappa & Madres.

• 9 December. Rolling Stone, November 1991. "100 Classic Album Covers - Weasels Ripped My Flesh".

• 8 December. Frank Zappa spend some days in March 1989 on the island of Ibiza and gave an exclusive interview to the local paper La Prensa de Ibiza. He chatted about the projects that he has raised to the mayor of Madrid for the creation of an "Orchestra of the World" and a computer-assisted alchemy study center.

• 7 December. Spanish monthly Rock Espezial, published from 1981 to 1984. Three issues out of 38 contained FZ content:
  - 1982 October : Adrian Belew
  - 1984 September : an old punk FZ is visiting Spain
  - 1984 October : interview with FZ

• 6 December. Mojo, January 1997. A rare review of the album Frank Zappa Plays The Music Of Frank Zappa.

• 5 December. Argentinian magazine Mordisco, issue #3, 1974. Four-page Frank Zappa poster.

• 5 December. Turkish weekly Hey:
  - 1971 December : Zappa lost his equipment, and his leg is broken
  - 1972 October : Mothers of Invention finished, Hot Rats started

• 4 December. Greek Hxos & Hi-Fi:
  - 1982 June : Odeon Hammersmith concert review
  - 1982 December : Ship Arriving Too Late ...
  - 1984 June : Interview. FZ: I belong neither to rock nor to modern music. I'm not a rock star, and I play no major role in the foundation of serious music. I have no teaching intention. I don't work to educate the listener. I write and play the music I like.

• 3 December. Rolling Stone, May 16, 1991. "McCartney and Zappa "Bootlegs" Due".

• 3 December. German Musikexpress, December 1992. Can musicians paint too?

• 2 December. Phonograph Record Magazine, December 1973. Over-Nite Sensation full-page ad.

• 2 December. Hungarian tabloid Kurír. The September 1991 issue is is on Hungarian translation of The Real Frank Zappa Book.

• 1 December. The violin according to Jean Luc Ponty. French Rock & Folk, June 1971.

• 30 November. German Stereoplay, January 1985. Interview made during the 1984 world tour "I get into trouble with all kinds of people".

• 29 November. Canadian Pop-See-Cul, June 1967. Some nice quotes and ads.

• 28 November. American WIN, February 1973. "No Commercial Potential".

• 28 November. Slovakian weekly in Hungarian, A Hét, January 1994. Zappa obituary.

• 27 November. British Sound On Sound, August 1997. Paul D. Lehrman took six players, four samplers and a computer, and created a live‑performance piece based on the music and words of Frank Zappa.

• 27 November. Greek jazz magazine Jazz & Tzaz, April 1999, contained very interesting list of 100 most important records that characterize the music of the 20th century in all styles, from Caruso to Björk. The list includes Hot Rats and Civilization Phase III.

• 26 November. Alternative magazine from Illinois, SunRise:
  - 1974 #3 : interview with FZ
  - 1975 #3 : One Size Fits All
  - 1975 #4 : Bongo Fury

• 26 November. Greek publication Psychagogos (The Entertainer). Two issues from 1990, one about Captain Beefheart, and the other about Frank Zappa.

• 22 November. German classical music Fono Forum, February 2004. Review of the Ensemble Modern Plays Frank Zappa album.

• 21 November. Record Collector, July 2013. The Confessions Of Kaylan: "... Frank always knew something nobody else knew. He was very much Bowie-esque with that. He could see the future ..."

• 21 November. Lugano concert review, Italian Muzak, April 1976.

• 20 November. Rolling Stone, August 27, 1987. The 100 Best Albums of the Last Twenty Years - #77 We're Only In It For The Money

• 19 November. Italian Best, May 1977. Special issue of avant-garde artists from USA, UK, Germany, France and Italy. Captain Beefheart and Wild Man Fischer are featured.

• 18 November. British The Spectator, 1971 February. Definitely a good read - "Necessity and Invention" by the director of the 200 Motels Tony Palmer.

• 17 November. Swiss French-language weekly L'Hebdo. Several issues from 1982 to 2001.

• 16 November. British Record Hunter, August 1991. You Can’t Do That On Stage Anymore Vol 4 / Make A Jazz Noise Here.

• 16 November. Italian weekly Sound Flash, March 1973. Captain Beefheart.

• 16 November. Norwegian Backstage, December 2004. How marginal Zappa became famous overnight in Norway with his album Sheik Yerbouti.

• 15 November. Italian Ciao 2001, issues from 1978:
  - March 26 : George Duke
  - May 14 : Frank Zappa & the legal war
  - July 2 : Foto ~ Zappa
  - July 9 : Zappa In New York
  - December 3 : Studio Tan

• 14 November. Two very different Danish magazines.
  - Euroman, a men's lifestyle magazine with a nice story on The Man From Utopia
  - DMT, a serious classical music magazine with reviews of Boulez Conducts Zappa and The Yellow Shark

• 13 November. Two magazines with pictures from the same event, "Rock for Rep" benefit hosted by Frank Zappa:
  - American lifestyle magazine Details, February 1987
  - German Musikexpress, March 1987

• 12 November. The first book in English on Zappa was No Commercial Potential by David Walley. An excellent review by Andrew Gordon in Rolling Stone, September 1972.

• 11 November. Turkish Express.
  - 1994 December : FZ obituary
  - 2004 July : FZ interview translated from Mojo

• 11 November. Hungarian cultural magazine Beszélő, December 1993. FZ obituary.

• 10 November. Two Record Mirror issues with Zappa bits:
  - 1969 March 1 : Underground groups - professional is the key word
  - 1978 January 7 : Frank zaps in

• 10 November. French Les Inrocks2. 50 ans de rock, vol. 4 les années 60.

• 9 November. Norwegian alternative publication Gateavisa.
  - 1970 #1 : "Plastic People" lyrics
  - 1973 #2 : well-known picture of FZ holding this issue
  - 1974 #1 : an interview with FZ
  - 1993 #1 : excerpt from The Real Frank Zappa Book

• 8 November. Italian Raro, May 1994. "40 years of rock" with some good pictures.

• 7 November. German Grand Guitars:
  - 2020 January/February : 50 years of Hot Rats
  - 2021 July/August : What Frank Zappa left to his compatriots

• 6 November. Ryboun - the Thing-Fish libretto in Czech. "... our small group of translators spontaneously decided in 1986 to translate the text of the libretto of this triple album into the mother tongue. ... After 36 long years, we are now providing our translation in the form of a set of scans of the original transcription made on the then only possible typewriter to the members of the Czech Frank Zappa fan club ..."

• 6 November. Hungarian weekly Reform. Four magazine issues have been added, among which the one from September 1993 contains an article about Czaba Varga's animation film studio. One of their films is Bestiak, based on the music of Frank Zappa.

• 5 November. Prog Italia #35, April 2021. "Sinfonie Zappiane" on 8 pages.

• 4 November. Rolling Stone, October 1996. Läther.

• 3 November. Turkish short-living rock & metal magazine Rock!, January 1994.

• 2 November. Zappa / Cruising with Ruben & the Jets reference in British Record Mirror, May 31, 1969.

• 1 November. Mania is the free magazine of the Dutch record store chain Plato. A whole range of issues from the last ten years give a good overview of more or less all FZ rereleases.

• 1 November. Finnish short-living weekly Pointti #13, 1972. FZ on the back cover.

• 31 October. Can you imagine how popular was Frank Zappa in Scandinavia? Norwegian monthly Puls, February 1982. Readers' poll - artists of the year 1981. Frank Zappa is the artist of the year #2 (after Bruce Springsteen), composer #1, musician #2, and singer #2. You Are What You Is is LP #1 of the year.

• 30 October. Hungarian classical music monthly Muzsika.
  - 1995 February : Péter Eötvös, "Psalm 151, in memorian Frank Zappa"
  - 2008 May : Kent Nagano in Budapest

• 30 October. 100 Frank Zappa Quotations. This paperback is available from the end of September 2022. You are warned - most probably you don't need to buy it.

• 29 October. British trade paper Music Week. Some issues from 1978 and 1979. Especially recommended reading are issues containing "Fact Sheets" - music industry promotional texts and comments on the albums.
  - 1978 October 14 : Fact Sheets. Studio Tan
  - 1979 February 3 : WB fires at CBS and Zappa
  - 1979 February 10 : CBS fires back
  - 1979 March 10 : Sheik Yerbouti, short review
  - 1979 March 17 : Fact Sheets. Sheik Yerbouti. Sleep Dirt
  - 1979 March 24 : Sleep Dirt, short review

• 28 October. Chilean biweekly Onda, October 1971. Very attractive cover.

• 28 October. Chilean weekly Ritmo, October 1972. This issue contains famous photos of rock stars with parents, taken from the magazine Life.

• 27 October. German Rocky, March 1978. Interview with FZ "I'm just fantastic".

• 27 October. Turkish Hi-Fi and music magazine Stereo Mecmuasi published FZ compact biography in four issues during the year 2009.

• 26 October. Ciao 2001, issues from 1977.
  - January 9 : "I do everything myself"
  - January 23 : short discography I
  - January 30 : short discography II
  - April 3 : interview with FZ
  - September 11 : the news of Frank Zappa's death is completely unfounded
  - November 27 : Zappa In New York would even be a quadruple album

• 26 October. Turkish monthly Boom Müzik, March 1990. Zappa centerfold poster.

• 25 October. Australian Guitar, vol. 146, 2022. "Ten Essential Gibson SG Albums" includes Frank Zappa & The Monsters - Roxy & Elsewhere. A very good Freudian slip.

• 25 October. Guitar Player:
  - 2021 Holiday : The 50 Greatest Solos All Time (incl Watermelon...)
  - 2022 April : 25 Guitar Innovators

• 24 October. British non-mainstream music monthly The Wire, some issues from the last years added:
  - 2019 September : "Crude Awakening"
  - 2020 December : Zappa film by Alex Winter
  - 2022 February : 200 Motels. 50th Anniversary Edition
  - 2022 March : Frank & Co book by Co de Kloet
  - 2022 May : The Mothers 1971
  - 2022 September : Zappa/Erie

• 23 october. "Zappa surprised", Isstadion, Stockholm concert review. Svenska Dagbladet, May 1988.

• 23 October. Turkish music and cinema weekly Gong, November 1981. "The return of the Frank Zappa".

• 22 October. Italian weekly Ciao 2001, issues from 1976:
  - January 25 : Bongo Fury
  - February 29 : 1000 Lire Zappa concert coupon
  - April 25 : interviews with Roy Estrada and FZ
  - July 18 : Flo & Eddie
  - November 28 : interview with FZ
  - December 26 : Grand Funk

• 21 October. Hungarian weekly Képes Újság (Illustrated News). Several issues added from 1979 to 1983 which show, that Zappa was viewed very positively in Socialist Hungary at the time.

• 20 October. New Musical Express, November 1980. "Tales of transmutation from the Mojave Magic Man".

• 19 October. This year is very fruitful in terms of Zappa books. Another one, Frank Zappa. Il padrino del rock, came in September 2022. This Italian-language book by American-bourne photographer Sergio Albonico and Italian journalist Stefano Milioni is a strong candidate for English translation. We recommend reading Andrew Greenaway's interview with one of the book's authors, Sergio Albonico.

• 18 October. The Brazilian edition of the Guitar Player. December 1998 issue contains a lesson about Frank Zappa's technique.

• 18 October. Italian Ciao 2001, 3 issues from 1975:
  - April 20 : Special/Rock Guitarists
  - July 13 : Court news
  - August 17 : 10 disc box from Zappa is coming

• 17 October. The Torture Never Stops by Helge Holm contains insightful reviews of all of Zappa's studio albums (plus a lot more stuff). In German. Published in September 2022.

• 16 October. It's always interesting to read how Zappa's classical music is received by classical publications. Boulez Conducts Zappa: The Perfect Stranger is reviewed in German Fono Forum, March 1985.

• 15 October. Czech cultural monthly UNI, September 2022. Articles on American undergroung, The Fugs and Frank Zappa.

• 14 October. "Why Zappa has gone overground" - Wembley Arena concerts review. Melody Maker, June 1980.

• 13 October. Japanese mook (magazine-book) The History Of Rock Upheaval, 2007.

• 12 October. "This great old love of ours, Bongo Fury", Ciao 2001, December 1975.

• 12 October. Melody Maker, January 1981. What are the Mothers worth with and without Zappa, read in the Grandmothers' album review "Mothers In Lore".

• 12 October. Turkish weekly publication Hürriyet Pazar, March 1979.

• 11 October. 2nd edition of the well-received book Frank & Co: Conversations with Frank Zappa 1977-1993 by Co De Cloet appeared already in February 2022.

• 11 October. Record Mirror, August 1968. Some good words on Lumpy Gravy.

• 11 October. Swedish daily newspaper Svenska Dagbladet, August 1973, on Zappa's band in the TV-program Opopoppa.

• 10 October. Welcome In Zappa Town: Marko Nakari is a book containing cartoons and drawings by Finnish artist Marko Nakari which was compiled by Robert Riedt for an exhibition at the Zappanale Festival #31, July 2022.

• 9 October. Ciao 2001, December 1974. Roxy & Elsewhere.

• 8 October. Freak Out! My Life With Frank Zappa by Pauline Butcher. A new, revised and updated edition has just been published. This book is worth reading, for sure.

• 8 October. Two album reviews from Rolling Stone:
  - 2002 January 17 : Joe's Garage, Act I
  - 2004 November 25 : Joe's Corsage.

• 8 October. Hungarian weekly newspaper Szabad Föld, December 1971. 200 Motels film.

• 7 October. Zappostrophe #148, fanzine from Czechia. The longest running FZ fanzine is still alive and living well.

• 6 October. Creem spinoff, teen female audience targeted photo mag Creem Rock-Shots, July 1987. Dweezil Zappa cover story.

• 5 October. Hullabaloo, May/June 1968. "Would you agree that, musically, the MOTHERS are probably the best rock band in the world?"

• 4 October. La Repubblica, March 2022. Alev Winter's film Zappa is reviewed.

• 4 October. French Juke Box Magazine, September 1995, on Zappa albums CD reissues.

• 2 October. "Frank Zappa: Hammersmith Odeon". Printed in British trade weekly Music Week, March 1979.

• 2 October. Dutch bimonthly Soundz, number 4, 2016. Hot Rats reviewed.

• 1 October. British Beat Instrumental, April 1970. Short reviews of Hot Rats and Permanent Damage.