No Commercial Potential: The Saga of Frank Zappa, Then and Now
By Steven P. Horowitz
No Commercial Potential: The Saga of Frank Zappa, Then and Now. By David Walley. Revised ed. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1980. ISBN 0-925-93153-8. Pp. 184. $6.95.
David Walley has become unstuck in time. In 1972 he wrote an informative if somewhat starstruck treatise on Frank Zappa entitled No Commercial Potential. The book was dedicated to Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., and was written in the same freewheeling style as Slaughterhouse Five. Walley has recently updated his early biography, focusing on the more current output of Zappa and his changing musical directions. Ironically, his main criticism is that Zappa has sold out. This is quite different from the implications of his earlier work, and a bit hypocritical considering his refusal to add new info rmation to his dated chapters.
The Saga of Frank Zappa, Then and Now is a strange book. In its attempts to capture the spirit of Zappa and his music it takes on the bizarre contradictions of the man. Zappa has always been considered a "freak," albeit a self-proclaimed one. (His first album was even entitled, Freak Out.) His early music, a combination of rhythm and blues, California pop, and Edgard Varèse, was meant to provoke everyone. No one – whether serious avant-garde composers, Los Angeles hippie rock 'n' rollers or blues enthusiasts – was supposed to listen and remain unoffended.
Zappa's bitterly satiric wit served him well in the 1960s. He lashed out at "phony hippies," "plastic people," California police, and "American Womanhood." His albums and performances each had a theatrical flair, often laced with references to sadomasochistic sex and perverse sexual practices. The word "perverse" is accurate because Zappa's sexual scenes are meant to flaunt the traditional puritanical mores rather than express preference for deviant behavior. As Walley has noted, Zappa tried to take his audiences to the limit – to the edge between indulgence and repulsiveness – using the music to set the mood and raise tension.
The parallels between this early work and the avant-garde happenings of the same time are not accidental. Zappa's third album and first solo work, Lumpy Gravy, "was a monument to John Cage. . . . For this production he utilized the skills of no less than fifty-one musicians and a chorus made up of friends. It was a mixed media presentation. Zappa intercut spoken sections with musical quotes from Varèse, Stravinsky, some surf music – and schlock symphonic treatments of old Zappa themes." Walley's descriptions of the processes involved in the creation of Zappa's early work and interviews with the musicians involved are very good. Particularly interesting is his interview with the late Lowell George – an ex-Mother of Invention member and well-known cofounder of the legendary "Little Feat."
George agrees with Zappa's vision of American culture. "There's nothing out there, just puke from Buffalo to Bakersfield. It's just one giant snotmold. . . . Where I would say Frank really does get the point across is that he does let people in on the fact that it is pure garbage that they're injecting into themselves one way or another." Yet George also feels that Zappa is a "hypocrite because he does the same things they do, he does the same mistakes." In establishing the relationship between Zappa's music and American culture, Walley does his best to let others talk. His own attempts are pretty weak. "Frank Zappa is definitely an American artist insofar as he repeatedly examines and is fascinated by American concerns" and often tritely rendered.
Still, the question is an important one. What is the place of the serious, popular musician in today's society? Walley attempts to address this by making connections between Zappa's personal biography, the Zeitgeist of the times, the mindset of his audience, and the music itself. He is not wholly unsuccessful. He does an especially good job of describing the California milieu of Zappa's boyhood and its possible effects on the musician's psyche. But as Zappa evolved, and perhaps became a less significant artist, Walley is content to spout assertions which are dubious at best and often seem purposely opaque. ("An environmental artist, he focuses on major trends, amplifies them, and presents them for public consumption, bursting the fragments of an already twisted American dream.") Walley's contentions are confusing (what does an "environmental artist" have to do with "trends"?) and intellectually vapid.
This is most glaring in the last chapter, "Cosmic Debris," where the author seems content to criticize Zappa for not living up to his promise as a romantic hero. Zappa has his share of faults – greed and reactionary politics are probably the most outstanding. Yet he still continues to produce interesting (and popular) albums, and his technical mastery of the studio has steadily improved. Walley needs to treat Zappa's recent work more seriously. If he paid the same attention to this work as he did to the composer's earlier music the book would be greatly improved. As it is, The Saga of Frank Zappa still is the best work I know on an important innovator of modem music.
Steven P. Horowitz
University of Iowa