Mother People

rev_a_west @ ebay:

This was the famous Zappa fanzine published by Rob Cerretta aka Studebaker Hawk and the president of Mud Shark Records. He started with just basically a sales list of Zappa items called Totally Zapped that he'd send to Zappa fans/collectors which eventually tuned into the Mother People fanzine. One of the cool things about this fanzine is that he'd allow people (and himself) to sell shall I say, alternate live vinyl? (Hey, I still really do like the guy). Well he wound up getting busted for bootleg vinyl, the complete story is printed in one of these issues. Anyway in the ads of Mother People, you can see how much these vinyl records were selling for back then. (You'll be amazed) and check out the bootleg vinyl reviews which Rob included in his fanzine. Almost all of the vinyl bootlegs that were made up to 1989 are covered, including pictures, concert source and sound quality grading. But selling bootleg vinyl still offended some people so Rob used to include a supplement page after a while in some of his issues only to people that told him that they were interested in that kind of stuff. Finally after the Zappa 88 tour, Rob finally had enough pressure on him by a bunch of jackasses and published his last issue in 1989 then moved away. Society Pages Zappa fanzine with Den Simms and Rob Samler who had Frank's support helped Rob to make his decision to quit publishing. Society Pages only lasted for 11 issues and it vanished owing many of my friends money for their subscriptions which they haven't recovered yet and probably never will.

And next time – rev_a_west @ ebay:

THERE HAVE ONLY BEEN 3 DIFFERENT ZAPPA FANZINES THAT WERE EVER PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. MOTHER'S HOME JOURNAL IN THE 70'S, MOTHER PEOPLE IN THE 80'S, AND OF COURSE THOSE 13 ISSUES OF SOCIETY PAGES FROM 1989 TO 1993. BUT IN MY OPINION NOT ONLY WAS ROB CERRETA'S MOTHER PEOPLE THE BEST ZAPPA FANZINE EVER PRINTED IN THE USA, BUT IT WAS THE BEST ZAPPA FANZINE EVER PRINTED IN THE ENTIRE WORLD. YES, ROB ALSO PRINTED "COSMIK DEBRIS" AND "TOTALLY ZAPPED" BEFORE PRINTING MOTHER PEOPLE, BUT THOSE WERE MORE LIKE ZAPPA CATALOGS AND NOT FANZINES. YES, URBAN GWERDER'S SHORT LIVED 70'S FANZINE "HOT RATZ TIMES" WAS REALLY COOL, AND HE CERTAINLY WAS A MUCH BETTER ARTIST THAN ROB, BUT MOTHER PEOPLE 1981 { STARTED SHORTLY AFTER THIS ISSUE OF TOTALLY ZAPPED } TO 1989 WAS THE SINGLE MOST ZAPPA FANZINE THAT BROUGHT ZAPPA FANS, COLLECTORS AND TRADERS TOGETHER. FANZINES SUCH AS FRED TOMSETT'S T'MERSHI DUWEEN IN THE U.K., WHERE I WAS ACTUALLY A CONTRIBUTOR FOR A WHILE AFTER MOTHER PEOPLE DIED, USING THE NAME " EVIL PRINCE ", WAS KIND OF LIKE A COPY OF MOTHER PEOPLE. BUT I'LL TELL YA' FOLKS, THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT, IN FACT VIRTUALLY EVERY ZAPPA FANZINE WAS BETTER THAN HAVING NONE.

First 13 issues of Mother People were reissued in 2023 as a book The Mother People Anthology Vol.1.

www.motherpeople.com
Wolf Dreams (Rob Cerreta's site)