TAN Mitsugu:
This issue has Yagi Yasuo's commentary on Studio Tan, with his parody illustration of Gary Panter's cover art. As an FZ enthusiast, he'd been in charge of providing Japanese liner notes for most of the Discreet-era albums. But for Studio Tan, Warner Pioneer in Japan decided to hire a not-so-enthusiastic American writer to do the job, which resulted in a not-so-satisfactory text for an avid fan like Yagi. Thus, he essentially wrote his own version of liner note in the first installment of his monthly column. (It was later incorporated into his "Zappa Vox" in 1989.)

You can find another FZ-related article called "An Introduction To Classic Albums", to which four Japanese musicians contributed their thoughts on OSFA. Two of them, namely Sakuma Masahide and Morizono Katsutoshi, were from a band called Yonin Bayashi, which was one of the supporting acts for FZ's first Tokyo concert (1976/2/1). Sakuma was also a member of the Plastics, whose song "Robot" was picked up by FZ during his BBC Radio 1 appearance in 1980.

TAN Mitsugu:
The article shows eleven guitars in FZ's house. The photos were taken by Joel Serber, but the author of the Japanese text is unknown.

Apparently, Serber and the unknown author didn't notice that they also took up two of Dweezil's guitars: a Stratocaster with a lot of stickers on it (p. 268, center) and "Star Guitar" (p. 269, left), which was a special present from Eddie Van Halen. (You can read the full story on the guitar here.)

Among FZ's guitars featured here, I think the black fretless Stratocaster (p. 268, right) is the rarest. Is it the one that FZ mentioned during the 1982-04-20 rehearsal? (See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtLKP04qJTg)

Frank Zappa interview was originally printed as "Frank's Wild Years", Q, December 1989. Translated by Kato Masato.

TAN Mitsugu:
Last September, I came to realize that it is the summer 1979 interview that was included in Rosen's CD "Frank Zappa – The Classic Interviews". 

You can see the more detailed discussions in affz. 

TAN Mitsugu:
This extra issue of the Player magazine essentially gathers their old articles on guitar collections of various famous musicians. The photos of FZ's guitars are from the January 1995 issue. In addition, you can read Steven Rosen's interview with Dweezil (translated by Fujimoto Yukiko) and see his guitar collections.

TAN Mitsugu:
This article is a translation of Andy Aledort's interview with Vai and Keneally, which originally appeared on Guitar World (1999 February). One of the other features of this issue is "100 Guitar Solos!!!", which has Vai's comment on Jimmy Page's solo in "Heartbreaker" (from Led Zeppein II). Also, Page 115 has a book review on Ohyama Kohjitsu's Dai Zappa Ron.

TAN Mitsugu:
"The Retrock'n Archive" is an abridged translation of Steven Rosen's interview with FZ, which was originally published on Guitar Player in 1977. This time, Rosen wrote a new introduction that includes his recollection of the last (and rather bitter) meeting with FZ in the '80s:

"When I was about to leave after several hours of conversation, I found some puppies at the front door. They were still newborn German Shepherds, full of energy and making young mewling noises. Frank asked me if I would like one, to which I happily replied, "Sure, definitely!" I chose the most perfect one out of them, and promised him that I would come back tomorrow to pick the dog up. I had already thought of the name "Fullali".

"The next day, I knocked on the front door. Frank showed up and I told him that I had come to pick up my baby dog. Then he said, without any guilty look, that he had given it to someone else. As his name implies, he was totally frank. I pressed him for an explanation to see what the hell was going on. He just shrugged his shoulders, as if he were in a trouble. That gesture sparked my anger.

"I became totally furious and shouted, "What a guy! You're making fun of me! You'll have a terrible experience one day!" I just wanted to warn him about his laxity and did not mean to threaten him. I wanted to tell him something about karmic payback. He shrugged his shoulders again and slammed the door shut right in front of me.

"Ten years later, on December 4, 1993, he passed away after a battle with prostate cancer. He had had several other illnesses before that. I mourned his passing. I still get mad when I think about that day, and I came to dislike him after that. That said, even though I never thought that he should die, of course, but the fact that I said harsh words like "You'll have a terrible experience one day" has always been on my mind.

"Despite everything that has happened, I am truly honored to have met him. Among the hundreds of interviews that I've done, I think that my conversation with Zappa was one of the most interesting - even though I still feel a prick in my heart when I think of it and I seem to hear the cries from Fullali, who can't be here."

Also, page 71 has a news on Zappa Plays Zappa's Japanese tour, in addition to a regular column entitled "My Guitar Wants To Kill Your Mama" by Aida Shigekazu (aka Aigon) from El-Malo. (Some of you may know that Aida was involved with a Japanese FZ compilation called "El-Malo Meets Frank Zappa", released by Video Arts Japan in 1999.)

TAN Mitsugu:
These interviews are original, done by Kato Masato for the Player magazine. ZPZ did their Japanese tour in January 2008, and MK did his solo gig in Japan next month.

Note. One regular column in Player is titled "My Guitar Wants To Kill Your Mama" (p 75).

TAN Mitsugu:
This is part of a special feature entitled "Rock Movies of My Youth [我が青春のロック映画]". The "archive interview" is an abbridged version of "Frank's Wild Years", which had also appeared on the December 1990 issue of Player. And two photos of FZ's guitars are also recycled from one of their old issues (April 1983).