Interview with Zappa, Part Two

[KXX4493553 at aol.com]

In terms of sheer new material, Zappa has never been more productive. In 
addition to "The Yellow Shark" project,
he has produced, edited and released a total of five double-CD packages of 
concert material since 1990 (six if you
include "Playground Psychotics," an earthy assembly of "Flo and Eddie"-period 
Mothers of Invention music, circa
1971-72, due this month) on both Ryko and his own Barking Pumpkin Records. 
Three of the packages finish off the
six twin-CD set, "You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore," a sweeping compendium 
of live Zappa material dating
from the late '60s to 1988. He also arranged with Rhino Records to issue the 
recent "Beat the Boots" series, the legal
release of 15 (so far) "best" Zappa bootlegs. 

And, in the coming months, he will release a double CD of "The Yellow Shark" 
concerts, plus a follow-up to his first
recorded symphonic venture, the 1967 avant-garde ballet "Lumpy Gravy." Titled 
"Civilization: Phase III," it will
feature a piece of music he has labored over intermittently for 10-years 
titled "N-light." 

Composed on the Synclavier, "N-light" is one of Zappa's most substantial 
works. The title is a computer code
referring to two moments in the piece - one that reminded Zappa of the 
Village People's "In the Navy" and a sonic
cluster he dubbed "Thousand Points of Light." 

The "Yellow Shark" music is dense, elaborate sound sculpture, with complex 
rythmic and tonal demands on the
players. 

Zappa's major influences - avant-garde composer Edgard Varese, Boulez and 
Stravinsky - are subliminally in
evidence, but this is not derivative music. There's also a touch of Spike 
Jones at work; Zappa makes use of whatever
absurdities he happens across. 

At an early "Yellow Shark" rehearsal, a grotesque letter to the editor of 
PFIQ, a body-piercing magazine, was
recited by one of the musicians from inside a piano, while the Ensemble 
bleated and groaned according to Zappa's
directions. In one "Yellow Shark" segment, an Ensemble member recites bits of 
"Struwwelpeter," a series of grim
German children's tales designed to discourage unhealthy habits (translated 
to English by Mark Twain). 

"I went to dinner at Andreas' house [Andreas Molich-Zebhauser, Ensemble 
Modern general manager]," said Zappa,
taking a drag on a cigarette, "and his children demanded that I look at their 
book, 'Struwwelpeter.' ... They were
pointing out this part with the tailor chopping the thumbs off [a 
thumb-sucker]. I went, 'What is this?' I mean, his
children are growing up with this. Imagine the psychosis! I said, well, it's 
music. Better be in the show." 

For years, Molich-Zebhauser admired the fiberglass creature in Zappa's home, 
so much so that the composer finally
gave it away to him - writing a little deed to get it through customs that 
said, "This is Andreas' own personal yellow
shark." 

"The next thing I know," said Zappa, "the whole project is being called 'The 
Yellow Shark.' It sounds really good in
German, and I said it sounds really dorky in English. But what are you going 
to call it? Doesn't make any difference." 

The use of "Struwwelpeter" and the fiberglass fish exemplifies Zappa's 
aesthetic "AAAFNRAA" - "Anything Anytime
Anyplace For No Reason At All". 

If that sounds a bit Cage-ian, it is. Without Cage, Zappa said, much of what 
takes place in modern music and art
"would not be possible." Including, perhaps, the Ensemble Modern's dedication 
to realizing new sounds. 

"One of the things I like about the Ensemble Modern is that they're 
interested in sound just for its own sake," Zappa
said of the Frankfurt-based group. 

"At one rehearsal, one of the horn players picked his horn up off the floor, 
and it scraped and made a noise. And I
said, 'Do it again,' and the next thing you know, we had the entire brass 
section taking their instruments and scraping
the bells back and forth across the floor, making this grinding, grunting 
sound." 

It may surprise some that Zappa is writing for humans again (outside a 
rock'n'roll context). He has long been
frustrated by the slightest human error during performance. His ear is 
uncompromisingly keen; he routinely hears
glitches others don't. Like his friend Boulez, he is mainly concerned with 
precise execution of tone and rhythm and
sonic exploration. With his increasing involvmenmt with the Synclavier, 
evidenced by his Grammy-winning LP, "Jazz
>From Hell", in 1986, it seemed that Zappa had finally abandoned human 
musicians for an ideal "orchestra" - a
computer that could produce any sound he could imagine. 

No Frank Zappa interview would be complete without politics. Zappa, who was 
seriously exploring the idea of
running for President when his health sidetracked him, follows the scene 
avidly via CNN and C-SPAN. Did the man
who took on Tipper Gore and the Parents Music Resource Center on the issue of 
censoring pop music watch the
conventions? You bet! 

"I was so irate at the carryings-on at the Republican convention," he said. 
"I thought that if I can do anything to make
sure that George Bush doesn't get elected again - up to and including shaking 
hands with Tipper Gore - I'll do it. I
mean, it's that bad... I take back every bad thing I ever said about Clinton 
and Gore...Whoever or whatever George
Bush is, if you look at his friends, or his fellow travelers, I don't want to 
see those fellow travelers anywhere near
Washington, D.C. Enough already with Pat Robertson and these guys! So I even 
considered calling the Clinton
campaign and say I'd be happy to give them an endorsement if they thought it 
would be beneficial to them. They
might want to run screaming in the other direction. 

A final question was posed. How does the new music - specifically, "The 
Yellow Shark" project - fit into an overall
historical context in the long, highly colorful career of Frank Zappa? 

He paused longer than usual as he considered the question. "Aside from the 
fact that it's been a lot of fun to work on
it," he said, his voice suddenly dropping, "I think that it's helped my 
health. It's pretty important to me." 

Kurt-Werner Pörtner