Zappa

by Barry Miles

Book Overview

Ten years after his death, rebel, performer, and true musical visionary Frank Zappa continues to influence popular culture. Zappa is a brilliant and sweeping portrait, written by one of rock music's most respected biographers.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 080211783X
• ISBN13: 9780802117830
• Release Date: September 2004
• Publisher: Grove Press
• Length: 464 Pages
• Weight: 1.79 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.5" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

A giant of experimental music, full of fascinating contradictions

This book, when it is not being contorted to fit its author's crippling leftist prejudices, generally does justice to a fascinating member of the musical pantheon. Among the things I liked best about it, besides the exhaustive look at Frank Zappa's early days, is the evocation of the LA Happenings scene in the mid-1960s - the Freak-Out lead-up to 1967's Summer of Love along the Sunset Strip, the place where so much of the counterculture was spawned. What made it more than just a street with a bunch of bars on it is rarely spelled out as well as it is here. The Mothers of Invention were every bit as seminal as the Grateful Dead or the Merry Pranksters. The original Mothers broke up the same week as Woodstock; they'd been doing their thing for five years before that, and the America where they were doing it was vastly different in 1965 than it was in 1970. Zappa was a bundle of contradictions. Over three decades of comic, satirical lyrics, he continually derided commercial culture, but no rock musician was a harder-headed businessman than Frank Zappa. It is rare that anyone this creative can also get in there, make money and successfully battle to remain independent, while still remaining focused enough to put out good work. He ridiculed uptight, family-values America and sentimental notions of love, but built a pretty good family and enduring marriage himself. He practically created the concept of Freaking Out, but eschewed drugs. He was one of his generation's archetypal rebels, but ridiculed his own hip young fans. Zappa's music is some of the most successful modernist music ever made - continually new and refreshing, a Niagara torrent of interesting sounds, accessible in a genre frequently unlistenable. But he topped it with scatological lyrics that hurt both his music's commercial potential as well as acceptance of his music at the other end, in the most creative circles, as academy types were turned off by it. Miles speaks truth when he says Zappa will be remembered for his music, not his lyrics. The future will little care what he thought about a society now vanished. Also, while Zappa's lyrics may represent social commentary, in another sense they represent pure goofing -amusement for him and his band during long hours of rehearsal and touring. He and his family characterized them as a sort of journalism; he was reporting what he and those around him saw, filtered through his ironic sensibility but not necessarily passing judgment on it. In yet another sense, though, he used voices and lyrics as musical sounds. Perhaps the contradictions resolve this way: this hard-headed businessman used the cheesy sensationalism of the Mothers - the stage antics and talk-dirty lyrics - to keep his ambitious experimental music commercially viable at all. He was less an out-beyond-the-pale rock musician than he was a shrewdly successful experimental one. Experimental musicians are usually distinguished by their anonymity, famous only among their

what did you expect

I think that every time Frank asked the girls in the audience to toss up a pair of panties, or sang about sexuality, deviations, inebriants, et cetera...he wasn't trying to glorify our actions, or exploit his fetishes, he was telling the world what a bunch of idiots we are! Barry Miles book clarifies this point, and I for one (care less for them, no...) am satisfied that my presumption is no longer presumptuous. What does one expect from a person? He was who he was, he couldn't care less what we thought. You know what? PERFECT. I love the man all the more!!!! I don't want Zappa to come to my house and baby sit, or play canasta! I want the Frank that spoke to an immature nation, that knew he was above this mentality (something we should all strive for), he was that small ball of rock orbiting between Jupiter and Mars, looking down at us (still) and shaking his ugly head. Love the man, love the book, or hate it.... who cares!

wow...

People here sure are protective of ol' "Uncle Frank"! I've been a big zappa fan forever and found no reason to be outraged over this book. I enjoyed the fact the the book did not sugarcoat Zappa. The guy was a musical genius, but that dosn't mean he couldn't have been a self-centered dick! I think Barry Miles did a fantastic job at showing us both sides of the story, even if his editors did miss a lot of mistakes.

Well done biography

This is actually a good book. Its thoroughly researched and well written. It suffers from the main flaw of all the Zappa books that were not written by Frank Zappa himself though, it spends way too much time on his early (and IMO overrated) material with the Mothers. This book is basically put together from all the other books, including Zappas autobiography and also many other sources. In the end it gives possibly the most complete picture of Frank of any of the many books written about him. The thing that seperates this book though is that it covers the last 5 or so years of his life in far more detail than any other book written about Zappa. I had never, ever read about his last days and Miles does so and they are rather moving. It was very interesting to read about this side of Zappa and that alone makes the book a must read for Zappa fans. Surely this isnt a butt kissing book but it is also very fair to Frank and lauds him far more than it puts him down. He isnt infalable and this book does point that out but it doesnt dwell on negativity.

This book captures some favorite Zappa quotes and stories.

This book (by Miles, not Watson) is a great place to start to learn the important points in Zappa history. It shows most of the famous pictures of Zappa throughout the years. The small, story-like presentation makes for fast reading and its fun to skip around. The book in no way attempts to analyse the modern day composer, just quotes or interviews. There is no Watson, Poodle Play here, just fun! Other books would better suit the long-time Zappaphile!