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Barry
02-10-2009, 00:27
‘Frank Zappa’ by Barry Miles

Encouraged by Chris’s excellent overview of the work of Frank Zappa

http://theartofsound.net/forum/showthread.php?t=2347&highlight=Frank+Zappa

I have been re-evaluating Zappa’s work with The Mothers of Invention as well as exploring his later work.

As part of this ‘project’, I have recently read the biography ‘Frank Zappa’ by Barry Miles, Atlantic Books London, 2004. (ISBN 1 84354 091 6) This fairly weighty tome of some 350 pages is the most detailed and authoritative account I have seen of Zappa’s life. The comprehensive notes to each of the chapters, the list of further reading and complete discography has to be seen to be believed.

Unlike Zappa’s own autobiography, ‘The Real Frank Zappa Book’, which although of interest because it’s Zappa’s own, and because of that, has to be read with a certain amount of disbelief, Barry Miles’ book is written from the view point of an obvious Zappa fan and yet is impartial.

It starts, obviously enough, with Zappa’s childhood and upbringing. Owing to his father’s work with the Department of Defence, the Zappa family moved around a lot - Zappa attended twelve different schools before the age of 16! Description of his teenage years and his involvement with ad hoc groups of players make for difficult reading because it is so detailed. Miles seems to take great delight in listing every change of band member, where they practiced, where they played, what they played – it just becomes too dense and the reader is encouraged to skim the pages.

By the time Zappa has formed the Mothers and is living in Hollywood in the sixties, the amount of detail mentioned is almost unbearable. Virtually every band around is mentioned; who is playing with who; who is sleeping with who, what drugs they are using, who’s getting busted and so on!

After this the style settles down and we learn that Zappa was a workaholic, autocratic, a total control freak and generally not a very nice person to have to work with. Zappa was so into his own writing, playing, recording and editing his tapes that his family, especially his children, saw very little of him. It’s usual that creative people are sometime difficult to work with, but Zappa seems to have taken this to the extreme. He would hire and fire people at whim and when touring would always stay at a different hotel to the rest of the band. You also learn that Zappa was passionately anti drugs and would fire musicians on the spot if they were found to be taking drugs.

Detailed descriptions of the convoluted record deals makes for dull reading but emphasises that Zappa insisted on having complete control over everything he did.

His working relation with classical musicians was difficult because of Zappa’s obsession with perfection – he insisted on the musicians rehearsing his compositions until it was perfect. Despite all this, Miles encourages the reader to listen to certain compositions for their excellence.

By the time you get to the end of Zappa’s life you realise what a unique character Zappa was; for all of his selfishness, singular and distasteful attitude to women, and the fact that he was near insufferable to work with – Zappa was certainly his own man.

Ironically it was during the last year of his life that he started to appreciate his family, friends and fellow musicians. Owing to his terminal illness, he was effectively house bound and so would hold musical soirees with a whole variety of friends and musicians such as The Chieftains and the Mongolian throat singers Huun Huur Tu; Zappa was exploring world music!

Despite becoming annoyed with Zappa’s approach to life, and with the excessive detail of the book, I was glad to have read it and commend it to all other Zappaphiles.

DaveK
02-10-2009, 08:44
Hi Barry,
Thanks for the book review which I enjoyed very much - not sure that I would enjoy the book though, much too much detail to hold my attention.
Cheers,

DanJennings
02-10-2009, 09:11
I also heartily recommend this book... read it a few years ago.... Incredibly detailed, very revealing.

The Grand Wazoo
02-10-2009, 20:44
A great piece Barry, congratulations.
There are quite a few books about Zappa. There's actually a website dedicated to them(!!)
http://www.afka.net/index.htm

The trouble is, so many of them are written by overly fawning fans who, for them, the man could do no wrong.

Some others I've enjoyed in some respect:
'Viva! Zappa' by Dominique Chevalier - it's quite informative about his fellow musicians/employees & has good overviews of most of the albums.

'Electric Don Quixote' by Neil Slaven - very comprehensive & objective but also quite dry & therefore fairly hard work.

'Zappa, A Biography' Julian Colbeck - covers most of the ground, is objective and not afraid to criticise.