| Between
1977 and 1992 Guitar
Player and Keyboard magazines
featured Frank Zappa not only with
several cover stories, but also with
album reviews, editorials, sound pages,
personal comments on the current trends
in the music industry, an instructional
column (originally titled Absolutely
Frank but changed to Non Foods because Frank
felt that the former sounded a bit too
serious), as well as lengthy interviews
with many of the musicians that
"came up" through his band. All of this
great coverage was capped in 1992 with ZAPPA!, an entire
issue devoted to "exclusive
interviews, tons of music, a bunch of
pictures & other neat stuff".
ZAPPA!
was followed by
the 1996 issue, A Definitive
Tribute To FRANK ZAPPA
which
contained reprints of several of the
aforementioned interviews.
I chose
these particular interviews for
reproduction specifically because they
focus entirely on Frank discussing music.
Too much attention is paid to other
aspects of Frank's legacy such as his
outrageous antics or his political views
which, although important, tend to
overshadow the fact that Frank was first
and foremost a COMPOSER.
ONE SIZE FITS ALL -- by Steve Rosen,
Guitar Player, January 1977.
LITTLE BAND WE
USED TO PLAY IN --by Michael
Davis, keyboard, June 1980
NOT EXACTLY DUANE
ALLMAN --by Tom Mulhern, Guitar
Player, February 1983
THE SIN IN
SYNCLAVIER --as told to Dan
Forte, Guitar Player, June 1986
JAZZ FROM HELL --by Robert L.
Doerschuk & Jim Aikin, Keyboard,
February 1987
THE MOTHER OF ALL
INTERVIEWS --by Don
Menn, Guitar Player Presents,
1992
Act I: The
First Third Degree
Act II:
Belgian Waffles In Plastic -- with
Matt Groening
Perhaps
Miller Freeman, Inc. won't be too pissed
off if they ever find out about this!
|