Archive for the ‘frank zappa’ tag
Frank Zappa debatterer rock-tekster i CNN
Frank Zappa i CNN’s Crossfire, 1986, i debat om ytringsfrihed og ‘beskidte tekster’ i rockmusik:
Citat fra en anmeldelse af bogen The Real Frank Zappa:
The remaining chapters focus on elements of Zappa’s personal philosophy and political viewpoints. Some of the unusual aspects of Zappa’s personal philosophy included contempt for nostalgia and sentimentality, an unshakable determination to protect artistic freedom, disgust with religion, superstition, and the kind of routine public lying that we now refer to as “spin.” Zappa viewed himself as a rational human being and most of the public as little more than idiots. Then, after a chapter of bizarre road stories (“The One You’ve Been Waiting For”), Zappa lashes out at critics, radio stations, and record company executives for their mutual insistence on catering to the lowest common denominator of musical tastes among the listening public.
In Chapter 12, “America Drinks And Goes Marching,” Zappa states his views in relation to drugs. Despite his association in the minds of the public (Zappa might dispute the very idea that the public have minds) with the drug culture of the sixties, Zappa was quite conservative about illicit drugs. He admits to trying marijuana perhaps ten times during the sixties, but didn’t find it appealing. He very nearly got bounced from one of his bands because the other members of the group didn’t like having the stodgy and sober Zappa spoiling their good times. Interestingly, Zappa lumped alcohol in with other drugs (as any good authority on drug abuse would also), but refused to view tobacco in that manner. He was a longtime smoker and a workaholic who depended on cigarettes and coffee to keep himself revved up. He also had deplorable eating habits, partly because he worked all night by himself and had no time to devote to preparing food. The album Burnt Weeny Sandwich acquired its title from one of Zappa’s favorite nighttime quickie snacks. Zappa’s rationalization in relation to cigarettes was, “To me, a cigarette is food.” So, Zappa the rationalist and destroyer of fallacious assumptions also had his own peccadilloes and blind spots in relation to his own fallacious justifications. Zappa died of prostate cancer and it’s not unlikely that either the cigarettes or the wieners (nitrites and nitrates are carcinogenic), or both, played a role in his early demise.
In Chapter 14, Zappa expands on his dislike of romantic sentimentality, while also sharing his obviously deep feelings about his second wife, Gail, four children (Moon, Dweezil, Ahmed, and Diva), and the importance of family. “I don’t have friends,” he acknowledges, but he did have a wonderful family, and, as he said, “that, folks, is way better.” Zappa was difficult to get along with and it’s easy to find quotes on the internet from his various associates over the years (e.g., Don Vliet and Ruth Underwood) that are far from flattering. After the accident in 1971 at the Rainbow Theatre in London, in which Zappa was thrown bodily into the orchestra pit by a crazed fan, Zappa grew increasingly misanthropic, temperamental, suspicious, and defensive. His leg had been broken and, when it finally healed a year later, the damaged leg was shorter than the other, causing him chronic back pain. His trachea had collapsed in the 15-foot fall as well. When he finally returned to touring more than a year later, he never again traveled without the companionship of a 7-foot bodyguard.
Chapter 15 recounts Zappa’s run-in with the PMRC (Parents’ Music Resource Center) and Congress as the powers in Washington attempted to “bring the music industry to its knees” with a “voluntary” rating system for album lyrics. While it sounds like an innocuous concept, the combination of rating stickers and the economics of the music industry were such that the PMRC proposal could have led to a great deal of de facto censorship. Zappa spearheaded the challenge to the PMRC, which consisted mainly of wives of Senators, who, in turn, depended on political support from Christian fundamentalists. In Chapter 16, Zappa expounds on the importance of genuine separation of church and state.
Up to this point in the book, I found myself pretty much agreeing with every part of Zappa’s viewpoint – except for his rationalization of tobacco use and poor nutrition. My appreciation for him had been steadily climbing. That changed a bit with Chapter 17, entitled “Practical Conservatism.” Few people who have not read this book will be able to imagine that Zappa was actually more conservative than liberal in his political views. Zappa was the old-fashioned civil libertarian kind of conservative, in the manner, perhaps, of William F. Buckley, not the kind of conservatives that predominate today – the neo-cons and the religious right. The issues that he addresses in the chapter are largely out-of-date, today, but we can fairly judge that Zappa was more isolationist than interventionist, adamantly disliked both Communism and labor unions, supported Capitalist innovation (but believed America was failing to promote research and development adequately), preferred a regressive tax on spending to taxes on income, and believed that people have rights to such choices as recreational drug use or suicide. Zappa often lashed out against Republicans in his song lyrics, but his views were actually aligned with what the Republican Party once stood for, before the era of televangelists and neo-conservatives.
