Path: newsb.telia.net!masternews.telia.net.!newsb.telia.net.POSTED!not-for-mail From: "Bossk (R)" Newsgroups: alt.fan.frank-zappa Subject: Press Conference Transcript, Stockholm, 1968 Lines: 279 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4920.2300 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4920.2300 Message-ID: Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2002 21:00:03 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 217.210.12.73 X-Complaints-To: abuse@telia.com X-Trace: newsb.telia.net 1035838803 217.210.12.73 (Mon, 28 Oct 2002 22:00:03 CET) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2002 22:00:03 CET Organization: Telia Internet Xref: masternews.telia.net. alt.fan.frank-zappa:147919 Swedish public radio P2 just broadcast bits from a tape of a press conference with Zappa in Stockholm in 1968. It seems the tape had been in someone's basement and never before made public. Most of the questions had been edited out, and most of the programme was two guys talking about Zappa's comments - they acknowledged the questions seem bland, but, as they said, in those days rock journalists were inexperienced and there was also no PR machinery around most rock stars, you couldn't even get a tour schedule, or even a publicity photo, even of a superstar like Jimi Hendrix. Zappa's answers were less than sensational. However, I hadn't heard of his idea for a "Motor Pool" before, though perhaps that's just an "and you call yourself a fan" thing. Anyway, here's a transcription of everything Zappa said on the programme. Bossk (R) THE ZAPPA PATIO: http://zappapatio.unixlover.com ZAPPA: Yeah, I'm very fond of the music of Varese, Stravinsky, Penderecky, and Cage; I also like rythm & blues - Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters ... *** ZAPPA: Yeah, we did our first national television show about a month ago - by accident. See, they have a show there called the Joey Bishop show. And it's a very dull program that comes on late at night, and it's largest audience is in the South. And ... he went on a vacation, so they had these other people come in to be the host of the show. It's a variety show. So, ah, you know the American actress Shelley Winters? You know? Well, she was the hostess on the program. And she requested that we come on and play - and there was a lot of problems when she asked to do that, the producer of the program didn't want us to come on, so she said she would not do the show unless we went on. And she forced them to put us on television. And so we played. That was our - that was our first national television program. PRESS: Was it directly sent, this program? ZAPPA: Hm? PRESS: Was it directly sent? ZAPPA: Yes. PRESS: Why did she do it? ZAPPA: She wanted to help us, she wanted to put us on television; she liked our music ... y'know, which I thought was strange. PRESS: I don't know much about Shelley Winters ... ZAPPA: Neither do I, I'd never met her before either, it came as a surprise ... *** ZAPPA: I think the best hall - there are three really good halls that we played last time. That was the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and ... the hall we played in in Stockholm - PRESS: You liked this hall? ZAPPA: I liked it, yeah. And the one, the F-, er, Falconer Centre in Copenhagen. I think it's equally important that the public hears every note that you play ... you know, and if the acoustics of the room are not right, then you can't hear your definition between the different notes, you know, it all blends together and sounds blurry. *** ZAPPA: I was thinking of setting up, in a permanent installation, like a ... the way you would set up a school, where ... just at its most ... this'd be my most elaborate plan: that all the people, in all the groups, who really like music, and didn't particularily like show business, would quit the groups, and join the Motor Pool. And in order to still earn a living from being a player, the Motor Pool would have a service: they would put together instant groups, see, and offer to promotors all ... all over the place; all the promotor could say is, uh, "I want a group for a show, so many pieces on such and such a day". And at the Motor Pool, these people would be assigned to a job, and they would have one week to practice - one show. And they would go and play that one show, and it w-, it would be completely unique, and then after that they would never play together again. You know. So that ... the music gets a chance to change! Y'know? It could be very interesting results. And also records could be made in the same way. PRESS: Would you ever join this Motor Pool? ZAPPA: Sure! Yeah. I can think of a number of groups I'd really like to play with. I'd be happy ehough just to play guitar in'em! *** ZAPPA: The people that we talk about in those songs ... are people who really never wanted to protest against anything. What they wanted to do was leave their homes, their middle class, fairly comfortable American homes, and change their clothes, and go out into the street, and have a vacation. And that's what they did. During the summer - like, la- not this past summer but the one before, when Haight-Ashbury and that whole scene was happening in San Francisco, that's who most of those kids were! They weren't politically engaged! Or, you know, concerned, they were out there for a good time! And they put the beads out, they grew their hair out, y'know ... *** ZAPPA: 'Cause those are the only records that I buy, and listen to. PRESS: Have you listened for a long time to these ... composers? ZAPPA: Yeah, I'd say for about twelve years ... I just ha- PRESS: Did you begin by listening to these composers? ZAPPA: No, I began by listening to rhythm & blues, but I - when I was in school, y'know, a long time ago, I would buy both kinds of records. *** ZAPPA: I see a connection between the emotional intensity in the music, it's just - the medium is different; Howlin' Wolf has one type of medium by which he communicates his emotions, and Pende- PRESS: Who? ZAPPA: Howlin' Wolf, do you know that blues artist? PRESS: Yes? ZAPPA: Yeah. He has one medium by which he communicates, you know, the sound of his voice and the sound of the harmonica and the guitars; and Penderecki has another medium, you know ... but I think the expression you can ... y'know, the music is good if the personal expression of the composer or the artist shows through! And I could f- I could feel the, er ... the, you know, something from the music, from both those kinds of music! *** ZAPPA: I couldn't get so much of a feeling from jazz in those days. You know, I didn't think that the people who were playing jazz in the 50s ... um, you know, they had West Coast jazz, which is very commercialized. And ... it didn't ... it wasn't strong. PRESS: Is it different now? ZAPPA: Yes, there is some better jazz. PRESS: Better jazz now than in the 50s?* ZAPPA: Yes. PRESS: What jazz? ZAPPA: I like Archie Shepp, and I like, er, Albert Ayler. You know these players? PRESS: Yes, they have been in Sweden. What do you like in Albert Ayler's music? ZAPPA: I like the way it sounds! *) The journalist really seems to misunderstand Zappa's comments about West Coast jazz to extend to all 1950s jazz. *** ZAPPA: Political socialist, or ...? ... no. No. Because I think that the the definitions for these words like "socialist" and "communist" and "capitalist" and things like that - have been altered, and, and smeared, er, er, over a period of years; when you talk about communism in, er, Russia, it has capitalistic elements in it; and you talk about capitalism in the United States, and it has socialist elements in it, you know, and I, I ... I don't think that those labels are so good to use anymore. They can cause more arguments than ... actually settle. *** ZAPPA: No, I would tell'em first of all that they should study sociology.* I think you should study - you get, I think the number one problem in the world today is mental health. People are ... in most places are not very good, mentally. And they have a lot of problems, ah - I think the biggest example of bad mental health in the United States is, er, Governor Wallace. Y'know ... he's really got a problem, you know? PRESS: I, I agree. *) The question (not broadcast) was if Zappa would advise disillusiouned young people to "drop out". *** ZAPPA: Yeah, I have some political ideas, but I think that they - the base of what I feel politically goes back to sociology. And I think that until you have a, a mass, the whole population is not only well-educated but ... cooled out, you know, so they don't have emotional problems, and ... they, in the United States, they have very bad sexual problems, which influce the way in whioch they approach their lives. Er, every aspect of, uh, American life has, sort of, in the background, some sort of ... er, bad sexual training or bad sexual ... experience. At the base of it. *** ZAPPA: I'm not old enough to run for president. PRESS: Suppose you were. What would you do? How would you change ... like to change? ZAPPA: Er, first thing I would do, would be to ... legalize the use of drugs; legalize prostitution; legalize gambling - I would legalize all the things that people have been trying to legislate against for years. Because the, it's a foolish, um, thing to assume that a government, because it writes something on a piece of paper, that people will just follow along with that, if it is against their nature. You know, people change, over a period of years, and laws should change, to match what is, er, currently accepted in the community, and the laws of the United States haven't changed, you know? PRESS: The use of arms, for instance? ZAPPA: The use of arms I'm not to thrilled about, you know, huh-hah ... I don't like that ...* *) However, remember that Zappa bought himself a handgun. *** ZAPPA: I think that ... there's a lot of sanity built into the ten commandments, you know? And ... I'm, I'm not specifically Christian - I don't, I don't go to church and I don't go for all that stuff, but I, I looked at that list of rules one time and I said "You know, that kinda makes sense, it's not bad - it makes a lot more sense than the laws on most of the ... uh, city books in the United States!" *** ZAPPA: Because most Hollywood type groups, the groups that were synthesized together in that area, will hire an outside arranger and they will come in, and when I wrote FREAK OUT!, I wrote all that music myself, I copied the parts myself, and that's just as much a logical extension of what the group is ... as, as if the musicians hadn't been there; I wanted to hear - have that sound in the music, and I have every right to ... write a score and have it performed; have you heard the album LUMPY GRAVY? ' PRESS: Yes, just a part of it. ZAPPA: Yeah. So I w... the same way I wrote the music for that. You know, I, I wanna hear it, and I can get away with doin' it, I'll ... do it! *** ZAPPA: Well - I have every right - and so does any composer - who has a conscience - to write music that pleases his ear. And the same way I can write music for a squashed vegetable - or a gas mask on stage - or if I ... choose to draw a chalk line across the stage like LaMonte Young - I have as much right to do that as write for a symphony orchestra, and I ... and to just say that because other people have written things for the symphony orchestra which sound old-fashioned, you know, that's no reason to say it shouldn't exist anymore, or that, that it's a ... when I hear composers discuss things like that, I think that ... the music is what's most important; not specifically the means by which it's being communicated ... *** ZAPPA: Orchestra, the best orchestra should be a large number of people - who can play anything. Y'know? And if your orchestra doesn't live up to that, that's too bad. There aren't - they don't have many in the United States that do either, I can't even think of any ... but my idea of a good orchestra, y'know - and maybe there won't be one like that - but a, a composer should be able to imagine any combination of sounds he wants to hear; if I want to hear a, a synthesized tone, in conjunction with four trumpets and kettledrums, why not? PRESS: Hmm ... *** ZAPPA: Er, I think "Mom & Dad" is the saddest song I ever wrote. It makes me sad when I wrote it, and it makes me sad if I sing it. But unfortunately, it's quite possible that situations like that will become more frequent in the future. Not just in the United States, but everyplace.