The Entrepreneur: ’73 – ‘74

In 1973 Zappa, Herb Cohen and Zach Glickman founded DiscReet Records and, once again, signed a distribution deal with Warners.

They began making significant income from releasing records and Herb began to sign artists, which Zappa didn’t believe in, just to make a profit. Talk about ‘only in it for the money.’ The label released two albums by Ted Nugent before he became a star and also released Zappa’s Over-Nite Sensation, which reached No. 32 on the charts and was his first ever gold album. This proved that “you can never dumb down enough to satisfy the American public” [Miles, p.238].

Apostrophe (‘) followed a year later and this time Zappa used a full-fledged marketing campaign to promote it. Thirty second TV ads were run regularly and the album reached No.18 on the Cashbox Top 20. It also went gold.

The Composer: ’73 – ‘74

Zappa always seemed to encourage ideas from his band members, collect them and mould them together into his own pieces. Many of the musicians who worked with him became angry, and perhaps a bit bitter, and accused him of stealing their ideas. As Motorhead explained: “Frank’s special talent was for taking bits and pieces from all over the place and incorporating them into his work.” Tom Fowler continued: “He gets too much credit for the things the guys around him contributed.” Kaylan pointed out “his ability to take the best from his musicians and recycle it and put it out again ... as ‘Frank Zappa music’” [Miles p. 230]. As Miles explains, “He saw himself in part as a journalist, reporting on life as he saw it and he believed that anything the band said or did in the privacy of the dressing room could – and should – be shouted from the rooftops” [p.234]. However, the one constant was that he always made sure to use a third person narrative or make someone else sing the songs because as much as he loved talking about the experiences of others he couldn’t directly speak of his.

In 1973 the newest incarnation of The Mothers recorded with Tina Turner and The Ikettes. Zappa’s compositions were becoming less social commentary and more explicit, dumbed down humor. And the more faith he lost in ‘freaking out’ the less revelatory were his lyrics.

For his album Over-Nite Sensation (1973) Zappa wrote two songs that really stand out as a turning point. Dinah-Moe Hum, which is about a woman who bets Zappa $40 that he can’t make her come, and Dirty Love, which is about a narrator who treats a groupie solely as a sex object and she ends up having sex with a poodle. Other than trying to appeal to a wider audience with his raw humor the fact was that ever since the jail time he served in ’65 for the ‘suggestive tapes’ he made it his mission in life to exercise his freedom of speech to the fullest extent.

However, the album did feature I’m the Slime, along the lines of Trouble Every Day's social commentary, where Zappa comments on television brainwashing the country into a group of zombies who simply do as they’re told.

The tour which followed, once again with a new lineup (largely instrumental this time), was not as pleasing to Zappa as he had hoped. He found the musicians to be extremely boring and his constant problem would become that "he wanted skilled musicians, but he wanted them to behave like a teenage rock n’ roll band so that he could have more vicarious experiences to write about” [p.273]. With music that wasn’t very rock and his stringent policy on drugs he was unlikely to ever find any candidates who fit the bill.

Apostrophe(‘) came in ’74 and unfortunately for Zappa it became evident that thanks to “the combination of dumbed-down humor with extremely sophisticated playing ... the music was often overlooked” [p. 239].

The Man: ’73 – ‘74

In April ’73 Zappa’s father died and although they had had a cold relationship Zappa never ceased to respect him. They were also more similar then perhaps they ever thought. Although Zappa brought up his kids encouraging freedom (the 'opposite' of what his parents had done), the house always revolved around Zappa’s needs and the only thing his children were ever scared of was disturbing him.

On May 15, 1974 Zappa’s second son was born - Ahmet Emuukha Rodan Zappa.

The Man / The Composer / The Performer: The Grand Wazoo

December 1971 brought about an event which turned Zappa’s world upside-down and which would influence his life and career to his last day.

Zappa and the new Mothers had just finished playing a show at the Montreaux Casino in Switzerland when the venue was set on fire and the entire thing burnt down with all of their equipment conveniently left inside. Forced to play with rented instruments and gear they chose to shorten their tour and headed off to London to play their last shows. That’s when it happened. A young man jumped on stage and pushed Zappa off into the orchestra pit ten feet below.
Greatly injured, Zappa was rushed to the hospital where he stayed for a month. The following four weren't much better as they were spent in a plaster cast up to his hip. As we know by now, Zappa loved control and this period of ‘helplessness’ drove him mad.

Although everyone was always complaining about how unsentimental Zappa was, the guy who pushed him even claimed that he had done it because he was sick of Zappa treating the audience like dirt, everyone immediately came to visit him in hospital. The Mothers line-up showed up as soon as they could to check in on Zappa and Gail flew in to stay by his side – although on her arrival she had to push away two rival girlfriends! (Other girls were always around and once they were back in the U.S. and Zappa was still recovering, Nigey Lennon moved into his basement studio and almost tore his marriage apart with her presence.)

However, the accident also had a positive effect on his creativity and songwriting. He listened to jazz fusion excessively while in hospital and was inspired to make his own band: The Grand Wazoo Orchestra. The band was comprised of George Duke and Aynsley Dunbar from The Mothers and Alex Dmochowski from one of Aynsley’s old bands. They were joined by L.A. session musicians (6 woodwind, 4 brass, 2 percussion, Sal Marquez on trumpet and Tony Duran on slide guitar.)

The band released Waka/Jawaka followed by The Grand Wazoo in 1972.

Zappa then put together a twenty piece orchestra, billed them as The Mothers and hit the road. In fact the only Mothers left were the Underwoods and the rest were session musicians. This time around Gail was sure to accompany him and keep an eye on things, and Zappa made sure to bring along a bodyguard. His paranoia after the attack in London was so great that a bodyguard would become a permanent fixture.
Twenty people soon proved too hard to keep on the road so he came up with a stripped down version, Petit Wazoo, which only required ten.

The Flo & Eddie Mothers were never officially broken up, but as Zappa was keeping busy with other projects the two went on to start their own musical endeavors.

As far as performances went, the Wazoo was an “electric symphony orchestra ... we’re not going to have people jumping around on stage or falling down with tambourines and saying zany stuff – we’re not supplying that this season,” explained Zappa [Miles p.227].

The Entrepreneur: Post Mothers Breakup

Although he had split The Mothers up, Zappa had a lot of extra material recorded and stored. The smart business man that he was he didn’t just let the music sit around gathering dust rather, he continued releasing albums recorded by the original Mothers lineup sort of ‘posthumously,’ hoping to cash in on the fan base they had built without actually having to do any extra work or pay anyone to rehearse, record or tour.


June ’69 saw the release of Hot Rats, what’s been called the first jazz-rock album, and December welcomed Burnt Weeny Sandwich which is a “musical history of Zappa’s life, framed by Doo Wop, followed by a homage to Igor Stravinsky and some of the most beautiful compositions Zappa ever wrote.” [Miles p. 196].





Then, in August of 1970, Zappa put out Weasels Ripped My Flesh, another album with tracks by the original Mothers, but simultaneously began to tour with a new group using the same name. By this point, everyone was confused. Why hadn’t he just reunited the original band? The most likely explanation is that he regretted his decision but was too set in his way to admit he had changed his mind. His Sicilian pride was shining through.


However, in business as in music, Zappa did have his slip-ups as well. One example is when John Lennon and Yoko Ono joined The Mothers on stage one night in 1971 at the Fillmore East and both parties walked away from the performance with a recording of the entire thing. John and Frank personally agreed to each use the tape in whichever manner they pleased, but refusing to take the time and effort required to go through Lennon’s representatives Zappa was pushed out of the deal. John and Yoko soon released the recording and claimed copyrights on it, making it exclusively their own. Perhaps his original feelings toward The Beatles were spot-on.

The Musician/Performer: Post Mothers Breakup

In the 70s, with the Flo and Eddie lineup, a new invention came about. Zappa began writing 'playlets', thirty minute sketches which were improvised upon, for his live shows. For example, ‘What Kind of Girl do You Think We Are?’ was always a fan favorite. Flo and Eddie pretended to be groupies who only slept with bands with records in the charts and the band improvised most of the set. These playlets were perhaps based on a similar technique implied by one of his classical idols; Stravinsky’s ever-changing operetta, The Soldier’s Tale, adapted to the city it was performed in by changing the names of the personalities and places to match those of local favorites and national landmarks.

In May 1970 Zappa was joined by the LA Philharmonic who played his orchestral piece entitled 200 Motels. “All I’m interested in doing is hearing what the music sounds like that I wrote in those motels. If I can hear it, then I can write some more,” said Zappa of the performance [p.198]. It was always believed that the only reason why Zappa ever required a band was to actually be able to hear what he was writing as he couldn't play it all by himself. If he could have it is likely that he would have taken the option and avoided taking the chance that someone might play it incorrectly or not as he expected.

For this particular performance, in addition to the Philharmonic, he also needed a nine piece electric band and that’s when he decided to reassemble a line-up similar to the original Mothers. (They even put on a mini reunion tour shortly after.) Zappa was joined by Ray Collins, Don Preston, Ian Underwood, Motorhead, Jeff Simmons, Billy Mundi and Aynsley Dunbar to interpret the piece – it’s clear to see Zappa didn’t trust his new, young 'Vaudeville band' to take on the challenges of this composition.

The Composer: Post Mothers Breakup

Once the original Mothers were disbanded it wasn’t long before Zappa began assembling a new group of musicians. In 1970 he gathered a new reincarnation of the group with Ian Underwood (keyboards and alto sax), Aynsley Dunbar (drums), Jeff Simmons (bass and vocals), George Duke (keyboards and trombone) and Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman, of The Turtles fame, on vocals. Seeing as latter two could not use their real names without breaching their contract with their prior record label they decided to go under the moniker of Flo (Howard) and Eddie (Mark).

Although Zappa's new music remained complex and challenging to play, as Volman once said: “It wasn’t just taking a song and singing a verse ... It demanded learning notes, and singing those exact notes, or they wouldn’t fit” [p. 202], the lyrics started becoming ‘compromised.’ Flo and Eddie brought on a younger, dumbed down humour. With the ‘Vaudeville lineup’ (as they were dubbed by their fans) gone were the days of deep, politically-charged, thought-provoking lyrics. They were now replaced with negative, explicitly sexual themes. Healthy sex seemed to no longer take females into consideration, it was now only about guys getting what they wanted. This new ‘style’ began to alienate fans who thought that Zappa dumbed down for the money.
The first official release was Chunga’s Revenge in October of 1970 and it included new Mothers material mixed with Hot Rats group tracks.

The next release, Just Another Band from LA, was recorded live during a performance in 1971 on the UCLA campus and was seen as misogynistic and shallow, especially since feminism was booming at the time of its release.

The Man: Post Mothers Breakup

Other than music Zappa had always had a deep passion for writing and making movies and his third attempt at a full-length feature was the 1971 release of 200 Motels. Shot in England, it featured the London Philharmonic, The Who drummer, Keith Moon, as a nun and Ringo Starr as Zappa (the irony of which must have greatly amused Zappa. His '68 album We're Only in it for the Money was devoted to mocking The Beatles and trying to show the world that Zappa thought they were overrated and only in it for the money.

Zappa’s goal with this film was to portray the life of a band on the road and to make it as realistic as possible he asked most of the characters to play themselves and, rather than learning lines, to improvise scenarios which had actually occurred in the past. As always, control-freak Frank tried to take over as much of the directing and editing as possible and this caused many feuds with director Tony Palmer, who was just as hardheaded. The final result has audiences puzzled to this day as the scenes do not always flow and integrate as smoothly as perhaps they did in Zappa’s mind.

On a personal note, around 1971 Zappa became extremely close to a minor, Nigey Lennon, who later went on to write a candid novel entitled ‘Being Frank.’ A minor at the time, Zappa first took her home when she was 16 and then took her on tour at 17, Zappa risked incarceration for Nigey. Thinking back to how paranoid Zappa had become of going back to jail after his ten-day stint following the bust in Studio Z, this is extremely bizarre. However, it may be explained by the fact that, according to Nigey, sex was only slightly less important to him than music: “It permeated everything he did on an unconscious level.” [Miles p.218]

The Man: Disband of the Mothers – 1969

The Mothers were run like a business. As Jimmy Carl Black [drummer] explained; “It was like an office job where you have to put in at least forty hours a week. If you were sick, you could be asked for a doctor’s excuse or get docked a day’s pay. This was toward the end before we split up. We were making more money and the Mothers were run like a business” [Miles p. 175]. Bunk Gardner [sax] agreed: "Frank Zappa was not a particularly fun guy to work for or with, for many reasons. He had a huge ego and he was definitely a workaholic who could rehearse hour after hour after hour and then make a critique and criticize after all that hard work, and also display a complete intolerance for anyone making a mistake while playing his music ... I can still remember Frank Zappa walking around in a rage after many concerts because someone fucked up and made a mistake which Frank said was a lack of concentration and being tuned into him” [p.171] They all put up with his autocratic approach in the hope of one day achieving fame and fortune, but he decided not to put up with them.

Things began to take a turn for the worse in Zappa's mind and he made a drastic move. In 1969 he decided to suddenly disband The Mothers to everyone’s utter surprise. A decision which he perhaps soon regretted as it wasn’t long before he began to reassemble new Mothers line-ups. Why not apologize and ask for the originals to join him once again? Zappa’s ego was always too big for his own good.

Don Preston explained the breakup: "There were a number of reasons why The Mothers disbanded. One of them was that Zappa was paying us all a salary ... he couldn’t afford the Mother’s salary, but he kept hiring more and more musicians ... the other thing was that he used to get very angry when people would respond to the solos more than his compositions ... the other thing was that we sometimes during a concert would only play three or four songs. The rest would be all improvisation ... I think he wanted more kinds of control on the music” [p.185]. And Black elaborated that, “Frank has got to be king; he’s the boss ... it wasn’t Frank Zappa and the Mothers, it was The Mothers, and that’s the reason he got rid of us” [p. 186].

Others also claimed that Zappa had only started the band so that he could hear what his music sounded like and now that he knew he no longer needed them. He also had a lot of material recorded and stored and was able to release eight Mothers albums after they disbanded. His record labels and producing were also taking up a significant amount of him time and actually starting to bring in money.

Zappa’s side of the story? “I got tired of playing for people who clap for all the wrong reasons” [p.185] He had had enough of people coming to shows for the theatrics and not caring about his music. It was pure jealousy of his band. Jealousy that fans clapped for the improvised sections which he had nothing to do with. Jealousy that his band could read music better than he ever could. Resentment that he used their ideas in his works and they called him a thief. It's no surprise at all that when you have an individual as strong-headed and unforgiving as Zappa working with a group of individuals who challenge him and outshine him at times, that the individual will reach a breaking point sooner or later. Zappa had reached his.

Not making himself look any better he then told the band that their salaries had now stopped and that, basically, they could move on now and not bother looking back. No warning, no heads-up and the band resented him for it even more. Black; “He hasn’t got much feeling; doesn’t care about people that much.“ [p. 187]

The Social Critic: End of the 60s

Zappa was never supportive of society and took it upon himself to continuously point out its faults to the world. However, he did not do this just to do it, he did it with the hopes of influencing people to change for the better. He strove to persuade and encourage those he could to help fix society.

Zappa believed that the best and most efficient way to do this was through infiltration. He spoke against riots and one-time demonstrations which wouldn’t produce lasting results and encouraged everyone to infiltrate the system and change it from within. In his own words, taken from his lecture at the London School of Economics in ’69, he believed that: “The best way to achieve lasting results is to infiltrate where you can. People should go into communications and the military and change them from the inside. I’m afraid that everyone will have a revolution and make a mess of it. They will wave their banners on the streets and brandish sticks and go home and brag about their bruises ... you are not going to solve all the problems in fifteen minutes or ten years ... the only way to make changes that will last is to do it slowly. People are thrilled with the idea of revolution in the streets. It’s this year’s flower power. Wait for eighteen months and there will be another fad. I disagree with you tactics. You won’t do it wandering the streets; you have to use the media. The media is the key and you have to use it.” [Miles p. 191]

Zappa was also always a firm believer that sex played a key role in helping to mend society’s faults. He took it upon himself to speak up and preach the benefits of groupies and explained that seeing as groupies eventually find a partner and settle down, “It’s good for these guys to be getting girls like these ... it’s good for the whole country. These guys will be happier, they’ll do their jobs better, and the economy will reflect it. Everybody will be happier.” [Miles p.179]

The Entrepreneur: End of the 60s

When his contract with MGM finally expired and wasn’t renewed, Zappa took matters into his own hands. Joining forces with Herb Cohen they opened Bizarre Inc – a company with seven divisions, which included Bizarre Records, music publishing and management. This freedom came at a price however. Zappa had to give MGM permission to release a compilation CD and a final Mothers album: Cruising with Ruben and the Jets. The savvy business man that he was, he took the deal.

Bizarre Records was rigorously and meticulously planned out and operated, just like his independent Studio Z, and Zappa secured Warner as their distributor. The only problem was that everything he was inclined to release was a guaranteed non-chart topper. Their first release in October of ’68 is a great example: “The Circle” by paranoid schizophrenic street performer Wild Man Fischer.

As for the first Mothers release on his own label, that came in April ’69 with Uncle Meat – the end of Zappa’s NY work. Some of the tracks made appearances on later albums thanks to their popularity and many have been covered and reinterpreted by everyone from Renaissance music groups to brass ensembles to rock bands.

It wasn’t long before the power duo that was Zappa-Cohen decided to expand their business further. They founded a new label, Straight, and released their first album in May of ’69 by a then unknown Alice Cooper.
The way Zappa ran his businesses was quite ruthless under the surface and as Miles explains in his biography: “Frank enjoyed the rough and tumble and frankly exploitive deals of the record business. It was only when the record companies used the same techniques on him that he objected.” [p.178]

The Composer: End of the 60s

Zappa never stopped composing, no matter where he was. At home he’d lock himself in the basement and work all night and when he was on the road things weren’t that much different. He would sit in his hotel room or in an airport lounge and write music. His influences and inspirations seemed to change as often as his location and the end of the 60s saw an array of releases.

Lumpy Gravy was released in May of 1968 and was one of Zappa’s personal favorites. Perhaps not all that surprising since he had the opportunity to record with a full orchestra, use a 12-track and a state-of-the-art studio. To demonstrate how proud he was of the works on this album think that “Oh No” appeared on five others!

Cruising with Ruben and the Jets was released in December of 1968 and is an ode to ‘50s R&B and Doo Wop, which Zappa genuinely loved. “I like that kind of music, I’m very fond of close harmony group vocal [...] but the scientific side of Ruben & the Jets is that it was an experiment in cliché collages, because that music was just riddled with stereotyped motifs that made it sound the way it did. Not only did it give it its characteristic sound, but it gave it its emotional value,” commented Zappa on the style. As for The Mother's interpretation: “We scaled down the instrumentation of the group, and I tried to make it sound reasonably modern and also reasonably stereo ... we discussed different kinds of background chants and the emotional implications of them,” he explained [Miles p. 173]. This attention to every single detail, even what a particular chant may imply, truly showcases Zappa’s control freak attitude in all its glory.

Apart from his own work Zappa also lent a helping hand to friend Don Vliet with the production of a new album for his band; Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band.

Trout Mask Replica is considered to be Zappa’s greatest independent production by many. Released in 1969 it features an untouched Don Vliet who always had a rhythm problem, and continued to have one on the album as Zappa chose not to tamper with the production in order to offer Vliet a ‘genuine’ product. When the band heard the finished album they dubbed it as the only album they ever made that actually sounded like the real band. All Zappa had to say was that “some of it’s pretty hard to listen to,” [p.183] and many agree that it’s one of the strangest albums ever made.

The Man: End of the 60s

In 1968 Zappa and his family made another move. This time they settled into a massive 18-room log cabin in Laurel Canyon. There they were joined by Zappa’s ‘entourage’ and the number of people residing in The Log Cabin stayed at around twelve. This included Ian Underwood and Motorhead Sherwood of The Mothers as well as The GTOs (a groupie band Zappa 'put together' and produced) and Pamela Zarubica (a close friend who had introduced him to his wife, Gail). Other than the regulars it soon became a hot stop for megastar musicians passing through the U.S., such as Eric Clapton and Mick Jagger. Building a recording studio in his basement, Zappa never had to leave home. Throughout his life, Zappa's basement studios would be his sanctuary. He would spend entire nights smoking cigarettes, drinking black coffee and composing, playing and editing.

Another thing that remained constant throughout his life, as mentioned earlier, he remained straightedge and was “never a druggie. Frank openly made fun of the very counterculture he was helping to sustain,” says Grace Slick in her autobiography [Miles p. 168] It is almost as if he surrounded himself by what he ‘forbid’ and subconsciously encouraged it so that he could have further inspiration and interesting subject matter for his music.

On September 5th 1969 his family expanded with the addition of Ian Donal Calvin Euclid Zappa – to be known as Dweezil from the age of five when he insisted to have his name changed to what his parents had originally wanted, but had been forbidden to use by hospital staff.

Conclusion: New York City (’66 – ’68)

“All the albums recorded in New York are interconnected: We’re Only in It for the Money, Lumpy Gravy, Uncle Meat and Ruben and the Jets,” explains Miles and quotes Zappa as having once said “It’s all one album. All the material in the albums is organically related and if I had all the master tapes and I could take a razor blade and cut them apart and put it together again in a different order it still would make one piece of music you can listen to.” [Miles p. 160]

As Miles explains, this was not a one time occurrence: “This way of working was the ‘project/object’ concept: each project is part of a larger object [...] this new part could be a film, a record or even, as he once claimed, an interview. He reinforced this ‘conceptual continuity’ the re-use of identifiable themes from one album to next by snatches of monologue, which refer back to a previous album, by repeating themes on his album sleeves, and most of all by reworking earlier melodies or subject matter.” [Miles p. 160]

The Entrepreneur: New York City (’66 – ’68)

During this same period The Mothers also ventured overseas to Europe. Zappa calculated the approach and admitted, “we want to gear our product to the local market.” [Miles p. 150] His business mentality shocked people as musicians were only supposed to talk about fun, light topics. The truth is that Zappa was always a businessman at heart. “Before the group tour, Frank reminded the band that he was the spokesman for The Mothers and that no one else was to give any interviews. He was carefully cultivating an image for the band and he didn’t want any of the other Mothers messing it up.” [Mile p. 154]

Zappa was openly against mainstream culture, he despised The Beatles and called them sell-outs, and yet he decided he was going to infiltrate it rather than fight it head on. For example, he agreed to appearances on the popular TV show of The Monkees and in their feature film, Head.

The Composer: New York City (’66 – ’68)

With each album Zappa was able to get increasingly creative. For example, on the third, Lumpy Gravy, Zappa used a fifty-piece group of musicians. However, his record label always seemed to be slowing him down. No matter how professional and original his ideas were, they often encountered budget restrictions and censorship. With Lumpy Gravy, the problem was that Zappa recorded it at Capitol’s studios and was quickly litigated by MGM with whom he still had a contract. The recording had taken place in ’67, but before the dispute was settled it became ’68, and Zappa chose to drastically alter the album. He added vocals and made countless changes before its final release in May of ’68. He loved recording conversations of which he would use snippets for his albums and he invited people to improvise on topics which he suggested and used many on the third album, and on later albums. For example, he got Eric Clapton to say “God, it’s God. I see God.” A commentary on all of the ‘Clapton is God’ graffiti, which could be found on the streets.

In August of that year he recorded We’re Only in It for the Money, also in New York. The album is a serious one and “Zappa’s view is bleak and foreboding [...] Lyrics about lonely, unloved children, fascist trigger-happy cops, materialistic parents who are too busy consuming to notice
their children are sad.” [Miles p. 162.]

Once again, his music was pointing a finger at society and all of its faults and MGM could no longer take it. They obscured words to their liking and issued the album without waiting for Zappa to approve it. Then they decided they had had enough and were not going to renew their contract.

The Performer / Social Critic: New York City (’66 – ’68)

In November of ’66 The Mothers of Invention played their first week long stint in New York City. They rocked the Balloon Farm in the city’s East Village and garnered some rave reviews. Village Voice magazine said The Mothers are a band to look out for and the New York Times called them “the most original new group ... [who] successfully fuse rock and serious music.” [Miles p. 137] The reception was so overwhelming that their run was extended for two extra weeks.
Perhaps their popularity was due to the fact that not only was the music ‘different,’ but so were their stage antics.

In the spring of ’67 The Mothers returned to New York City and this time around they booked the Garrick Theatre for the entire summer. The show was officially entitled Absolutely Free but its subtitle was Pig and Repugnant and Zappa often began the show by calling the audience ‘pigs.’ Their goal throughout the performance was basically to push the audience to their limits. They brought people on stage and forced them to speak and sing, they brought up girls and manhandled them, and there were even two weddings on stage. Other antics included placing a wire that ran from the lighting booth to the stage and asking the light man to send down objects which were often very messy, like eggs. One of their favorite props though was a stuffed giraffe. The Mothers wired a plastic tube to its leg and squirted whipped cream through it, often covering as much as the first three rows of the audience.

What’s most interesting is that this wild onstage behavior started by fluke. One night marines came to see a show and Zappa invited them on stage and asked them to do such things as yell ‘Kill!’ and mutilate a baby doll. The act was extremely moving and one man in the front row was said to be crying. Surely the rest of the audience didn’t feel much better about witnessing such a horrible act.

Zappa’s response was simple: “Music always is a commentary on society and certainly the atrocities on stage are quite mild compared to those conducted in our behalf by our government. You can’t write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say sometimes, so you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whipped cream. Also, they didn’t know how to listen. Interest spans wane and they need something to help them re-focus.” [Miles p. 145]

Many speculate that Zappa had no respect for his audiences and the above statement certainly helps to back-up that viewpoint. As does his somewhat resentful explanation of why audiences came to the Garrick: “They came to see our show because we were something weird that was on that street and we were a sort of specialized recreational facility.” [Miles p. 146]

However, once one looked past all of these bizarre antics The Mothers it became evident that The Mothers were a group of musicians of the highest caliber who surely delivered a high level of musicality at every show: “Music for the show was built around a series of well-rehearsed musical blocks that could be improvised upon and played in any order, according to Zappa’s famous hand-signals. Anything could be dropped into this: the band was so tight, they could turn on a dime.” [Miles p.147] Perhaps, even if subconsciously, this high level of musicianship was just as big an attraction as the stuffed giraffe.

The Man: New York City (’66 – ’68)

When Zappa and The Mothers moved to New York City, his then girlfriend, Gail, tagged along. Although he was supposedly committed to Gail, Zappa saw nothing wrong in exploring his sexuality and indulging in the groupie lifestyle. He was cold and nonchalant in his character, and had no problems leaving Gail, when she was nine-months pregnant, for his first European tour. A tour which was planned at the last minute and could have easily been scheduled to accommodate his witnessing of the birth of his first child. The two got married just before he left, with no ring and no special ceremony, and it was not so much out of love, as out of necessity. As Zappa said: “It’s not because I believe in having a certificate to prove you’re married; it’s just that in America it’s difficult to get into hospital if you’re an unwed mother-to-be.” [Miles p. 153]

During The Mothers’ stint in Europe Zappa stayed in a separate hotel from the rest of his band, as usual, and his room became a hot hangout for musicians and groupies.

Some of Zappa’s groupie stories were outlandish, such as a fourteen year old who threatened to kill his wife so she could have him. All Zappa said was that it was scary, but flattering. For a man who was scared of breaking the law, and who refused to smoke marijuana and drugs in fear of getting caught, he sure had no problem with the illegal aspects of minors and sex. Even if he wasn’t involved with any of the minor groupies, the fact that he saw the situation as flattering is quite strange. Zappa was a naïve man full of contradictions.

The Social Critic: Album #2 – Absolutely Free

Although on later albums Zappa seemed to stay as far away as possible from politically charged messages, his second album, Absolutely Free, maintains the same journalistic quality of the debut, Freak Out!

Recorded in just four days in November of ’66, and with a new line-up which only maintained the original core of Zappa, Ray Collins (vocals), Jimmy Carl Black (drums) and Roy Estrada (bass), it includes memorable songs such as Plastic People, where Zappa calls the LAPD Nazis, and i which deals with governmental corruption. On the subject of government, Zappa’s view was strongly oppositional: “These unfortunate people manufacture inequitable laws and ordinances, perhaps unaware of the fact that the restrictions they place on the young people in a society are a result of their own hidden sexual frustration.” (Miles p. 135)

The album also features some lighter critiques of society such as America Drinks and Goes Home, which was meant to satirically mimic cocktail music so popular at that time. Last, but not least, Zappa also included some material that was autobiographical and that depicted his past. On Status Back Baby he describes his high-school experience.

As one can imagine, all of these ‘anti’ messages were not easily accepted by the band’s record label. MGM outright refused to publish the accompanying libretto, claiming that there were too many problematic, dirty words. Not to mention the slogan on the back cover, War Means Work for All, was seen as insulting. In the end, Zappa printed the libretto himself and they reached a compromise in terms of the slogan on the back cover: it was printed in a faded, barely visible, version.

The album was released in June of ’67 and made it to No. 41 on the music charts. At least some people were listening.

The Entrepreneur: Album #1 - Freak Out!

The business aspect of Zappa’s musical career began to take shape in January 1966 when an A&R scout from MGM-Verve, Tom Wilson, saw a live Mothers show and decided to offer them a record deal. The Mothers signed with MGM-Verve on the 1st of March ’66 and agreed to five albums over a span of two years. Wilson was impressed with their music and outlandish sound and offered The Mothers an almost unlimited budget. Where an average record cost $5000, their debut, Freak Out!, ran costs of close to $21,000.

Although Zappa did not always see eye-to-eye with the record companies, and despised their constant censoring, he wanted his records to see the light of day and as any smart business would do, he made compromises. The first of which was a name change. In those days “Mother” was synonymous with “Mother Fucker,” (a musician who plays his instrument with great ease) and so, they were to be immediately re-dubbed The Mothers of Invention.

Always trying to promote The Mothers and get the word out, Zappa became creative with their advertising budget. He decided to run a column in the Los Angeles Free Press called The Official News of The Mothers of Invention. He tried to point out the faults that needed to be changed in modern consumer society, just like in his music, and through this began alienating fans. He was seen as too parental when he began to preach that the “danger lies in the “Freak Out” becoming an excuse instead of a reason.” [Miles p. 129] Fans began to resent him and his good business sense didn’t stop him from pushing away potential album-buyers and concertgoers. Zappa was never one to pay too much attention to what people thought of him, alienated many, and lost a lot of potential commercial success.

The Social Critic: Album #1 - Freak Out!

Throughout his entire career an integral part of Zappa’s work was its journalistic quality. Zappa’s aim was to provoke his audience into seeing the downfalls of society and he hoped to influence them to act to make changes happen. From the first album, Freak Out!, Zappa was adamant about sharing his commentary of the world around him with anyone who would listen. Songs like Brain Police and Trouble Every Day are great examples of this. Trouble Every Day, for example, is a rant against racial discrimination influenced by the Watts riots of 1965.

However, Zappa soon began backing away from heavy, politically charged messages, and moving towards commentary on what he knew best; his peers. “He was more content to mock hippies and groupies than to criticize the Vietnam War,” explains biographer Miles. Zappa’s Have I Offended Someone? compilation features songs which criticize and mock everyone from Catholic girls to record company executives to Jimi Hendrix fans who, as Miles adds, were “all easy targets and all virtually from within his own peer group.” [Miles p.108] Looking over Zappa’s work from his very first album to his very last, Miles also points out that Zappa “dumbed down his lyrics and stage act to appeal to the lowest common denominator: the Mid-West teenager high on pills and beer who didn’t even realize that ‘Titties and Beer' was about him.” [Miles p. 108]

The Musician/Composer/Performer: Album #1 - Freak Out!

As a musician Zappa ensured to use his music to make commentaries on what he saw, and despised, around him. This made Freak Out! an extremely biographical album which documented Zappa’s life until the point of its recording. It contains some of his most influential compositions of all, such as Trouble Every Day which is often considered the first ever recorded rap song.

As a composer Zappa was an experimental man, never settling for techniques that were tried-and-true. During the recording of Freak Out! at one point he brought in a twenty-two piece orchestra into the studio and at another it was a group of one hundred freaks who were asked to go wild and do what they pleased.
Despite its eccentricities, Freak Out! is often considered to be one of the best albums ever made, and it is also the first ever concept rock album and first rock double album (two albums at a single album price was a revolutionary idea!)

Zappa saw himself as a teacher, meant to help the world see its mistakes, and he used his music to do just that.

As for the performance side of things, The Mothers consistently had trouble getting gigs as their music was too difficult, if not impossible, to dance to. Zappa tried writing songs with a danceable structure, such as Plastic People which had the same structure as one of the favorites of the day, Louie Louie, but audiences were still hostile towards the group. The situation was never helped by the fact that, as Zappa explained in 1968, The Mothers weren’t too concerned about what their audience wanted. Most groups tried their best to please their audiences, “We didn’t do that,” said Zappa and added, “We told the audience to get fucked.” [Miles p. 132]

The Man: Album #1 - Freak Out!

In May ’66, when Freak Out! was finished, Zappa moved to Laurel Canyon and made it his home for the rest of his life. It was considered to be the freak sanctuary of the USA and the residence of choice for musicians such as The Byrds and The Doors – what better place to move to for inspiration?

Zappa believed in some of the same things as the counterculture he surrounded himself with, such as free love and open marriages, but despised others, mainly drugs. He condoned anyone who used them to the point where The Mothers wanted to get rid of him for it. So, Zappa had no problem seeing countless groupies, even once he was married and had a child on the way, but he wouldn’t lighten up on drugs. Many believe it is because his need and obsession over having control prevented him from engaging in something he believed made one lose control. He was a control freak and a hard individual to work with, and was even compared to Hitler by one colleague.