After a four year wait the case of Bizarre Records vs. The Royal Albert Hall finally reached the court. The trial’s judge took time to listen to the entire soundtrack of 200 Motels, in court, and a cultural gap soon became evident. (The Court had to use a dictionary of slang to grasp the meaning in the music. The case claimed that the Royal Albert Hall breached its contract with Zappa by banning the Mothers from playing due to the nature of their explicit lyrics. Zappa’s main argument was that if they would have consulted him he would have amended the offensive lyrics.
A verdict was reached and the judge agreed that the Hall committed a breach of contract, but it didn’t award anything to Zappa (whose legal fees ended up being 20,000 pounds!)
Later, not letting defeat stand in his way and, as always, fighting for what he believed in and not letting anyone outsmart him nor take advantage of him, Zappa (along with Herb Cohen) sued MGM for two million dollars worth of royalties withheld from them for five Mothers compilations which had been released in North America, and eleven unauthorized ones released in foreign countries.
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