PAMELA DES BARRES
I’m With The Band: Confessions Of A Groupie (NY: Jove, 1988).
MISS PAMELA of The GTO’s gives an insider’s view of freakdom in Los Angeles; hilarious and poignant.
RÉJEAN BEAUCAGE (EDITOR)
Circuit: Musiques Contemporaines Vol.14, No.3 (2004) Frank Zappa: 10 Ans Après.
AT LAST, academia feels it can ignore the man no longer! Special 120-page issue of the Canadian new music journal, with illustrations by Cal Schenkel and contributions by the editor, Nathalie Gatti, Nicolas Masino, Michel F. Côté (in French); Ben Watson on hoovers and some delightful pataphysics on the meaning of ‘Zappa’ in English, Italian, Spanish, French and German from John Rea (in English). Louise Morand’s in-depth analysis of ‘Dio Fa’ from Civilization Phaze III is breathtaking, showing that – provided it talks about music where experiment treats form as seedy, sedimentary content – musicology can rise to great heights.
KEVIN COURRIER
Dangerous Kitchen: The Subversive World Of Frank Zappa (Toronto: ECW Press, 2002)
A 554-PAGE publication which collates, sorts, interprets and judges everything about Zappa that’s been issued on record or in print. Unfortunately, all this mature critical wisdom made this reader rather sleepy.
GUY DAROL AND DOMINIQUE JEUNOT
Zappa de Z á A (Paris: Le Castor Astral, 2000).
AN ELEGANT, reverse-order alphabetical guide for the French Zappaholic, with intelligent discussion, usefully complete listings and a menu – Diner Gastronomique – which includes ‘Pêches en Regalia’, ‘Requin de Boue’ and ‘Choses qui ont l’air de viande’. Only in France. Co-author Jeunot, Président of Les Fils de l’Invention, France’s surrealist Zappa fan club, unexpectedly died of a stroke in December 2004, aged 45, and will be much missed.
MICHAEL GRAY
Mother! The Frank Zappa Story (1985; London: Plexus, 1993).
CONTAINS some refreshing observations from Pamela Zarubica (the original Suzy Creamcheese); the last half is flawed by Gray’s moralistic sexual politics and total incomprehension of teen metal needs.
BILLY JAMES
Necessity Is… The Early Years Of Frank Zappa & The Mothers Of Invention (2001; London: SAF, 2004).
AGRIPPING and chastening read as Bunk Gardner, Don Preston, Jimmy Carl Black and Richard Kunc regale James about the old times.
JAMES JOYCE
Finnegans Wake (London: Faber, 1939).
THE ONLY book quite as good as a Zappa record, and stuffed with conceptual continuity.
FRANZ KAFKA
‘In The Penal Colony’ (1919) Metamorphosis And Other Stories (London: Penguin,1961).
IF YOU’RE going to supplement listening to Zappa with literature, this is the one: the demon seed for the monstrosity that is We’re Only In It For The Money. Terrifying.
RICHARD KOSTELANETZ
The Frank Zappa Companion: Four Decades Of Commentary (NY: Schirmer, 1997).
WRITINGS BY the likes of Dave Marsh, Barry Miles, Bill Milkowski and Art Lange, plus Zappa interviews and his testimony to Congress on porn rock in 1985. Varied viewpoints save the book from the longueurs of the ‘seamless bio’. Reprint of a paper by the author from Contemporary Music Review gives Zappa’s music the attention it rarely receives; there’s also a Situationist/collage work on 200 Motels by Out To Lunch, and a note from Václav Havel.
NIGEY LENNON
Being Frank: My Time With Frank Zappa (LA: California Classics, 1995).
WRITTEN by a guitarist and arranger who toured with The Mothers and had an affair with Frank, this memoir has an unusual quantity of musical insight. A moving account.
THOMAS MANN
Doctor Faustus (1947).
THE BLUEPRINT for the Project/Object. Prescience in overdrive… honest!
KARL MARX
Das Kapital (1867).
THE OTHER book that’s as good as a Zappa record.
BARRY MILES
Frank Zappa (London: Atlantic, 2004).
THIS SHOULD be subtitled ‘a Paul McCartney fan writes …’. There are evocations of Laurel Canyon, and a few new quotes and stories – but a lot of tedious déjà vu. Zappa’s moral failings (too much sex! Not enough respect for his peers!) are reproved by someone who, outside admiring a few ‘beautiful compositions’, cannot abide Zappa’s work. Some nice unseen photos (if what Zappa called ‘biographical trivia’ interests you).
CARL-LUDWIG REICHERT
Frank Zappa (Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 2000).
AND THE imaginative book titles keep flooding in! A handy introduction for the German Zappanalytiker, with cute observations, light plagiarism and a nice line in unusual photos, often in colour.
NEIL SLAVEN
Zappa: Electric Don Quixote (London: Omnibus, 1996).
ASCLSSORS-and-paste biography, drawing from most of the journalistic sources, but with remarkable lack of blinding personal insight. Distinctly unZappaesque, but a useful reference work for that elusive fact.
DAVID WALLEY
No Commercial Potential: The Saga Of Frank Zappa (1972; updated edition, New York: Da Capo, 1996).
THE VERY first biography, one that started out as ‘official’ before everything went wrong. The first half is an essential read, but Walley’s assessment of the later Zappa degenerates into old fart whingeing (cf. Michael Gray, Barry Miles).
BEN WATSON
Frank Zappa: The Negative Dialectics Of Poodle Play (1994; fourth edition with amendments and postfix, London: Quartet, 1996).
MY HUMBLE attempt to put Zappa up there alongside Diogenes, Philip K. Dick and Kenny Process Team. Ignored by academics, derided by rock journalists, and vilified by peanut-brained ‘hardcore fans’.
BEN WATSON & ESTHER LESLIE (EDITORS)
Academy Zappa: Proceedings of the First International Conference of Esemplastic Zappology (London: SAF, 2005).
THIRTEEN obsessed and deranged Zappologists (including the legendary Gamma) address the ramifications of the oeuvre. Completely preposterous and outrageous and unacademic and unofficial, it shouldn’t have seen the light of day.
Also accessible on ‹www.militantesthetix.co.uk›.
FRANK ZAPPA
Them Or Us (The Book) (LA: Barking Pumpkin, 1984).
ZAPPA’S own 351-page, film-treatment style ‘remix’ of themes from ‘Billy the Mountain’, Hunchentoot, Joe’s Garage, Francesco Zappa and Thing-Fish, in mid ‘80s-style daisy-wheel continuous-feedstationery computer print-out. Essential for all conceptual continuity freaks and “not for intellectuals or other dead people.”Mozart is written off as a shithead. Wild.
FRANK ZAPPA, WITH PETER OCCHIOGROSSO
The Real Frank Zappa Book (NY: Poseidon, 1989).
ZAPPA’S own account of the early years, plus his opinions on music and politics.Trenchant but not as masterful as the records.