Books and Miscellaneous Reviews - Special issue of MoJo

I finally found this and got it. And here is my review of it. I was not, and still am not, a great fan of these, but I have to admit that seeing all the nice pictures in color and the comments, has helped me appreciate it a bit more and enjoy it.

But, I am happy with it. I don't think that it is complete, and there is too much of the family's part in all this, specially Gail, who is reduced to a leftover, and I have the feeling that she was more of a part in all this than is readily visible. One does not have to see it, all the time, to realize that a good woman, and a strong one at that, was not involved and did not help all this in one way or another.

I will use an example.

My mother, has published more work of my father since his death. She has spent more years without him, than with! In that time she helped cement the legacy, by publishing works in the technical area (the literary discussions) of the literary world, where the discussions are considered (not as literature) but important to the acceptance and understanding of a writer's work. In the end, she accomplished what he was not able to do in his lifetime. The literary criticism and other views came out. And she helped many a graduate student and others complete their thesis ... which is also a tribute to the legacy and the work.

Seeing this, I felt fine, and appreciated and I am no slouch in the know of Frank's work, although I severely lack in the orchestral material. But I have always thought, and understood, the need for new thinking and experiments in the area of the arts, which is sadly lacking and having a hard time in America due to its very socialistic commercial attitudes! Where it seems that not much can sell if there is no publicity, and all the public outlets write exactly the same thing with different letters.

Maybe it is that the arts in America are so young and don't have a personal history, like literature, art, music and other adventures seem to do in history, where we seem to remember the time and place by a name, rather than history. We all know this event or that, but in the end, we know Mozart better, and we know Beethoven better, and the history, the time, the place, are totally ignored and not worthy of mention or design in thought and work. This was my father's legacy, it was then called "quotidian" and later became a part of the University of California's Comparative Literature programs on its systems, which are sadly being ignored today, because the popularity is always with the trends, not the education and the learning.

Such is the case with Frank's work.

Nothing saddens me more than a fan that once wrote that his most disappointing concert was one where Frank would not pick up his guitar much and instead conducted the rock band for the majority of the concert, which tells you why some fans were often trashed and dissed by Frank and many others, who were not afraid to lose one sale, knowing that some other folks would be there.

As is usual, in some lifetimes, one had to do somethings to appease the market and the living. And Frank felt he had to do that, because classical music in America is not a group that is capable, or interested, in showing off their own composers, and "rock music" is not gaining the status of "important music" or "classical music" as it should, and could, were it not for the insane and f**ked up notions that everything, including an orgasm has to be 3 minutes long, and anything beyond that is not worth the mention.

I have always thought that a lot of that was a problem with the interests in radio and television, and had hoped that the Internet would help stabilize that, however, at this time, the Internet has become a proliferation of too much crap, and most people don't even know how to find and appreciate the better things out there compositionally past another song that gets known, or seen, because of its weirdness, or nakedness!

In another board I used to frequent, one of those companies that does a DAW, the users in there loved to stand up for their "songs", but when it comes to experimenting and trying different things, they simply are not able to accept, or attempt to understand, the mediocrity of the work they are doing, and neither are they willing to chase down a higher standard for music for themselves, other than "another song". So, any comments I made, would always appear as a statement on their ability, instead of a challenge for them to do something that showed their talents and ability a lot better, than yet another sonata form song with the same passages and parts that have been there for hundreds of years!

I'm not a musician, and discussing these things as a musician is very tough for me, but as a listener, perhaps it was my traveling around and not having a "home country" that helped me have an ear for a lot of different musics from around the world, and in the end, you find out that it's still a Gibson, a Fender, or a Hammond, or a Ludwig, but how it is used is very different, and this is not something that the above group could understand, see, or appreciate.

Frank Zappa, almost single handedly, was one of those people that could do anything with music. I could not tell you which songs, or pieces, are pure Stravinsky, or Varese, or Stockhausen, or ... but I could tell you that yet another version of the same rock'n'roll song is not what Frank did, and showed us.

In the end, it is a tribute to the ability that he had for creating music, and above all, to know the biggest secret of all in music ... to experiment and try different things. I always had this idea in my mind that what helped Pink Floyd was the playing around with sound effects in the days when the keyboards and synthesizers had to be setup between each song, and their playing around with sound effects. When you take these "literally", in a split second that might pass by you, you will want to do this and that with the guitar, or drums, or whichever instrument, that is not conventional, but "extends" the life of the sound effect and (more importantly) "moment" that it happens, and there is no more important creative "second of time" than that moment.

Few can endure and love the "moment" and ignore the so-called "rules". The history of music has been ALL, about breaking the rules, and then the academic history defines the details and calls it a "rule". All we learn in schools are the "rules", because to teach the individuals about the "moment" is not something that can readily be spoken of, or discussed, and is not always appreciated, or tried.

It was, in my estimation a job well done. I did think that a couple of true musicians that could/would understand the music should also have been used in the magazine's articles to help improve the state of the art and music. I am not sure that the memories of a few people that got fired, or did not last is enough. It's nice to know they are still around, but I kinda felt, that some of them, still didn't get it, and still have no idea what the whole thing was about, except that it was weird.

That part hurts, because that is not the part that creates the music, and that is not the important "moment" that helped define the music, or the person that had the "feeling" that this or that might, or could, have happened to make the music come alive. Too many of those musicians, had no idea, and in the end, they were just another rock'n'roll'r that had a chance to play with one of the greats of all time.

It's worth having in your collection, because it is probably one of the best of that magazine's issues. In general, I do not like them, because they spend too much time kissing the ass of the rock'n'roll star and do not have the ability to see beyond it ... because if they did, they would have already done an issue on Tangerine Dream, and another on Krautrock and their connection to the arts around them, including the many interviews that are archived in one other board, and they do not know how to use them, or make sense of them. It's always sad, but in the end, some of these people even came from one music school that was totally infatuated with "modern music" in every way that Frank was, and even had teachers, whom Frank enjoyed and appreciated. The connection is too important to be ignored, and more needs to be written about it, to help establish it.

One last thing. It was said one time, that Robert Fripp was anal about rehearsal and such ... but what was not clear, was that he knew the important moments, like Frank, and when he found them, he made sure that these were rehearsed so they could be made into a piece of music. And Frank was doing a lot of that all along!

Makes one wonder where the true leader in the area of "progressive music" really was, but many folks are not willing, or capable, of discussing anything beyond London ... and Frank Zappa puts them all to shame, for just being a sold out rock band!