This page will contain videos about Frank Zappa, as they become available.Frank ZappaFrank Vincent Zappa (December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993) was an American rock/jazz fusion musician, composer, and satirist. Early life and influencesBorn in Baltimore, Maryland on 21 December 1940, Zappa was of mixed Sicilian, Italian, Greek, Arab, French, Irish, and German ancestry. He was the oldest of four children, with two brothers and a sister. In January 1951 the Zappa family relocated to the west coast because of Frank's asthma, settling in Monterey, California, on the coast about 100 miles south of San Francisco. They moved to Pomona, then El Cajon before moving a short distance once again to San Diego in the early 1950s. By 1955 the Zappa family relocated to Lancaster, which at the time was a small aircraft and farming town in the Antelope Valley in the Mojave Desert 73 miles north of downtown Los Angeles north of the San Gabriel Mountains. By age 15, Frank had attended six different high schools, which may have contributed to his sense of alienation in adult life. His father, a chemist and mathematician who was born in Sicily, worked nearby at Edwards Air Force Base which had at the time a federal government chemical warfare research facility. Due to their proximity to Edwards AFB, he kept gas masks at home in case of an accident, and this evidently had a profound effect on the young Frank. References to germs, germ warfare and other aspects of the 'secret' defence industry occur throughout his work. His father once wrote and published a small mathematical volume on gambling odds. Lancaster's location gave the young Zappa access to the exciting sounds coming from radio stations in Los Angeles and beyond, as well as exposure to the hype that went with it, and his parents were affluent enough to afford a record player, records, a TV, and musical instruments. TV also exerted a strong influence and references to TV and TV shows, including quotations from themes and advertising jingles, can be found in almost every piece he wrote. Another formative event was a persistent sinus problem during his early teens. To Frank's lasting horror, his doctor treated the stubborn ailment by inserting a pellet of radium into his nose on a probe. Nasal imagery and references to the nose also recur, both in his writing and in the classic collage album covers created by his longtime visual collaborator, Cal Schenkel. As a student, he was bored and given to distracting the rest of the class with his antics, and was once suspended from school for a dangerous prank involving explosive chemicals and a Parents' Open House night. He left community college after one semester in order to make low-budget films. He maintained his disdain for formal education throughout his life, taking his children out of school at age 15 and refusing to pay for their college. Nevertheless, he was in essence a polymath. He was highly intelligent, ambitious and articulate, widely read, and possessed a voracious intelligence, drive, singular concentration, enormous creativity and a huge capacity for work and organisation. However, he was passionately interested in music, developing wide-ranging and highly idiosyncratic musical interests and demonstrating superior ability at an early age. His parents were not musicians but had broad musical tastes also, and he grew up influenced in equal measures by avant-garde composers such as Edgar Varèse and Igor Stravinsky, local rhythm and blues and doo-wop groups (particularly local pachuco groups), and modern jazz, including bebop and free jazz, all of which influences show up in his work. Zappa was from the first interested in sounds for their own sake, which led to his interest in modern composers. His introduction to Stravinsky seems to have been a pivotal musical discovery but he was soon ranging even further afield, musically, in addition to his interests in jazz, doo-wop, R&B, and rock'n'roll. After reading a magazine review panning Varèse's dissonant drum piece in "Ionisation" (actually The Complete Works of Edgard Varèse, Volume One) as 'a weird jumble of drums and other unpleasant sounds', the teenage Zappa became convinced that he should seek out Varèse's music. When he spotted a copy of The Complete Works of Edgard Varèse, Volume One in a local record store, where it was being used as a hi-fi demonstration record, he convinced the salesman to sell him the copy despite the fact that he didn't have the full price, beginning a lifelong passion for Varèse and his music. Zappa's mother gave him considerable encouragement. Although she greatly disliked Varèse's music, she was indulgent enough to give Frank the gift of a long distance call to the composer at his home in New York as a fifteenth birthday present. Unfortunately, Varèse was away in Europe at the time, but the young fan spoke to the composer's wife. He and Varèse subsequently wrote to each other. Zappa had Varèse's letter framed and he kept it for the rest of his life. [1] (http://csunix1.lvc.edu/~snyder/em/zappa.html) Zappa began his playing career on drums, taking his first lessons at school in the summer of 1953, aged 13. He drummed with local teenage combos, but later switched to guitar, which he quickly mastered. Although he performed as a singer-guitarist for most of his career, Zappa always retained a strong interest in rhythm and percussion. His bands have been notable for the excellence of their drummers and works such as The Black Page are notorious for the virtuoso complexity of their rhythmic structure and arrangement, featuring radical changes of tempo and metre and short, densely arranged passages which are contrasted with free-form breaks and extended improvisations. Classically trained percussionist and drummer Terry Bozzio, who played for Zappa in the late 1970s as well as playing and recording many well-known classical and avant-garde works, is on record as saying that Zappa's writing for percussion is as difficult and complex as anything else he has played. In 1956 Zappa met Captain Beefheart (Don Van Vliet) while taking classes at Antelope Valley High School, when Zappa was playing guitar in a local band, The Blackouts, a racially-mixed outfit that also included Euclid James "Motorhead" Sherwood, who later lived with Zappa at 'Studio Z' and was a member of the Mothers of Invention, playing on many of their most famous recordings. They became close friends, influencing each other musically, and becoming collaborators in the late Sixties and mid- Seventies (on the album Bongo Fury, released 1975), although they later became estranged for a period of years. Van Vliet's own feelings about Frank Zappa were perhaps best summarized in a quote published in a March 1994 issue of Musician magazine: "I knew him for thirty-seven years, and in the end, the relationship was private." In 1957 Zappa was given his first guitar and quickly developed into a highly accomplished and inventive player. He considered his solos "air sculptures", and developed an eclectic, fluent and extremely individual style, eventually becoming one of the most highly regarded electric guitarists of his time. It is possible that he might have become a professional jazz musician, but he was soon drawn into rock music, although he retained a lifelong attachment to jazz forms, voicings and structures and often drew his band members from the jazz world, if only because of the high degree of musical competence his music demanded. Zappa's interest in composing and arranging burgeoned in his later high school years and he dreamed of being taken seriously as a composer. Although he was primarily self-taught, his music teacher gave him considerable encouragement. By his final year he was writing prolifically and had not only composed, arranged and conducted an avant-garde performance piece for the school orchestra, but had also contrived to have the event both broadcast on local radio and recorded. A portion of this historic recording is included on the CD The Lost Episodes. Zappa did see his childhood dream realized, as the London Symphony Orchestra played a program of his music, and the Ensemble Modern in 1992 received a 20-minute ovation after performing a program of his work a the Frankfurt Opera House. During high school Zappa had also developed a strong interest in graphic arts. After graduating in June 1958 he worked for a time in advertising. His sojourn in the commercial world was another important influence on his work, and within a few years Zappa was co-opting the techniques he learned as a commercial artist, and was using them to deconstruct music, the music business, the media and society at large by combining them with the ideas he had gleaned from his studies of dada, situationism, and surrealism. Zappa always took a keen interest in the visual presentation of his work, rapidly developing from album cover designer (e.g. Absolutely Free) to director of his own films and videos. Zappa's album covers are highly distinctive, and frequently bizarre and surreal. His two most important visual collaborators were Cal Schenkel in the Sixties and early Seventies, and Donald Roller Wilson in the Eighties and Nineties. One of Zappa's best-known and best-loved album images is that created for the 1969 compilation Weasels Ripped My Flesh, a disturbingly surreal painting by renowned album artist Neon Park. Zappa moved to Los Angeles in 1959 and spent most of the rest of his life there. He began working as a graphic artist while trying to establish himself as a musician and composer. Among his earliest professional recordings are two adventurous and remarkably accomplished scores for the low-budget films Run Home Slow and The World's Greatest Sinner. In 1962 he appeared as a solo artist on the Steve Allen Show performing a satirical dadaist piece involving a bicycle. Although many of the tapes of this series were later destroyed, the video of Zappa's remarkable performance survives. He married his first wife Kay the same year but the relationship soon deteriorated and they divorced two years later. In 1963 he began playing professionally around Los Angeles and bought the small Pal Recording Studio in Rancho Cucamonga, California (formerly called Cucamonga), which he renamed "Studio Z". Zappa had begun recording at Pal since the early 1960s and after receiving a payment for one of his film scores he was able to buy the studio. Soon after, his marriage ended and he moved out of his apartment and into the studio, where he began routinely working 12 hours per day and more, setting a pattern that would endure for almost all of his life. Although only a small business, Pal was particularly attractive to Zappa because it contained a unique 5-track tape recorder built by the previous owner, Paul Buff. At this time, only a handful of the most expensive commercial studios had multitrack facilities and for smaller studios, the industry standard was still mono or two-track. By the time he recorded his first LP with The Mothers in 1966 he was already an accomplished recording and mastering engineer and from his third LP on and for the rest of his career, he produced all his own work. After being approached by a customer who wanted him to produce a suggestive tape for a stag party, Zappa and some friends jokingly faked the "erotic" recording, which purported to contain the sounds of people having sex. Unfortunately the customer turned out to be an undercover member of the Vice Squad and Zappa was jailed for ten days on charges of supplying pornography. His entrapment and brief imprisonment left a permanent mark on him, and was a key event in the formation of his anti-authoritarian stance. The Mothers of InventionAfter a short career as a professional songwriter — his elegiac "Memories of El Monte" was recorded by The Penguins — in 1964 Zappa joined a local R&B band, The Soul Giants, as a guitarist. He soon assumed leadership, renaming the band "The Mothers" (and, later still, "Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention" at the insistence of the record company). They gradually began to gain attention on the burgeoning Los Angeles underground 'freak scene' and in 1965 they were spotted by leading record producer Tom Wilson, who had earned acclaim as the producer of the seminal Bob Dylan albums Bringin' It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited, as well as the breakthrough 'electric' version of Simon & Garfunkel's Sounds of Silence. Wilson was also notable for being one of the only African-Americans working as a major label pop producer at this time. Wilson signed The Mothers to the Verve label, which had built up a strong reputation for its fine modern jazz recordings in the 1940s and 1950s, but was then attempting to diversify into pop and rock, but with an "artistic" or "experimental" bent. Around this time, Zappa also met and signed with longtime manager Herb Cohen. With Wilson credited as producer, The Mothers recorded their groundbreaking double album debut Freak Out! (1966), a mixture of often topical R&B and experimental sound collage that attempted to capture the 'freak' subculture of Los Angeles at that time. One of the first record albums united by an underlying theme, it was also only the second double LP of rock music ever released, and firmly established Zappa as a major new voice in rock music. Wilson is also credited with producing the even more accomplished follow-up Absolutely Free; but for the third LP, Wilson was listed as 'Executive producer', and Zappa took over as producer for all the Mothers and solo Zappa recordings issued from that time on. It's clear that even on the two first albums, Zappa was already responsible for virtually all of the musical decisions, with Wilson providing the industry clout, credibility, and connections to get the unknown group the financial resources they needed to produce a double album with use of an orchestra; by the third album, Zappa had already enough of a proven track record to allow for a more accurate description in the album's credits of their respective roles. During this period, Wilson also had Zappa collaborate with The Animals on the song "All Night Long" on their album Animalism. Zappa's second and third studio albums were landmarks of record production and were highlighted by liberal use of his famous 'cut-up' editing techniques. The brilliant Absolutely Free (1967) continued Zappa's lyrical preoccupations with the hypocrisy and conformism of American society and the sinister suppression of underground and alternative culture. It was followed by the album widely regarded as the peak of the group's late Sixties work, We're Only In It For The Money (1968) which featured some of the most radical audio editing and production yet heard in pop music, and ruthlessly satirised the hippie and flower power phenomena. The cover photo (which included Jimi Hendrix) famously parodied that of the Beatles' Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. This was bookended by two closely linked companion pieces. The dazzling audio collage Lumpy Gravy (1967) took Zappa's production techniques to a new peak and, according to Zappa himself, took nine months to edit. After We're Only In It For The Money, next was his Doo-Wop tribute Cruising with Ruben & the Jets. Other important Mothers recordings from this period (including the pivotal song Oh No) were collected in the 1970 compilation album Weasels Ripped My Flesh. During the late Sixties Zappa continued his rapid artistic development, emerging as a superb lead guitarist, a skilled producer and engineer, and a composer and arranger of extraordinary range and facility. He increasingly used tape editing as a compositional tool; his editing skills are apparent on the stunning work he produced in the late Sixties with The Mothers. Zappa evolved a unique compositional approach — which he dubbed 'conceptual continuity' — that ranged across virtually every genre of music. His work combines satirical lyrics and pop melodies with virtuoso instrumental prowess, where long, jazz-inflected improvisational passages are counterbalanced with densely edited and seemingly chaotic collage sequences that mix music, sound effects and snatches of conversation. He also became famous for regularly quoting musical phrases that influenced or amused him — one of his most famous and regular quotes was the riff from the perennial Sixties rock hit 'Louie Louie', which appears in various forms in more than twenty separate recordings over the whole span of his career. He also frequently quoted from or referred to TV show themes and advertising jingles, from famous rock songs such as My Sharona and Stairway To Heaven, and from classical works such as Stravinsky's "The Rite Of Spring". Zappa earned a fearsome reputation as a ruthless taskmaster who possessed a seemingly limitless capacity for work (he regularly worked as much as twenty hours a day in the studio until very late in his career) who also possessed immense technical knowledge and a photographic memory of the contents of his vast archive. He also became known for dismissing the contributions of his musicians, going so far as to withhold royalties rather than share the glory. During a residency in New York's Greenwich Village in late 1966, Zappa became friends with Jimi Hendrix and is reputed to have introduced Hendrix to the Wah-wah pedal. The Mothers' anarchic stage shows were legendary — during one famous 1967 performance at the Garrick Theatre in New York, Zappa managed to entice some soldiers from the audience onto the stage, where they proceeded to dismember a collection of baby dolls. Around 1968 Zappa also began regularly recording his concerts, beginning with a simple two-track portable recorder and eventually progressing to a portable 48-track digital system. In the process he built up a vast archive of live recordings. In the late 1990s some of the best of these recordings were collected for the 12-CD set You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore. Because of his insistence on precise tuning and timing in concert, from the 1970s on Zappa was able to augment his studio productions with excerpts from live shows, and he is known to have inserted 'live' guitar solos into the final studio recordings of some compositions. Although they were lauded by critics and their peers and had a rabid cult following, mainstream audiences often found much of the Mothers' music, appearance and attitude impossible to comprehend, and the band was often greeted with derision. More importantly, the financial strain and interpersonal tensions involved in keeping a large jazz-rock ensemble on the road eventually led to the group's demise in 1969, although numerous members would remain with or return to Zappa in years to come. During this period Zappa also produced the extraordinary double album Trout Mask Replica for his old friend Captain Beefheart as well as releases by Alice Cooper, Tim Buckley, Wild Man Fischer and The GTOs. 1970sAfter he disbanded the original Mothers, Zappa released the acclaimed solo instrumental album Hot Rats, featuring his jazz-inflected guitar playing backed by jazz, blues and R&B players session players including violinist Don "Sugarcane" Harris, drummer John Guerin, and bassist Shuggie Otis. It remains one of his most popular and accessible recordings and arguably had a major influence on the development of the jazz-rock fusion genre. Around 1970 Zappa put together a new version of The Mothers that included British drummer Aynsley Dunbar, jazz keyboardist George Duke, previous Mothers member, multi-instrumentalist Ian Underwood and singers Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman, who had been the lead singers in Sixties folk-pop band The Turtles. They were nicknamed "The Phlorescent Leach and Eddie" by Zappa. (Their own music was later published under Liccianetti Music.) Because contractual problems prevented them from recording as The Turtles or even under their own names, Volman and Kaylan were often billed as "Flo and Eddie". The new lineup debuted on Zappa's next solo LP Chunga's Revenge, which was followed by the sprawling soundtrack to the movie project 200 Motels, featuring both The Mothers and The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. At the time George Duke was in the band and appears both in the film and on the sound track as a musician. He left the band to play with Cannonball Adderly and was replaced Don Preston from the original Mothers, who acted in the film, but is not playing on the soundtrack. This double disc album was followed by two superb live sets, Fillmore East - June 1971 and Just Another Band From LA, which included the 20-minute track "Billy The Mountain", Zappa's satire on rock opera, set in Southern California. The former features hilariously low-concept cover art just at the apex of the era of great rock "album cover artwork". The latter was released according to FZ to provide some royalties to the band members who were suddenly in limbo, unable to tour. In 1971 there were two serious setbacks. While performing in Montreux, Switzerland, the Mothers' equipment was destroyed when a flare set off by an audience member started a disastrous fire that burned the casino where they were playing — an event immortalised in Deep Purple's "Smoke On The Water". Then in December, Zappa was attacked on stage at the Rainbow Theatre, London. The jealous husband of a female fan pushed Frank offstage landing him unconscious in the orchestra pit, with serious fractures, head trauma and injuries to his back, leg, and neck, as well as a crushed larynx (which caused his voice to drop a third after it healed). This left him wheelchair bound for a time, forcing him off the road for over a year. (He was wearing a leg brace for a period thereafter, had a noticeable limp and couldn't stand for very long while onstage.) He said one leg healed shorter than the other -- a reference found years later in the lyrics of "Dancin' Fool" . He employed a bodyguard thereafter when touring, John Smothers, a former L.A.P.D. officer. In 1971-72 he released two strongly jazz-oriented solo LPs, Waka Jawaka and The Grand Wazoo, which were recorded during the layoff from live concert touring, using floating lineups of session players and Mothers alumni. He began touring again in late 1972, first with a Grand Wazoo 'big band' and with groups that variously included Ian Underwood on brass and reeds, Ian's wife Ruth on vibes, Sal Marquez (trumpet), Napoleon Murphy Brock (sax and vocals), Bruce Fowler (trombone), Tom Fowler (bass), Chester Thompson (drums), George Duke (kbds, vocals) and Jean-Luc Ponty (violin). He continued a high rate of production through the early 1970s, including the excellent and accessible albums One Size Fits All and Apostrophe, OverNite Sensation and Roxy and Elswhere featuring ever-changing versions of a band no longer called the Mothers. 1980sIn 1980, Zappa helped former band members Warren Cuccurullo and Terry Bozzio launch their new band, Missing Persons, by letting them record their 4-song demo EP in his brand new UMRK (Utility Muffin Research Kitchen) studios. After a break Zappa returned, and much of his later work was influenced by his use of the synclavier as a compositional and performance tool and his mastery of studio techniques for producing specific instrumental effects. His work was also more explicitly political satirising the rise of television evangelists and the Republican party. On September 19, 1985, Zappa testified before the US Senate Commerce, Technology, and Transportation committee, attacking the Parents Music Resource Center or PMRC, a music censorship (though others would say watchdog) organization founded by then-Senator Al Gore's wife Tipper Gore and including many other political wives, including the wives of five members of the committee. He said,
Zappa put some of the PMRC hearings to music in his song "Porn Wars." Zappa is heard interacting with Senators Fritz Hollings, Slade Gorton, Al Gore (who admitted to being a Zappa fan), and, most notably, a funny exchange with Florida Senator Paula Hawkins over what toys the Zappa children played with. His last tour in a "rock band format" took place in 1988 with a 12-piece group which was reported to have a repertoire of over 800 (mostly Zappa) compositions, but which split acrimoniously before the tour was completed. The tour was documented on the albums The Best Band You Never Heard In Your Life (Zappa "standards" and obscure cover tunes), Make a Jazz Noise here (mostly instrumental and experimental music), and Broadway The Hard Way (new original material), with bits also to be found on You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore Volume 6. 1990sIn the early 1990s Zappa devoted almost all of his energy to modern orchestral and synclavier works. In 1990 he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, a disease which caused his death in 1993. Although ill, in 1992 he appeared as a guest conductor with the Ensemble Modern in a series of concerts in Germany devoted to his compositions, recordings from which appeared on Yellow Shark. During these years, he edited numerous CD collections of concert recordings made throughout his career. In 1993, he completed Civilization, Phaze III, a major synclavier work he had begun in the '80s. He stated in interviews that he was working on hundreds of synclavier pieces, most of which remained unfinished. Frank Zappa died on December 4, and was interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Westwood, California. Zappa was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995. That same year the only known cast of Zappa was installed in the center of Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. Zappa was immortalized by Konstantinas Bogdanas, the famous Lithuanian sculptor who had previously cast portraits of Vladimir Lenin. In 2002 a bronze bust was installed in a square in Bad Doberan, a small town in the north of Germany, where, since 1990, there's an international Festival celebrating the music of Frank Zappa. Zappa received a posthumous Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997. Other informationZappa was married twice, once to Kay Sherman (1959–1964) and then to Gail Sloatman, whom he remained with until his death. Sloatman and Zappa had four children, two sons and two daughters, all of whom had rather unusual names. They are: Moon Unit, Dweezil, Ahmet Rodan, and Diva. After his death an internet email campaign to the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center led to an asteroid being named in his honor: 3834 Zappafrank, the asteroid having been discovered by Czech astronomers. [2] (http://www.klet.org/names/view.php3?astnum=3834) [3] (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andymurkin/Resources/MusicRes/ZapRes/asteroid.html) Since then other things have been named in his honor including: another asteroid (16745 Zappa), a gene (ZapA gene of Proteus mirabilis, a microbe that causes urinary tract infections [4] (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andymurkin/Resources/MusicRes/ZapRes/ZapA.html)), a goby fish (Zappa confluentus [5] (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andymurkin/Resources/MusicRes/ZapRes/fish.html) ), a jellyfish (Phialella zappa which was actually named by Nando! (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andymurkin/Resources/MusicRes/ZapRes/jellyfish.html)), an extinct mollusc (Amauratoma zappa), and a spider with an abdominal mark supposedly resembling Zappa's mustache (Pachygnatha zappa [6] (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andymurkin/Resources/MusicRes/ZapRes/spider.html)). Zappa portrays the voice of the pope in a 1992 episode of Ren & Stimpy. Note on his nameAs his autobiography The Real Frank Zappa Book notes, his real name was "Frank", never "Francis". Until rediscovering his birth certificate as an adult, Zappa himself believed he had been christened Francis, and he is credited as Francis on some of his early albums. Some encyclopedias still incorrectly claim that his real name was "Francis". Zappa means "hoe" in Italian. Samples
Quotation"I _(you just fill in the blank)_, do hereby solemnly swear, in accordance with the regulations of the contract with this here rock and roll engagement, and the imbecilic laws of the State of Florida, and the respective regulations perpetrated by Red-Necks everywhere, do hereby solemnly swear, UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES, TO REVEAL MY TUBE, WAD, DINGUS, WEE-WEE, AND/OR PENIS ANYPLACE ON THIS STAGE!! This Does NOT include Private Showings in the motel room, however." "Mothers of Invention Anti-Smut Loyalty Oath," September 1970 DiscographyCover of Sheik Yerbouti (1979)
Further reading
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"I _(you just fill in the blank)_, do hereby solemnly swear, in accordance with the regulations of the contract with this here rock and roll engagement, and the imbecilic laws of the State of Florida, and the respective regulations perpetrated by Red-Necks everywhere, do hereby solemnly swear, UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES, TO REVEAL MY TUBE, WAD, DINGUS, WEE-WEE, AND/OR PENIS ANYPLACE ON THIS STAGE!! This Does NOT include Private Showings in the motel room, however." "Mothers of Invention Anti-Smut Loyalty Oath," September 1970. FOX News Channel is also carried in more than 40 countries including Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Finland, Grenada, Germany, Guatemala, Iceland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, New Guinea, Panama, Philippines, Spain, Sweden, Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela, mostly through News Corporation-owned cable and satellite systems. Zappa means "hoe" in Italian. It is a sister channel to BSkyB's Sky News. Some encyclopedias still incorrectly claim that his real name was "Francis". FOX News is also carried in Britain and Ireland, with global weather forecasts instead of most advertisements, by the British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB) satellite television network, of which James Murdoch is chief executive officer and in which News Corporation holds a 38 percent stake. Until rediscovering his birth certificate as an adult, Zappa himself believed he had been christened Francis, and he is credited as Francis on some of his early albums. The CRTC's previous refusal to grant Fox News a license had been contested by some Canadians, as well as American fans of the channel, who believed the decision to be politically motivated. As his autobiography The Real Frank Zappa Book notes, his real name was "Frank", never "Francis". On December 16, 2004, Rogers Communications became the first Canadian cable or satellite provider to broadcast FOX News, with other companies following suit within the next several days. Zappa portrays the voice of the pope in a 1992 episode of Ren & Stimpy. In its proposal, FOX News stated, with reference to FOX News Canada, that "Fox News does not intend to implement this service and therefore will not meet the extended deadline to commence operations" ([23] (http://www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Notices/2004/pb2004-45.htm)). [2] (http://www.klet.org/names/view.php3?astnum=3834) [3] (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andymurkin/Resources/MusicRes/ZapRes/asteroid.html) Since then other things have been named in his honor including: another asteroid (16745 Zappa), a gene (ZapA gene of Proteus mirabilis, a microbe that causes urinary tract infections [4] (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andymurkin/Resources/MusicRes/ZapRes/ZapA.html)), a goby fish (Zappa confluentus [5] (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andymurkin/Resources/MusicRes/ZapRes/fish.html) ), a jellyfish (Phialella zappa which was actually named by Nando! (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andymurkin/Resources/MusicRes/ZapRes/jellyfish.html)), an extinct mollusc (Amauratoma zappa), and a spider with an abdominal mark supposedly resembling Zappa's mustache (Pachygnatha zappa [6] (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andymurkin/Resources/MusicRes/ZapRes/spider.html)). ...was just too big", adding it raised "significant issues" with respect to broadcast rights and competition with existing domestic services ([21] (http://www.friends.ca/News/Friends_News/archives/articles04160401.asp)) On November 18, 2004 the CRTC announced that a digital license would be granted to FOX News ([22] (http://www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Notices/2004/pb2004-88.htm)). After his death an internet email campaign to the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center led to an asteroid being named in his honor: 3834 Zappafrank, the asteroid having been discovered by Czech astronomers. [20] (http://www.ccta.com/english/View.asp?t=&x=150&id=331) CCTA's acting president Michael Hennessy said that the previous "bulk approach.. They are: Moon Unit, Dweezil, Ahmet Rodan, and Diva. The CCTA applied on April 15, 2004 solely to add FOX News, along with the NFL Network. Sloatman and Zappa had four children, two sons and two daughters, all of whom had rather unusual names. Accordingly, the Commission is not in a position to examine whether it would be appropriate to authorize for distribution any of the specific services noted in CCTA’s request" ([19] (http://www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Letters/2003/lb031107.htm)). Zappa was married twice, once to Kay Sherman (1959–1964) and then to Gail Sloatman, whom he remained with until his death. In a lengthy response, the CRTC stated that "the Commission considers that CCTA has not raised sufficient question as to the validity of the existing policy, or sufficient argument or evidence as to the benefits of its proposed approach, to warrant a policy review at this time" and noted that "CCTA has not provided the information generally required for the Commission to consider requests to add services to the Lists. Zappa received a posthumous Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997. Some Canadian channels additionally might hold exclusive rights. In 2002 a bronze bust was installed in a square in Bad Doberan, a small town in the north of Germany, where, since 1990, there's an international Festival celebrating the music of Frank Zappa. In their application the CCTA duly noted that, absent a change in CRTC policy, some of the channels were likely to be ineligible for addition to the lists as some were partially or totally competitive with licensed Canadian programming. Zappa was immortalized by Konstantinas Bogdanas, the famous Lithuanian sculptor who had previously cast portraits of Vladimir Lenin. On June 18, 2003, the Canadian Cable Telecommunications Association (CCTA), an organization representing approximately 90 cable companies in Canada, applied to add FOX News, ESPN, HBO, and other non-domestic programming to the CRTC's Lists of Eligible Satellite Services on a digital basis. That same year the only known cast of Zappa was installed in the center of Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. [18] (http://www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Decisions/2000/DB2000-565.htm) The channel, or specialty television service, was never implemented by FOX, and the deadline for commencement of the service expired on November 24, 2004. Zappa was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995. FOX News Canada was to be a domestic Canadian version of FOX News. Frank Zappa died on December 4, and was interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Westwood, California. On December 14, 2000, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) approved FOX News Canada on behalf of the Global Television Network, for broadcast. He stated in interviews that he was working on hundreds of synclavier pieces, most of which remained unfinished. It is broadcasted by Sky Brazil (satellite) and NET (cable), both owned by Rupert Murdoch, the owner of News Corporation. In 1993, he completed Civilization, Phaze III, a major synclavier work he had begun in the '80s. Since 2002 Fox News Channel is also available for Brazilians, but the commercials are replaced with weather forecasts (except for their own ads). During these years, he edited numerous CD collections of concert recordings made throughout his career. Fox News Channel is broadcast on the three major Pay-TV providers, Austar (Satellite, Austar Digital service only), Optus Television (Cable) and Foxtel (Cable and Satellite), being 25% owned by News Corporation. Although ill, in 1992 he appeared as a guest conductor with the Ensemble Modern in a series of concerts in Germany devoted to his compositions, recordings from which appeared on Yellow Shark. broadcasts. In 1990 he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, a disease which caused his death in 1993. The channel is now available internationally, though its world programming is the same as its American programming, unlike CNN International, which airs regional programming that is largely independent of its U.S. In the early 1990s Zappa devoted almost all of his energy to modern orchestral and synclavier works. In 2005, MSNBC began using a new slogan entitled "Fair and Accurate.". The tour was documented on the albums The Best Band You Never Heard In Your Life (Zappa "standards" and obscure cover tunes), Make a Jazz Noise here (mostly instrumental and experimental music), and Broadway The Hard Way (new original material), with bits also to be found on You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore Volume 6.. [17] (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/06/25/faux_news_parody_site_draws/) As of April 2005, the "FAUX News" products are no longer listed on the Agitproperties website. His last tour in a "rock band format" took place in 1988 with a 12-piece group which was reported to have a repertoire of over 800 (mostly Zappa) compositions, but which split acrimoniously before the tour was completed. Lawyers for FOX, charging an infringement of FOX's rights, demanded that the company cease selling all such merchandise, and threatened litigation if Agitproperties did not comply. Zappa put some of the PMRC hearings to music in his song "Porn Wars." Zappa is heard interacting with Senators Fritz Hollings, Slade Gorton, Al Gore (who admitted to being a Zappa fan), and, most notably, a funny exchange with Florida Senator Paula Hawkins over what toys the Zappa children played with. In 2002, a small website called Agitproperties.com (http://www.agitproperties.com) began selling T-shirts and other merchandise with a "FAUX News" logo parodying FOX's logo. The products included one that used "We Distort, You Comply" as a parody of FOX's slogan "We Report, You Decide". He said,. [16] (http://ttabvue.uspto.gov/ttabvue/v?pno=92042790&pty=CAN&eno=1) As of April 2005, the proceeding was still pending. On September 19, 1985, Zappa testified before the US Senate Commerce, Technology, and Transportation committee, attacking the Parents Music Resource Center or PMRC, a music censorship (though others would say watchdog) organization founded by then-Senator Al Gore's wife Tipper Gore and including many other political wives, including the wives of five members of the committee. [15] (http://ttabvue.uspto.gov/ttabvue/v?qt=adv&pno=92042790&qs=&propno=&propnameop=&propname=&pop=&pn=&pop2=&pn2=&cop=&cn=) The petition argued that the phrase was so widely used by others as to have no particular association with FOX, and that FOX's use of the phrase was "notoriously misdescriptive of [FOX]'s presentation of news content". His work was also more explicitly political satirising the rise of television evangelists and the Republican party. In December 2003, the Independent Media Institute, which publishes the Alternet online magazine, brought a petition before the United States Patent and Trademark Office seeking the cancellation of FOX's trademark in the phrase "Fair & Balanced". After a break Zappa returned, and much of his later work was influenced by his use of the synclavier as a compositional and performance tool and his mastery of studio techniques for producing specific instrumental effects. Franken then suggested that the judge's phrase "Wholly Without Merit" would make a more appropriate slogan for FOX. In 1980, Zappa helped former band members Warren Cuccurullo and Terry Bozzio launch their new band, Missing Persons, by letting them record their 4-song demo EP in his brand new UMRK (Utility Muffin Research Kitchen) studios. FOX then withdrew the suit. He continued a high rate of production through the early 1970s, including the excellent and accessible albums One Size Fits All and Apostrophe, OverNite Sensation and Roxy and Elswhere featuring ever-changing versions of a band no longer called the Mothers. The United States District Court Judge hearing the case denied the motion, characterizing FOX's claim as "wholly without merit, both factually and legally". He began touring again in late 1972, first with a Grand Wazoo 'big band' and with groups that variously included Ian Underwood on brass and reeds, Ian's wife Ruth on vibes, Sal Marquez (trumpet), Napoleon Murphy Brock (sax and vocals), Bruce Fowler (trombone), Tom Fowler (bass), Chester Thompson (drums), George Duke (kbds, vocals) and Jean-Luc Ponty (violin). Before the book was released, FOX brought a lawsuit, alleging that the book's subtitle violated FOX's trademark in the promotional phrase "Fair and Balanced". On that basis, FOX moved for a preliminary injunction to block the publication of the book. In 1971-72 he released two strongly jazz-oriented solo LPs, Waka Jawaka and The Grand Wazoo, which were recorded during the layoff from live concert touring, using floating lineups of session players and Mothers alumni. The book criticized many right-wing individuals and institutions on grounds of inaccuracy; it included FOX News among the media outlets described as biased. officer. In 2003, Penguin Books published Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right, by the comedian and writer Al Franken. He employed a bodyguard thereafter when touring, John Smothers, a former L.A.P.D. More recently, in a Wall Street Journal Europe op-ed published on May 20, 2005, London bureau chief Scott Norvell wrote: "Even we at Fox News manage to get some lefties on the air occasionally, and often let them finish their sentences before we club them to death and feed the scraps to Karl Rove and Bill O'Reilly." [13] (http://slate.msn.com/id/2119864/#ContinueArticle), [14] (http://www.newshounds.us/2005/05/31/fox_news_confesses_that_its_in_bed_with_karl_rove.php). (He was wearing a leg brace for a period thereafter, had a noticeable limp and couldn't stand for very long while onstage.) He said one leg healed shorter than the other -- a reference found years later in the lyrics of "Dancin' Fool" . Ailes' statements were contradictory, given FOX News has always stressed that affiliates are separate entities from FOX News Channel, and FOX News has no editorial oversight of any FOX affiliate. [12] (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,125437,00.html). This left him wheelchair bound for a time, forcing him off the road for over a year. The story on Bush's drunk driving record was actually broken by Portland, Maine Fox affiliate WPXT, which while a local affiliate, is not the FOX News Channel cable network. The jealous husband of a female fan pushed Frank offstage landing him unconscious in the orchestra pit, with serious fractures, head trauma and injuries to his back, leg, and neck, as well as a crushed larynx (which caused his voice to drop a third after it healed). Bush's DUI four days before the election" as an example. Then in December, Zappa was attacked on stage at the Rainbow Theatre, London. Ailes claimed that FOX News has broken stories which turned out harmful to Republicans and the Republican Party, stating "Fox News is the network that broke George W. While performing in Montreux, Switzerland, the Mothers' equipment was destroyed when a flare set off by an audience member started a disastrous fire that burned the casino where they were playing — an event immortalised in Deep Purple's "Smoke On The Water". In June 2004, CEO Roger Ailes responded to some criticism with rebuttal in an online column for the Wall Street Journal ([11] (http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110005157)), claiming that FOX's critics intentionally confuse opinion shows such as The O'Reilly Factor with regular news coverage. In 1971 there were two serious setbacks. Many of Fox News's anchors are considered to be right-wing conservative by the channel's critics. The latter was released according to FZ to provide some royalties to the band members who were suddenly in limbo, unable to tour. Many media commentators and competitors have alleged that FOX News' reporting is characterized by right-wing editorials disguised as news and have jokingly referred to FOX News as the "Faux News Network", the "Republican News Network", or "Unfair and Unbalanced." Critics of FOX News point to the following as evidence of bias:. The former features hilariously low-concept cover art just at the apex of the era of great rock "album cover artwork". Although most critics do not claim that all FOX News reporting is slanted, most allege that bias at FOX News is systemic, and implemented to target an exclusively right-wing audience. This double disc album was followed by two superb live sets, Fillmore East - June 1971 and Just Another Band From LA, which included the 20-minute track "Billy The Mountain", Zappa's satire on rock opera, set in Southern California. However, numerous critics claim that the network has a conservative bias and tailors its news to support the Republican Party. He left the band to play with Cannonball Adderly and was replaced Don Preston from the original Mothers, who acted in the film, but is not playing on the soundtrack. Its self-promotion includes the phrases "Fair and Balanced" and "We Report, You Decide". At the time George Duke was in the band and appears both in the film and on the sound track as a musician. FOX News asserts that it is more objective and factual than other American networks. The new lineup debuted on Zappa's next solo LP Chunga's Revenge, which was followed by the sprawling soundtrack to the movie project 200 Motels, featuring both The Mothers and The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. See also: Media bias, Propaganda model. (Their own music was later published under Liccianetti Music.) Because contractual problems prevented them from recording as The Turtles or even under their own names, Volman and Kaylan were often billed as "Flo and Eddie". By April, Fox viewership had dropped for the sixth straight month, a total drop of over 58%, with no signs of stopping. They were nicknamed "The Phlorescent Leach and Eddie" by Zappa. During President Bush's address, FOX News notched 7.3 million viewers nationally, while NBC, CBS, and ABC scored ratings of 5.9, 5.0, and 5.1, respectively. Around 1970 Zappa put together a new version of The Mothers that included British drummer Aynsley Dunbar, jazz keyboardist George Duke, previous Mothers member, multi-instrumentalist Ian Underwood and singers Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman, who had been the lead singers in Sixties folk-pop band The Turtles. In September, FOX News Channel made television history when ratings for its broadcast of the Republican National Convention beat those of all three broadcast networks. After he disbanded the original Mothers, Zappa released the acclaimed solo instrumental album Hot Rats, featuring his jazz-inflected guitar playing backed by jazz, blues and R&B players session players including violinist Don "Sugarcane" Harris, drummer John Guerin, and bassist Shuggie Otis. It remains one of his most popular and accessible recordings and arguably had a major influence on the development of the jazz-rock fusion genre. Coverage of the Democratic National Convention in Boston ranked higher in the ratings than its two closest cable competitors combined. During this period Zappa also produced the extraordinary double album Trout Mask Replica for his old friend Captain Beefheart as well as releases by Alice Cooper, Tim Buckley, Wild Man Fischer and The GTOs. In 2004, the perceived gain in ratings began to become more apparent. More importantly, the financial strain and interpersonal tensions involved in keeping a large jazz-rock ensemble on the road eventually led to the group's demise in 1969, although numerous members would remain with or return to Zappa in years to come. By some reports, at the height of the conflict, they enjoyed as much as a 300% increase in viewership, averaging 3.3 million viewers daily ([1] (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3148015.stm)). Although they were lauded by critics and their peers and had a rabid cult following, mainstream audiences often found much of the Mothers' music, appearance and attitude impossible to comprehend, and the band was often greeted with derision. The BBC reported that FOX News saw its profits double during the Iraq conflict, due in part to what the report called "patriotic" coverage of the war. In the late 1990s some of the best of these recordings were collected for the 12-CD set You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore. Because of his insistence on precise tuning and timing in concert, from the 1970s on Zappa was able to augment his studio productions with excerpts from live shows, and he is known to have inserted 'live' guitar solos into the final studio recordings of some compositions. This is primarily due to Fox's long duration "talk" programs which cause viewers to tune in for longer periods as compared to CNN's generally shorter news segments. In the process he built up a vast archive of live recordings. Measured by unique viewers, however, Fox is bested by CNN which, during the election season, earned 11% greater numbers of individual P2+ viewers. Around 1968 Zappa also began regularly recording his concerts, beginning with a simple two-track portable recorder and eventually progressing to a portable 48-track digital system. FOX News currently leads the cable news market, earning higher ratings than its chief competitors CNN and MSNBC combined by average viewership. The Mothers' anarchic stage shows were legendary — during one famous 1967 performance at the Garrick Theatre in New York, Zappa managed to entice some soldiers from the audience onto the stage, where they proceeded to dismember a collection of baby dolls. More recently, Ailes was named Broadcaster of the Year by Broadcast and Cable Magazine in 2003. During a residency in New York's Greenwich Village in late 1966, Zappa became friends with Jimi Hendrix and is reputed to have introduced Hendrix to the Wah-wah pedal. He ran the CNBC channel and America's Talking, the forerunner of MSNBC for NBC. He also became known for dismissing the contributions of his musicians, going so far as to withhold royalties rather than share the glory. Ailes withdrew from consulting and returned to broadcasting in 1992. Zappa earned a fearsome reputation as a ruthless taskmaster who possessed a seemingly limitless capacity for work (he regularly worked as much as twenty hours a day in the studio until very late in his career) who also possessed immense technical knowledge and a photographic memory of the contents of his vast archive. FOX News Sunday currently airs on many FOX affiliates and is similar in format to other Sunday morning political discussion programs. He also frequently quoted from or referred to TV show themes and advertising jingles, from famous rock songs such as My Sharona and Stairway To Heaven, and from classical works such as Stravinsky's "The Rite Of Spring". FOX News also produced several newsmagazine shows for its Fox affiliates including FOX Files and The Pulse, both cancelled after short runs due to poor ratings. He also became famous for regularly quoting musical phrases that influenced or amused him — one of his most famous and regular quotes was the riff from the perennial Sixties rock hit 'Louie Louie', which appears in various forms in more than twenty separate recordings over the whole span of his career. 2005, all times Eastern):. His work combines satirical lyrics and pop melodies with virtuoso instrumental prowess, where long, jazz-inflected improvisational passages are counterbalanced with densely edited and seemingly chaotic collage sequences that mix music, sound effects and snatches of conversation. Most of the programs are broadcast from Fox News headquarters in New York City with its street-side studios on Sixth Avenue (Avenue of the Americas.) The following is the usual weekday lineup (as of Jan. Zappa evolved a unique compositional approach — which he dubbed 'conceptual continuity' — that ranged across virtually every genre of music. Fox News presents a wide variety of programming, with up to 15 hours of live programming per day. He increasingly used tape editing as a compositional tool; his editing skills are apparent on the stunning work he produced in the late Sixties with The Mothers. Nixon was chronicled in the book The Selling of the President: 1968 by Joe McGinniss. During the late Sixties Zappa continued his rapid artistic development, emerging as a superb lead guitarist, a skilled producer and engineer, and a composer and arranger of extraordinary range and facility. His work for former President Richard M. Other important Mothers recordings from this period (including the pivotal song Oh No) were collected in the 1970 compilation album Weasels Ripped My Flesh. After he began his career in broadcasting, Ailes started Ailes Communications, Inc and was successful as a political strategist for Presidents Nixon and Reagan and in producing campaign TV commercials for Republican political candidates. After We're Only In It For The Money, next was his Doo-Wop tribute Cruising with Ruben & the Jets. The CEO, Chairman, and President of FOX News is Roger Ailes. The dazzling audio collage Lumpy Gravy (1967) took Zappa's production techniques to a new peak and, according to Zappa himself, took nine months to edit. (The Nielsen Rating measures viewing duration. CNN actually has a greater number of individual viewers (CUME rating).). This was bookended by two closely linked companion pieces. Launched on October 7, 1996 to 17 million cable subscribers, the nascent network quickly rose to prominence in the late 1990s as it started taking market share away from CNN; Fox claims the channel is now the "most watched cable news channel" in the United States according to Nielsen Ratings. The cover photo (which included Jimi Hendrix) famously parodied that of the Beatles' Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. and to further viewers internationally, broadcasting primarily out of its New York City studios. It was followed by the album widely regarded as the peak of the group's late Sixties work, We're Only In It For The Money (1968) which featured some of the most radical audio editing and production yet heard in pop music, and ruthlessly satirised the hippie and flower power phenomena. As of January 2005, it is available to 85 million subscribers in the U.S. The brilliant Absolutely Free (1967) continued Zappa's lyrical preoccupations with the hypocrisy and conformism of American society and the sinister suppression of underground and alternative culture. It is owned by the Fox Entertainment Group, a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Zappa's second and third studio albums were landmarks of record production and were highlighted by liberal use of his famous 'cut-up' editing techniques. The FOX News Channel is a US cable and satellite news channel. During this period, Wilson also had Zappa collaborate with The Animals on the song "All Night Long" on their album Animalism. (see Ofcom complaint, response and ruling (http://www.ofcom.org.uk/tv/obb/prog_cb/pcb_11/upheld_cases)). It's clear that even on the two first albums, Zappa was already responsible for virtually all of the musical decisions, with Wilson providing the industry clout, credibility, and connections to get the unknown group the financial resources they needed to produce a double album with use of an orchestra; by the third album, Zappa had already enough of a proven track record to allow for a more accurate description in the album's credits of their respective roles. Fox News admitted that Gilligan had not actually said the words that John Gibson appeared to attribute to him; OfCom rejected the claim that it was intended to be a paraphrase. Wilson is also credited with producing the even more accomplished follow-up Absolutely Free; but for the third LP, Wilson was listed as 'Executive producer', and Zappa took over as producer for all the Mothers and solo Zappa recordings issued from that time on. In reviewing viewer complaints, Ofcom (the United Kingdom's statutory broadcasting regulator) ruled that FOX News had breached the program code in three areas: "respect for truth", "opportunity to take part", and "personal view programmes opinions expressed must not rest upon false evidence". One of the first record albums united by an underlying theme, it was also only the second double LP of rock music ever released, and firmly established Zappa as a major new voice in rock music. An opinion piece on the Hutton Inquiry decision, in which John Gibson said the BBC had "a frothing-at-the-mouth anti-Americanism that was obsessive, irrational and dishonest" and that the BBC reporter, Andrew Gilligan, "insisted on air that the Iraqi Army was heroically repulsing an incompetent American Military" [10] (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,109821,00.html). With Wilson credited as producer, The Mothers recorded their groundbreaking double album debut Freak Out! (1966), a mixture of often topical R&B and experimental sound collage that attempted to capture the 'freak' subculture of Los Angeles at that time. The quotes included: "Women should like me! I do manicures," "Didn't my nails and cuticles look great?" and "I'm metrosexual [Bush's] a cowboy." FOX News retracted the story and apologized (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,134166,00.html), citing a "jest" that became published through "fatigue and bad judgement, not malice". Around this time, Zappa also met and signed with longtime manager Herb Cohen. A news article in October 2004 by Carl Cameron, chief political correspondent of FOX News, containing three fabricated quotes attributed to Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. Wilson signed The Mothers to the Verve label, which had built up a strong reputation for its fine modern jazz recordings in the 1940s and 1950s, but was then attempting to diversify into pop and rock, but with an "artistic" or "experimental" bent. The network made an official response (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,125436,00.html) and a review of selected employees (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,125437,00.html) featured in the film and their employment (or non-employment) with FOX News. Wilson was also notable for being one of the only African-Americans working as a major label pop producer at this time. Suddenly, we were ordered from the top to carry [...] Republican, right-wing propaganda," after being told what to say about Ronald Reagan. They gradually began to gain attention on the burgeoning Los Angeles underground 'freak scene' and in 1965 they were spotted by leading record producer Tom Wilson, who had earned acclaim as the producer of the seminal Bob Dylan albums Bringin' It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited, as well as the breakthrough 'electric' version of Simon & Garfunkel's Sounds of Silence. For example, Frank O'Donnell, a former employee of WTTG (a FOX affiliate), says: "We were stunned, because up until that point, we were allowed to do legitimate news. He soon assumed leadership, renaming the band "The Mothers" (and, later still, "Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention" at the insistence of the record company). Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism, a documentary film on FOX News by Robert Greenwald, makes allegations of bias in FOX News by interviewing a number of former employees who discuss the company's practices. After a short career as a professional songwriter — his elegiac "Memories of El Monte" was recorded by The Penguins — in 1964 Zappa joined a local R&B band, The Soul Giants, as a guitarist. Still, FOX News frequently cites Colmes' presence with the network when accused of right-wing bias, which led to the development of the term Fox News liberal. Unfortunately the customer turned out to be an undercover member of the Vice Squad and Zappa was jailed for ten days on charges of supplying pornography. His entrapment and brief imprisonment left a permanent mark on him, and was a key event in the formation of his anti-authoritarian stance. Alan Colmes is a self-professed liberal, although he is frequently criticized by the left as being a political moderate and for percieved submissiveness compared with Sean Hannity, who he shares a program with. After being approached by a customer who wanted him to produce a suggestive tape for a stag party, Zappa and some friends jokingly faked the "erotic" recording, which purported to contain the sounds of people having sex. Bush wherein Cavuto told Bush that domestic lack of support for the partial privatization of Social Security was due to Americans being "distracted" by Michael Jackson's child molestation trial. By the time he recorded his first LP with The Mothers in 1966 he was already an accomplished recording and mastering engineer and from his third LP on and for the rest of his career, he produced all his own work. Neil Cavuto has been described as a "Bush apologist" by critics [9] (http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0613-23.htm), after conducting an allegedly deferential interview with President George W. At this time, only a handful of the most expensive commercial studios had multitrack facilities and for smaller studios, the industry standard was still mono or two-track. And who needs to know that he's not a legitimate president?" [8] (http://www.yaaams.org/medianews.shtml). Although only a small business, Pal was particularly attractive to Zappa because it contained a unique 5-track tape recorder built by the previous owner, Paul Buff. Bush was sworn into office: "Is this a case where knowing the facts actually would be worse than not knowing? I mean, should we burn those ballots, preserve them in amber, or shred them? George Bush is going to be president. Soon after, his marriage ended and he moved out of his apartment and into the studio, where he began routinely working 12 hours per day and more, setting a pattern that would endure for almost all of his life. Gibson gained notoriety immediately after the 2000 presidential election controversy for his advocating the burning of all ballots involved in the election dispute once George W. Zappa had begun recording at Pal since the early 1960s and after receiving a payment for one of his film scores he was able to buy the studio. John Gibson's afternoon block of news coverage, "The Big Story", is frequently cited as an example of FOX News deliberately blurring the lines between objective reporting and opinion/editorial programming. In 1963 he began playing professionally around Los Angeles and bought the small Pal Recording Studio in Rancho Cucamonga, California (formerly called Cucamonga), which he renamed "Studio Z". [7] (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,159877,00.html). He married his first wife Kay the same year but the relationship soon deteriorated and they divorced two years later. O'Reilly frequently uses incendiary, nationalist rhetoric toward those who hold disagreeing positions, such as accusing Senator Dick Durbin of "slamming America" and "condemning his own country" over Durbin's criticism of the conditions at the United States' Guantanamo Bay facility in Cuba. Although many of the tapes of this series were later destroyed, the video of Zappa's remarkable performance survives. O'Reilly himself maintains that he is politically independent (chiefly due to libertarian positions on social issues like homosexuality and marijuana legislation). In 1962 he appeared as a solo artist on the Steve Allen Show performing a satirical dadaist piece involving a bicycle. One of the most well-known personalities is the popular Bill O'Reilly, who hosts the O'Reilly Factor; O'Reilly often faces criticism from the left over perceived pro-war, right-wing slant in his news coverage. Among his earliest professional recordings are two adventurous and remarkably accomplished scores for the low-budget films Run Home Slow and The World's Greatest Sinner. Bush before the 2004 election. He began working as a graphic artist while trying to establish himself as a musician and composer. Primetime co-host Sean Hannity (paired with Alan Colmes on-air) is also a conservative; Hannity is also prominent in conservative talk radio, second only to Rush Limbaugh in terms of listeners, and went on tour for George W. Zappa moved to Los Angeles in 1959 and spent most of the rest of his life there. Former Fox News Sunday host Tony Snow is a conservative columnist, radio host, and former chief speechwriter for the first Bush administration. One of Zappa's best-known and best-loved album images is that created for the 1969 compilation Weasels Ripped My Flesh, a disturbingly surreal painting by renowned album artist Neon Park. Daytime anchor David Asman previously worked at The Wall Street Journal editorial page and the Manhattan Institute, a conservative thinktank. His two most important visual collaborators were Cal Schenkel in the Sixties and early Seventies, and Donald Roller Wilson in the Eighties and Nineties. Managing editor and host Brit Hume is a contributor to the conservative American Spectator and Weekly Standard. Zappa's album covers are highly distinctive, and frequently bizarre and surreal. Full report (http://www.stateofthemedia.org/2005/narrative_cabletv_contentanalysis.asp?cat=2&media=5). Zappa always took a keen interest in the visual presentation of his work, rapidly developing from album cover designer (e.g. Absolutely Free) to director of his own films and videos. On the other hand, it found FOX more transparent about its sources[6] (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A33008-2005Mar14?language=printer). His sojourn in the commercial world was another important influence on his work, and within a few years Zappa was co-opting the techniques he learned as a commercial artist, and was using them to deconstruct music, the music business, the media and society at large by combining them with the ideas he had gleaned from his studies of dada, situationism, and surrealism. The same report found FOX less likely than CNN to present multiple points of view. After graduating in June 1958 he worked for a time in advertising. A study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism in 2005 found that, in covering the Iraq War in 2004, 73% of FOX News stories included editorial opinions, compared to 29% on MSNBC and 2% on CNN. During high school Zappa had also developed a strong interest in graphic arts. (See Governments' pre-war positions on invasion of Iraq). Zappa did see his childhood dream realized, as the London Symphony Orchestra played a program of his music, and the Ensemble Modern in 1992 received a 20-minute ovation after performing a program of his work a the Frankfurt Opera House. In the aggregate, 23% of all respondants who got their news primarily from a single news network held this belief. A portion of this historic recording is included on the CD The Lost Episodes. 35% of FOX viewers believed that "the majority of people [in the world] favour the US having gone to war" with Iraq. By his final year he was writing prolifically and had not only composed, arranged and conducted an avant-garde performance piece for the school orchestra, but had also contrived to have the event both broadcast on local radio and recorded. (See Iraq disarmament crisis). Although he was primarily self-taught, his music teacher gave him considerable encouragement. In the aggregate, 23% of all respondants who got their news primarily from a single news network held this belief. Zappa's interest in composing and arranging burgeoned in his later high school years and he dreamed of being taken seriously as a composer. 33% of FOX viewers believed that the "US has found Iraqi weapons of mass destruction" "since the war ended". It is possible that he might have become a professional jazz musician, but he was soon drawn into rock music, although he retained a lifelong attachment to jazz forms, voicings and structures and often drew his band members from the jazz world, if only because of the high degree of musical competence his music demanded. (See Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda). He considered his solos "air sculptures", and developed an eclectic, fluent and extremely individual style, eventually becoming one of the most highly regarded electric guitarists of his time. In the aggregate, 52% of all respondants who got their news primarily from a single news network held this belief. In 1957 Zappa was given his first guitar and quickly developed into a highly accomplished and inventive player. 67% of FOX viewers believed that the "US has found clear evidence in Iraq that Saddam Hussein was working closely with the al Qaeda terrorist organization". Van Vliet's own feelings about Frank Zappa were perhaps best summarized in a quote published in a March 1994 issue of Musician magazine: "I knew him for thirty-seven years, and in the end, the relationship was private.". A study by the Program on International Policy Attitudes, in the Winter 2003-2004 issue of Political Science Quarterly, reported that viewers of the Fox Network local affiliates or Fox News were more likely than viewers of other news networks to hold three views which the authors labeled as misperceptions:[5] (http://www.psqonline.org/cgi-bin/99_article.cgi?byear=2003&bmonth=winter&a=02free&format=view) (PDF)
His bands have been notable for the excellence of their drummers and works such as The Black Page are notorious for the virtuoso complexity of their rhythmic structure and arrangement, featuring radical changes of tempo and metre and short, densely arranged passages which are contrasted with free-form breaks and extended improvisations. Photocopied memos (http://www.independent-media.tv/item.cfm?fmedia_id=8147&fcategory_desc=Fox%20News,%2024hr%20Republican%20Network) from FOX News executive John Moody instructing the network's on-air anchors and reporters on using positive language when discussing anti-abortion viewpoints, the Iraq war, and tax cuts; as well as requesting that the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal be put in context with the other violence in the area. Although he performed as a singer-guitarist for most of his career, Zappa always retained a strong interest in rhythm and percussion. [3] (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2000/11/14/politics/main249357.shtml). He drummed with local teenage combos, but later switched to guitar, which he quickly mastered. Though all major networks called Florida for Bush by 2:20 a.m., Ellis has since admitted to informing both Jeb and George Bush several times by telephone of how projections were going on election night. Zappa began his playing career on drums, taking his first lessons at school in the summer of 1953, aged 13. Bush, was one of four consultants assigned by the Voter News Service to FOX News on night of the 2000 Presidential election; thus he was part of the team that recommended FOX News be the last to retract its call of Florida for Gore and the first to call Florida for Bush, which FOX News did at 2:16 a.m [2] (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2000/11/14/politics/main249357.shtml). [1] (http://csunix1.lvc.edu/~snyder/em/zappa.html). That John Prescott Ellis, a full cousin of George W. Zappa had Varèse's letter framed and he kept it for the rest of his life. Appeal Decision (http://www.2dca.org/opinion/February%2014,%202003/2D01-529.pdf) (PDF). He and Varèse subsequently wrote to each other. WTVT successfully appealed on First Amendment grounds. This case was against a local affiliate station, not FOX News. Unfortunately, Varèse was away in Europe at the time, but the young fan spoke to the composer's wife. A ruling in a whistleblower lawsuit that WTVT had ordered fired reporters Jane Akre and Steve Wilson to distort the facts in a story about Bovine Growth Hormone. Although she greatly disliked Varèse's music, she was indulgent enough to give Frank the gift of a long distance call to the composer at his home in New York as a fifteenth birthday present. The only other major news organization to do so was fellow Murdoch-owned News Corporation subsidiary the New York Post. Zappa's mother gave him considerable encouragement. Use of the term "homicide bomber" instead of "suicide bomber" after White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer made the request. When he spotted a copy of The Complete Works of Edgard Varèse, Volume One in a local record store, where it was being used as a hi-fi demonstration record, he convinced the salesman to sell him the copy despite the fact that he didn't have the full price, beginning a lifelong passion for Varèse and his music. Bush. His introduction to Stravinsky seems to have been a pivotal musical discovery but he was soon ranging even further afield, musically, in addition to his interests in jazz, doo-wop, R&B, and rock'n'roll. After reading a magazine review panning Varèse's dissonant drum piece in "Ionisation" (actually The Complete Works of Edgard Varèse, Volume One) as 'a weird jumble of drums and other unpleasant sounds', the teenage Zappa became convinced that he should seek out Varèse's music. CEO Roger Ailes's past activities, including: Republican campaign work, involvement in the Willie Horton ad, his production of the Rush Limbaugh television show, and having served as either advisor or consultant to Republican Presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Zappa was from the first interested in sounds for their own sake, which led to his interest in modern composers. Rupert Murdoch's ownership of several conservative outlets, including the New York Post and The Times. His parents were not musicians but had broad musical tastes also, and he grew up influenced in equal measures by avant-garde composers such as Edgar Varèse and Igor Stravinsky, local rhythm and blues and doo-wop groups (particularly local pachuco groups), and modern jazz, including bebop and free jazz, all of which influences show up in his work. Rita Cosby. However, he was passionately interested in music, developing wide-ranging and highly idiosyncratic musical interests and demonstrating superior ability at an early age. Jon Du Pre. He was highly intelligent, ambitious and articulate, widely read, and possessed a voracious intelligence, drive, singular concentration, enormous creativity and a huge capacity for work and organisation. Paula Zahn. Nevertheless, he was in essence a polymath. Catherine Crier. He maintained his disdain for formal education throughout his life, taking his children out of school at age 15 and refusing to pay for their college. the next day. He left community college after one semester in order to make low-budget films. 11 p.m.: Reruns of previous programs are shown until 6 a.m. As a student, he was bored and given to distracting the rest of the class with his antics, and was once suspended from school for a dangerous prank involving explosive chemicals and a Parents' Open House night. This program has an emphasis on stories pertaining to legal matters or human interest. Nasal imagery and references to the nose also recur, both in his writing and in the classic collage album covers created by his longtime visual collaborator, Cal Schenkel. 10 p.m.: Greta Van Susteren broadcasts On the Record with Greta Van Susteren. To Frank's lasting horror, his doctor treated the stubborn ailment by inserting a pellet of radium into his nose on a probe. 9 p.m.: Conservative Sean Hannity and liberal Alan Colmes debate political issues of the day with guests and analysts during Hannity & Colmes. Another formative event was a persistent sinus problem during his early teens. The taped broadcast features commentary from Bill O'Reilly, formerly of Inside Edition fame. TV also exerted a strong influence and references to TV and TV shows, including quotations from themes and advertising jingles, can be found in almost every piece he wrote. 8 p.m.: The network's top-rated show, The O'Reilly Factor. Lancaster's location gave the young Zappa access to the exciting sounds coming from radio stations in Los Angeles and beyond, as well as exposure to the hype that went with it, and his parents were affluent enough to afford a record player, records, a TV, and musical instruments. 7 p.m.: Shepard Smith broadcasts The Fox Report With Shepard Smith, offering various reports on the day's events. His father once wrote and published a small mathematical volume on gambling odds. 6 p.m.: Primetime starts with the political news and discussion show Special Report with Brit Hume, hosted by political reporter Brit Hume from Washington, DC. References to germs, germ warfare and other aspects of the 'secret' defence industry occur throughout his work. 5 p.m.: John Gibson hosts The Big Story, a news/commentary program. Due to their proximity to Edwards AFB, he kept gas masks at home in case of an accident, and this evidently had a profound effect on the young Frank. 4 p.m.: Fox's flagship business program, Your World, hosted by Neil Cavuto. His father, a chemist and mathematician who was born in Sicily, worked nearby at Edwards Air Force Base which had at the time a federal government chemical warfare research facility. 3 p.m.: Shepard Smith's news program, Studio B. By age 15, Frank had attended six different high schools, which may have contributed to his sense of alienation in adult life. 2 p.m.: Another hour of Fox News Live hosted by Martha MacCallum. By 1955 the Zappa family relocated to Lancaster, which at the time was a small aircraft and farming town in the Antelope Valley in the Mojave Desert 73 miles north of downtown Los Angeles north of the San Gabriel Mountains. 1 p.m.: Linda Vester's talk show with a live audience, Dayside. They moved to Pomona, then El Cajon before moving a short distance once again to San Diego in the early 1950s. Usually hosted by Jon Scott, Brigitte Quinn, and David Asman. In January 1951 the Zappa family relocated to the west coast because of Frank's asthma, settling in Monterey, California, on the coast about 100 miles south of San Francisco. Like other American cable news stations, there is news mixed with feature-like stories, as well as commentary and short debates between people on opposite sides of issues, usually between associates of candidates and officials, think tank members, and journalists. He was the oldest of four children, with two brothers and a sister. 9 a.m.: Late morning and early afternoon programming starts with Fox News Live, a show featuring news, guest analysis, and interviews. Born in Baltimore, Maryland on 21 December 1940, Zappa was of mixed Sicilian, Italian, Greek, Arab, French, Irish, and German ancestry. Hill, and Brian Kilmeade, is similar to other cable news network programming in the mornings, such as CNN's American Morning with Bill Hemmer and Soledad O'Brien and MSNBC's Imus in the Morning. Frank Vincent Zappa (December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993) was an American rock/jazz fusion musician, composer, and satirist. 7 a.m.: Fox & Friends, hosted by Steve Doocy, E.D. Dangerous Kitchen: The Subversive World of Zappa, by Kevin Courrier, ECW Press (June, 2002) ISBN 1550224476. Napolitano, and others. Zappa: A Biography, by Barry Miles, Publisher: Grove Press (November 9, 2004), ISBN 080211783X. 6 a.m.: Morning programming begins with Fox & Friends 1st, hosted by one or more of the Fox & Friends hosts with rotating co-hosts Kiran Chetry, Lauren Green, Juliet Huddy, Andrew P. Being Frank: My Time with Frank Zappa, by Nigery Lennon. Under the Same Moon, by Suzannah Thana Harris. Them or Us, by Frank Zappa. My Brother was a Mother, by Patrice "Candy" Zappa. Cosmik Debris: The Collective History and Improvisations of Frank Zappa, by Greg Russo, Crossfire Pubns; 2nd Rev edition (January 9, 2003), ISBN 0964815702. The Early Years of Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, by Billy James. Necessity Is.. Electric Don Quixote: The Definitive Story of Frank Zappa, by Neil Slaven. Mother! the Frank Zappa Story, by Michael Gray. Lunar Notes-Zoot Horn Rollo's Captain Beefheart Experience, by Bill Harkleroad, contains several references about Zappa's collaboration with Don Van Vliet, better known as Captain Beefheart. In Cold Sweat-Interviews With Really Scary Musicians, by Thomas Wictor, contains an extensive interview with Scott Thunes, one of Zappa's most creative bassists. Frank Zappa; The Negative Dialectics of Poodle Play, by Ben Watson, contains extensive notes on history, tours and releases. No Commercial Potential--The Saga of Frank Zappa, by David Walley. Includes his Senate testimony. The Real Frank Zappa Book, by Frank Zappa and Peter Occhiogrosso, is the definitive Zappa autobiography. QuAUDIOPHILIAc (2004). Joe's Domage (2004). Joe's Corsage (2004). Zappa: Greggery Peccary & Other Persuasions (Ensemble Modern) (2003). Halloween (2003). FZ:OZ (2002). Bohuslän Big Band plays Frank Zappa (Bohuslän Big Band) (2000). The Zappa Album (Ensemble Ambrosius) (2000. Frankly A Cappella (The Persuasions) (2000). Everything Is Healing Nicely (1999). Son of Cheep Thrills (1999). Cheep Thrills (1998). Cucamonga Years: The Early Works of Frank Zappa 1962-1964 (1998). Mystery Disc (1998). Frankincense: The Muffin Men Play Zappa (Muffin Men) (1997). Have I Offended Someone? (1997). Frank Zappa Plays the Music of Frank Zappa: A Memorial Tribute (1996). Läther (1996). The Lost Episodes (1996). Music By Frank Zappa (Omnibus Wind Ensemble) (1995). Strictly Commercial (1995). Harmonia Meets Zappa (Harmonia Ensemble) (1994). Civilization, Phaze III (1994). The Yellow Shark (Ensemble Modern) (1993). Zappa's Universe - A Celebration Of 25 Years Of Frank Zappa's Music (Joel Thorne/Orchestra of Our Time)(1993). Ahead Of Their Time (1993). Yahozna Plays Zappa (Yahonza) (1992). Playground Psychotics (1992). 6 (1992). You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 5 (1992). You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. Conceptual Continuity (1976). Our Man In Nirvana (1968). Swiss Cheese/Fire! (2 discs) (1971). At The Circus (1978). Electric Aunt Jemima (1968). Tengo Na Minchia Tanta (1970). Disconnected Synapses (1970). Beat The Boots II 8 discs (boxed or separate) (1992):
Anyway The Wind Blows (2 discs) (1979). Unmitigated Audacity (1974). Freaks & Motherfu*#@%! (1970). The Ark (1968}. As An Am (1981-82). Beat The Boots I 9 discs (boxed or separate) (1991):
You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. The BRT Big Band Plays Frank Zappa (BRT Big Band) (1990). The Best Band You Never Heard In Your Life (1989). 3 (1989). You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. Broadway The Hard Way (1989). 2 (1988). You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 1 (1988). You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. Guitar (1988). London Symphony Orchestra vol 2 (1987). Jazz From Hell (1986). Does Humor Belong In Music? (1986). Frank Zappa Meets The Mothers Of Prevention (1985). Francesco Zappa (1984). Thing-Fish (1984). Them or Us (1984). Boulez Conducts Zappa: The Perfect Stranger (1984). London Symphony Orchestra vol 1 (1983). Baby Snakes (1983). The Man From Utopia (1983). Ship Arriving Too Late To Save A Drowning Witch (1982). You Are What You Is (1981). Shut Up 'N' Play Yer Guitar (1981). Tinseltown Rebellion (1981). Joe's Garage (1979). Orchestral Favorites (1979). Sheik Yerbouti (1979). Sleep Dirt (1979). Studio Tan (1978). Zappa In New York (1978). Zoot Allures (1976). Bongo Fury (1975). One Size Fits All (1975). Roxy & Elsewhere (1974). Apostrophe (1974). Over-Nite Sensation (1973) (See 1973 in music). The Grand Wazoo (1972) (See 1972 in music). Waka/Jawaka (1972) (See 1972 in music). Just Another Band From L.A. (1972) (See 1972 in music). 200 Motels (1971). Fillmore East - June 1971 (1971). King Kong: Jean-Luc Ponty Plays the Music of Frank Zappa (Jean-Luc Ponty) (1970). Chunga's Revenge (1970). Weasels Ripped My Flesh (1970). Burnt Weeny Sandwich (1969). Hot Rats (1969). The !@#$ of the Mothers of Invention (1969). Worst of the Mothers (1969). Mothermania: The Best of the Mothers (1969). Uncle Meat (1969). Cruising with Ruben & the Jets (1968). We're Only In It For The Money (1968). Lumpy Gravy (1967). Absolutely Free (1967). Freak Out! (1966). Download sample of "Hungry Freaks, Daddy" from Freak Out!. |