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Title: No Commercial Potential: The Saga of Frank Zappa by David Walley ISBN: 0-306-80710-6 Publisher: DaCapo Press Pub. Date: September, 1996 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.50 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.3 (10 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: very good. Doesn't pull punches!
Comment: Even though it's 'diluted' with the added on chapters (ie 1972-1993) the earlier stuff is excellent. This was the first book on frank zappa, the benchmark. There are lots of negative quotes included here, giving a balanced view, because david didn't want his book to become just another piece of 'promotional trash'. These quotes are mainly from captain beefheart and artie tripp, who give their own controversial views on frank's genius. Anyway, frank tried to prevent it being published because he was angry with what it said. But this is an excellent read, it gives you a great feel for what was happening in LA/America in the 60s, the freak scene and all that, also it gives excellent insight into the albums. The later stuff is given a less intensive treatment, mainly because there is a lack of enthusiasm about most of it. There is also a piercing obituary ('afterword'), with some perceptive comments. You don't necessarily have to be a zappa fan to enjoy this book. Thank you.
Rating: 2
Summary: Truly weak.
Comment: Not surprisingly, there are numerous rave "reviews" of this book here by other Amazonians. Most of these people are the types who think "Don't Eat the Yellow Snow" is a significant work of late-20th century music and who throw around words like "genius" and "philosopher" whenever Zappa's name comes up. They think that Zappa's songs, which they always rush to point out were "complex," included serious, penetrating social commentary in addition to their "killer solos" and "freakin' funny" lyrics. Unfortunately, for most of this book, its author, David Walley, also falls into this category of Zappaphile.
I'll be honest. Frank Zappa's serious music (read: "instrumental music"), from the early "Hot Rats" to "Jazz From Hell," his guitar solo discs, "The Perfect Stranger," and "The Yellow Shark," I find fascinating, exciting, and worthy of placement beside the works of other major late 20th century composers. I write this as a classically trained musician with a background in piano, theory, and musicology. Zappa loved (LOVED) name dropping Varese, Stravinsky, Webern, Takemitsu, and Penderecki, and in my opinion, his best music ranks with theirs.
His other music (read: anything with lyrics) I find about as scintillating, witty, and sardonically insightful as the latest opus by Weird Al Yankovic. This is the junk by which he made his fortune, and while I respect the demanding nature of much of it, it's also ephemeral, juvenile, utterly worthless stuff. Sadly, this is what attracts a lot of his fans, most of whom are not musicians and many of whom are fanatics who mistake FZ for a philosopher.
What does all this have to with this book? David Walley is obviously not a musician, and so his relentless references to the "complexity" of FZ's music and his inevitable references to Webern, et al., mar this book with the stupidity of the musically unlettered geek who tries to write about music. His attempts to write a "with-it," Zappa-esque book make his social commentary approximately as riveting as his attempts at musical analysis. His humor is heavy handed and usually annoying.
On the personal side, when he's not writing embarrassingly sycophantic psychobabble about Zappa, he does manage to reveal some interesting aspects of his subject. Zappa was a control freak who used and abused musicians, stole many of their ideas while crediting himself, endlessly recycled his own material rather than spend his time coming up with worthwhile new works, and, in three decades of near-constant labor, managed to produce only a handful of worthwhile discs. Not an appealing person. His annoyingly smug cynicism had a dark side; Steve Vai once claimed that he almost had a nervous breakdown after leaving Zappa's band, thanks to his own adoption of Zappa's startlingly bleak and nasty worldview. Apart from the (relatively little) good music, that is the man's legacy.
I hope someday a biographer will approach this subject responsibly and from a position of musical knowledge. In this book, we have an author with no knowledge of music who is blinded by his personal feelings both for and against his subject. From his early ecstatic proclamations of Zappa's genius ("philosopher"! "composer"! "social critic"! "film maker"! "scientist"!), he descends into a scathing attack in the afterword. Over three decades after its first appearance, this book remains as amateurish as its author's prose.
Rating: 4
Summary: The Present Day Artist Refuses to Die!
Comment: This is an older book with a bit of updates and the old part is still a fun read for those who don't know anything about Zappa.
Aside from composing, the amazing thing that appears to get lost is that Zappa was one of 3 or 4 great guitarists of the 20th century. His use of the mixolydian mode combined with dissonance and fairly progressive technological effects throughout his career (speeding up oboes a minor third on Uncle Meat (1968) is an example) was extremely original and give his work its particular quality. It is true that Zappa was a control freak and he did abuse musicians since, as Gail Zappa has said, they (and anyone associated with Frank's work) were 'hired hands'. Anyone who views their fellow musician like that is going to be hard to work with. The accusation, however, that "Zappa endlessly recycled his own material rather than spend his time coming up with worthwhile new works" is a bit harsh. The progression of musicianship from Freak Out to The Yellow Shark is clear.
No Commercial Potential does not discuss musical and working relationship issues but is more of a cultural look at how excessive and insular the 60's rock scene was - even though one has to realize that it does try to deify Frank in the first 150 pages.
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Title: Electric Don Quixote: The Definitive Story of Frank Zappa by Neil Slaven ISBN: 0711994366 Publisher: Omnibus Press Pub. Date: 01 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: REAL FRANK ZAPPA BOOK by Frank Zappa, Peter Occhiogrosso ISBN: 0671705725 Publisher: Fireside Pub. Date: 15 May, 1990 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: My Brother Was a Mother: A Zappa Family Album by Patrice Zappa ISBN: 187939538X Publisher: California Classics Books Pub. Date: July, 2003 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Dangerous Kitchen: The Subversive World of Zappa by Kevin Courrier ISBN: 1550224476 Publisher: ECW Press Pub. Date: June, 2002 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
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Title: Mother! The Frank Zappa Story by Michael Gray ISBN: 0859653331 Publisher: Plexus Publishing Pub. Date: May, 2003 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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