May 1984 KCBS Magazine
hans
transcription of following interview (spelling mistakes, punctuation). Maybe
even some people have this interview on disc/record as well and they could
compare. Please don't mail it here but to my email adress.
Also maybe someone could give the exact date of this interview, there are
enough clues, but I'm tired from all this typing.
Though the interviewer seems to be quite ignorant to Frank's work, there are
some interesting morsels in this thing.
this is part one.
Hanzo
KCBS newsmagazine interview May 1984 before the Exploratorium show (lecture)
May 20th 1984
Joy Brown: Frank Zappa, remember Frank Zappa,
Unknown male voice: Frank Zappa's gonna be here
JB: Mother's of Invention, we start of the program with Frank....
(faded)
music fragment: 'Tink Walks Amok
JB: Yes indeed, believe it or not you're listening to KCBS newsmagazine, my
guest this afternoon is Frank Zappa and I have to tell you, we decided that
we wanted to open the program this afternoon with a little bit of eh
Zappaesque music, or the old Frank Zappa. We'll be making a distinction
between the old and the new just like the old and the new Nixon, we'll tell
you more about that in a few moments. But eh we had a real tough time going
through his albums and finding something for whom eh... the lyrics, the
lyrics would get a pg rating so we decided, discresion being the better part
of my career, that we'd pick an instrumental.
Mr. Zappa welcome.
FZ: Well hello there
JB: Well eh, yes indeed. Listen, before we really start talking about what's
going on in your life and why you're in San Francisco ah we have a really
important problem that we thought perhaps you could help us with here in the
Bay area. There's a San Jose couple who have offered a reward of a hundred
dollars for naming their child, they keep calling it 'it' or 'the baby'.
Well eh you came up with such imaginative names for your children we thought
maybe you could come up with a name for this particular child that is worth
a hundred dollars (inaudible).
FZ: Okay, eh, the name is Moldred
JB: Moldred, how eh how would we spell that?
FZ: M O U L D R E D
JB: As in, huh huh, as in the virus, Mouldred. Does Mouldred have any
particular eh meaning or, or...
FZ: It's a good name for a child of the eighties...
JB: Why?
FZ: ...because of the things that will be going on as the childs grows up I
think that, that particular kind of a name will be very much in phase with
the future.
JB: Can you be more specific about that?
FZ: Unless we enter the dark ages...
JB: (paraphrasing) dark ages.
FZ: ...and all beautiful things disappear from the face of the earth in the
United States a name like Mouldred should stand out.
JB: No doubt, is that why you named your children the rather unusual names
that you gave them, so they'd stand out?
No, no I didn't give them those names because they would stand out.
JB: Why did you name... You've got four kids.
FZ: That's right.
JB: Right, what, why did you name each other what you named them we've got
Moon Unit that is probably the most famous because of eh Valley Girl.
FZ: The ideas popped into my head just like Mouldred.
JB: That one just came here, Just came to you in a flash
FZ: Well I gave my wife the choice, because eh Moon was born while I was on
the road. I did my first European tour just while my wife was going to the
hospital she sais: What do I call the baby, I said if it's a boy call it
Motorhead, if it's a girl call it Moon,
JB: Thank God it was a girl
FZ: What's wrong with Motorhead? Well actually Motorhead is a nice name for
a girl too. Because there's a lot of those in California 'Motorhead' type
women.
JB: What is a motorhead type woman like?
FZ: That's a person... Well uh kind of a girl who likes a guy with black
stuff under his fingernails
and not less than 280 pounds.
JB: Well it never would have occured to me that thats what a motorhead was,
but I'm eh glad to know that... Eh, you are sort of a phenomenon. You
probably... Have you intended to be outrageous, I think if people said eh
one word to describe Frank Zappa, I think outrageous'd probably pop to most
peoples mind. Was that an intention...
FZ: Well eh that is a problem with their mind rather than with my behavior.
For example you know anything about greek music?
JB: Not a whole lot.
FZ: Well most of it is not in four four and so therefore anything that would
have a discobeat would tend to be exotic in that particular culture, and so
Americans being as sheltered as they are from reality by radio stations like
this that try to maintain that legendary pg rating and avoiding all things
that deal with biological reality and the words that are most expressive in
our language, when you have things like that...
JB: (aside) God I wished I'd said that.
FZ: ...as the norm, then anybody who doesn't apply or conform to that sort
of behavior
tends to stick out like a sore thumb. We're not trying to be outrageous,
we're trying to be different, but if you just don't like things that are as
unreal as the way the media tries to (fore?) the stupidity to the american
public. Then you gonna stick out, and you can't help it.
JB: Now, you are telling me that this is absolutely accidental, that there
is no attempt on your part to, to thumb your nose at the establishment or to
be outrageous, this just sort of happens...
FZ: If there was another guy in the next room and he felt the same way that
I did and he was a person who worked here at the station and I doubt whether
you have such a beast working at a station like this, but if there were a
creature like that...
JB: sales department
FZ: really
JB: sure
FZ: Okay well then, if there was a person like that, they would stick out
without even trying, that's what I'm trying to say. I'm not the only person
in the United States who has these kinds of ideas or sais these kinds of
things, it's just that I happen to been doing it for a long time and I said
and done these things in front of cameras and on the radio and the
newspapers and stuff and a lot of the things have been repeated over and
over again so...
JB: But it ehm, it's absolutely unconscious on your part that this is eh,
this is sort of good copy
and that in fact you will be quoted for these kind of things, absolutely
accidental
FZ: Actua... No eh that's totally accidental but as far as being quoted, I
wish I was quoted usually I'm misquoted and I spend a lot of time doing
interviews trying to unravel some of the things that people who do newspaper
articles have written down too fast, or written in the the sloppiest
possible way and then that goes into print and it goes into a morgue file
and that's repeated and regurgetated by other reporters over a period of two
decades...
JB: Well we'll give you a chance to unravel anything you want when we
return. You're listening to KCBS my guest this afternoon is Frank Zappa
who's gonna be at the Exploratorium and he'll tell you why when we return.
If you have some questions 800 228 KCBS. You're listening to the KCBS
newsmagazine, this is Joy Brown, back in a moment....
Fragment from Mo 'N Herbs Vacation
JB: You're listening to KCBS newsmagazine. That's music? True or false, what
do you think Frank?
FZ: Now what a terrible thing to say about a composition that's going to be
performed in Berkeley
on the 15th and 16th of june entitled Mo 'n Herbs vacation, you just heard
part of the first movement of Mo 'N Herbs vacation and you have the nerve to
sit there and say 'is that music'
of course it's music, it just doesn't happen to be the kind of music that
radiostations like this ever play.
JB: Well radio stations like this seldom play music at all.
FZ: Well, see what I mean?
JB: See, there he's got me, certainly. Now, you apparently were writing, ah
ehm the words escape me
FZ: I've been writing that stuff for thirty years.
JB: Exactly, long before you were known as a rock musician, right?
FZ: Long before I ever wrote a Rock 'N Roll song.
JB: Yeah. Do you hear it in your head, I mean what...?
FZ: Yeah.
JB: How does one translate, usually we think of music as having sort of oh a
melody line and eh I think...
FZ: That had a melody line, it's just that it has intervals in it which are
unfamiliar to your ears
JB: That is true
But don't eh, just being serious...
FZ: That is serious
JB: ...for one tinsy(?) moment. Not about your music but eh...
FZ: About anything yeah.
JB: How does one person in a society hear something very different than what
most people hear, how does that happen?
FZ: How does it happen that some people decide to be democrats, how does it
happen that a person would allow themselves to be a republican, or a
christian, or a muslim or a radio person...
JB: The mind boggles at the thought
FZ: ...why do these things happen (inaudible interjection by JB) it's
fascinating the diversity of human nature.
JB: Now wait a minute Frank, but, but we're dealing with percentages right,
I mean when you look at society at large...
FZ: Uhuh.
JB: ...there are certain sort of standards wouldn't you think? Rules if
nothing else that means most people do them.
FZ: No, those aren't rules, those are standards actually what you're talking
about is numbers and statistics.
JB: True.
FZ: Most people in the United States will choose to do what the guy next
door does.
JB: Why?
FZ: Terror, sheer terror.
JB: Of what?
FZ: Of somebody finding out that they have an idea in their head. If there's
one thing that scares the snot out of the American public it's a new idea
the only things that will really succeed in the United States are
regurgatations of old ideas, because unless somebody who is a media
commentator can compare it to something that already happened, the thing
can't possibly exist, because they're always afraid to talk about things
that have never existed before, because those things tend to threathen jobs
and the name of the game in America is economics.
JB: Now, in all fairness though, someone is paying you to come and conduct
music here, people bought your records
FZ: That's not true. No, no, no, I'm not conducting here. You have bad
information, and if they would have got your paper in here in time you would
have known. I'm not conducting, Kent Nagano is conducting.
JB: But they're playing your music.
FZ: That's right.
JB: That's economics, they buy your record albums, that's economics. Aren't
you being a little harsh on the system that basicly supported you and made
you well known?
FZ: I have nothing against capitalism or economics what I'm saying is the
way in which the business is conducted is kind of stupid because if you like
the idea of economics and you like the idea of capitalism and democracy and
all that stuff that we purport to exist under than you have to at least
admit there is a possibillity that it could be done more efficiently and
better.
JB: Is efficient better? It would seem to me in some ways that there's a
contradiction in what you're saying.
FZ: If you wanna maximize the endproduct of what the system is supposed to
do, I would say that efficient should be better, why would inefficient be
better?
JB: I'm not sure that creativity has much to do with efficiency, would you?
FZ: Certainly.
JB: In what way. I think in some ways we think of 'm at almost opposite ends
of the spectrum.
FZ: Only if you have this assemblyline mentality where if you do anything
other than the three seperate moves that you're hired to do when you plug
the little widget in as it goes by on the belt then you're gonna create
problems further down the belt. But the real solution is, if there's a
quicker, easier, cheaper way to do something that is going to save time,
which along with real estate is one of the things that we can't replace
around here, then I think that that is good for the economy, it's good for
everybody who is concerned about their personal well being and it's.. it
gives you more time to do other stuff that might be more fun, that's what
I'm talking about being creative. And it's a creative mind that is going to
discover those things which will make life easier for other people.
But the other people, these.. the people that you're referring to as the
norm and ehm the vast majority and so forth have this terror built in where
they don't won't to admit to the possibillity of a new idea being able to
save them time and that resistance works against them.
part two to follow soon
Soul2Ignite
"hans" <h...@xs4all.nl> wrote in message
news:3c266cec$0$69010$e4fe...@dreader3.news.xs4all.nl...
> (American) english being my second language, I'd like corrections on my
> transcription of following interview (spelling mistakes, punctuation).
NIcely done, actually, thanks!
>
> part two to follow soon
>
Sooner than later, I hope!
@L
0vercooked
interviewers.
I wasn't watching for errors, but I did remember what appears to be a
few typos. See the section below for my amateurish attempt at
correcting. I doubt many USAns could have transcribed this interview
better.
On Mon, 24 Dec 2001 00:45:47 +0100, "hans" <h...@xs4all.nl> wrote:
>(American) english being my second language, I'd like corrections on my
>transcription of following interview (spelling mistakes, punctuation). Maybe
>even some people have this interview on disc/record as well and they could
>compare. Please don't mail it here but to my email adress.
>Also maybe someone could give the exact date of this interview, there are
>enough clues, but I'm tired from all this typing.
>Though the interviewer seems to be quite ignorant to Frank's work, there are
>some interesting morsels in this thing.
...
B: Right, what, why did you name each other what you named them we've
got
Moon Unit that is probably the most famous because of eh Valley Girl.
FZ: The ideas popped into my head just like Mouldred.
JB: That one just came here, Just came to you in a flash
<<The above line needs a period at the end of the sentence.>>
FZ: Well I gave my wife the choice, because eh Moon was born while I was
on the road. I did my first European tour just while my wife was going
to the hospital she SAID: What do I call the baby, I said if it's a boy
<<It looks like you hit the "s" instead of the "d" in "said".>>
call it Motorhead, if it's a girl call it Moon,
JB: Thank God it was a girl
<<The above line needs a period at the end of the sentence.>>
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