New at Reason

Julian Sanchez | April 28, 2005

Cost-controlling businessmen know they need "a little more cheapness, please." Does that make Frank Zappa an entrepreneurial guru? Nick Gillespie makes the case.

Comments

|4.28.05 @ 12:30PM|#

|4.28.05 @ 12:32PM|#

Strange. I posted the last sentence of the essay.

The rock star as entrepreneur: That may be Frank Zappa�s most interesting legacy.

And then I wrote: I figured it was his music. No, really.

|4.28.05 @ 1:09PM|#

We're only in it for the money

Sounds libertarian to me.

|4.28.05 @ 1:32PM|#

Joe's Garage rules!

|4.28.05 @ 1:35PM|#

Amidst all the deep analysing, don't forget that he was in large part successful because he turned out tunes that appealed to adolescent prurient interest. There might be some deep cultural reason for his long term success, but no small part of it was due to 15 year old boys giggling over the fact that he's singing about Titties N' Beer. And eating yellow snow. And Catholic Girls.

|4.28.05 @ 1:42PM|#

Amidst all the deep analysing, don't forget that he was in large part successful because he turned out tunes that appealed to adolescent prurient interest.

Melville's books were written to cash in on the sea-faring craze launched by WHG Kingston, whose Peter, The Whaler touched off the "books for boys" market... novels sold to guys in their teens and early 20s who were deeply interested in anything not having to do with the mule's ass they were spending their days staring up at, but most particularly in materials that would guide them as far away from the aforesaid equine hindquarters as possible.

Some art came from it.

And when the craze ended, people wrote dime novels.

|4.28.05 @ 1:49PM|#

The Mothers a hippie band??? Nothing could be further from the truth. "Who Needs the Peace Corps?" is probably the most devastating mockery of the hippie ethos ever composed.

|4.28.05 @ 1:54PM|#

Although I'm not a really big Zappaphile (I know some that are) I am really fond of "The Torture Never Stops", off of Zoot Allures. I even gave it to my favorite DJ down at the club I go to play; he said "Yeah, it's great, but how can I play it? You can't dance to it, it's, it's... POETRY."

>"...he was from the beginning a sharp businessman who knew that controlling the means of reproduction�including running his own record labels and retaining control of his copyrights�was central to his aesthetic and economic independence."

Like Russ Meyer was to film. God rest his wonderful pervey soul.

|4.28.05 @ 2:03PM|#

There might be some deep cultural reason for his long term success, but no small part of it was due to 15 year old boys giggling over the fact that he's singing about Titties N' Beer. And eating yellow snow. And Catholic Girls.

Actually, I don't know if 15 year old boys ever made up a majority of his fan base. I'm sure they giggled at his joke songs (I still do - a recent favorite is "Why Does it Hurt When I Pee?"), but three minutes later they'd be scratching their heads and putting on another record. I suspect the main reason for his long-term success is because he was one of the few actual geniuses in "popular" music.

|4.28.05 @ 2:19PM|#

Well, maybe I'm projecting. I'm assuming that, as happened with me, his fan base grew as kids who at first giggled at the lyrics eventually grew to appreciate the whole package.

|4.28.05 @ 2:24PM|#

But you're one of the special ones, elvis! ;)

|4.28.05 @ 2:40PM|#

From a Joe Pyne TV interview with Frank Zappa, circa 1969:

Pyne: "I guess your long hair makes you a woman."

Zappa: "I guess your wooden leg makes you a table."

R.I.P. Frank...

|4.28.05 @ 2:56PM|#

"Freak" wasn't just local argot. In Zappa's mind, at least, freakdom did not involve drug use. Zappa was kind of a hardass about his band members not using drugs.

|4.28.05 @ 2:58PM|#

Shortly after his liaison with the taco stand lady,
JOE makes a horrible discovery. . .


JOE:
Why does it hurt when I pee?
Why does it hurt when I pee?
I don't want no doctor
To stick no needle in me
Why does it hurt when I pee?
I got it from the toilet seat
I got it from the toilet seat
It jumped right up
'N' grabbed my meat
Got it from the toilet seat
My balls feel like a pair of maracas
My balls feel like a pair of maracas
Oh God I probably got the Gon-o-ka-ka-khackus!
My balls feel like a pair of maracas
Ai-ee-ai-ee-ahhhh!
Why does it
Why does it
Why does it
Why does it hurt...
when...
I Peeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee?

Salvius|4.28.05 @ 3:11PM|#

"Republicans is fine if you're a multi-millionaire,
Democrats is fair if all you own is what you wear,
But neither of 'em's really right, 'cause neither of 'em care
'Bout that hot plate heaven, 'cause they ain't been there."

("Hot Plate Heaven at the Green Hotel", on the "Broadway the Hard Way" album)

|4.28.05 @ 4:04PM|#

The Mothers a hippie band??? Nothing could be further from the truth. "Who Needs the Peace Corps?" is probably the most devastating mockery of the hippie ethos ever composed.

Although I hesitate to get into the always-pathetic pattern of finding libertarianism in any act I happen to like, I have always wondered why right-libertoid types haven't done more to co-opt Zappa: He lampoons unions in "Rudy Wants To Buy Yez A Drink" and "Flakes," and Jesse Jackson in "Rhymin' Man." He hated taxes and bussing. His most famous political fight was with the Gores. And he was a friend of Easter European anti-communists. As a scourge of liberals alone you'd think he'd have some appeal, but I guess it's the old problem with almost all libertarian-correct art and culture: Normal people don't like it.

|4.28.05 @ 5:52PM|#

The title track to Zappa's "Zoot Allure's" album , which is a purely instrumental piece, which, at high volume, makes my hair stand on end.

|4.28.05 @ 8:06PM|#

Two things that bothered me about Zappa, particularly in his later work (mid-80's on), were the smugness he displayed and the thinly-disguised contempt he seemed to feel for a sizable fraction of his audience. A lot of his "novelty" numbers, with their emphasis on juvenile scatology, illustrated those characteristics, at least to me.

OTOH, he had some great instrumental work - most of the Hot Rats and Weasels Ripped My Flesh albums, for instance - plus the most savage critique of the 60's I've ever heard in "Trouble Coming Every Day." We're Only In It For The Money was an excellent parody of the phoniness and marketing gimmickry festering in the hippie movement. Zappa was a true libertarian - he was his own man, and he resented any and all attempts to shoehorn him into one category or another.

|4.28.05 @ 9:50PM|#

As a 13 year old in 1968, discovering Frank practically saved this hippie's life. Frank turned me onto "serious" music, then "serious" literature, then made me see how much fun thinking could be. It's hard to believe he's been gone more than a decade - his influence and presence in my life are unchanged.

|4.29.05 @ 1:09AM|#

Ya, well listen ... Listen you communist sonofabitch ... you better get your ass down there for your fuckin' physical or I'll see to it that you get used for fill dirt in some impending New Jersey marsh reclamation. And your girlfriend there will wind up disguised as series of brooms, primitive ironing boards or a dog house ... get the ( cough, cough)...get the picture?

|4.29.05 @ 1:11AM|#

Ha, ha, ha. If they think they're gonna draft me, they're crazy.

|4.29.05 @ 1:20AM|#

When I was a runty 15-year-old, my fellow debate-dweebs and I would sit around the Forensics Room in the basement of our Catholic High School, memorizing the lyrics to Just Another Band From L.A., one of us always near the off-switch on the tape deck in case The Debate Nun should appear unbidden. (I think Bob & I are of an age.)

Besides being the doorway to Captain Beefheart and even The Fugs, Zappa helped to sow the seeds of rebellion in this ex-Nixon Youth.

Kevin

|4.29.05 @ 2:34PM|#

I recently saw Project/Object, which features some of the remaining members of Frank Zappa's later 80's group (Napleon Murphy Brock, Ike Willis) and other musicians performing Zappa's songs. I've also seen The Grandmothers, who are the remaining members of Mothers of Invention. Sadly, those bands are the closest I have ever gotten to seeing Zappa live.

DB and Mark B. were totally right: Zappa both despised and lampooned hippies and the hippy movement.

If we're going to make allusions to Zappa als Libertarian, here's something to chew on:

- He promoted racial acceptance/civil harmony with his respect for and incorporation and melding of doo-wop/jazz/rock (black tradition) with classical(white tradition).

- He is definately keeping the Sausage Party ethic of the Libertarian Party alive within his fanbase. After the Project/Object set, an Old White Rocker Dude earnestly appreciated my *actual* knowledge and appreciation of Zappa as a "young girl" (since most people like me would probably be considered "too young" (24?) and "female" to appreciate him. those were not his exact words, but that was basically what he said, more or less.) How patronizing is that?!

Viva la Sausage!