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Ghosts of Jam Bands Past
Frank Zappa
by Nils Hallberg
Edited by Sister Mary Carmen - mchimato@ic.sunysb.edu

[Editors Note: I know I promised an article about the Bevis Frond and the Little Wing of Refugees, but due to some personal and medical problems I've not had the time nor the energy to write the piece. Hopefully it will be out next month.

This month we thank Nils Hallberg, writing to us from Sweden, for his piece on someone very dear to many of us, Mr. Frank Zappa. ]

Five years

The Po-Jama People were boring him to pieces. No doubt about that. Now, he could have kept the whining to himself, but that weren't the ways of Mr. Frank Zappa. He wrote a song instead - and told it to the entire world!

Some people will end up having made a difference in their lives. Some people will always be remembered. When the evolution of modern electric guitar is discussed, names like Jimi Hendrix, Carlos Santana and Eddie Van Halen are always mentioned - for obvious reasons. For not quite an obvious reason, Frank Zappa is seldom mentioned at all in this context. It's a most remarkable thing if you ask me.

Where would modern (especially jam-based) music be today if Frank hadn't been around for a while? (O.K he really was a control freak and he didn't jam freely that much, but... he clearly pointed out the right direction for new jam bands to follow). Although not always appreciated by everybody (also for obvious reasons!), Frank Zappa took his idea of music as far as he possibly could. The idea of building a song along a straight line, from A-Z (or A-eternity for that matter), instead of the usual circular "verse/chorus" design, emerged from Frank's never ending curiosity to see what was hidden behind next corner. He simply couldn't resist going there. He had to explore the unknown.

The result of the actions of a man who's constantly breaking new ground must sometimes be weird! Lots of things Zappa did even gave a new meaning to the word "weird" itself. Mainstream people create mainstream products - liked by the mainstream consumer. People who are into mainstream music often define Zappa's contribution to music, when they accidentally hear it, as true horror. In their opinion, a good song is titled something like "Sweet Home Alabama" and have 3-4 chords in it - not "When Yuppies Go to Hell" and have 13-14 chords in it. Songs shall deal with issues concerning "the greatest love of all" - not growing dental floss in Montana, riding around on a pygmy pony with a pair of heavy-duty tweezers gleaming in the moonlight - or other highly relevant subjects. For a mainstream mind this is more than against the stream - it's like finding yourself in the middle of a desert. No water at all!

Some years after he passed away, a CD called "Strictly Commercial" was released. It's a compilation of songs made to present Zappa's music to a broader audience. On one of the photos (taken by Baron Wolman) in the booklet we find Frank Zappa, in an industrial kind of environment, driving a huge bulldozer - with an expression on his face saying, "my mind's got a few minds of its own". Usually this is the right place for neat pictures of the artist and his/hers instrument/ friends/pets/live-crowd/etc. Here we get a nasty man on an even nastier machine, literally breaking new ground - by force! Strictly commercial? Maybe in Zappa-land!

Five long years have passed since Frank Zappa died. The world is a much more boring place without him around. Although I must admit I don't like everything he did, he's still one of my favorite musicians. It's a blessing to light some candles, turn the volume up real loud and play "Inca Roads" for the neighborhood. I suggest you try it too sometime!