___________________________________________________
Remember there's a big difference between kneeling down and bending over.
___________________________________________________
You have just destroyed one model XQJ-37 nuclear powered pansexual
roto-plooker....and you're gonna have to pay for it.
___________________________________________________
He was in a quandary...being devoured by the swirling cesspool of his own
steaming desires... uh.. the guy was a wreck
___________________________________________________
And now....you are going to dance...like you've never danced before!
___________________________________________________
Bring the band on down behind me, boys.
___________________________________________________
Not a speck of cereal.
___________________________________________________
Nothing but the best for my dog.
___________________________________________________
You drank beer, you played golf, you watched football - WE EVOLVED!
___________________________________________________
It looks just like a Telefunken U-47!
___________________________________________________
Don't mind your make-up, you'd better make your mind up.
___________________________________________________
They're serving burgers in the back!
___________________________________________________
Jazz is not dead...it just smells funny.
--
Beebop tango introduction
___________________________________________________
I have a message to deliver to the cute people of the world...if you're
cute, or maybe you're beautiful...there's MORE OF US UGLY MOTHERFUCKERS
OUT THERE THAN YOU ARE!! So watch out.
___________________________________________________
Is that a real poncho or a Sears poncho?
___________________________________________________
You're an asshole! You're an asshole!
That's right! You're an asshole! You're an asshole! Yes yes!
___________________________________________________
Number one ain't you...
You ain't even number two.
___________________________________________________
We could jam in Joe's garage,
we didn't have no dope or LSD,
but a coupl'o'quarts o'beer,
would fix it so the intonation,
would not offend your ear.
___________________________________________________
Who are the brain police?
___________________________________________________
This is the exciting part.
This is like the Supremes
see the way it builds up?
Feel it?
___________________________________________________
A prune isn't really a vegetable...
CABBAGE is a vegetable...
___________________________________________________
Here's one for mother
___________________________________________________
Only thirteen, and she knows how to NASTY
___________________________________________________
ARE YOU HUNG UP?
___________________________________________________
Diamonds on velvets on goldens on vixen
On comet & cupid on donner & blitzen
On up & away & afar & a go-go
Escape from the weight of your corporate logo!
___________________________________________________
Don't it ever get lonesome?
___________________________________________________
Eddie, are you kidding?
___________________________________________________
I'll do the stupid thing first and then you shy people follow...
___________________________________________________
Stupidity is the basic building block of the universe.
___________________________________________________
Never try to get your peter sucked in France.
___________________________________________________
Kill Ugly Radio
___________________________________________________
I'm not black, but there's a whole lot of
times I wish I could say I'm not white.
___________________________________________________
Help! I'm a rock!
___________________________________________________
Another day, another sausage...
___________________________________________________
I want a garden!
___________________________________________________
Don't mind your make-up
you'd better make your mind up.
___________________________________________________
On a personal level, Freaking Out is a process whereby an
individual casts off outmoded and restricting standars of
thinking, dress, and social etiquette in order to express
CREATIVELY his relationship to his immediate environment and
the social structure as a whole.
--
from the liner notes of Freak Out.
___________________________________________________
Great googly-moogly - you're gonna do it too!
___________________________________________________
Information is not knowledge,
Knowledge is not wisdom,
Wisdom is not truth,
Truth is not beauty,
Beauty is not love,
Love is not music
and Music is THE BEST
___________________________________________________
Gee, it's so hard to find a place to park around here.
___________________________________________________
Playing guitar is like fucking -- you never forget it.
<P>
...
<P>
Unless you're really, really stupid.
___________________________________________________
There are more love songs than anything else.
If songs could make you do something we'd all love one another.
___________________________________________________
If classical music is the state of the art,
then the arts are in a sad state.
___________________________________________________
Beauty is a French phonetic corruption of a short, cloth neck
ornament, currently in resurgence.
___________________________________________________
Don't cry...
Gotta go bye bye...
Suddenly die die...
Cop kill a creep!
Pow pow pow
___________________________________________________
Modern music is a sick puppy.
___________________________________________________
Some Scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is
so plentiful, is the basic building block of the
universe. I dispute that. I say there is more
stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic
building block of the universe.
___________________________________________________
Most people wouldn't know good music if it came up and bit them in the ass.
--
As quoted in <B>Whole Grains</B>, an early 1970's book of quotations
___________________________________________________
I figure the odds be fifty-fifty
I just might have some thing to say.
___________________________________________________
The person who stands up and says, ``This is
stupid,'' either is asked to `behave' or, worse,
is greeted with a cheerful ``Yes, we know!
Isn't it terrific!''
___________________________________________________
The more BORING a child is, the more the parents,
when showing off the child, receive adulation for
being GOOD PARENTS -- because they have a TAME
CHILD-CREATURE in their house.
___________________________________________________
The worst aspect of `typical familyism'
(as media-merchandised) is that it
glorifies _involuntary_homogenization_.
___________________________________________________
Gail has said in interviews that one of the
things that makes our relationship work is
the fact that we hardly ever get to talk to
each other.
___________________________________________________
The language and concepts contained herein are
guaranteed not to cause eternal torment in the
place where the guy with the horns and pointed
stick conducts his business.
___________________________________________________
My best advice to anyone who wants to raise a
happy, mentally healthy child is: Keep him or
her as far away from a church as you can.
___________________________________________________
I like having the capitol of the United
States in Washington, D.C., in spite of
recent efforts to move it to Lynchburg,
Virginia.
___________________________________________________
He [Barney Frank] is one of the most
impressive guys in Congress. He is a
great model for young gay men.
___________________________________________________
Children are naive -- they trust everyone.
School is bad enough, but, if you put a child
anywhere in the vicinity of a church, you're
asking for trouble.
___________________________________________________
It would be easier to pay off the national debt
overnight than to neutralize the long-range
effects of OUR NATIONAL STUPIDITY.
___________________________________________________
Nuclear explosions under the Nevada desert?
What the fuck are we testing for?
We already know the shit blows up.
___________________________________________________
Politics is the
entertainment branch of
industry.
___________________________________________________
Star Wars won't work. Star Wars won't work.
The gas still gets through; it could get right on
you. And what about those germs, now?
Star Wars won't work.
___________________________________________________
Washington, D.C.: a city infested with
statues -- and Congressional Blow-Boys
who WISH they were statues.
___________________________________________________
Thanks to our schools and political leadership,
the U.S. has acquired an international reputation
as the home of 250 million people dumb enough to
buy 'The Wacky Wall-Walker.'
___________________________________________________
Stupidity has a certain charm --
ignorance does not.
___________________________________________________
The real question is:
Is it possible to laugh
while fucking?"
___________________________________________________
The single-child yuppo-family that uses the child
as a status object: `A perfect child? Of course!
We have one here -- he's under the coffee table.
Ralph, stand up! Play the violin!'
___________________________________________________
Americans like to talk about (or be told about) Democracy but, when put to
the test, usually find it to be an 'inconvenience.' We have opted instead
for an authoritarian system <B>disguised</B> as a Democracy. We pay through
the nose for an enormous joke-of-a-government, let it push us around, and
then wonder how all those assholes got in there.
___________________________________________________
In every language, the first word after "Mama!" that every kid learns to say
is "Mine!" A system that doesn't allow ownership, that doesn't allow you to
say "Mine!" when you grow up, has -- to put it mildly -- a fatal design flaw.
<P>
From the time Mr. Developing Nation was forced to read _The Little Red Book_
in exchange for a blob of rice, till the time he figured out that waiting in
line for a loaf of pumpernickel was boring as fuck, took about three
generations. ...
<P>
Decades of indoctrination, manipulation, censorship and KGB excursions haven't
altered this fact: People want a piece of their own little Something-or-Other,
and, if they don't get it, have a tendency to initiate counterrevolution.
___________________________________________________
If it sounds GOOD to YOU, it's bitchen; and if it sounds BAD to YOU, it's
shitty.
___________________________________________________
The computer can't tell you the emotional story. It can give you the exact
mathematical design, but what's missing is the eyebrows.
___________________________________________________
In the fight between you and the world, back the world.
___________________________________________________
Let's not be too tough on our own ignorance. It's the thing that makes
America great. If America weren't incomparably ignorant, how could we
have tolerated the last eight years?
___________________________________________________
Lord have mercy on the people in England for the terrible food
these people must eat. And Lord have mercy on the fate of this
movie and God bless the mind of the man in the street.
___________________________________________________
<PRE>
Interviewer: "So Frank, you have long hair. Does that make you a
woman?"
FZ: "You have a wooden leg. Does that make you a table?"
</PRE>
___________________________________________________
If your children ever find out how lame you really are, they'll
gonna murder you in your sleep....
--
As quoted in <B>Whole Grains</B>, an early 1970's book of quotations
___________________________________________________
I'm not a man for all seasons but I'm doing something right.
--
Frank Zappa during the Senate PMRC hearings.
___________________________________________________
Ugly as I mights be, I am your futum!
___________________________________________________
There is no hell. There is only France.
___________________________________________________
``Conducting'' is when you draw ``designs'' in the nowhere -- with
your stick, or with your hands -- which are interpreted as
``instructional messages'' by guys wearing bow ties who wish they
were fishing.
___________________________________________________
Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production
deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid.
___________________________________________________
The bassoon is one of my favorite instruments. It has the medieval aroma
-- like the days when everything used to sound like that.
<P>
Some people crave baseball -- I find this unfathomable --
but I can easily understand
why a person could get excited about playing a bassoon.
___________________________________________________
Whatever you have to do to have a good time, let's get
on with it, so long as it doesn't cause a murder.
___________________________________________________
Politics is the showbiz of industry.
___________________________________________________
Let's just admit that public education is mediocre at best.
___________________________________________________
Without deviation from the norm, 'progress' is not possible.
___________________________________________________
The last election just laid the foundation of the next 500
years of Dark Ages
--
From 1981
___________________________________________________
Look, just because you have got that fuckin' thing between
your legs it doesn't make any diference. If a girl does
something stupid I am going to call her just as I would a
guy.
___________________________________________________
A world of sexual incompetents, encountering
eachother, under disco circumstances... Now can't you
do songs about that?
___________________________________________________
A composer is a guy who goes around forcing his will on
unsuspecting air molecules,often with the assistence of
unsuspecting musicians.
___________________________________________________
There is no such thing as a dirty word. Nor is there a word so powerful,
that it's going to send the listener to the lake of fire upon hearing it.
___________________________________________________
fuck that! when did mediocrity and banality become a good
image for your children?
___________________________________________________
Why do you necessarily have to be wrong just because a few million people
think you are?
___________________________________________________
Life is like highschool with money.
___________________________________________________
Information doesn't kill you...
--
Senate Hearing on "Porn Rock", 1985 during an exchange with
a Born Again Christian.
___________________________________________________
Where ever you're going, don't walk the first.
If you do, people will think you know where you're going.
___________________________________________________
A drug is not bad. A drug is a chemical compound. The problem comes
in when people who take drugs treat them like a licence to behave
like an asshole.
___________________________________________________
Flatulence can be cruel!
___________________________________________________
Speed: It will turn you into your parents.
--
1970 public service announcement regarding drug (namely, speed) use
___________________________________________________
Sopranos!? That's why God made the rocket launcher and grenade!
--
Zappa & I were talking about the difficulties of getting
good performances of music each of us write. I asked him
if had had as many problems with sopranos and I had had.
That was his response!
<P>
I got to drive him around Columbus
Ohio in April 1984 for the week he was at Ohio State
participating in the 1984 National Conference of the
American Society of University Composers. We spent lots of
hours together during that week and stayed in touch
thereafter. -- E. Michael Harrington
___________________________________________________
There were 45 men in the jail cell, the toilet and shower
had never been cleaned, the temperature was 110 degrees so
you couldn't sleep night or day, there were roaches in the
oatmeal, sadistic guards, and everything that was nice.
--
Zappa 1969 interview
<P>
This had happened during the days of Studio Z in Cucamonga (1963).
Frank was released on bail (his father took out a bank loan
to pay for it). Frank had been busted for "conspiracy to
commit pornography," after making a silly recording of
suggestive sexual sounds (giggling edited out) for someone
who had asked him to provide a "special" tape recording
for a stag night. That someone turned out to be Detective Willis
of the San Bernadino Vice Squad. Their conversation was
recorded by a hidden microphone and this was used as
evidence at Zappa's trial.
<P>
More info from "ZAPPA - A Visual Documentary by Miles",
Omnibus Press, 1993, ISBN 0.7119.3099.6
___________________________________________________
Winos don't march.
___________________________________________________
Reporter:
This is a personal thing, I think that if you wanted to make top ten hits
and sell millions of records, you could.
<P>
Frank Zappa:
Yeah, but who wants to go through life with a tiny nose and one glove on?
___________________________________________________
I was writing all kinds of positive and negative canons
and weird inverted this and retrograde that and getting as
spaced-out mathematically as I could and I was going
"Wait a minute (laughs), who cares about that stuff?" I
had always liked rhythm and blues so here I was stuck
between the slide rule and the gut bucket somewhere and I
decided that I would opt for a third road someplace in
between.
--
From an 1972 interview to Martin Perlich. On giving up writing serial music.
___________________________________________________
It is always advisable to be a loser if you cannot become a winner.
___________________________________________________
I knew Jimi (Hendrix) and I think that the best thing
you could say about Jimi was: there was a person who
shouldn't use drugs.
--
From the second of two FZ interviews which were transcribed from an
imported CD called "The Frank Zappa Interview Picture Disk".
Conducted sometime in early to mid 1984.
___________________________________________________
Sometimes you got to get sick before you can feel better.
___________________________________________________
It's better to have something to remember than nothing to reget...
___________________________________________________
Why do people continue to compose music, and even pretend to teach
others how to do it, when they already know the answer?
Nobody gives a fuck.
___________________________________________________
If you wind up with a boring, miserable life because you listened to your
mom, your dad, your teacher, your priest or some guy on TV telling you how to
do your shit, then YOU DESERVE IT.
--
From the Real Frank Zappa book.
___________________________________________________
A mind is like a parachute. It doesnt work if it not open.
___________________________________________________
You've got to be digging it while it's happening
'cause it just might be a one shot deal
--
From Waka/Jawaka
___________________________________________________
There will never be a nuclear war; there's too much real estate involved.
--
Zappa on the Tonight Show, C.A. 1988
___________________________________________________
Heaven would be a place where bullshit existed only on television.
(Hallelujah! We's halfway there!)
--
Television. Sometime probably in 1988. The Real Frank Zappa Book p. 234
___________________________________________________
Don't expect anything,don't expect fun, don't expect friends..
if you get something...it's a BONUS
___________________________________________________
Golly, do I ever have alot of soul!!
--
A reference from "We're only in it for the money"
regarding his ability to strum, sing dance, and make merry fun all over
the stage!
___________________________________________________
Shoot low, they're riding Shetlands
--
European Zappa distributors Music For Nations on the occasion of some
anniversary of theirs.
___________________________________________________
Everyone in thes room is wearing a uniform, and don't kid yourself
--
Live at the Circle Star, from 20 Years on the Road, when notified there were
"cops in uniform" in the audience.
___________________________________________________
Children are naive-they trust everyone. School is bad enough, but, if you
put a child anywhere in the vicinity of a church, you're asking for trouble.
--
Zappa expressing his opinion pertaining to raising a child. He was saying
that institutions such as schools and churches, which have the power to
control and brainwash your child, are totally over rated, and shouldn't
always be recognized as a genuinely good thing.
___________________________________________________
The ONLY thing that seems to band all nations together, is that their
governments are universally bad....
--
F.Z. in German television interview
___________________________________________________
If we can't be free at least we can be cheap.
___________________________________________________
Whoever we are, whereever we're from, we should have noticed by now
our behaviour is dumb, and if our chances are expected to improve, it's
gonna take a lot more than trying to remove, the other race, or the other
whatever, from the face of the planet altogether
--
Dumb All Over, You Are What You Is
___________________________________________________
Nobody looks good bent over. Especially to pick up a cheque.
--
Guitar Magazine 1984
___________________________________________________
The essence of Christianity is told us in the Garden of Eden
history. The fruit that was forbidden was on the tree of
knowledge. The subtext is, All the suffering you have is
because you wanted to find out what was going on. You could
be in the Garden of Eden if you had just keep your fucking
mouth shut and hadn't asked any questions.
--
Playboy Interview, April 1993
___________________________________________________
When we talk about artistic freedom in this country
We sometime lose sight of the fact that freedom is
often dependent on adequate financing.
___________________________________________________
If you want to get laid, go to college, but if you want an education,
go to the library.
--
Quoted in the Pittsburgh Press in the summer of 67.
___________________________________________________
A lot of things wrong with society today are directly
attributable to the fact that the people who make the
laws are sexually maladjusted.
--
from "I Seem To Be a Verb" by R. Buckminster Fuller, 1970.
___________________________________________________
The gorilla is on an island,eats bananas and has a good time all day long.
He plays out there in the bushes. Some Americans find out about the gorilla
and they hear how BIG he is - you know.They're very impressed with the size
of the beast. So they catch the gorilla & they stick him in a boat & bring
him back to the US.
They show him off to everybody & make a bunch of money.
...Then they kill him !
--
The song King Kong.1968 tour Wisconsin.
___________________________________________________
Well, you know I've been here many times, and only certain
hours of the day when I'm here am I asleep; the rest of the
time I'm actually awake.
--
I have a filler on a dat with zappa being interrogated by
a couple of swedish fans/state officers(who knows)...in which
they are arguing over the pornographic contents of his
work. he tells them he has been spying on them, and claims
that their porno industry is bigger than that of the US.
it's pretty funny.
btw-this is from thew '88 tour.
___________________________________________________
I can gross out anybody in this room.
--
Said during a concert at Mount Holyoke College in the early 1970s.
___________________________________________________
Anything played wrong twice in a row is the beginning of an arrangement.
--I saw this in an email .sig at someone who sent in a comment to
"Elephant Talk"- the King Crimson email newsletter.
___________________________________________________
Outdoors for me is walking from the car to the ticket desk at the airport
--
Regarding secondhand smoke in "The Real FZ Book"
___________________________________________________
My music is like a movie for your eear
___________________________________________________
Here I stand hoping against hope that it's a chick with a low voice
--
At a concert in Beloit, Wisconsin 1968 or 69 a guy in the
audience yelled out, "Eat me Zappa".
___________________________________________________
Don't clap for destroying America. This place is as good as you want to make it.
--
Zappa introduced "Billy the Mountain" by revealing that Billy and
Ethel took a vacation trip across the united States, destroying it in the
process. This was Zappa's response to the applause and cheers from the
audience. Cleveland Colliseum, 1971
___________________________________________________
If it can be conceived as music, it can be executed as music, and presented to
an audience in such a way that they will perceive it as music: "Look at this.
Ever seen one of these before? I built this for you. What do you mean, 'What
the fuck is it?' It's a goddam ETUDE, asshole."
___________________________________________________
This is a really nice place. Don't fuck it up.
--
Chrysler Hall, Norfolk, Virginia in the Spring of 1984.
A very genteel place to see fine compositions performed live.
Usually the opera folks hang out there.
___________________________________________________
The whole Universe is a large joke.
Everything in the Universe are just subdivisions of this joke.
So why take anything too serious.
--
In September 1992 on SFB 3 when he gave an interview about the Yellow Shark.
___________________________________________________
You can't write a chord ugly enough to say what you want sometimes, so
you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whipped cream.
--
On a postcard from Rykodisc
___________________________________________________
Kid's heads are filled with so many nonfacts that when they get out of
school they're totally unprepared to do anything. They can't read, they
can't write, they can't think. Talk about child abuse. The U.S. school
system as a whole qualifies.
--
Discussing the state of the education system in America -
Playboy magazine, April 1993.
___________________________________________________
We haven't got'em whipped on this one yet. You got a bear by the tail here,
uh? Jeezis!
--
Bill of Rights ground into 'hoopla' by a woman (presumably a senator's
wife). from sleeve MOP -1985.
___________________________________________________
There are fourty people in this world, and five of them are hamburgers.
--
It was in a book of "Rock quotes" that I read in college, 10 years ago.
None of the quotes were put into any context.
<P>
Or is this a Beefheart quote?
___________________________________________________
If something goes wrong and you tend to smile it away, then
you have someone to blame.
___________________________________________________
Drop out of school, before your mind rots from exposure to our mediocre
educational system. Go to the library and educate yourself if you've got any
guts...
--
Quoted from an article on FZ in the June 1995 issue of
"SLUG" magazine. Article titled "Zappa behind the Sneer.
I think the magazine may be a local (Salt Lake City) publication.
___________________________________________________
Never stop until your good becomes better, and your better becomes the best.
___________________________________________________
Now imagine a Moebius vortex inside a spherical constant, and you've
got my cosmology.
--
1992
___________________________________________________
The people of your century no longer require the service of composers.
A composer is as useful to a person in a jogging suit as a dinsoaur turd
in the middle of his runway.
--
from the Them Or Us The Book
___________________________________________________
THE VERY BIG STUPID is a thing which breeds by eating The
Future. Have you seen it? It sometimes disguises itself as a
good-looking quarterly bottom line, derived by closing the R&D
Department.
--
from The Real Frank Zappa book.
___________________________________________________
For my taste, these solos (of some 50s blues guitarists) are
exemplary because what is being played seems honest and, in a
musical way, a direct extension of the personality of the men
who played them.
--
January 1977.
___________________________________________________
We play the new free music,
music as the absolutely free,
unencumbered by American cultural suppression
___________________________________________________
It's not pretty, also you can't dance to it.
___________________________________________________
There's no single ideal listener out there who likes my orchestral music, my
guitar albums and songs like 'Dyna-Moe-Humm.'
___________________________________________________
It's all one big note.
___________________________________________________
Ladies and gentleman, watch Ruth. All through the show, Ruth
has been thinking...Ruth has been thinking? ALL THROUGH THE SHOW???
--
17 November 1974, Philadelphia
___________________________________________________
We'll get back to the wimp, and his low-budget concepshum of personal
freedom, in just a moment
--
Thing-Fish.
___________________________________________________
You can tell what they think of our music by the places we
are forced to play it in. This looks like a good spot for
a livestock show.
--
April 1968, Chicago,
Mothers of Invention open for Cream
___________________________________________________
I'm not going to be Bill Clinton and say I never inhaled. I did
inhale. I liked tobacco a lot better.
___________________________________________________
Interviewer:
The notion of a "guitar solo" has preconceptions based on it;
people automatically refute it because it's supposed to be self-indulgent or
"for musicians." It's almost like things become iconographic and somehow lose
their value for outsiders.
<P>
Zappa:
Well, who's fault is that? That's what _writers_ do. Musicians don't do that.
The average person doesn't sit around thinking about "iconographic problems
of a guitar solo."
--
Interview for Musician magazine, by Matt Resnicoff, November 1991.
Reprinted in July 1995 Issue.
___________________________________________________
Consider for a moment any beauty in the name Ralph.
--
In an interview with Joan Rivers who had just asked him why he gave his
children such odd names, Frank gave the reply above.
___________________________________________________
I write the music I like. If other people like it, fine, they
can go buy the albums. And if they don't like it, there's always
Michael Jackson for them to listen to.
--
Frank was talking about his music from the Yellow Shark.
___________________________________________________
I never set out to be wierd. It was always the other people who called
me wierd.
--
To the Baltimore Sun, October 12, 1986
___________________________________________________
I don't want to spend explaining myself whole my life.
Either you get , or you don't!
___________________________________________________
Government is the Entertainment Division of the military-industrial complex.
--
from the Real Frank Zappa Book
___________________________________________________
Why doncha come on over to the house and I'll show 'em to ya?
--
Senate hearing on pornography in music, when Sen. Paula Hawkins from Florida
said ... "I'd like to see what kind of toys your children play with."
___________________________________________________
Throwing objects such as this are capable of damaging
expensive musical equipment and musicians. Any more of this
and there will be no more music.
--
FZ, Autumn 1981 at Northrup auditorium in Minneapolis,
Minnesota. After someone threw a plunger on stage about
two-thirds of the way through the show, he stopped the band
with a wave of his hand speaking in the general direction
that the dangerous object was thrown, while holding it in
his hand.
This did not prove to be an amusing act and Franks mood
hardened.
- It was, however, an evening of excellent, serious
musicianship around the release of 'Shut up and play
your guitar'
___________________________________________________
Music is the most physically inspiring of all the arts.
--
Said as he gave the keynote address at the American Society
of University Composers in Columbus Ohio in 1985.
___________________________________________________
And all the rest of whom for which to whensonever of
partially indeterminate bio-chemical degredation. Seek the
path to the sudsy yellow nozzle of
their foaming nocturnal parametric digital whole-wheat
inter-faith geo-thermal terpsichorean ejectamenta.
--
From board tape at Zappa concert, outdoors, at Blossom Music Center,
Akron, Ohio, summer 1984. This quote was in the middle of a spoken section
of "The Mud Club" in which a dude walks into the club with a blue Mohawk and
proceeds to "work the floor, work the wall, work the monitor system. . . ."
The band was having monitor feedback problems at the Blossom concert, and
there are numerous references to P.A. equipment throughout this ramble.
Other than that, the quote is meaningless, I guess. But great imagery!
___________________________________________________
You get nothing with your college degree
--
from Roxy & Elsewhere
___________________________________________________
With the power of soul you can do anything you wanna do.
--
I guess he was takling about the feeling of his music.
It was in a guitar magazine.
___________________________________________________
Weedley-Weedley-Wee
--
Specifically, the small fret guitar-playing technique that
musicians have a tendency to display while in pursuit of a
cross between a waitress and a hoover vacuum...
This, of course, from his book.
___________________________________________________
Beware of forest fires...Don't fuck too hot-a-gal in it might
jest set em on fire.
--
From a series of bootlegs that were recorded i n the 3 European tours that
I travelled with during my illustrious military career in Pirmasens
W. Germany....11/76-6/79...most of the quotes came from the live titties
and beer versions with fz and skinny little terry ted bozio. Definitely
in Paris, Stutgart and outside of Kaiserslaughtern ( K-Town )
___________________________________________________
It was 11 o'clock upon a friday nite...you know that me an' her were feelin'
outasite....yeah 20 reds and a big ol' pile of weed...ya know we drank some
wine and then we LSD'd...well Chrissy puked twice and jumped on my bike...she
said fire it up because you know what I like...then she burned her leg on the
tailpipe then and said shiter-ree and puked again....
--
From a series of bootlegs that were recorded i n the 3 European tours that
I travelled with during my illustrious military career in Pirmasens
W. Germany....11/76-6/79...most of the quotes came from the live titties
and beer versions with fz and skinny little terry ted bozio. Definitely
in Paris, Stutgart and outside of Kaiserslaughtern ( K-Town )
___________________________________________________
Playing guitar with this band is like trying to grow
WATERMELON IN EASTER HAY.
___________________________________________________
Always get a second opinion.
--
His personal physician did not diagnose prostate cancer
before it was too advanced to treat with any success.
___________________________________________________
Freak me out, Frank!
___________________________________________________
I think "when" is a very important thing, but "what the fuck!" is also a
very important thing to ask. Just keep asking "what the fuck?" I mean,
why the fuck bother? See what i mean? The important thing is, deal with
the "when". "When" will open a lot of shit for you.
"What the fuck" really makes it easier to deal with it when you understand
the "when".
___________________________________________________
It's fucking great to be alive, ladies and gentlemen,
and if you do not believe it is fucking great to be alive,
you better go now, because this show will bring you down so much
--
from Just Another Band From L.A.
___________________________________________________
All right, Zubin, hit it!
--
Frank's onstage cue to conductor Zubin Mehta during their collaborative
effort with the L.A. Philharmonic orchestra in 1970
___________________________________________________
The crux of the biscuit is: If it entertains you, fine. Enjoy it. If it
doesn't, then blow it out your ass. I do it to amuse myself. If I like it,
I release it. If somebody else likes it, that's a bonus.
--
What he's talking about is obvious. He said this in an interview with
Playboy magazine on May 2, 1993.
___________________________________________________
You can tell what they think of our music by the places we are forced to
play it in. This looks like a good spot for a livestock show.
--
The Mothers of Invention were opening for Cream in April of 1968 in Chicago.
The place was very large and did look like it had been used for displays of
cattle and other such animals.
___________________________________________________
It has never mattered to me that thirty million people might think I'm wrong.
The number of people who thought Hitler was right did not make him right...
Why do you necessarily have to be wrong jus because a few million people think
you are?
--
Why they don't play my stuff on the radio
From the Real Frank Zappa Book (1989 Poseidon Press)
___________________________________________________
The Future is scary! (Yes, it sure is!)
___________________________________________________
It makes me wanna dance.
--
From a FZ interview about some music he had composed (on the synclavier).
It was written in 17/35 (or something like that).
___________________________________________________
This is Frank Zappa saying, Don't do speed. Speed turns you into your parents.
--
this used to play OFTEN as a public service announcement(PSA)
on radio station WHFS at 102.5 FM in bethesda,MD.USA during
the early '70's. it was followed by a nearly inaudible
whisper, "...but grass and acid are o.k.", which may have
been frank, or one of the mothers.
___________________________________________________
I never took a shit on stage, and the closest I ever came to eating shit
anywhere was at a Holiday Inn buffet in Fayetteville, North Carolina, in 1973.
--
From The Real Frank Zappa book.
___________________________________________________
Rain is good for you...
Rain is bad for electrical equipment...
--
Outdoor concert, Jones Beach, NY, Circa 1984
___________________________________________________
You can't be a Real Country unless you have a BEER and an
airline - it helps if you have some kind of a football team
or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a BEER.
___________________________________________________
Nobody looks good in brown lipstick
___________________________________________________
Get yer ass out there and register to VOTE!
___________________________________________________
Whenever your down, just think about how you got there.
___________________________________________________
Anything over a mouthful is wasted.
___________________________________________________
The family was from Arkansas. The Dad (Dink) was a furniture salesman in
San Bernardino, but, back in the way-bak-when, he used to play 'bones' or
'spoons' in a minstrel show. To relive the golden days of yesteryear he
would, from time to time, force his children to accompany him (Ronnie
on guitar, Kenny on trombone) in a living room replay of a minstrel routine
called "Lazy Bones.
<P>
The kids often found this to be an inconvenience, as they were fascinated by,
and constantly perfecting new techniques for, The Manly Art Of Fart-Burning.
Kenny explained to me that it was scientific - that it demonstrated (this is
a real quote) "Compression, ignition, combustion and exhaust."
--
Kenny & Ronnie Williams (later "immortalized" in "Let's Make The Water
Turn Black")
<P>
From "The Real Frank Zappa Book" Chapter 4
___________________________________________________
I can't think of anything I like more than audience participation
--
From the Mothers of Prevention
___________________________________________________
To me, cigarettes are food
--
Response to an assertion that his nicotine habit conflicted with his anti-drug
stance
___________________________________________________
May you'll never hear a vloerbedekking again.
--
The beginning of "Theme from Lumpy Gravy," performed in Rotterdam,
The Netherlands. Vloerbedekking means "carpet" in Dutch. It must be one of
the Frank's made up musical terms translated into Dutch, just like putting
eyebrowes on something.
___________________________________________________
It's not ordinary and it's not mundane,but it does not involve golden showers
and appliances
--
He was talking about his sex life with Gail in 1980. This information comes
from a book I picked up the other day entitled Frank Zappa: in his own words
___________________________________________________
Ooooh the way you love me baby,
I get so hard now I could die.
Ooooh the way you squeeze me lady
red balloons just pop behind my eyes
--
Magic Fingers, 200 Motels
___________________________________________________
You see, when I was a kid I used to save up for a month, so I could get
an R&B album and, the same day, the completed works of Anton Webern.
Maybe that means something. Maybe that tells you something about my music.
--
Excerpt from the book "Rock and Other Four Letter Words", copyright 1968.
___________________________________________________
Seeing a psychotherapist is not a crazy idea, it
just wanting a second opinion of ones life.
___________________________________________________
All year long you people manufactured this crap, and one night a year you've
got to listen to it!
--
Frank introducing "psychedelic music" to the audience of the National Academy
of Recording Arts & Science dinner in New York (1968) at which the
Mothers were invited to play
___________________________________________________
Did anybody dance?
--
Said after performing the highly, shall we say, evolved "Black Page #2" on
"Zappa In New York". (And as you probably already know,
this was the song that alerted FZ to the existance of his stunt guitarist to
be,Steve Vai, after recieving a sheet music transcription of the song,
made by young master Vai.)
___________________________________________________
....and then they put them on their heads,they were having a
good time,the girl was in the water,she didn't even see what
was going on with her UNDERPANTS.But wearing the pants,it
looked just like a tiny little PARTY HAT!
--
Establishing the tradition of the JAZZ DISCHARGE PARTY HATS
whilst in Alberquerque,New Mexico.(The Man From Utopia,1983)
___________________________________________________
I'd like to know who's Plunkin' the monkeys?
--
It was on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.
I can't remember the year maybe 10 years ago?
They were talking about AIDS and how AIDS all got started, he had 3 theory's.
First Frank said something about AIDS being a government test gone wrong
Then maybe it was an Alien (ET) test or mistake and finally they talked
about the theory of AIDS coming from a monkey and then
Frank said " I'd like to know who's plunkin' the monkey's?"
___________________________________________________
This is Frank Zappa suggesting you Un-Load yourself...
Don't do Smack or Downers.
--
Public service announcement on KMET rock radio in
Southern California during the Early Mid-Seventies.
___________________________________________________
You can't always write a chord ugly enough to say what you
want to say, so sometimes you have to rely on a giraffe
filled with whipped cream.
___________________________________________________
May your shit come to life and kiss you on the face.
--
to Mrs. Gore about parental advisory labels on album covers
___________________________________________________
Bad facts make bad laws
--
Said during the PMRC hearings.
___________________________________________________
Well, you know people, I'd rather have my own game show than enough votes
to become president.
___________________________________________________
The drummer's playing in 4/4, the Saxophone player is playing 5/4,
the guitar player is picking his nose....
___________________________________________________
A true Zen saying, nothing is what I want.
--
From Roxy & Elsewhere, Dec 1973
___________________________________________________
Beware of the fish people, they are the true enemy
--
Speaking at a ProChoice rally in Los Angeles around 1989-90.
___________________________________________________
Anything can be music
--
Answer to critics accusing him of not doing actual music on Uncle Meat
___________________________________________________
Did everyone hear the great news today? Jimmy Swaggart; under investigation.
One day every one of those cocksuckers will get caught.
--
Hypocritical television evangelists; "Make A Jazz Noise Here" was the album.
The live performance was either in Boston or Poughkeepsie.
___________________________________________________
Seriousity is something to be laughed at.
--
FZ responding to Ivo Niehe from Dutch television after being told that
Europeans take Frank's music very serious.
___________________________________________________
Get smart and i`ll fuck you over-Sayeth The Lord
About the basics of Christianity and it`s perpetuation of ignorance as a
way of life
___________________________________________________
Scientology, how about that? You hold on to the tin cans and then this guy
asks you a bunch of questions, and if you pay enough money you get to join
the master race. How's that for a religion?
--
Concert at the Rockpile, Toronto, May 1969
___________________________________________________
My music makes the mind think
--
Time magazine Dec.20/93, page 73
___________________________________________________
Yeah, I tell them to change the channel if they see
some guy in a brown suit with a telephone number
at the bottom of the screen asking for money.
--
on being asked by Tipper Gore if there was anything
on the TV he _didn't_ allow his kids to watch ...
___________________________________________________
Think I'll go out and get a little action.
--
Pamela Zarubica described this as something Zappa would say
when beginning an average day. This time her husband was
visiting and FZ scared the crap out of him... he was
compared to Dr. Zhivago. I read this little story
in MOTHER! the Frank Zappa Story.
___________________________________________________
This tree is ugly and it wants to DIE...
--
graphic art work on the "Absolutely Free" cover
___________________________________________________
Producing satire is kind of hopeless because of the literacy rate of
the American public.
--
A quote in response to criticism of "Jewish Princess" ("People" magazine,
circa 1979)
___________________________________________________
...I think (Abbey Road is) the best engineered, best mastered rock
and roll album ever produced...except that I take exception to stereo placement.
--
From "Frank Zappa talks about Faves, Raves, and composers in their g
raves" - some English publication, I think.
(2 & 3 from the book, "The Lives and Times of Frank Zappa and the Mothers",
some Brit thing again (got it at Blue Meanie Imports in San Diego fifteen
years ago.)
___________________________________________________
DENSE, PUTRID VAPORS from a SMOKE GUN (we rent it)
--
From another Zappa graphic, this time a poster advertising a concert:
"Therapeutic Abortion with the Mothers..."
___________________________________________________
For some real personal satisfaction, try yelling out your own names.
--
At a concert in Boston, Massachusetts to some fans (my friends) who kept
yelling out Frank's name.
___________________________________________________
I wrote a song about dental floss but did anyone's teeth get cleaner?
--
In response to Tipper Gore's allegations that music incites people towards
deviant behavior, or influences their behavior in general.
___________________________________________________
I didn't know such things existed, a guy walking in front
of the stage with a fucking t-shirt to sell to somebody,
well you live and learn...
...us regular folks know this exquisite little inconvenience
by the name of COMMERCIALISM
--
from bootleg recording "Project/Object" intro Stinkfoot
___________________________________________________
The manner in which Americans "consume" music has a lot to do with leaving
it on their coffee tables, or using it as wallpaper for their lifestyles,
like the score of a movie -- it's consumed that way without any regard for
how and why it was made.
--
From "The Real Frank Zappa Book" (ch. 11)
___________________________________________________
Never stop and keep going
--
Giving advice to young musicians. early 80's interview with
pennsylvania state police officer whom is also a zappa fan.
originally to be shown to local high school students of the
area but frank ended up on the subject of politics and you
can just imagine why the kids never seen this video.
___________________________________________________
Well Mike, I'm abnormal.
--
When FZ appeared on the Mike Douglas show (solo, playing guitar with
recorded backup), Mike said "Your latest album is called Zoot Allures.
How do you come up with such names for your records?" (or something equally
banal!) Frank's succinct reply is printed above.
___________________________________________________
So long as somebody gets a laugh out of it, what the fuck?
--
From Guitar Player's "Mother of All Interviews" part 2, summing up...well ,
everything!
___________________________________________________
All right kiddies, we'll play "wipe-out" for you in a moment.
--
Frank's comment to the crowd at a 1968 concert in Dallas, Tx
___________________________________________________
People who think of videos as an art form are probably
the same people who think Cabbage Patch Dolls are a
revolutionary form of soft sculpture.
--
Zappa on videos (obviously) from Viva Zappa - Biography
___________________________________________________
People make a lot of fuss about my kids having such supposedly 'strange names',
but the fact is that no matter what first names I might have given them,
it is the last name that is going to get them in trouble.
--
From the Real Fran Zappa Book - Mr. Dad chapter
___________________________________________________
The formal structure of "You Didn't Try to Call Me" is not
revolutionary, but it is interesting. You don't care.
--
Liner notes for "You Didn't Try to Call Me" on "Freak Out!"
___________________________________________________
"Wowie Zowie" is what [Pamela Zarubica] says when she's not
grouchy...who would guess it could inspire a song? No one
would guess. None of you are perceptive enough. *Why are
you reading this?*
--
Liner notes for "You Didn't Try to Call Me" (yes, really) on "Freak Out!"
___________________________________________________
Carl Orestes Franzoni...is *freaky* down to his toe nails.
Some day he will live next door to you and your lawn will die.
--
Liner notes for "Hungry Freaks, Daddy" on "Freak Out!"
___________________________________________________
Drop out of school before your mind rots from exposure to
our mundane educational system. Forget about the Senior
Prom and go to the library and *educate yourself* if you've
got any guts. Some of you like *pep rallies* and plastic
robots who tell you what to read. Forget I mentioned it.
*This song has no message.* Rise for the flag salute.
--
Liner notes for "Hungry Freaks, Daddy" on "Freak Out!"
___________________________________________________
Of course you realize you won't be able to hear the organ
once we turn the guitars on.
--
Introduction to "Louie, Louie" on "Uncle Meat"
___________________________________________________
My, you sure are slow here in Texas aren't you?
--
During a 1968 Dallas, Tex. tour, Frank was conducting the Mothers by flipping
the bird to the musician he wanted to perform. He turned to the audience and
using both hands, he swept his fickle fingers wildly into the air. The crowd
of several thousand at the convention center sat silent. "My you sure are
slow here in Texas, aren't you?" he yelled and the punks went crazy!
___________________________________________________
Meanwhile at the Fornebu duty free shop
--
Phrase used between songs during the march 1988 concert in
Skedsmohallen, near Oslo, Norway. Fornebu is the Oslo airport.
___________________________________________________
You think our music- the Monkees music is banal and insipid?"
--
Frank replying to Mike Nesmith on an episode of "The Monkees"
on which Frank and Mike pretended to be each other for several
minutes before the opening theme.
___________________________________________________
If there is a hell, it waits for them, not us!
___________________________________________________
There's no question in my mind -- the beer, the ballons and the bunting
all start with "B" for some cosmic reason.
--
Words that star with B and remind him of the Republican party. The Real
Frank Zappa Book. Page 238
___________________________________________________
Anyone who is disturbed by the idea of newts
in a nightclub is potentially dangerous.
--
I can't remember the exact details but it was during
one of his trials. One of the prosecuting lawyers quoted
some of his lyrics which pertained to newts in a nightclub
and said he found this image disturbing. Frank responded
with the above. I like it as a sentence.
___________________________________________________
Ever try to have a conversation with someone on drugs? It just doesn't work...
--
Sometime during the summer of 1987, when asked by a DC
reporter, "what are your feelings on the war on drugs?" His
first response was to criticize the inherent invasion of
privacy, followed by the above statement against drug use.
___________________________________________________
You wouldn't know a revolution if it bit you on the dick.
--
In response to a young crowd member continually shouting
"Revolution" between songs at a late 60's gig.
The gig was at Middle Earth in Indianapolis, Indiana.
___________________________________________________
Nobody looks good with brown lipstick on
--
from The Real Frank Zappa Book,
In other words, don't kiss ass.
___________________________________________________
No one has forced Mrs. Baker or Mrs. Gore to bring Prince into their homes.
--
PMRC Hearing 1985
___________________________________________________
It began with lyrics, but even looking at the PMRC fund raising
letter in the last paragraph, at the bottom of the page, it starts
looking like it's branching into other areas when it says 'We realize
that this material's pervaded other aspects of society' and it's like
'What, you gonna fix it all for me?'
___________________________________________________
Mr Zappa, I am astounded at the courtesy and soft voiced nature
of the comments of my friend, the Senator from Tennessee. I can
only say that I find your statement to be boorish, incredibly and
insensitively insulting to the people who were here previously, that
you could manage to give the First Amendment of the Constitution of
the United States a bad name, if I felt you had the slightest
understanding of it, which I do not.
--
- Senator Slade Gorton
___________________________________________________
You don't have the slightest understanding of the difference between
government action and private action, and you have certainly destroyed
any case you might otherwise have had with this Senator.
--
Senator Gorton, to which Frank Zappa responds with
"Is this private action?"
___________________________________________________
I think you should leave it up to the parent, because not all
parents want to keep their children totally ignorant.
--
Frank Zappa in response to a question from Senator Hollings.
___________________________________________________
Well, you and I would differ on what's ignorance and educated.
--
Senator Ernest Hollings to Zappa
___________________________________________________
Yes, Ladies and gentleman, even in this agricultural enviroment, We're gonna'
play a love song
--
This was about 1974 in Harrisburg Pa. at the Farm Show Arena, a week after
the Farm show had left town... Frank never admitted to playing there, and I
can't say as I blame him. But, I will never forget what a magical night that
was.
___________________________________________________
Tax the FUCK out of the churches!
___________________________________________________
The concept of the rock-guitar solo in the eightees has
pretty much been reduced to: Weedly-weedly-wee, make a face,
hold your guitar like it's your weenie, point it heavenward,
and look like you're really doing something. Then, you get
a big ovation while the the smoke bombs go off, and the
motorized lights in your truss twirl around!"
--
The Real Frank Zappa Book.
___________________________________________________
If there's ever an obscene noise to be made on an instrument,
it's gonna come out of a guitar! On a sax you can play sleze,
on a bass you can play balls.but on a guitar you can be
truely obscene! Lets be realistic about this, the guitar can
be the single most blastomphous device on the earth!
the guitar makes a stink noise. thats why I like it!!
___________________________________________________
The first hyphen in MAH-JUH-REEN could be used for erotic gratification
by a very desparate stenographer.
--
Sydney australia, 1974, second night. on Mystery box III
___________________________________________________
I feel it's better to sing about these things ourselves and perform them
with the people who it happened to than to have some jounralist one day say
'then in 1971, one time when they were at the mudshark hotel...' But
people have problems with things of a glandular nature in connection with
things of a musical nature. They say why, music is way up here, and glands
are way down there and they can't get 'em together, but then they are
hypocritical because they take a band that doesn't sing about such things
directly and couches their language a little and does it with a little
choreography and say that that's great and that's real rock and roll. I
maintain that there's no difference, we're just honest enough to get up and
say 'this is this and that's that and here you are and respond to it' and
the response is 'why... I'm hip, but of course I am offended'.
--
from the Vitamin Deficiency bootleg.
___________________________________________________
