One evening recently I was sitting in my living room in Holloway, North London, listening to some albums by my favourite artist Frank Zappa. I tweeted a passing comment to this effect and was surprised to generate some interest, including a notification that between December 4th (the day the present day composer stopped refusing to die) and December 21st (his birth), the internet would be celebrating Zappadan. For what it's worth then, I thought I'd share some of my personal Zappa experience.
I don't remember the first time I heard of Frank, but I do remember the first time I heard him. Through my early teens (and to this day) I was a big fan of Primus. Reading interviews online, a recurring theme was guitarist Larry LaLonde's love of Frank Zappa. I remember one interview in particular where Ler said something like "every time I play guitar, I'm trying to sound like Frank". Well I loved Ler's unique style and this just piqued my interest. As a young guitar player I was also getting into Steve Vai's Passion and Warfare, and discovered that Vai started his career as "stunt guitarist" for FZ. I picked up the G3 video where Vai, Joe Satriani and Eric Johnson team up for a cover of Frank's "My Guitar Wants To Kill Your Mama". My favourite band of all time (and I'd argue also the greatest band of all time) was and is Queen, and I read an old interview where Brian May said he was a fan of Frank's. Basically through my early teens Frank's name was becoming increasingly unavoidable, although his music was notably elusive in the public domain.
In September 1999, when I was 15, I went on a week's work experience with a Leicester producer and music called Steve Nutter. Hi Steve! Steve's girlfriend, it turned out, was a massive Zappa fan (pretty much the only type of Zappa fan you'll find), and after hearing me play guitar she insisted (as we Zappaphiles tend to do) that I should check out Frank. So that Friday afternoon we sat down in Steve's living room and put on the Sheik Yerbouti album. My overriding memory of that moment was that I had never (and still haven't) heard anything like it: thick feedback guitar, lush layers of vocals, complex band performances and bluntly eloquent lyrics.
My next encounter with Frank would be around 5 months later, my 16th birthday in February 2000, after a few months of bewildered browsing in the variable and extensive Frank Zappa sections in Leicestershire's record shops. My friend Seth asked what I'd like for my birthday and I asked for the Cheap Thrills CD you could pick up for £2.99. Seth delivered the goods (thanks dude!) and with my friends gathered round in my living room I slipped it into the stereo. Spoken word opener "I Could Be A Star Now" built my anticipation before the 1988 live version of Catholic Girls blew my mind: unfathomable time signature guitars and horn section stabs trading places with obscene crooned jazz.
I was hooked.
