Confessions Of A Bootlegger

Surely, a fun read:

I rigged up the inside of a basketball that I cut in half, with all the gear laid out inside and taped down, buttons up, and I had a girlfriend who’d strap this on under a puffy blouse and go in pretending to be pregnant! We had wires snaked up the arms to lavalier [clip-on] mikes on her shoulders, or on either side of a hat that I rigged up. She went to the bathroom, turned it on in the stall, walked back out to the front and we were taping! But then she had to stand, not sit, in the center of the stage all night, to get the stereo sound, and everyone kept asking her ‘When are you due?’ and saying ‘You can sit in my chair’ and all that stuff got recorded too. They were babbling into the microphones and ruining my tape.”

From the same site, also check out a comic entitled The Ballad of Frank Zappa as well as this interview with Wild Man Fischer (scroll down).

2 thoughts on “Confessions Of A Bootlegger”

  1. Very interesting.

    The current state of play in FZ “research”. Starting from , let’s say the other way around. Not the R&B.
    The 20 th century composers.

    – Balint rightly mentions Messiaens 100th birthday. I don’t think O. Messiaen had a direct influence on FZ. FZ, in a direct way, most probably didn’t know anything about O. Messiaen. However one of the early Messiaen concepts was his own version of – what he called ” valeur ajoutée”. That strange, embarassing short interlude ( 2 seconds) in between two regular musical measures.( maten). It became a part of musical history. Just listen to FZ music, you’ll hear & discover the O.M. legacy.
    – On 22nd Dec there’s something to be celebrated. Not important at all, according to the contemporary self declared geniusses.What? Edgar Varèse’s 125th birthday. Thus: sometihng humble, someting hiding behind its little finger. I e to be overlooked completely.
    ” A certain … premature idea about the role of percussion in 20th century music”.

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