A new homepage found on FZ – gee, in hungarian… Okay, you won’t understand a word, but you migh find interesting these:
– The Real FZ Book, hard cover version; (Nice, huh?…)
– Poster about the Real FZ book: front, back.
– Pictures: The Mothers in Zagreb, 1975.
– The Grandmothers in Hungary, 1994 (with JCB, of course…)
The above things are completely new to me. The rest are mostly documents, artitcles from 1991. Keep on bloggin’, Lajos!
I have a first print, 1st edition hard cover version of The Real Frank Zappa Book (I collect books). I really want a signed version. I’ve seen a lot of suspect FZ signatures on ebay and elsewhere…
I asked GZ about the authenticity of a signed book that I wanted to buy. She was very nice and gave me her opinion, including what to look for.
Books are those rectangular things, right?
Something to do with trees?
Never mind.
[quote comment=”3201″]I have a first print, 1st edition hard cover version of The Real Frank Zappa Book (I collect books). I really want a signed version. I’ve seen a lot of suspect FZ signatures on ebay and elsewhere…
I asked GZ about the authenticity of a signed book that I wanted to buy. She was very nice and gave me her opinion, including what to look for.[/quote]
And so, what is the wisdom from Canyon du Laurel (besides the fact that GZ was very nice about it)?
What does a suspect FZ signature look like anyway?
“What does a suspect FZ signature look like anyway?”
Huh…good question.
Hmmm.
I really do not discover the fun of the hard cover RFZB.
That’s the way publishers actually function: first a hard cover, followed by the other versions.
I bought that book .. with a hard cover.
I have a modified tampon ad signed by Frank. He smiled when he autographed it.
It’s a girl with Frank’s head in blue tights doing gymnastics on a balance beam, and yet confident of no leakage.
Maybe sometime when there’s nothing else going on Barry could post a collection of scans of Frank-autographed items.
here’s an FZ-autograph, mine, I got it in ’91.
Its in a book, of course an un-authorised (though good) biography, but he signed it anyway. I was – and still am – glad. (sorry – the link was wrong, now it’s corrected.)
Yes, as I happen to be a slow guy. Now I understand the basic … misunderstanding.
The difference between
– fans , looking for , ahum, signatures
– music lovers , looking for , ahum, asessments of composers.
Common sense, the other way around :
” “The difference between artists and everyone else is that artists manage to stay in touch with the energy they had as children — playful, curious, open-minded, inventive. If you don’t have a playful nature as a musician, you should probably be doing something else.”
http://thephoenix.com/Boston/Music/73347-A-small-good-thing/
According to D. Bowie : ” I wish I was smarter”.
thats a fake signature 🙁
Hehe, you should know it better… 🙂
I dont have any other signature (hey, I have one fron Dweezil on the DVD), I’m not a collector at all – this one is a nice memory of mine, when I was lucky to see FZ playing his last solo here in Budapest. One might or might not believe it – the memory is mine, the experience was mine, and I keep it as a treasure – whether you believe it to be true, or not. 😉
I’ve got a couple of things (LPs & a Book) supposedly signed by FZ. 2 of the sigs are very similar – maybe exact? – and the 3rd is pretty close (tho I cannot say the same). None of them look like the example.
Hmmm…
TBN had a nice page of sigs, at one point in time (hint).
I’ve never understood the attraction of collecting signatures of celebrities (beyond the obvious increase in monetary value of whatever is being signed) and the cult of celebrity, itself. It’s just one more aspect of the FZ legacy to buy and sell. Myself, if I can’t listen to it, or dance to it, I steer well away.
Celebs, who cares? But Frank, well, that’s different. I mean, it’s Frank, not Celine Dion or Red Buttons, OK?
I remember at A Zappa Affair at Zellerbacj Auditorium (june 15, 1984 http://globalia.net/donlope/fz/docs/A_Zappa_Affair.html ) people brought lots of things for Frank to sign.
One guy brught what appeared to be his entire FZ-record collection, and I have the image in my mind of Frank with his Sharpie on a stairway landing systematically signing each and ever one of them albums.
Acquiring the signature of a person you admire is a combination of marking the moment, obtaining a takeaway to cement one’s Brush With Greatness and having a bragging point. I mean, I sit down with my little folder of items Frank signed and think, “Wow, that consciousness – the one that thought of Peaches En Regalia – devoted his attention to this very item I’m holding in my hand for one brief moment in time.”
So that’s something. A very abstract, arguably idolatrous something, but whatever.
this signature FACTORY EQUIPMENT ! god…
I see your point, ug…
And it’s not like I was standing next to FZ when he signed the articles. But, 2 of said articles I CAN dance to (the LP’s), and 1 I can curl up and read. So there is that “value”. The other sigs I’ve collected are all from FZ Alumni at a 3-day Zappa festival. That’s something I can’t dance to – unless you count the memory of me dancing to those bands at the event.
Oh yeah, there’s one other: a modern day poster of Alice Stewart that was given to me by an old friend. I’ve never seen Alice, or even heard her music. That one is treasured more for the memories of the friend who sent it.
Not defending the Cult of Personality (which you can dance to) as much as pointing out the value of good memories…
I, too, see your point, SOFA…whatever gives someone joy or happiness (such as collecting Zappa signatures), who am I to suggest whether it’s good or bad, right or wrong? I’m certainly not one to interfere with my neighbor’s thrill…My comment was only a statement of quickly genuine items connected to “good memories” can become somebody else’s racket (such as all the bogus FZ signatures on ebay referred to earlier in this thread)…
I have a one dollar bill, autographed on one side by FZ and the other by JCB, that I will cherish for life. The opportunity to obtain their signatures came after a concert in Chicago, August 1969, when I found myself in front of the autograph table with nothing else for them to sign. I got a chuckle from both as they signed. It is my real life connection to otherwise mythical beings. The occasion, as it turns out, was only weeks before the “original” Mothers were dissolved.
[quote comment=”3247″]I have a one dollar bill, autographed on one side by FZ and the other by JCB, that I will cherish for life. [/quote]
Aaww…that’s one to cherish indeed…
[quote comment=”3242″]Celebs, who cares? But Frank, well, that’s different. I mean, it’s Frank, not Celine Dion or Red Buttons, OK?
I remember at A Zappa Affair at Zellerbacj Auditorium (june 15, 1984 http://globalia.net/donlope/fz/docs/A_Zappa_Affair.html ) people brought lots of things for Frank to sign.
One guy brught what appeared to be his entire FZ-record collection, and I have the image in my mind of Frank with his Sharpie on a stairway landing systematically signing each and ever one of them albums.
Acquiring the signature of a person you admire is a combination of marking the moment, obtaining a takeaway to cement one’s Brush With Greatness and having a bragging point. I mean, I sit down with my little folder of items Frank signed and think, “Wow, that consciousness – the one that thought of Peaches En Regalia – devoted his attention to this very item I’m holding in my hand for one brief moment in time.”
So that’s something. A very abstract, arguably idolatrous something, but whatever.[/quote]
Indeed, FZ had a respect for his fan base from which other artists (and surely his heirs) could certainly learn. Signing a fan’s entire FZ-record collection with his Sharpie does show an investment on Frank’s part as well (each and every time he did that, he most certainly solidified a life-long fan and purchaser for his future albums). Again, I only take pause when it comes to the buying and selling of FZ signatures (not the acquiring of the signature for nostalgic purposes)…