Category: Politics

New Zappa Release: Congress Shall Make No Law

By now I guess you all know about the Zappa event in Baltimore that is to take place on September 19. A couple of days ago, a new Zappa Records release was announced for this date:

September 19, 2010 marks the 25th anniversary of Zappa’s testimony on Capitol Hill and at Annapolis against the censorship of free expression by artists. In commemoration of this event, Zappa Records is preparing to release ‘Congress Shall Make No Law,’ a CD containing Frank Zappa’s testimony.

More info about the event here.

Update Sep 13 2010: Here’s the ZFT announcement as featured on their mailing-list from Sep 11, included for archival purposes. Pre-order link!

Defending Zappa?

In my youth, I felt like I had an easier time introducing my friends to Zappa. I used to simply play “Bobby Brown Goes Down,” because when you’re 14 or 15 years old, it’s the funniest thing you could possibly hear. It had swear words in it, he was making fun of the jocks we all collectively hated, and it was catchy as Hell! Similar cases could be made for other tunes like “Stick It Out,” “Catholic Girls,” and “Jewish Princess.”
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Frank Zappa & Ron Paul – American Fascism

In these two distinct interviews, 21 years apart – Frank Zappa on CNN’s March 28th, 1986 episode of “Crossfire”, and 2008 presidential candidate Ron Paul on the December 23rd, 2007 episode of “Meet The Press” – both men discuss the danger of America’s slide towards a type of theological, right-wing, corporate Fascism. Amazing how Zappa’s very idea of an American theologically based fascism brought him nothing but ridicule in 1986, while in 2010 we are currently living in the very world he had described. Zappa was most definitely a futurist in his own right.

Frank Zappa — Cynic, Satirist, Social Anthropologist

Frank Zappa had been referred to as a lot of things throughout his thirty year career – some complimentary (genius, iconoclast, family man) and some not so complimentary (misogynist, anti-semite, misanthropist) – yet all one need do is listen to some of the myriad of interviews Zappa gave during his life (beginning with an excerpt from the Mark Radcliffe BBC Radio 1 Interview, above) and evidence becomes overwhelmingly clear: besides being a musician and composer, Zappa was a life-long cynic, satirist, and a social anthropologist:
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Frank Zappa’s Original PMRC Letters

PMRC Envelope

Newish niche blog Letterheady publishes letterhead designs from the rich and (in)famous. The site recently got picked up and linked to by everyone and their grandmother. In the process, it came to light they also had Frank Zappa’s letterhead featured. That’s when Joe Crawford aimed this tweet at KUR, saying we should “blog it!”

Ah, but you see: Letterheady’s source is in fact… killuglyradio.com.
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Zappa on School Beat, 1986

Frank Zappa debates and discusses rock censorship, the PMRC, the PTA code, the “non-binding nothingness” which the record companies and the then Washington Senator’s wives perpetrated on the American public with the assistance of the media) with Christian rock DJ, Jim Hodson (Producer/Host of Real Videos), Norma Downs (California State PTA Communications Commission), and School Beat host, Roberta Weintraub.
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Frank Zappa On FNN

FZ, 1990, sitting in for Bob Berkowicz on Financial News Network’s Focus show. He interviews Vladimir Zvyagin, bureau chief of Soviet television in the United States:

Watch part two here (thx Jamie Wilson).

Further FZ FNN viewing: FZ interviews NPR’s Daniel Schorr and Sirio Maccioni, restauranteur & owner of Le Cirque, NYC.

Oddly surreal to watch somehow…