FRANK
Zappa's greatest claim to fame in Britain has been a poster
portraying
him perched on the loo in the nude.
It costs fifteen shillings and has sold 3,000,000 copies.
Zappa is leader of the underground group Mothers of Invention,
whose records don't usually sell so well. But this weekend
150,000 fans made the trip to the Bath Pop festival at Shepton
Mallet to hear him and other top groups
such as Jefferson Airplane and Led
Zeppelin.
And the fans had an unexpected bonus yesterday - an impromptu
concert from British star Donovan.
Zappa is twenty-nine. He was
last in Britain to give a lecture to the London School of
Economics - not on revolution but evolution. He wants to
be remembered for his music more than his poster.
Yet he is more likely to succeed through his ideologies, to which
more of the new generation listen, than to his music.
"Politics," he says, "is an old man's
game. Governments should be abandoned and people should live as
they wish.
"Lets tolerate politicians with their
plastic smiles only until the time
when people can take care of themselves."
Babies
Zappa originates from California,
where he lives with his 24-year-old wife, Gail Adelaide Sloatman,
and their two youngsters - three-year-old Moon Unit and nine-month-old
Dweazil.
"Gail was a groupie," reveals Zappa.
"And an excellent groupie too. It didn't
matter to me that she had slept around with other beat men.
We got married in New York when Gail
was nine months pregnant. It's not because
I believe in having a certificate to prove you're married; it's
just
that in America it's difficult to get
into hospital if you're an unwed mother-to-be."
It was Zappa's second marriage.
Eleven days in jail got Zappa out of conscription and Vietnam,
where he had no plans to go in any event.
"I got a six month jail sentence reduced
to probation after eleven days inside
on a charge of publishing a pornographic record of a couple making
love.
"Today you'll find more freakish tracks
on one or two of my albums and no one
has battered an eyelid."
Zappa's mode of living, its
brutal honesty and contention, is hailed by hippies as an
example for tomorrow. There's no aggro, no bovver in his life.
He has a comfortable, modest house in Los Angeles, its most ostentatious
feature is its swimming pool.
Helping
He has a bunch of poor friends who kip down whenever they are
wandering past the door.
Zappa said:
"Sometimes the grocery bill is 200 bucks
a week and if I'm away from
home it can be double. That's Gail, she's too charitable."
I half expect to see beads around his neck but Zappa condems
them as a symbol of the flower power era which he dismisses
as insincere and highly commercialised. Zappa is one
of the few American beat musicians who has openly expressed
himself against drugs.
"They mean destruction," he says "I
smoked twelve joints on one occasion and it left me with a fuzzy
head and a sore throat. I've
seen what drugs can do and no one should walk around with a retarded
mind."
But he firmly believes that drugs should be legalised which,
he says, would help the addicts and would give the curious
a chance to reject them.
As always, Zappa's case in
all arguments, censorship and the rest, is to give people
free choice.
On language and four letter words he holds views to shock the
last of the Victorians.Children using four letter words never
grow to see any meaning in them, he contends. His children,
well the three-year-old at least, are picking them up, and he isn't
worried.
Hope
His father, a history teacher,
wanted him to be a chemist and he thought hewould achieve this until
he nearly blew himself up in one experiment and then set
fire to his school on Speech Day on another occasion.
If there is any judgement on Zappa - and after Bath the tales
of the pilgrims will be many and legendary - he hopes he will not
be discarded as a drop-out.
"A drop-out is someone who wants to
go and live in a tent and do nothing
more than grow beans. I live my life
looking for action."
Zappa, the underground leader; Zappa in leather jacket, purple
pants and gold neck chain, has found the action.
