I heard he was sick…<\/p>\n
I’m not sure Frank Zappa is going to be remembered, to a great extent he’s already been forgotten. But if you don’t own the first few albums, you’re missing out.\u00c2\u00a0 "You Didn’t Try To Call Me", from both the very first album, "Freak Out", and the doo-wop remake on Ruben & the Jets, encapsulates the despair of unrequited love as well as any song ever written.\u00c2\u00a0 And when you hear the line about reprimering the right front fender, you chuckle, Zappa was not like today’s artists, taking himself too seriously, he never lost his sense of humor.<\/p>\n
And Zappa was not only about himself.\u00c2\u00a0 He was an empire builder.\u00c2\u00a0 He released records by acts diverse as Alice Cooper, Wild Man Fischer, the GTOs and Captain Beefheart.<\/p>\n
The Captain did not start out with Frank.\u00c2\u00a0 Nor did he remain with him.\u00c2\u00a0 But his most famous work was released on Zappa’s Bizarre label.\u00c2\u00a0 Frank had two, Bizarre and Straight, eventually he had more.<\/p>\n
"Trout Mask Replica" was not made for Top Forty radio.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, it wasn’t made for any radio.\u00c2\u00a0 It was an album made to be played from start to finish in your bedroom, as you tried to decipher its dense lyrics and music.<\/p>\n
And the hype was just as good.\u00c2\u00a0 In "Rolling Stone", Beefheart said it took only eight hours to record the record.\u00c2\u00a0 When asked why it took so long, the Captain replied that he had to teach the band their instruments.<\/p>\n
Not that we believed that.\u00c2\u00a0 But how great to have someone who could reply tongue-in-cheek, who wasn’t giving the bland answers television seems to require in its endless quest to appeal to everybody, ultimately appealing to nobody.<\/p>\n
Eventually, the Captain became more comprehensible.\u00c2\u00a0 There was that album "Clear Spot", that came in a plastic bag, which contained the positively mainstream "My Head Is My Only House Unless It Rains".\u00c2\u00a0 Which the Tubes ultimately covered.\u00c2\u00a0 But they’ve been forgotten too.\u00c2\u00a0 The real Tubes, the "White Punks On Dope" Tubes, not the MTV eighties Tubes singing about sushi and beauties and…<\/p>\n
And then the Captain faded away.\u00c2\u00a0 He didn’t play the oldies circuit, he went back to being Don Van Vliet and resumed painting, his first love.\u00c2\u00a0 Supposedly the fumes got to him.<\/p>\n
Maybe the obits will say.<\/p>\n
And if you really care about history, if you’re the type who’s up for a challenge, who takes the road not traveled and doesn’t turn back, check out Beefheart’s work.\u00c2\u00a0 Start with "Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller)", it’s the most accessible.<\/p>\n
But there won’t be TV tributes and there won’t be a funeral at Staples Center and you still won’t hear his music on the radio.<\/p>\n
But those who remember will never forget.\u00c2\u00a0 An era when being a musician was the highest calling and financial reward was not the Holy Grail.\u00c2\u00a0 Zappa was exploring.\u00c2\u00a0 He and his merry band of musician\/pranksters didn’t compromise a whit.\u00c2\u00a0 They just kept on doing what they believed in. Sometimes the audience caught on, sometimes it didn’t.<\/p>\n
Alice Cooper went on to hook up with Bob Ezrin and record one of the great rock albums of all time, "Killer".\u00c2\u00a0 The fact that it took forever for the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame to acknowledge this diminishes its quality not a bit.<\/p>\n
Pamela Des Barres, nee Miss Pamela, went on to be a famous groupie.\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, that’s what she was before she was in the GTOs.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s how close she wanted to be to the band.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s how close we all wanted to be to the band.<\/p>\n
And Beefheart was like Zappa.\u00c2\u00a0 Playing on a high plane, waiting for the audience to catch up with him.<\/p>\n
Eventually Frank played on a low plane too, which gained him some commercial success, but Beefheart never did this.\u00c2\u00a0 And when the record deals ran out, he moved on.\u00c2\u00a0 An artist is about artistry, not fame.<\/p>\n
I read the news today, oh boy.\u00c2\u00a0 And I was emotionally affected and needed to reach out to you. They’re rewriting rock and roll history and getting it all wrong.\u00c2\u00a0 They want you to think that Patti Smith was more important than Alice Cooper, that Top Forty radio ruled in the late sixties and early seventies, that everybody was always in it for the money.\u00c2\u00a0 But that’s wrong.\u00c2\u00a0 We know the truth.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s incumbent upon us to keep the flame alive.\u00c2\u00a0 Beefheart was part of the firmament.\u00c2\u00a0 He may not have been dead center, but he had a place.\u00c2\u00a0 And we took notice.\u00c2\u00a0 And his death leaves an emptiness. There’s a hole in the sky tonight, a black one, where Don Van Vliet used to live and create.<\/p>\n