WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.200 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we are unpacking 00:00:04.200 --> 00:00:08.339 a figure who effectively just breaks the binary 00:00:08.339 --> 00:00:11.279 of 20th century music. He really does. I mean, 00:00:11.300 --> 00:00:13.300 usually have your high art composers, you know, 00:00:13.320 --> 00:00:15.400 the Stravinsky's, the Copland's sitting in their 00:00:15.400 --> 00:00:17.879 ivory towers. And then you have the low art rock 00:00:17.879 --> 00:00:20.339 stars in the stadium. Right. The two are not 00:00:20.339 --> 00:00:22.039 supposed to meet. But today's subject didn't 00:00:22.039 --> 00:00:24.679 just blur that line. He took a blowtorch to it. 00:00:25.260 --> 00:00:27.300 We're looking at a man who is a self -taught 00:00:27.300 --> 00:00:29.899 composer writing incredibly complex orchestral 00:00:29.899 --> 00:00:32.380 scores. And at the same time, he's this rock 00:00:32.380 --> 00:00:36.460 icon who famously, and I mean famously, despised 00:00:36.460 --> 00:00:38.539 the drug culture of the 60s. Which is already 00:00:38.539 --> 00:00:41.240 a contradiction. But then, to top it all off, 00:00:41.359 --> 00:00:43.759 this counterculture hero identified himself, 00:00:44.079 --> 00:00:47.100 confusingly for a lot of people, as a practical 00:00:47.100 --> 00:00:49.340 conservative. It is a paradox that makes your 00:00:49.340 --> 00:00:51.939 head spin. We're talking, of course, about Frank 00:00:51.939 --> 00:00:54.479 Zappa. And the mission today, well, it isn't 00:00:54.479 --> 00:00:57.020 just to list the albums. Oh, God, no. If we tried 00:00:57.020 --> 00:00:58.960 to do a track -by -track breakdown, we'd be here 00:00:58.960 --> 00:01:02.159 for weeks. He released 62 albums while he was 00:01:02.159 --> 00:01:05.359 alive. 62. And the Zappa Family Trust has released 00:01:05.359 --> 00:01:08.120 another 70 since he died. That number is just 00:01:08.120 --> 00:01:12.359 staggering. It's over 130 albums. That level 00:01:12.359 --> 00:01:14.640 of productivity, it doesn't even seem human. 00:01:14.719 --> 00:01:17.920 It's a prodigious output by any standard. But 00:01:17.920 --> 00:01:20.260 our goal is to look at how he did it, and maybe 00:01:20.260 --> 00:01:23.540 more importantly, who he was. We're going to 00:01:23.540 --> 00:01:26.560 analyze the chemist's son, who treated the electric 00:01:26.560 --> 00:01:28.519 guitar like a section of a symphony orchestra. 00:01:28.859 --> 00:01:31.000 And the man who took on the U .S. Senate over 00:01:31.000 --> 00:01:33.400 censorship. Exactly. And we need to get into 00:01:33.400 --> 00:01:35.620 the overarching concept he called the project 00:01:35.620 --> 00:01:39.019 object. And that chemist's son title, it's not 00:01:39.019 --> 00:01:41.859 a metaphor, it's literal. The sources all seem 00:01:41.859 --> 00:01:43.719 to agree that to understand the music, you have 00:01:43.719 --> 00:01:45.680 to start with the chemistry sets. We need to 00:01:45.680 --> 00:01:48.079 go back to Baltimore in 1940. That's the ground 00:01:48.079 --> 00:01:50.939 zero. Frank Vincent Zappa was born into an Italian 00:01:50.939 --> 00:01:53.879 -American household, but the environment was 00:01:53.879 --> 00:01:57.599 incredibly specific and, frankly, quite alarming 00:01:57.599 --> 00:02:01.519 by modern standards. How so? His father, Francis 00:02:01.519 --> 00:02:03.840 Vincent Zappa, was a mathematician and a chemist. 00:02:04.400 --> 00:02:06.579 But he wasn't, you know, working at a local pharmacy. 00:02:06.620 --> 00:02:08.939 He was working in the defense industry, specifically 00:02:08.939 --> 00:02:11.659 at the Edgewood Arsenal. Which, for anyone who 00:02:11.659 --> 00:02:14.099 doesn't know their military history, was a chemical 00:02:14.099 --> 00:02:17.259 warfare facility. That's it. This was the era 00:02:17.259 --> 00:02:19.860 of mustard gas research. The family lived in 00:02:19.860 --> 00:02:21.840 student housing at the Aberdeen Proving Ground, 00:02:22.020 --> 00:02:24.199 and the sources highlight this really chilling 00:02:24.199 --> 00:02:27.060 detail that sets the tone for his entire life. 00:02:27.180 --> 00:02:29.719 The gas masks. Gas masks. Because they lived 00:02:29.719 --> 00:02:31.639 so close to where the mustard gas was stored, 00:02:31.840 --> 00:02:34.590 the family kept gas masks in the house. Just 00:02:34.590 --> 00:02:37.569 ready. That is such a heavy visual for a childhood. 00:02:37.789 --> 00:02:40.729 I mean, most kids have a baseball bat or bicycle 00:02:40.729 --> 00:02:44.469 in the corner. The Zappas had gas masks on standby 00:02:44.469 --> 00:02:46.949 for a potential chemical leak. It creates an 00:02:46.949 --> 00:02:49.830 atmosphere of this invisible looming danger. 00:02:50.009 --> 00:02:51.889 Yeah. You're living in a domestic space that 00:02:51.889 --> 00:02:53.789 is constantly under threat for something you 00:02:53.789 --> 00:02:55.909 can't see, but you know it can kill you. And 00:02:55.909 --> 00:02:57.550 this probably contributed to the fact that Zappa 00:02:57.550 --> 00:02:59.789 was a very sickly child. Right. He had all sorts 00:02:59.789 --> 00:03:02.729 of health problems. Severe asthma. Constant earaches. 00:03:02.830 --> 00:03:05.229 Chronic sinus problems. And this is where the 00:03:05.229 --> 00:03:07.370 history of medicine intersects with his biography 00:03:07.370 --> 00:03:10.990 in a truly disturbing way. This part of the research 00:03:10.990 --> 00:03:12.909 just stopped me in my tracks. The treatment for 00:03:12.909 --> 00:03:15.430 his sinusitis. It sounds like science fiction 00:03:15.430 --> 00:03:18.069 horror today. A doctor decided to treat young 00:03:18.069 --> 00:03:20.909 Frank's sinusitis by inserting pellets of radium 00:03:20.909 --> 00:03:25.150 directly into his nostrils. Radium. As in radioactive 00:03:25.150 --> 00:03:28.379 material. up a child's nose. To shrink the adenoids, 00:03:28.419 --> 00:03:30.199 that was the theory. You have to remember, this 00:03:30.199 --> 00:03:33.759 was the 1940s. The full understanding of the 00:03:33.759 --> 00:03:36.500 long -term effects of radiation just wasn't public 00:03:36.500 --> 00:03:38.199 knowledge yet, or at least it wasn't acknowledged 00:03:38.199 --> 00:03:40.810 in general practice. So you have this kid who 00:03:40.810 --> 00:03:44.169 Zappa himself later speculated was probably sick 00:03:44.169 --> 00:03:46.530 from the mustard gas in the environment. Right. 00:03:46.610 --> 00:03:49.490 And then the cure provided by the medical establishment 00:03:49.490 --> 00:03:52.629 is to put a radioactive substance inside his 00:03:52.629 --> 00:03:54.610 head. That has to leave a mark. I don't just 00:03:54.610 --> 00:03:56.590 mean physically, but psychologically. Absolutely. 00:03:57.289 --> 00:04:00.090 It teaches you a very specific lesson very early 00:04:00.090 --> 00:04:02.889 in life. Authority figures, doctors, the government, 00:04:02.990 --> 00:04:05.229 you name it, might be doing something completely 00:04:05.229 --> 00:04:08.050 insane. It breeds this deep -seated skepticism. 00:04:08.310 --> 00:04:10.810 A profound skepticism. He learned that the people 00:04:10.810 --> 00:04:12.969 in charge might actually be hurting you while 00:04:12.969 --> 00:04:15.370 claiming to help you. That's a theme that runs 00:04:15.370 --> 00:04:17.790 through his entire body of work. And the chemistry 00:04:17.790 --> 00:04:20.709 wasn't just medical or environmental. It was... 00:04:21.310 --> 00:04:24.350 recreational in a way. The story about the mercury. 00:04:24.689 --> 00:04:27.689 Yes. His father would bring home lab equipment 00:04:27.689 --> 00:04:30.589 from the arsenal. One day he brought home a flask 00:04:30.589 --> 00:04:33.490 of liquid mercury. And Zappa recalls playing 00:04:33.490 --> 00:04:36.009 with it on his bedroom floor. He'd take a hammer 00:04:36.009 --> 00:04:38.269 and just smash the mercury to watch it splash 00:04:38.269 --> 00:04:40.670 into these tiny little droplets. Which we now 00:04:40.670 --> 00:04:43.529 know is incredibly toxic. Breathing those fumes 00:04:43.529 --> 00:04:46.779 is... Bad news. Highly toxic. But just think 00:04:46.779 --> 00:04:48.839 about the metaphor there for a second. You have 00:04:48.839 --> 00:04:51.120 a child playing with a substance that is fluid, 00:04:51.240 --> 00:04:54.319 it's dangerous, it's heavy, and it breaks apart 00:04:54.319 --> 00:04:56.540 into smaller perfect versions of itself when 00:04:56.540 --> 00:04:58.540 you hit it. And when you fast forward to his 00:04:58.540 --> 00:05:00.519 music. That is exactly what he does with sound. 00:05:00.680 --> 00:05:03.660 He smashes it apart, scatters it, and reassembles 00:05:03.660 --> 00:05:06.240 it into new forms. He treats sound waves like 00:05:06.240 --> 00:05:08.620 a physical material to be sculpted. It makes 00:05:08.620 --> 00:05:10.800 so much sense because his lyrics later in his 00:05:10.800 --> 00:05:13.120 career are just obsessed with germs, with disease, 00:05:13.279 --> 00:05:15.720 with the military -industrial complex. This wasn't 00:05:15.720 --> 00:05:18.120 some abstract political posture for him. He literally 00:05:18.120 --> 00:05:20.939 grew up inside it. He lived it. He was in the 00:05:20.939 --> 00:05:22.639 shadow of the industry. It made him skeptical 00:05:22.639 --> 00:05:25.920 of official narratives from day one. Now, usually 00:05:25.920 --> 00:05:27.699 when you have a story about a musical genius, 00:05:27.759 --> 00:05:29.779 you hear about them, you know, playing piano 00:05:29.779 --> 00:05:32.560 at age three or writing concertos by age five. 00:05:33.019 --> 00:05:36.379 That was not Zappa. No, not a child prodigy in 00:05:36.379 --> 00:05:38.459 that classical sense. He didn't have any formal 00:05:38.459 --> 00:05:41.339 training. He was interested in the sounds. He 00:05:41.339 --> 00:05:43.399 started out as a drummer. He liked the percussive 00:05:43.399 --> 00:05:46.000 nature of things. But the big turning point, 00:05:46.079 --> 00:05:48.680 and this is such a quintessential Zappa moment, 00:05:48.860 --> 00:05:51.600 came from a magazine article. Not from a teacher 00:05:51.600 --> 00:05:54.600 or a mentor. A magazine. He was reading Look 00:05:54.600 --> 00:05:57.199 Magazine, an article about Sam Goody's record 00:05:57.199 --> 00:06:00.339 store chain. And the article was basically bragging 00:06:00.339 --> 00:06:03.100 about the store's ability to sell obscure, difficult 00:06:03.100 --> 00:06:05.660 music. The subtext was, we're so good, we can 00:06:05.660 --> 00:06:08.160 even sell this garbage. Exactly. And the prime 00:06:08.160 --> 00:06:10.379 example of this garbage was an album by the composer 00:06:10.379 --> 00:06:13.800 Edgard Varese, specifically a piece called Ionization. 00:06:14.180 --> 00:06:16.319 The article described it as, and I'm quoting 00:06:16.319 --> 00:06:19.139 here, a weird jumble of drums and other unpleasant 00:06:19.139 --> 00:06:22.160 sounds. For 99 % of the population, unpleasant 00:06:22.160 --> 00:06:25.379 sounds is a warning label. For Frank Zappa, it 00:06:25.379 --> 00:06:27.779 was an invitation. It was a sales pitch. He had 00:06:27.779 --> 00:06:30.300 to hear it. He was compelled. He hunted for that 00:06:30.300 --> 00:06:32.639 record for a whole year. When he finally found 00:06:32.639 --> 00:06:34.199 a copy, he didn't even have enough money for 00:06:34.199 --> 00:06:37.199 it. But the cover photo sealed the deal for him. 00:06:37.339 --> 00:06:39.759 It did. He saw the picture of Perez, who looked 00:06:39.759 --> 00:06:42.800 like a mad scientist. Wild hair, this intense 00:06:42.800 --> 00:06:46.199 stare. It appealed to the chemist's son in him. 00:06:46.319 --> 00:06:48.540 He managed to convince the salesman to give him 00:06:48.540 --> 00:06:51.430 a discount, and he took the record home. That 00:06:51.430 --> 00:06:54.769 record, Ionization, it basically became his Bible. 00:06:54.949 --> 00:06:57.290 He played it until the grooves wore out. He would 00:06:57.290 --> 00:06:59.970 make his parents listen to it. But here is the 00:06:59.970 --> 00:07:03.269 absolute key to understanding Zappa's whole project 00:07:03.269 --> 00:07:07.329 object idea. At the exact same time, he's absorbing 00:07:07.329 --> 00:07:10.589 this avant -garde, dissonant, modern classical 00:07:10.589 --> 00:07:13.389 music. He's also listening to Top 40 radio. He's 00:07:13.389 --> 00:07:16.509 listening to R &B. He loves doo -wop. He's obsessed 00:07:16.509 --> 00:07:18.730 with the jewels and Johnny Guitar Watson. So 00:07:18.730 --> 00:07:20.949 in his developing musical brain, Igor Stravinsky 00:07:20.949 --> 00:07:24.050 and 1950s doo -wop are sitting at the same table. 00:07:24.189 --> 00:07:26.750 They were on completely equal footing. He never 00:07:26.750 --> 00:07:28.910 saw the distinction between high art and low 00:07:28.910 --> 00:07:31.449 art. It was all just good sound to him. That 00:07:31.449 --> 00:07:33.790 fusion is the blueprint for everything that follows. 00:07:33.949 --> 00:07:35.769 He would spend the rest of his life trying to 00:07:35.769 --> 00:07:38.509 smash those two worlds together, creating this 00:07:38.509 --> 00:07:41.589 universe where a complex orchestral passage could 00:07:41.589 --> 00:07:45.839 just slam cut into a greasy... Okay, so let's 00:07:45.839 --> 00:07:47.939 move forward a bit. The family settles in California, 00:07:48.259 --> 00:07:50.800 partly for his health. He graduates high school, 00:07:50.839 --> 00:07:53.319 just barely, and he tries college. For about 00:07:53.319 --> 00:07:55.639 a semester. He dropped out of Chaffee College. 00:07:56.019 --> 00:07:59.160 He despised formal education. Why so much? He 00:07:59.160 --> 00:08:01.420 saw the school system as a mechanism for creating 00:08:01.420 --> 00:08:03.759 compliant workers, not independent thinkers. 00:08:04.079 --> 00:08:06.970 He famously, years later... took his own children 00:08:06.970 --> 00:08:09.069 out of school when they turned 15 because he 00:08:09.069 --> 00:08:10.910 felt the system was just about indoctrination, 00:08:11.050 --> 00:08:13.910 not education. So after dropping out, he gets 00:08:13.910 --> 00:08:16.250 into the recording world. He takes over a small 00:08:16.250 --> 00:08:19.250 studio in Cucamonga, PAL Recording Studio, and 00:08:19.250 --> 00:08:22.230 he renames it. He renames it Studio Z. And this 00:08:22.230 --> 00:08:24.329 is where the mad scientist really starts to experiment. 00:08:24.550 --> 00:08:28.089 But the locals, they didn't really see a scientist. 00:08:28.089 --> 00:08:30.629 They just saw a weirdo. Cucamonga in the early 00:08:30.629 --> 00:08:33.990 60s was not exactly a haven for the counterculture. 00:08:34.269 --> 00:08:36.590 It was conservative. It was suburban. And here's 00:08:36.590 --> 00:08:39.210 Zappa, living in the studio, working 12 -hour 00:08:39.210 --> 00:08:42.090 days, splicing tape, making these bizarre noises. 00:08:42.309 --> 00:08:45.750 He had long hair. The local press even ran this 00:08:45.750 --> 00:08:47.570 little hit piece on him, calling him the movie 00:08:47.570 --> 00:08:50.110 king of kookamonga, implying something seedy 00:08:50.110 --> 00:08:52.169 was going on. Which got the police interested. 00:08:52.470 --> 00:08:54.029 They got suspicious. They thought he was making 00:08:54.029 --> 00:08:57.009 pornographic films. This leads to the sting operation. 00:08:57.429 --> 00:09:00.929 And this whole story, it sounds like a bad movie 00:09:00.929 --> 00:09:04.019 plot. It's classic entrapment. Really. An undercover 00:09:04.019 --> 00:09:06.419 officer from the Vice Squad approaches Zappa. 00:09:06.600 --> 00:09:09.379 He offers him $100, which was a decent amount 00:09:09.379 --> 00:09:12.980 of money for a broke musician in 1965, to produce 00:09:12.980 --> 00:09:15.240 a suggestive audio tape for a bachelor party. 00:09:15.460 --> 00:09:18.379 And Zappa, needing the cash, he agrees to make 00:09:18.379 --> 00:09:21.059 a fic tape. Right. This is the key. He wasn't 00:09:21.059 --> 00:09:23.519 a pornographer. He and a female friend go into 00:09:23.519 --> 00:09:25.419 the recording booth. They bounce on a squeaky 00:09:25.419 --> 00:09:27.279 bed. They make some fake moaning sounds. They 00:09:27.279 --> 00:09:29.779 laugh. It wasn't explicit at all. It was a joke. 00:09:29.940 --> 00:09:32.320 But the police didn't see it that way. The second 00:09:32.320 --> 00:09:34.419 he handed over the tape, the police raided the 00:09:34.419 --> 00:09:36.220 entire studio. Yeah, just stripped the place. 00:09:36.379 --> 00:09:39.679 They took everything. 80 hours of his recorded 00:09:39.679 --> 00:09:42.200 music, most of which was never, ever returned. 00:09:42.500 --> 00:09:45.620 He was charged with conspiracy to commit pornography, 00:09:46.080 --> 00:09:49.600 a felony charge. For a joke tape? That seems 00:09:49.600 --> 00:09:52.679 incredibly disproportionate. It was. The charge 00:09:52.679 --> 00:09:55.159 was eventually reduced to a misdemeanor, but 00:09:55.159 --> 00:09:58.220 he still had to serve 10 days in jail. And those 00:09:58.220 --> 00:10:00.919 10 days were absolutely transformative. You can 00:10:00.919 --> 00:10:03.080 imagine him sitting in that cell. Just think 00:10:03.080 --> 00:10:05.480 about it. He's lost his studio. He's lost his 00:10:05.480 --> 00:10:08.220 recordings, his livelihood, all because he didn't 00:10:08.220 --> 00:10:10.919 fit in with the local culture. He saw the inside 00:10:10.919 --> 00:10:13.360 of the justice system. He saw how authority could 00:10:13.360 --> 00:10:16.120 be manipulated and abused to crush someone just 00:10:16.120 --> 00:10:19.070 because they were different. It solidified this 00:10:19.070 --> 00:10:22.250 permanent burning anti -authoritarian stance. 00:10:22.509 --> 00:10:24.269 He never trusted the police or the government 00:10:24.269 --> 00:10:26.450 again. So he gets out of jail. His studio is 00:10:26.450 --> 00:10:28.809 gone. He has to pivot. He joins a band that's 00:10:28.809 --> 00:10:30.870 already playing, a group called the Soul Giants. 00:10:31.090 --> 00:10:33.789 But he doesn't just join them. He essentially 00:10:33.789 --> 00:10:37.750 hijacks them. He was a natural leader or a dictator, 00:10:37.990 --> 00:10:40.570 depending on which band member you ask. He immediately 00:10:40.570 --> 00:10:42.970 takes over. He convinces them to stop playing 00:10:42.970 --> 00:10:45.169 cover songs and start playing his original music, 00:10:45.230 --> 00:10:47.149 which was way weirder than what they were used 00:10:47.149 --> 00:10:49.570 to. And they renamed themselves The Mothers. 00:10:49.870 --> 00:10:52.610 Which was, at the time, slang. It was. In the 00:10:52.610 --> 00:10:55.389 jazz and R &B world, being a mother was a high 00:10:55.389 --> 00:10:57.710 compliment. It meant you were a really skilled 00:10:57.710 --> 00:11:00.809 musician. A bad mother. But the record labels 00:11:00.809 --> 00:11:03.850 didn't see it that way. No. The label, Verve, 00:11:04.429 --> 00:11:07.490 knew that mother was also short for a very specific 00:11:07.490 --> 00:11:10.250 profanity. They absolutely refused to sign a 00:11:10.250 --> 00:11:12.850 band with that name. So Zappa, you know, keeping 00:11:12.850 --> 00:11:14.669 the subversive edge but bowing to the commercial 00:11:14.669 --> 00:11:17.570 pressure, changed it to the Mothers of Invention. 00:11:17.710 --> 00:11:20.169 And in 1966, they dropped their first album, 00:11:20.309 --> 00:11:22.629 Freak Out. Which is just a landmark album. It 00:11:22.629 --> 00:11:24.889 was only the second rock double album ever released. 00:11:25.049 --> 00:11:27.529 Right after Dylan's Blonde on Blonde. Just after 00:11:27.529 --> 00:11:30.950 it. And musically, it was that exact chemical 00:11:30.950 --> 00:11:33.029 mixture we were talking about earlier. You had 00:11:33.029 --> 00:11:36.629 these sweet 50s style doo -wop harmonies sitting 00:11:36.629 --> 00:11:39.210 right next to experimental sound collages and 00:11:39.210 --> 00:11:41.909 screaming in dissonance. But the lyrics are what 00:11:41.909 --> 00:11:43.889 I find so interesting. He looked like a hippie, 00:11:43.889 --> 00:11:46.929 you know, the long hair, the weird clothes. But 00:11:46.929 --> 00:11:49.639 he was not singing. All you need is love. Oh, 00:11:49.639 --> 00:11:53.960 far from it. Freak out. It was pure satire. He 00:11:53.960 --> 00:11:56.500 was satirizing American consumer culture for 00:11:56.500 --> 00:11:59.320 sure, but he was also satirizing the freak scene 00:11:59.320 --> 00:12:02.039 itself. He saw the counterculture as just another 00:12:02.039 --> 00:12:04.309 type of uniform. He thought if you grow your 00:12:04.309 --> 00:12:06.590 hair long just because everyone else is doing 00:12:06.590 --> 00:12:09.049 it, you're still a conformist. Exactly. He was 00:12:09.049 --> 00:12:12.370 an equal opportunity offender. He was critiquing 00:12:12.370 --> 00:12:14.669 the plastic society of the mainstream, but he 00:12:14.669 --> 00:12:17.370 was also critiquing the plastic rebellion of 00:12:17.370 --> 00:12:19.309 the hippies. This seems like a good time to get 00:12:19.309 --> 00:12:21.389 into the core of his entire body of work, the 00:12:21.389 --> 00:12:24.389 project object. This isn't just some fancy term 00:12:24.389 --> 00:12:26.529 he made up. It's how he structured his entire 00:12:26.529 --> 00:12:29.289 creative life. Can you break down what that actually 00:12:29.289 --> 00:12:31.649 means for someone listening to his music? Right. 00:12:31.750 --> 00:12:34.529 Project Object. Hit his theory of conceptual 00:12:34.529 --> 00:12:38.470 continuity. Zappa viewed his entire output, every 00:12:38.470 --> 00:12:40.730 album, every song, every film, every interview, 00:12:40.889 --> 00:12:44.889 as one single, massive, continuous work. So it's 00:12:44.889 --> 00:12:46.570 all connected. It's like the Marvel Cinematic 00:12:46.570 --> 00:12:49.549 Universe, but for avant -garde jazz rock. That 00:12:49.549 --> 00:12:51.990 is actually a fantastic analogy. It's intricately 00:12:51.990 --> 00:12:54.860 connected. A character named, say... Susie Cream 00:12:54.860 --> 00:12:57.580 Cheese might appear on an album in 1966, and 00:12:57.580 --> 00:12:59.000 then she'll just pop up again at a completely 00:12:59.000 --> 00:13:02.179 different context on an album in 1975. And musical 00:13:02.179 --> 00:13:05.200 phrases do the same thing. Yes. A musical phrase, 00:13:05.379 --> 00:13:07.779 what he called an air sculpture, might be played 00:13:07.779 --> 00:13:09.840 by his rock band on one album and then show up 00:13:09.840 --> 00:13:12.220 again, reorchestrated for a symphony orchestra 00:13:12.220 --> 00:13:15.490 on another. For the hardcore fan, listening to 00:13:15.490 --> 00:13:18.110 Zappa is like solving a puzzle. Everything references 00:13:18.110 --> 00:13:20.870 something else within this huge, sprawling Zappa 00:13:20.870 --> 00:13:23.990 universe. It rewards deep attention. And to achieve 00:13:23.990 --> 00:13:26.250 this continuity to build this universe, he developed 00:13:26.250 --> 00:13:28.269 some recording techniques that were just way 00:13:28.269 --> 00:13:29.909 ahead of their time. The one that really stands 00:13:29.909 --> 00:13:33.330 out in the research is Xenocrany. Xenocrany. 00:13:33.870 --> 00:13:36.409 This is the mad scientist at his absolute peak. 00:13:36.610 --> 00:13:39.929 The word comes from the Greek. Xeno meaning strange 00:13:39.929 --> 00:13:44.190 and chronos meaning time. Strange time. How did 00:13:44.190 --> 00:13:45.889 it actually work in practice? Because we have 00:13:45.889 --> 00:13:47.730 to remember, this was before computers, before 00:13:47.730 --> 00:13:50.269 Pro Tools. This is an analog world. This was 00:13:50.269 --> 00:13:53.330 him physically cutting magnetic tape with a razor 00:13:53.330 --> 00:13:57.299 blade. It's painstaking work. Zappa would take 00:13:57.299 --> 00:14:00.139 a guitar solo he'd recorded live, say, from a 00:14:00.139 --> 00:14:02.960 concert in London in 1979. He'd isolate that 00:14:02.960 --> 00:14:05.460 track. Just the guitar. Just the guitar. Then 00:14:05.460 --> 00:14:07.600 he would take a completely separate drum and 00:14:07.600 --> 00:14:09.779 bass rhythm track, one that was recorded in a 00:14:09.779 --> 00:14:12.460 studio in maybe 1980, possibly at a totally different 00:14:12.460 --> 00:14:14.700 tempo and different time signature, and he would 00:14:14.700 --> 00:14:17.320 physically pace the old solo on top of the new 00:14:17.320 --> 00:14:18.899 rhythm. That just sounds like it shouldn't work. 00:14:18.960 --> 00:14:20.860 If the tempos don't match, it should be a train 00:14:20.860 --> 00:14:23.679 wreck. And technically, according to conventional 00:14:23.679 --> 00:14:26.879 Western music theory, they shouldn't fit. But 00:14:26.879 --> 00:14:29.759 Zappa had this incredible, uncanny ear for what 00:14:29.759 --> 00:14:33.639 he called unexpected musical relationships. By 00:14:33.639 --> 00:14:35.740 forcing these two different time frames together, 00:14:35.940 --> 00:14:39.480 he created these bizarre syncopations and rhythmic 00:14:39.480 --> 00:14:42.500 tensions that a human band could never play live. 00:14:42.799 --> 00:14:44.779 Because humans would naturally try to sync up 00:14:44.779 --> 00:14:46.720 with each other. Exactly. We try to find the 00:14:46.720 --> 00:14:48.940 one. He wanted the parts to fight each other. 00:14:49.279 --> 00:14:52.440 It created this floating polyrhythmic feel that 00:14:52.440 --> 00:14:55.740 became one of his signature sounds. So when you're 00:14:55.740 --> 00:14:58.399 listening to a Zappa solo on an album, you're 00:14:58.399 --> 00:15:00.980 often hearing a musical collage, a construction, 00:15:01.220 --> 00:15:03.899 not a single live performance in the traditional 00:15:03.899 --> 00:15:05.820 sense. That's it, exactly. You are hearing a 00:15:05.820 --> 00:15:08.100 construction. And speaking of his solos, we should 00:15:08.100 --> 00:15:10.539 probably address his guitar playing itself. He's 00:15:10.539 --> 00:15:13.340 often locked off those top 100 guitarists lists 00:15:13.340 --> 00:15:15.620 because he wasn't playing blues licks. He didn't 00:15:15.620 --> 00:15:18.360 sound like Clapton or Hendrix or any of his contemporaries. 00:15:18.539 --> 00:15:22.480 No. He approached a solo like a composer. He 00:15:22.480 --> 00:15:24.539 used a symphonic approach. He would introduce 00:15:24.539 --> 00:15:27.340 a melodic theme, create variations on it, move 00:15:27.340 --> 00:15:29.220 it around the neck and bring it back, all while 00:15:29.220 --> 00:15:33.179 improvising. Technically, he used a lot of upstrokes 00:15:33.179 --> 00:15:35.779 with his pick, which gave the notes a very sharp, 00:15:35.919 --> 00:15:38.679 almost percussive attack. It was speech -like. 00:15:38.960 --> 00:15:41.039 He wanted the guitar to talk. He was sculpting 00:15:41.039 --> 00:15:44.460 air, but... It's the biggest. Achieving this 00:15:44.460 --> 00:15:46.600 complex vision required a level of discipline 00:15:46.600 --> 00:15:49.100 that did not mesh well with the sex, drugs and 00:15:49.100 --> 00:15:51.279 rock and roll ethos of the era. That's the real 00:15:51.279 --> 00:15:53.059 friction point, isn't it? He was a demanding 00:15:53.059 --> 00:15:56.299 taskmaster. He was. John McLaughlin, the jazz 00:15:56.299 --> 00:16:00.080 fusion legend, he called Zappa a dictator. Zappa 00:16:00.080 --> 00:16:02.179 knew exactly what he wanted every single instrument 00:16:02.179 --> 00:16:04.299 to do. He wrote out the drum parts. He wrote 00:16:04.299 --> 00:16:06.159 out the bass lines. There was very little room 00:16:06.159 --> 00:16:08.259 for interpretation in the ensemble parts. And 00:16:08.259 --> 00:16:11.200 he had absolutely zero tolerance for drugs. Zero. 00:16:11.480 --> 00:16:13.919 This is the great Zappa irony. People see the 00:16:13.919 --> 00:16:16.039 psychedelic album covers, they hear the weird 00:16:16.039 --> 00:16:18.480 noises, and they assume he was tripping on acid 00:16:18.480 --> 00:16:22.179 204 .7. When in reality, Zappa drank coffee by 00:16:22.179 --> 00:16:23.899 the gallon and smoked cigarettes constantly. 00:16:23.960 --> 00:16:27.110 He called tobacco his favorite vegetable. but 00:16:27.110 --> 00:16:29.649 he would fire band members on the spot for using 00:16:29.649 --> 00:16:32.149 drugs. Why was he so hardline about it? It wasn't 00:16:32.149 --> 00:16:34.649 a moral position, was it? No, not at all. It 00:16:34.649 --> 00:16:36.950 was a professionalism issue. He had a great quote. 00:16:36.990 --> 00:16:40.049 He said, drugs do not become a problem until 00:16:40.049 --> 00:16:42.690 the person who uses the drugs does something 00:16:42.690 --> 00:16:45.870 that would affect your life. For him, drugs made 00:16:45.870 --> 00:16:48.759 musicians sloppy. And he couldn't have sloppy 00:16:48.759 --> 00:16:51.139 musicians when he was trying to get them to execute 00:16:51.139 --> 00:16:53.860 these incredibly complex polyrhythms. You can't 00:16:53.860 --> 00:16:56.620 play in 78 time against a 54 rhythm if you're 00:16:56.620 --> 00:16:59.289 hallucinating. You can't. It's impossible. And 00:16:59.289 --> 00:17:02.009 this tension really comes to a head in his relationship 00:17:02.009 --> 00:17:04.490 with Captain Beefheart, Don Van Vliet. They were 00:17:04.490 --> 00:17:06.369 high school friends, but trying to work together 00:17:06.369 --> 00:17:09.210 was just chaos. The famous two geniuses on ego 00:17:09.210 --> 00:17:11.549 trips situation. That's a perfect description. 00:17:11.769 --> 00:17:13.410 When they toured together, especially around 00:17:13.410 --> 00:17:16.309 the Bongo Fury era in the mid -70s, Beefheart 00:17:16.309 --> 00:17:18.920 was just completely unpredictable. There are 00:17:18.920 --> 00:17:21.440 these famous stories of Zappa trying to conduct 00:17:21.440 --> 00:17:24.059 a complex instrumental piece, and Beefheart is 00:17:24.059 --> 00:17:25.700 just sitting on the side of the stage drawing 00:17:25.700 --> 00:17:28.720 caricatures of Zappa on a sketch pad. Or just 00:17:28.720 --> 00:17:30.559 mumbling into the microphone at the wrong time. 00:17:30.819 --> 00:17:33.940 Right. It perfectly sums up the duality of Zappa's 00:17:33.940 --> 00:17:36.880 life. He surrounded himself with chaos and bizarre 00:17:36.880 --> 00:17:39.420 characters, but he tried to control it all with 00:17:39.420 --> 00:17:42.039 absolute mathematical precision. Now, despite 00:17:42.039 --> 00:17:44.819 all this complexity, the xenocrany, the dictatorships, 00:17:44.819 --> 00:17:47.380 the general weirdness, he did manage to have 00:17:47.380 --> 00:17:49.960 commercial hits, but they almost feel like they 00:17:49.960 --> 00:17:52.539 happened by accident. They were usually accidental, 00:17:52.759 --> 00:17:54.319 or at the very least, they were misunderstood. 00:17:54.660 --> 00:17:57.359 His first top 10 album was Apostrophe in 1974, 00:17:57.799 --> 00:17:59.740 and it was almost entirely driven by the song 00:17:59.740 --> 00:18:02.480 Don't Eat the Yellow Snow. Which is, it's a novelty 00:18:02.480 --> 00:18:05.559 song. It's a suite about an Eskimo named Nenuk 00:18:05.559 --> 00:18:08.180 fighting a fur trapper. It's a joke, basically. 00:18:08.359 --> 00:18:10.539 People bought the album for the funny story. 00:18:10.910 --> 00:18:12.849 But then they were exposed to the incredibly 00:18:12.849 --> 00:18:16.130 complex jazz rock instrumental San Alfonso's 00:18:16.130 --> 00:18:19.170 Pancake Breakfast on the same record. It was 00:18:19.170 --> 00:18:21.450 a Trojan horse. And then there's his biggest 00:18:21.450 --> 00:18:23.950 hit ever, the only one to crack the U .S. Top 00:18:23.950 --> 00:18:27.150 40, Valley Girl in 1982. The irony of Valley 00:18:27.150 --> 00:18:30.549 Girl is just, it's so thick. It's painful, almost. 00:18:30.809 --> 00:18:32.450 It probably was for him. He recorded it with 00:18:32.450 --> 00:18:35.460 his daughter, Moon Unit. They were actively mocking 00:18:35.460 --> 00:18:40.000 the vapid uptalk slang of teenage girls in the 00:18:40.000 --> 00:18:42.599 San Fernando Valley. All the gag me with a spoon, 00:18:42.799 --> 00:18:45.160 grody to the max stuff. They were making fun 00:18:45.160 --> 00:18:47.200 of that culture. But the culture did not get 00:18:47.200 --> 00:18:49.640 the joke. Not only did they not get it, they 00:18:49.640 --> 00:18:53.019 adopted it as an anthem. The song popularized 00:18:53.019 --> 00:18:55.380 the very slang it was satirizing. People started 00:18:55.380 --> 00:18:57.400 talking like that because of the song. Frank 00:18:57.400 --> 00:18:59.880 Zappa accidentally created a cultural trend that 00:18:59.880 --> 00:19:02.339 he personally despised. But, and this is an important 00:19:02.339 --> 00:19:04.359 point, the money from Valley Girl was crucial. 00:19:04.700 --> 00:19:06.940 It was. It allowed him to fund his real passion, 00:19:07.119 --> 00:19:10.279 his true love, orchestral music. That was always 00:19:10.279 --> 00:19:12.740 the end goal, wasn't it? To be seen as a serious 00:19:12.740 --> 00:19:15.799 composer in the classical world. It was his first 00:19:15.799 --> 00:19:18.200 love, going all the way back to that Varese record. 00:19:18.700 --> 00:19:21.799 But the classical world was incredibly snobbish 00:19:21.799 --> 00:19:25.140 towards a rock guy with long hair. And to be 00:19:25.140 --> 00:19:28.440 honest... Zappa ended up hating working with 00:19:28.440 --> 00:19:30.619 orchestras. Why? You would think that would be 00:19:30.619 --> 00:19:33.259 his dream environment, perfect players, reading 00:19:33.259 --> 00:19:37.440 his docs. Human error and unions. The famous 00:19:37.440 --> 00:19:39.700 story is the disaster with the London Symphony 00:19:39.700 --> 00:19:43.259 Orchestra in 1983. Zappa paid for it himself, 00:19:43.539 --> 00:19:45.859 out of his own pocket. He was recording some 00:19:45.859 --> 00:19:48.799 of his most complex pieces. But the union rules 00:19:48.799 --> 00:19:51.240 required frequent breaks. And during the breaks. 00:19:51.339 --> 00:19:53.119 During the breaks, the trumpet section went down 00:19:53.119 --> 00:19:55.079 to the pub next door. They came back a little 00:19:55.079 --> 00:19:57.319 loose. They were playing out of tune. Zappa was 00:19:57.319 --> 00:19:59.299 furious. He had to make something like 40 razor 00:19:59.299 --> 00:20:01.720 blade edits just to fix that one section so it 00:20:01.720 --> 00:20:04.200 was listenable. He realized that humans were 00:20:04.200 --> 00:20:06.400 the weak link in his music. They were. They got 00:20:06.400 --> 00:20:08.220 tired. They got drunk. They complained. They 00:20:08.220 --> 00:20:10.380 made mistakes, which drove him right into the 00:20:10.380 --> 00:20:12.799 arms of the machine. Enter the synclavier. This 00:20:12.799 --> 00:20:15.690 was his solution to the human problem. The Synclavier 00:20:15.690 --> 00:20:19.549 was a very early, very expensive digital synthesizer 00:20:19.549 --> 00:20:22.049 and audio workstation. It looked like a giant 00:20:22.049 --> 00:20:24.589 computer terminal with a piano keyboard attached. 00:20:25.269 --> 00:20:28.029 For Zappa, it was the holy grail. So it could 00:20:28.029 --> 00:20:30.529 play anything? It could play impossible rhythms 00:20:30.529 --> 00:20:33.849 with one millisecond accuracy, and it didn't 00:20:33.849 --> 00:20:35.630 go to the pub on its break. It didn't need a 00:20:35.630 --> 00:20:38.190 break? It didn't drink, it didn't complain, it 00:20:38.190 --> 00:20:40.250 didn't ask for a raise, and it never got tired. 00:20:40.750 --> 00:20:43.730 In the 80s, he shifted his focus heavily towards 00:20:43.730 --> 00:20:45.829 the sinclavia because it allowed him to be the 00:20:45.829 --> 00:20:48.470 sole creator. He could finally hear the music 00:20:48.470 --> 00:20:52.049 exactly as he wrote it in his head without the 00:20:52.049 --> 00:20:55.750 pollution of human interpretation. So while he's 00:20:55.750 --> 00:20:58.109 retreating into this machine musically, he's 00:20:58.109 --> 00:21:00.250 actually stepping out onto the national stage 00:21:00.250 --> 00:21:02.910 politically. We touched on his anti -authority 00:21:02.910 --> 00:21:05.509 streak, but... How did he actually identify himself? 00:21:05.829 --> 00:21:08.109 He called himself a practical conservative. And 00:21:08.109 --> 00:21:10.490 that phrase just confuses people today because 00:21:10.490 --> 00:21:12.710 he doesn't fit the modern mold of a Republican 00:21:12.710 --> 00:21:15.910 or a conservative at all. Not even close. You 00:21:15.910 --> 00:21:18.130 have to really parse his definition. He favored 00:21:18.130 --> 00:21:21.049 small government, low taxes, and entrepreneurship. 00:21:21.609 --> 00:21:24.450 He believed, and this is a direct quote, government 00:21:24.450 --> 00:21:27.630 exists because individual citizens given a temporary 00:21:27.630 --> 00:21:30.730 license to exist. That sounds very libertarian. 00:21:30.890 --> 00:21:33.789 It is. But at the same time, he was a vehement 00:21:33.789 --> 00:21:36.630 atheist. He despised the religious right. He 00:21:36.630 --> 00:21:38.589 had this fascinating interpretation of the Garden 00:21:38.589 --> 00:21:41.529 of Eden story. He saw it not as a fall from grace, 00:21:41.650 --> 00:21:44.529 but as a parable where God wants to keep people 00:21:44.529 --> 00:21:47.230 stupid and ignorant. And the serpent is the hero 00:21:47.230 --> 00:21:49.829 for offering knowledge. So he was fiscally conservative, 00:21:50.069 --> 00:21:52.789 but socially he was completely opposed to the 00:21:52.789 --> 00:21:55.210 whole moral majority movement. Exactly. And that 00:21:55.210 --> 00:21:57.589 ideological collision came to a head in 1985 00:21:57.589 --> 00:22:01.480 with the PMRC hearings. The Parents Music Resource 00:22:01.480 --> 00:22:03.720 Center. This was the group co -founded by Tipper 00:22:03.720 --> 00:22:06.420 Gore, who was then Al Gore's wife, and Susan 00:22:06.420 --> 00:22:09.559 Baker, wife of the Treasury Secretary. They wanted 00:22:09.559 --> 00:22:12.319 to put warning labels on records with explicit 00:22:12.319 --> 00:22:15.180 lyrics. The parental advisory sticker that we 00:22:15.180 --> 00:22:17.640 all know today. Zappa went to the Senate to testify. 00:22:17.740 --> 00:22:19.619 And for anyone listening who hasn't seen this 00:22:19.619 --> 00:22:21.740 footage on YouTube, it is absolutely essential 00:22:21.740 --> 00:22:24.279 viewing. It's one of the greatest moments of 00:22:24.279 --> 00:22:26.779 political theater I've ever seen. You have Frank 00:22:26.779 --> 00:22:29.779 Zappa wearing this slightly too small suit. His 00:22:29.779 --> 00:22:31.940 hair is a bit trimmed, but it's still long. And 00:22:31.940 --> 00:22:33.740 he's sitting before the Senate Commerce Committee 00:22:33.740 --> 00:22:37.119 and he just dismantles them intellectually. He 00:22:37.119 --> 00:22:38.960 doesn't just stand up and say censorship is bad. 00:22:39.079 --> 00:22:41.519 He had a very specific, very clever argument. 00:22:41.700 --> 00:22:44.380 He called their proposal an ill -conceived piece 00:22:44.380 --> 00:22:47.329 of nonsense. Then he dropped his most famous 00:22:47.329 --> 00:22:49.910 line from the hearing comparing their demand 00:22:49.910 --> 00:22:52.910 for voluntary ratings to treating dandruff by 00:22:52.910 --> 00:22:56.269 decapitation. It's so vivid. But his deeper point 00:22:56.269 --> 00:22:59.490 was about the money. He argued that the hearings 00:22:59.490 --> 00:23:02.130 were a distraction. He claimed the real goal 00:23:02.130 --> 00:23:04.490 of the record industry who were sort of tacitly 00:23:04.490 --> 00:23:07.549 supporting this was to pass a tax on blank cassette 00:23:07.549 --> 00:23:10.430 tapes. And they were using the PMRC hearings 00:23:10.430 --> 00:23:13.009 as a way to cozy up to politicians to get it 00:23:13.009 --> 00:23:16.049 passed. So he saw it as a financial scam wrapped 00:23:16.049 --> 00:23:19.349 in a cloak of moral outrage. That's it. He looked 00:23:19.349 --> 00:23:21.470 past the culture war and he saw the transaction. 00:23:21.750 --> 00:23:23.289 And he didn't just leave it in the Senate. He 00:23:23.289 --> 00:23:25.109 put it on a record. He sampled the hearings. 00:23:25.369 --> 00:23:28.910 He did. The track is called Porn Wars. On the 00:23:28.910 --> 00:23:31.410 album, Frank Zappa meets the Mothers of Prevention. 00:23:32.069 --> 00:23:34.309 He took the recorded voices of the senators and 00:23:34.309 --> 00:23:36.609 the other witnesses, chopped them up, and turned 00:23:36.609 --> 00:23:39.589 them into a rhythmic musical composition. He 00:23:39.589 --> 00:23:42.109 literally made art out of their attempt to censor 00:23:42.109 --> 00:23:44.930 art. It was the ultimate take that. And his political 00:23:44.930 --> 00:23:47.210 reach, strangely enough, went even further than 00:23:47.210 --> 00:23:50.430 the U .S. This brings us to the Václav Havel 00:23:50.430 --> 00:23:53.369 connection in Czechoslovakia. This story is truly 00:23:53.369 --> 00:23:56.710 remarkable. Václav Havel was a playwright and 00:23:56.710 --> 00:23:59.509 a dissident in what was then communist Czechoslovakia. 00:23:59.730 --> 00:24:03.190 During that era, Zappa's music was banned, but 00:24:03.190 --> 00:24:04.730 it was smuggled into the country on cassette 00:24:04.730 --> 00:24:06.890 tapes. It became a symbol of freedom for the 00:24:06.890 --> 00:24:09.230 artistic underground. And the most famous Czech 00:24:09.230 --> 00:24:11.609 rock band from that era. The Plastic People of 00:24:11.609 --> 00:24:13.430 the Universe. They were pivotal to the Velvet 00:24:13.430 --> 00:24:16.009 Revolution. And they named themselves after a 00:24:16.009 --> 00:24:18.529 Zappa lyric from the song Plastic People. So 00:24:18.529 --> 00:24:21.309 when the Iron Curtain falls and Havel, the dissident 00:24:21.309 --> 00:24:23.509 playwright, becomes the president. One of the 00:24:23.509 --> 00:24:25.589 first things he does is invite Zappa to Prague 00:24:25.589 --> 00:24:29.730 in 1990. Zappa arrives, and he's treated like 00:24:29.730 --> 00:24:32.849 a visiting head of state. There are crowds cheering 00:24:32.849 --> 00:24:35.940 in the streets. And Havel actually named Zappa 00:24:35.940 --> 00:24:39.380 Special Ambassador to the West on Trade, Culture, 00:24:39.559 --> 00:24:42.599 and Tourism. Frank Zappa, the diplomat. It's 00:24:42.599 --> 00:24:46.039 surreal. For a very brief moment, yes. But the 00:24:46.039 --> 00:24:48.579 U .S. political establishment still held a grudge. 00:24:48.970 --> 00:24:51.529 The Secretary of State at the time, James Baker, 00:24:51.730 --> 00:24:55.049 whose wife co -founded the PMRC, was furious. 00:24:55.650 --> 00:24:58.329 He reportedly told Havel, you can do business 00:24:58.329 --> 00:25:00.029 with the United States or you can do business 00:25:00.029 --> 00:25:02.069 with Frank Zappa. They made him choose. They 00:25:02.069 --> 00:25:04.210 made him choose. And of course, Havel had to 00:25:04.210 --> 00:25:06.430 withdraw the official title, though Zappa stayed 00:25:06.430 --> 00:25:09.049 on as an unofficial cultural attaché for a while. 00:25:09.609 --> 00:25:11.430 It just shows you how much the U .S. government 00:25:11.430 --> 00:25:14.269 actually feared Zappa's influence. He wasn't 00:25:14.269 --> 00:25:16.529 just a weird musician to them. He was a genuine 00:25:16.529 --> 00:25:19.109 troublemaker. But tragically, right around this 00:25:19.109 --> 00:25:21.269 peak of international recognition, the clock 00:25:21.269 --> 00:25:25.130 really started ticking for him. Yeah. In 1990, 00:25:25.369 --> 00:25:27.269 he was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer. 00:25:27.990 --> 00:25:30.369 The doctors told him it had probably been developing 00:25:30.369 --> 00:25:33.369 unnoticed for years. He'd had urinary issues 00:25:33.369 --> 00:25:36.029 for a long time that were ignored or misdiagnosed. 00:25:36.170 --> 00:25:38.609 By the time they found the cancer, it was inoperable. 00:25:38.750 --> 00:25:41.789 How did that diagnosis change his output? Did 00:25:41.789 --> 00:25:43.970 he slow down? He stopped touring with a rock 00:25:43.970 --> 00:25:46.589 band. He simply didn't have the physical stamina 00:25:46.589 --> 00:25:49.980 anymore. But his creative energy just focused 00:25:49.980 --> 00:25:52.660 like a laser. He devoted everything he had left 00:25:52.660 --> 00:25:55.099 to his orchestral and synclavier works. He was 00:25:55.099 --> 00:25:56.980 in a race against time to finish the project 00:25:56.980 --> 00:25:59.039 object. He just wanted to get the music out of 00:25:59.039 --> 00:26:01.200 the machine. He said exactly that. Get the music 00:26:01.200 --> 00:26:02.839 out of the machine and onto the tape before it 00:26:02.839 --> 00:26:05.240 was too late. And this frantic period of work 00:26:05.240 --> 00:26:07.960 leads to his final masterpiece, The Yellow Shark. 00:26:08.259 --> 00:26:12.220 This was his final triumph. In 1992, he collaborated 00:26:12.220 --> 00:26:14.660 with a German contemporary classical group called 00:26:14.660 --> 00:26:17.559 the Ensemble Modern. And finally, after all those 00:26:17.559 --> 00:26:20.420 years of frustration with lazy or incompetent 00:26:20.420 --> 00:26:22.680 orchestras, he found a group of musicians who 00:26:22.680 --> 00:26:24.700 respected the music. They took it seriously. 00:26:24.960 --> 00:26:27.279 They rehearsed obsessively. They didn't go to 00:26:27.279 --> 00:26:30.500 the pub. They learned his most difficult, rhythmically 00:26:30.500 --> 00:26:33.640 complex pieces and played them with passion and 00:26:33.640 --> 00:26:35.799 precision. Was Zappa able to be there for the 00:26:35.799 --> 00:26:38.180 premiere? He was very ill by then, in severe 00:26:38.180 --> 00:26:41.140 pain. But he flew to Germany and attended the 00:26:41.140 --> 00:26:43.980 premiere in Frankfurt. He was too weak to conduct 00:26:43.980 --> 00:26:46.960 the whole show, but he got up on the podium to 00:26:46.960 --> 00:26:49.440 conduct the opening piece, Overture, and one 00:26:49.440 --> 00:26:52.160 of his sinclavier pieces, G -Spot Tornado. And 00:26:52.160 --> 00:26:54.359 the reaction from that classical audience. It 00:26:54.359 --> 00:26:56.619 was a 20 -minute standing ovation. It was the 00:26:56.619 --> 00:26:58.740 validation he had been seeking his entire career. 00:26:58.980 --> 00:27:01.339 The serious music establishment finally bowed 00:27:01.339 --> 00:27:03.930 to him. In that moment, he wasn't the weirdo 00:27:03.930 --> 00:27:06.190 rock star anymore. He was the composer. He died 00:27:06.190 --> 00:27:08.630 just over a year later, in December of 1993. 00:27:09.049 --> 00:27:12.309 He was only 52. 52 is just incredibly young, 00:27:12.410 --> 00:27:15.309 and he was buried in an unmarked grave. That's 00:27:15.309 --> 00:27:17.710 right. No monument, just the work. He didn't 00:27:17.710 --> 00:27:20.130 want a shrine. But the legacy, the legacy is 00:27:20.130 --> 00:27:23.029 so weirdly pervasive. We started this by calling 00:27:23.029 --> 00:27:25.410 him the chemist's son, and it turns out the scientific 00:27:25.410 --> 00:27:27.769 community really has embraced him as one of their 00:27:27.769 --> 00:27:30.349 own. They adored him. I think scientists are 00:27:30.349 --> 00:27:33.650 often iconoclasts, just like he was. They appreciate 00:27:33.650 --> 00:27:36.329 the precision, the complexity, and the rebellion 00:27:36.329 --> 00:27:39.009 in his music. So they started naming their discoveries 00:27:39.009 --> 00:27:41.609 after him. It's fantastic. There's a spider called 00:27:41.609 --> 00:27:44.589 Pachignatha Zappa. Why? It was named because 00:27:44.589 --> 00:27:47.829 the dark markings on the spider's abdomen apparently 00:27:47.829 --> 00:27:50.390 look like Zappa's signature mustache. That is 00:27:50.390 --> 00:27:52.869 just perfect. It doesn't stop there. There's 00:27:52.869 --> 00:27:56.569 a jellyfish, Phialella Zappai, a fossil snail 00:27:56.569 --> 00:28:00.700 called Spygori Zappania, And maybe the most fitting 00:28:00.700 --> 00:28:03.200 tribute of all, given his dark sense of humor. 00:28:03.420 --> 00:28:06.160 Go on. There is a gene in the bacterium Proteus 00:28:06.160 --> 00:28:08.700 mirabilis, which is a bacterium that causes urinary 00:28:08.700 --> 00:28:11.839 tract infections, named Zappa. Oh, I would have 00:28:11.839 --> 00:28:14.240 loved that. The scientists who discovered it 00:28:14.240 --> 00:28:16.500 explicitly thanked him in their paper for his 00:28:16.500 --> 00:28:19.440 inspiration. And there's even an asteroid 3834 00:28:19.440 --> 00:28:21.500 Zappa, Frank. So here it's literally orbiting 00:28:21.500 --> 00:28:23.539 the planet right now. And the music itself hasn't 00:28:23.539 --> 00:28:26.920 stopped either. No. The vault he left behind 00:28:26.920 --> 00:28:30.039 is seemingly bottomless. The Zappa Family Trust 00:28:30.039 --> 00:28:33.039 has released more albums posthumously than he 00:28:33.039 --> 00:28:35.000 did while he was alive. We're still getting new 00:28:35.000 --> 00:28:38.740 material. Civilization Phase 3, The Lost Episodes, 00:28:38.819 --> 00:28:41.900 Transfusion, The Project Object continues to 00:28:41.900 --> 00:28:43.759 expand. We are still discovering connections 00:28:43.759 --> 00:28:46.660 that he planted decades ago. So as we wrap this 00:28:46.660 --> 00:28:49.460 all up, how do we summarize a man like this? 00:28:49.640 --> 00:28:52.000 Is he the musical scientist who just... traded 00:28:52.000 --> 00:28:54.099 playing with mercury for playing with sound waves? 00:28:54.339 --> 00:28:56.980 I think Zappa's own view of himself is the best 00:28:56.980 --> 00:28:59.200 summary. He never saw himself as a rock star. 00:28:59.500 --> 00:29:02.519 He famously said, I'm a composer. He used a rock 00:29:02.519 --> 00:29:04.380 and roll band because it was the only economically 00:29:04.380 --> 00:29:07.000 viable way to get his music heard. Orchestras 00:29:07.000 --> 00:29:09.640 were too expensive and unreliable. Right. A rock 00:29:09.640 --> 00:29:11.819 band would show up, they'd go on the road, and 00:29:11.819 --> 00:29:14.380 they'd play for a salary. He was using the medium 00:29:14.380 --> 00:29:17.319 of rock music to smuggle his avant garde compositions 00:29:17.319 --> 00:29:19.619 into the mainstream. He was infiltrating pop 00:29:19.619 --> 00:29:22.400 culture to dismantle it from the inside. Precisely. 00:29:22.640 --> 00:29:26.220 And that leaves us with, I think, a really provocative 00:29:26.220 --> 00:29:29.500 thought for today. We live in an era of algorithms. 00:29:30.119 --> 00:29:32.940 Spotify and TikTok are designed to feed us music 00:29:32.940 --> 00:29:35.079 that sounds exactly like the thing we just listened 00:29:35.079 --> 00:29:38.299 to. It's a comfortable loop of familiarity. It's 00:29:38.299 --> 00:29:40.640 designed to keep you comfortable. And Zappa was 00:29:40.640 --> 00:29:42.640 designed to make you uncomfortable. So the question 00:29:42.640 --> 00:29:46.730 is... Could a project object as complex and demanding 00:29:46.730 --> 00:29:50.029 as Frank Zappa's even exist today? Could a catalog 00:29:50.029 --> 00:29:52.269 that requires you to listen to doo -wop and then 00:29:52.269 --> 00:29:54.809 jazz fusion and then dissonant classical music 00:29:54.809 --> 00:29:57.410 all at once, could that survive in an algorithm 00:29:57.410 --> 00:30:00.410 -driven world? Or was Frank Zappa a singular 00:30:00.410 --> 00:30:02.990 moment in time where the weirdness successfully 00:30:02.990 --> 00:30:06.029 hacked the system? In a world of curated playlists, 00:30:06.150 --> 00:30:08.349 Frank Zappa demands that you listen to the entire 00:30:08.349 --> 00:30:11.029 library. It's a lot to ask, but the reward is 00:30:11.029 --> 00:30:13.400 a whole universe of sound. Something to think 00:30:13.400 --> 00:30:15.079 about the next time you reach for that skip button. 00:30:15.180 --> 00:30:16.700 Thanks for diving deep with us. We'll see you 00:30:16.700 --> 00:30:17.079 next time.