The other night I dreamt me and a bunch of other people were going to go see Frank Zappa play live. We had special arrangements, good reserved seating. We heard him starting to go on, so we rushed into the auditorium. The others went the usual way, but I saw another door and cut in through there, and sat down before them in our special blue section. The others frantically arrived shortly thereafter, but strangely went toward the back of the auditorium. They either didn't know we had special seats, or had forgotten.
Frank came out and put on an amazing show. Every song was presented differently from the last one; the theatrics became more and more outrageous as the show went on. At a certain point I got up to leave for some reason, and I exited by the sidestage. Frank was coming through in the other direction, with these huge high boots strapped on, he was like some insane huge robot now.
But my earliest recollection of actually being exposed to Frank, though, was through perhaps some FM DJ's making references to "Don't Eat Yellow Snow." But the first time I heard him, I was over at a friend's house. This was around 8th or 9th grade. He had a copy of Overnite Sensation. Both of his parents were artists and were very progressive. I thought it sounded pretty insane, and the sleazy cover kind of reminded me of The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers. It was crazy to be listening to songs about 'raising my lonely dental floss' and all that other crazy shit.
I kind of forgot (and yet could never really forget) about Frank for awhile, until I moved out to Hollywood and a drummer musician Hawaiian type guy who was totally into Zappa and Bozzio and Cucarullo and other unspellable monsters turned me on to some even crazier Zappa music: Joe's Garage, Zoot Allures, Shut Up 'n Play etc. But the thing that really blew our minds at the time was "Watermelon In Easter Hay." That was somehow mindbogglingly great at the time. And ultimately not very representative. But we also loved Man From Utopia and all the crazy shit he was playing/singing on that record, "The Jazz Discharge Party Hats" and "The Dangerous Kitchen." We thought he was hilarious.
Somewhere along the line the jokes got stale and the xylophone got annoying and I just didn't feel like listening to songs about musicians smelling groupies' panties by the hotel pool anymore. It wasn't just sleazy, it was depressing somehow. I no longer gave a fuck about Frank being incredibly talented, or how unusual it was that he based his soloing on conversational speech patterns. Who cares. I just wanted to listen to Van Morrison and shit like that for awhile. So I pretty much tuned Frank back out of my world.
But he never quite left somehow. There were always little Frankisms hanging around my vocabulary. "Three o'clock in the morning, pool at the hotel, it was so fun." "The radio is broken, it don't work no mo-ore." And pretty much every time I'm in the kitchen late at night, "The Dangerous Kitchen" comes to mind. And other things, like that dream.
I did get to see him live at the height of this mania; it was during the "Us and Them" tour. The shirt and album had Frank wearing a neon green potholder on one hand. It was supposed to be a joke on Michael Jackson and his white glove. I think it went past most of us.
I remember seeing him speak, too, at an anti-abortion rally in L.A. He was, of course, witty and to the point and went over really well. He squarely pointed his finger at "those people with the little fish symbols on the back of their cars" as the source of the problem. I think he really foresaw music as perceived as potentially dangerous, and thereby endangered. I guess that whole porn-music soundtrack bust early on was enought to put him on the defense indefinitely.
I still don't listen to Frank anymore. But I remember him fondly. The world's got to have at least one Frank Zappa. But I don't think there's anyone else who can fill his shoes.