Obituaries
I read obituaries. Now, don't get me wrong, i'm no coffin follower, the only press i read tends to be rock n roll or sports and i figure if someone's died it's the least i can do to read those few little paragraphs that journalists wrap their lives in before..well that's it, history.
Every now and then my spine shivers, recently i could not belive the scant attention and interest shown when Harry Nilsson shuffled off, I felt embarressed to be honest, I wanted to apologise to his family for the insulting behaviour the press had shown the man. Was he really just Everybody's Talking, Without You and a ffew drunken nights with John Lennon? Was that really the only mark he made on the world?
Not my world it wasn't and yet there they were, 2 or 3 paragraphs and maybe a black and white photo - so long Harry.
Then Frank Zappa; it's like 'family', you know they're ill, hell, you know they're dying, but then it happens....
So it's only rock and roll is it? Frank Zappa changed my life; the radio programmes, the fanzines, the bands, the gigs and a lot of my friendships borne out of a summer many moons ago when a friends brother lent us 3 impressionable albums - King Crimson, Paul Butterfield Blues Band
and Hot Rats by Frank Zappa. The friend's brother wasa a music journo and maybe he thought he was having fun with these (then) new releases were thrown at 3 teenage kids weened on the top 30 and Record Mirror, but Whooosh they rushed in and turned our lives around, especially Frank Zappa and Hot Rats. Instantly Zappa became an icon, we (thought we) knew every drum break, every guitar lick - Don Van Vliet and Sugar Cane Harris on Willie the Pimp were Dangerous.
So these were the people our parents had warned us about! Turn my head around, blow out the old and hey, welcome to the seamy underbelly of life, welcome to rock and roll. We consumed each new release, we devoured the back catalogue, we went to the gigs, we read the press, I took the wrong girl to see 200 motels, I even had a ticket for the Rainbow gig cancelled when FZ was pushed off stage. And i explored the rest of 'The Underground'; miracurasly I managed this with no hallucenogenics just the music of Frank Zappa. The man, honestly, changed my life, at least he knocked it over on to another course, and i wanted to tell you about it because he's not around anymore.
Frank Zappa was a thorn in so many sides you couldn't count them. Long may his memory burn and his music play.
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9-pmrecords.de
trashville.co.uk
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