I’m about 3/4 through ‘Electric Don Quixote’ a biographic journey through the music of Frank Zappa. It, or some other book about FZ has been something I’ve wanted to read for some time.

This may not be the book I thought it would be, but it was the only book on Zappa the library had. This is more of an extended discography rather than a biography. I was really looking forward to understanding the mind of Zappa and more of what shaped his thinking. Clearly from this book we understand the frustrations he encountered as a teenager and the prolonged bitterness (seemingly) towards authority, but I would have liked to explore this a bit more. This goes for the rest of his life as well. However, the interviews / quotations concerning his work rate and phenomenal output are fascinating. He was clearly not an easy person to work with and not one to suffer fools gladly.

I’ve read up to the release of Sheik Yerbouti and I think it must have been around this time that I managed to see him live at the Birmingham Odeon. As far as memory serves the audience wasn’t giving the reaction he wanted and so he cut the set short and left the stage. It wasn’t part of the act as he never came on again. I can understand this a little from the book – he hated the UK.

So far we know next to nothing of his home or family life. We know he’s a businessman and a self publicist but again there’s not an awful lot of objective biography. We know he hated Warner Bros but without the other side of the argument (as in most of the book so far) it’s difficult to arrive at a judgement. Was he a sexual pervert or was he merely letting people see themselves.   I’d like to think he matured out of an obsession with sex and moved into social commentary. Unlike – it seems – many of the other rock musicians (as far as I can tell) he was totally against drugs – preferring to put it in his ears. After spending a whole load of his own money on a project he is quoted as saying ‘Well, some rock and roll musicians make a bunch of money and stick it up their noses. I stick mine in my ear.’ p.215. He was truly obsessive and totally driven by music and an all-consuming energy to create.

From various interviews on the web (you tube etc) we discover – unsurprisingly – that he was very anti Christianity and again I would have liked to explore the reasons for this. I suspect he came up against Christian Fundamentalism that was more interested in wearing the right tie than a true understanding of the Gospel of the Grace of God. The more he was criticised the more he pushed back with even more extreme behaviour. In Gospel terms his was the reaction of sinful man but still, Fundamentalism (the Religious Right) and it’s connection with Reagan didn’t help. It’s often the way of genius, alone and misunderstood.

Readers – if there are any – of this Blog might wonder how a Christian could listen to Frank Zappa. There’s very little I do listen to of his music these days as the lyrics are so unsuitable. In fact when I became a Christian it was at a time of listening to a lot of FZ and it was one of the things I felt had to go. It spite of that though, I can recognise his genius. I thought so years ago, and I still think so now. Just recently on Sky Arts I watched an excerpt of the Zappa plays Zappa tour put together by his son Dweezil. The musicianship is just phenomenal! If the tour comes to the UK again I might even go.

Where is Frank now? Honestly, I do not know and it’s not really for me to say, though I do suspect he has gone to a Christless eternity. Despite his genius – he was like the rest of us – a sinner in need of a Saviour.