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20 CURIOUS FACTS ABOUT FRANK ZAPPA |
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| Frank
Zappa had his first official appearance aged 11 in the year 1951 as a
drummer in a schoolband in Sand Diego. He taught himself playing the
guitar 4 years later.
Frank Vincent Zappa's biggest idol was the classical composer "Francesco Zappa", who lived in the 18th century in milan. He was known for his brilliant Trisonatas. Zappa's first
band was named "The Blackouts", who renamed themselves a
little later to "The Omens". His one and only schooltime
friend Don van Vliet took part within this project.He became known later
on as "Captain Beefheart".
His first
successful band "The Mothers" were so bizare, that even
the Rolling Stones seemed like Quireboys compared to them. For the
release of their first record "Freak Out", they were forced to
exchange their name because the label thought, no radiostation
ever is gonna play a song fo a band with this name. So the "Mothers"
became the "Mothers Of Invention". In 1966, Frank Zappa was the first musician, who released a Double-Album. No other
rockband suffered more line up changes than the band of Frank Zappa. The
reason was, Zappa had never been 100% happy with his musicians and his
music. There were presumingly more than 100 musicians, who played
with Zappa throughout the years. Zappa did many gueststints with other artists. One of them were "The Monkees", who were known, that in the beginning, they even couldn't play an instrument. In 1985 Frank Zapps even went to president Ronald Reagan to protest against the strict US-law about song lyrics. His own words became even more heavy, vulgere and sex orientated over the years. In 1986 Frank took part in the TV series "Miami Vice". He played a drugdealer, who fell from a speed racing boot at the showdown end. A typical final for Zappa. With his second
wife Gail, an english woman and passinate tea drinker, who he got
married in 1969, he had 2 sons. Dweezil (named after his little toe) and
Ahmed Redan, and also two daughters, Moon Unit and Diva. All four of
them became musicians with the name Zappa, but.... were only averagely
successful. With his
daughter Moon, Frank recorded a song "Valley Girl" in 1982.
The song was parody about the californian way of Live. It became Zappa's
one and only commercial successful hit in the US.
The astronom L.Brozek discovered the astroid Nr. 3834 on may 11th 1980. He took his rights to give this star a name and christened him "Zapparfrank". A real star. In 1992 tschech. president Vaclac Havel named Zappa as his cultural minister. After that, Frank seriously considered to go for the US president elections, but pulled out because of his wick health conditions. Frank Zappa had never touched drugs throughout his life. Only once he tried to smoke marihuana. He said afterwards: I felt tired and had a aching throat. That was all. And if I ever catch one of my musicians taking drugs on stage, he's off immidiately. With more then
60 albums and lots of videos etc, many of them not even released so far,
the artist Zappa has the biggest song catalogue in rock history. His
widow Gail is taking care of it in a so called family trust 'till the
very day.
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