"Once I get out onstage and turn my guitar on, it's a special thing to me -I love doing it. But I approach it more as a composer who happens to be able to operate an instrument called a guitar, rather than 'Frank Zappa, Rock and Roll Guitar Hero.'"
In the early 1980s, Frank Zappa (1940-1993), who at the time was writing a monthly column for Guitar Player magazine, decided to satisfy the many fans of his guitar playing by releasing three albums devoted exclusively to his guitar playing. Titled Shut Up 'N Play Your Guitar, The Son of Shut Up 'N Play Your Guitar, and The Return of the Son of Shut Up 'N Play Your Guitar, the albums were first sold via individually via mail order as part of Zappa's record label, but released as a handsome box set by Warner Brothers in Europe. In 1983, Guitar Player magazine asked Zappa, "How well have the Shut Up 'N Play Yer Guitar records sold?" Zappa replied:
Good. Actually, they have surprised everybody because the quality that we sold mail-order went into a profit within two weeks of being out there. That is, they paid for the cost of manufacturing within two weeks. At the same time, the contract with CBS was structured like this: They had the right to put the records out outside of the United States as a commercial release, and they put them in a three-record boxed set. That did really well in Europe, and suddenly they started importing into the United Stares. So all the people who purchased them mail-order were saying, "Hey, look. It's in the store in a nice boxed set we were buying them as three individual records through the mail." I didn't have any control over it. There was no way I could stop what was happening, so the only thing I could do was put it out as a commercial release myself in the U.S.Reissued as a box set of three CDs by Rykodisc in the late 1990s, in a miniature version of the same packaging that the box set of LPs originally came in, the albums demonstrate just how versatile an electric guitar could be, in the hands of a man who was both a master player and brilliant composer, and was willing to play both roles simultaneously in concert. In 1984, Zappa told one interviewer:Is it doing well as a set?
Well, they pressed 5,000 sets to begin with, and they went immediately like that [snaps fingers]. So, they ordered another 7,000. It's kind of an unusual item since it is fairly expensive, it's in a box, It's hard to rack, and you wouldn't think there'd be much demand for it because it is instrumental music by some guy who is not normally recognized as being a musician. People think of me as some kind of deranged comedian. So, CBS was kind of surprised that there were that many orders coming in.
I'm a composer, and my instrument is the guitar. If you like the composition, fine. My technique as a guitar player is fair. There are plenty of people who play faster than I do, never hit a wrong note, and have a lovely sound. If you want to rate guitar players, go for them. But there isn't anybody else who'll take the chances that I will take with a composition onstage in front of an audience, and just go out there and have the nerve, the ultimate audacity to say, 'Okay, I don't know what I'm going to play, and you don't know what I'm going to play, and that makes us equal. So let's go-we'll have an adventure here.' That's what I do.Always On The Verge of Feedback
Article comments
1 - Brian Linse
Nice piece of work, Ed! Great music that desrves to be highlighted.
2 - Eric Olsen
Hi Brian! Yes, Ed, another excellent one, thanks.
3 - Bill Sherman
This prompted me to bring the Rykodisc set into work this a.m. (currently playing in the background, "Treacherous Cretins"). A great piece - even if I am too sonically pig-ignorant to make heads or tails of talk about "parametric filter circuits."
4 - Ed Driscoll
Bill,
Sorry if I got too technical--I think I was hoping that readers would at least get some sense that Zappa wasn't just a "plug it in and turn it up to 11" kind of player. As I understand it, a big part of his use of EQ was to "tune" the guitar's sound to the acoustics of the room he was playing in, so that he could be right on the verge of feedback, without having a sound that's so distorted, it would be mud.
Ed
5 - Bill Sherman
No need to apologize for my denseness. Your piece accomplished what it set out to do: get me reconsidering and playing Zappa’s music. And as you note, it also established that the man was no dolt (something fans of the later “dirty panty” songs don’t always recognize) when it came to his sound.
6 - Mark Saleski
for more information it's worth checking out The Real Frank Zappa book. the guy was obviously pretty smart. very funny too.
i loved his ideas about music.
7 - jason cook
i just got into zappa 3-4 months ago,i like stuff from iron maiden too wishbone ash-pentangle-king crimson-ufo etc.my friend mike had two or three zappa albums and i "liked them" he moved out(would rather get fucked up?)so i bought freak out!after that my friend jason moved in.he had overnite sensation/(')/jab-from l.a. and an awsome album called sleep dirt(wow!!!)i'm 10 albums short of all of his 60's-70's lp's!!!my favorites (right now) are hot rats-waka/jawaka-the grand wazoo-one size fits all and sleep dirt.my favorite song(forever)is black napkins(makes me want to cry and cringe.i just sent away for the shut up 'n playyer guitar series!!!and the albums i'm missing(i love tax time!!!)i can't describe my love for zappa and his music other than he's swell!! thanks for reading this.feedback is goog!bye
8 - John Hoaas
The Shut Up discs are about the only Zappa I can listen to. Most of his lyrics remind me of the fake advertisement tapes me and a friend used to make in junior high. Fake ads for jock itch medicine and zit cream. That kind of stuff. His lyrics just remind me too much of junior high bathroom humor. The kind of jokes guys at that age tell because their embarassed when they get a hard on in class, or they just start to notice that their getting B.O. or the girl down the street started wearing a training bra. Anyway, that's what his lyrics remind me of. But I absolutely love his guitar playing. I wish there were more in the Shut up series. I also love Inca Roads from You can't play that on stage any more. I love his long guitar solo work. It transports me.
9 - mayia
eiiii:D
great music:D