New Management: Bennett Glotzer out, Gail Zappa in
Gail Zappa, quoted by Don Menn, "How It All Works. Gail Zappa," Zappa!, 1992, p. 76
In about 1984, we'd gotten into a situation where we were really subsidizing Frank's manager. He owed us a lot of money, and so in order to keep the business going we were taking care of all his outstanding debts, and I was getting very agitated with that. Things weren't working in an efficient way. Frank was on the road, and the shit hit the fan.
He fired the manager, and I took over the business, and the first thing I did was fire everybody that worked for us. The lawyers, accountants—I just said, 'That's it, I don't want any help from any of those people,' and went out and found replacement parts. I took over in 1985, and it was trial by fire. It took several years to get through the outstanding nasties.
It was a few years ago that Zappa and his wife decided to cut their overhead. They had employed managers, lawyers and accountants to run his music businesses. "After we started reading the contracts, we started to get smart and figured out maybe we could do it better," Gail Zappa said. "So I fired everyone and started over."
Since 1985, she has run the business end of things. "He's the artist and puts the product together. I handle all production aspects of it, the cover art and packaging. I make all the financial decisions."
April 12, 1985—Kronos Quartet
Kronos Quartet—Present Tense—1984/85 Season (Program), p. 14
APRIL 12 / PRESENT TENSE
Iannis Xenakis (1922-)
"Tetras" (1983) ***
Michel Colombier (1939-)
New Work (1984) *+
Frank Zappa (1940-)
"None of the Above" (1984) *+
Intermission
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)
String Quartet No. 12 (1968)
Moderato—Allegretto
Moderato—Adagio—Moderato—Allegretto
* World Premiere
*** San Francisco Premiere
+ Written For Kronos
Kronos Quartet—Present Tense—1984/85 Season (Program), p. 15
Rarely at a loss for words, Zappa prefers to let his music speak for itself, but he did have one comment for the Kronos musicians: "You asked for it."
I was in the studio when he was working on the Kronos Quartet piece. He played some of it for me on the Synclavier. The patches or samples he had set up were of string sections—big and lush. That's how he was already hearing and conceiving the piece (orchestral, as usual). I remember thinking (to myself) "Frank, what the hell are you thinking? There's only four of them. It won't sound anything like that". David Harrington told me once that Frank wanted them to record the finished piece and put it on an album along with the Synclavier version. Of course, they didn't.
[...] I also remember the exact words Frank used once, although I don't recall just what project we were discussing (and truthfully, I don't think it was the Kronos piece—more likely the lack of resources he suffered on the Orchestral Favorites album). He said "You can't do anything with a string quartet". Obviously a few other composers would disagree.
I was at Frank's when he was working on his string quartet for the Kronos. He played me what he had so far on the Synclavier, and it was set up with these huge lush orchestra sounds, nothing like a quartet. He was very frustrated with the piece and said, and I quote, "You can't do anything with a string quartet". I thought, gee Frank, I know some guys named Beethoven, Brahms, Bartok, Ives, etc. who might disagree. Frank had no interest in writing that piece. He wanted to write an orchestra piece. I think he took the Kronos commission for the money, and because he was looking to gain some credibility as a "classical" composer. He tried to get the Kronos to release the piece in two versions on one disk, the acoustic quartet, and the Synclavier version. They wisely refused.
[...]
Frank was working with the seven note version of the chord bible then, and using very thick harmony. I think he was frustrated with the quartet as a medium because he couldn't write densely enough, which is what he was into at the time. Thick harmony, big fat melody.
KPFA, April, 1985
Monday, April 8th
[...]
9:00 Morning Concert
Kronos Quartet: Live Rehearsal. In preparation for the last of their regular season concerts, the Kronos String Quartet will be live in our studios for a rehearsal of some of the works to be featured in their upcoming concert on Friday, April 12th. The works scheduled for this concert include Shostakovich's 12th string quaret, as part of the Kronos' series of late Shostakovich quartets. Also featured will be the San Francisco premiere of Tetras (1983) by Iannis Xenakis, and two world premieres, written especially for the Kronos: a new work by Michel Colombier, and None of the Above by Frank Zappa. Hosted by Russ Jennings.
PMRC
Gail Zappa, quoted by Don Menn, "How It All Works. Gail Zappa," Zappa!, 1992, p. 76
This was the ugly summer when the PMRC formed. Actually, it was before they called themselves the PMRC, but a letter was sent out to the RIAA signed by a large number of Washington wives who used their husbands' names—Mrs. James Baker, Mrs. John Danforth, Mrs. Albert Gore—as opposed to their own. Something like 11 or 12 of these women were married to prominent Congressmen.
In May 1985, a group of women signed a letter to the Record Industry Association of America demanding that something be done about the lyrics on rock records, that warning labels be placed on albums because they could be harmful to people's mental health. They had a whole list of different types of warnings that they wanted to attach: special warnings for occult material, for drugs, for sex, for whatever, they had this whole elaborate scheme. The letter was signed by a number of wives of prominent Washington individuals, including the wife of James Baker III, and the wife of Senator Strom Thurmond, and Tipper Gore, who was the wife of the Senator from Tennessee, plus about 10 others.
This prompted five or six years of arguing over rock music lyrics at the federal, state and local level, and it became a big media issue. I got involved in it because I was invited to debate one of these women on a CBS television show. When I heard a rumour that there was going to be an actual Senate Sub-Committee hearing on the matter, I told my lawyer that if they do that, I want to make sure that I go along and testify.
And so, yes they did have a hearing, yes I did testify, and I spent the last five or six years talking about the same issue every time somebody calls me up and asks me for an interview.
The Mothers Of Invention Lawsuit
United Press International, January 24, 1985
Three former members of Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention rock band have filed
a $13 million lawsuit, accusing the band leader of not paying them royalties
for their performances on records.
Two of Zappa's music companies, Bizarre Records Inc. and Barking Pumpkin Records,
also were named as defendants in the Superior Court suit filed Thursday.
Neville Johnson, an attorney for musicians Don Preston, Jimmy Carl Black and
John "Bunk" Gardner, said none of the plaintiffs has received a royalty check
from Zappa since 1969.
He would not say how much money is owed the musicians.
Zappa's attorney, Owen Sloan, could not be reached for comment. A spokeswoman
at Barking Pumpkin Records in North Hollywood said Zappa was editing a new concert
video and was unavailable.
Johnson said he is trying to locate more than 20 other musicians who were
members of the Mothers of Invention from 1965-73 to have them join in the class
action suit.
"These guys are real scattered," Johnson said. "They are all poor now . . .
and we don't know where any of them are.
"One of them, Ray Collins, was last heard of sleeping in a cemetery."
Records featuring performances by the musicians include: "Freak Out," "We're
Only In It For The Money," "Ruben and the Jets," "Lumpy Gravy," "Weasels
Ripped My Flesh" and "Just Another Band from L.A."
Johnson said the band members also have not received royalties from Zappa's
"200 Motels" movie.
The lawsuit claims Zappa broke three different contracts with his band members
and charges breach of fiduciary duty and fraud.
It also asserts that Zappa improperly obtained rights to master recordings
of his records without including the musicians as partners.
You
know I'm actually flattered that you're doing this interview, because
it's about time that somebody recognized the original guys in the band.
Because without us, Frank Zappa would be NOTHING right now, and you can
tell HIM that for me, if you want! Maybe he'll settle our little lawsuit
then, if he starts thinking about it.
Well, we want to get paid for what we recorded so far in our partnership. It's been 20 years since we got any money, and I think he owes us money. All those old albums sure sold a whole bunch, and now he's got it re-released again. He's never even contacted any of us, to even let us KNOW it was being re-released. A friend of mine told ME about it! That's how I found out that the albums were being re-released. Now what kind of bullshit is that?—for the guys that helped you get where you're at. I suppose that since he didn't pay us the first time for royalties, I suppose he's going to go this time without paying us anything. He hasn't even sent me a copy of the new box set. I think I would be entitled to a copy of something that partly belongs to me, which those albums do. And Frank's going to be finding that out very shortly; that he may have acted a little out of line by doing what he did, according to certain legal documents.
[...] Back to the Grandmothers, if the lawsuit
gets going, and we can get some money from Frank, we want to get back
together and do some stuff. We do a lot of fusion stuff, plus we do a
lot of old Mothers stuff—stuff that Frank doesn't do anymore.
Black and the other Mothers Of Invention (Don Preston, Bunk Gardner, Roy Estrada, Ian Underwood) members filed a joint suit against Zappa two years ago, claiming that he owed them $16 million in royalties from the recordings on which they appeared. The suit is still pending.
"Oh, I don't have any hard feelings about Frank. It's just business," explained Black. "In fact I'd still like to do some things with him, even have him produce the new Grandmothers album.
"I want my share of the pie. I'd like to see the lawsuit work out, probably settle it out of court. I haven't talked to Frank, though, since 1981 when the Grandmothers recorded that first LP for Rhino Records."
Q: What is your current view of Frank Zappa?
A: It is the same one I had when he decided to end our association in October of 1969 which is disappointment, sadness, and finally anger at a man who preferred to pay lawyers (what should have been our record royalties) rather than the band members. We had to wait twenty-five years to get our money. I'm not at liberty to discuss any aspects of the lawsuit!
In 1984, a friend of mine, Ed Moore, told me that Frank was planning on releasing all the old Mothers albums in box sets. So I called Don and Bunk [...]. So we decided to get a lawyer. Originally, when the thing started, everybody was going to be in the lawsuit except for Roy and Motorhead. The reason for Roy possibly not being in the [law]suit was that we couldn't find Roy. Nobody knew where he was and Motorhead just didn't want to be part of it, probably due to his undying loyalty to Frank. We rallied some of the later guys too. Napoleon Murphy Brock wanted in on it, as well as Flo and Eddie. Ian Underwood couldn't have cared less mainly because he never needed the money.
We went straight to a lawyer, because we remembered the last time that we tried to talk to Frank about our royalties he just threw us out of his house!
[...] We all thought that he owed us at least common courtesy to inform us all. After all, we still had our original contracts so we wanted to be sure that we would get some royalties from it this time around. [...] We had talked to Herb [Cohen] and found out that when that Warner Bros. lawsuit went down, there was $200,000 that was supposed to go the band as part of the settlement! [...]
Herb and Frank had had their falling out a long time ago so Herb was on our side and Frank knew that and he didn't like it.
