The Real Frank Zappa Book (Picador Books)

I didn't know anything about Zappa when I started this. I just thought he sounded like an interesting guy. Usually these musician biographies turn out to be mostly about drugs and I'm not into drugs so I can't relate. Zappa was not into drugs. He didn't need them. His mind was already travelling a

million miles an hour without them.

I liked this book and it made me like Zappa but I had trouble getting his humor a lot of the time. The book was written in 1998 so all of his political references were about a time that I wasn't really political. I mean I hated Reagan as much as the next punk rocker but I didn't really know anything about what was going on in the world. The other problem is that Zappa is a self-professed "grumpy old guy". So much of it is just complaining that the world is broken and it sucks and even though I agree with him it got to be a little much reading about it everyday.

The man was a genius and an incredible musician. I'm not really into his music but he was a savant.

Last problem with this book is that the "road stories" section was way too short and all of the stories had the same plot "random girl sticks random object in her no-no spot".

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LibraryThing member EricKibler

The man gives his controversial opinions, which in the light of the last twenty years, make a great deal of common sense, and talks about his life's work. One of the most interesting men of the twentieth century, who I think will be even more well-remembered as time goes on.

LibraryThing member MiaCulpa

I've never been into Frank Zappa's music but I thought "here's the type of person who led an interesting life" so I checked out his autobiography. Zappa certainly has a few stories of rock 'n' roll excess which he balances with his childhood and family life. Some of the stories are amusing, some

are outlandish and some are iconic (see, for example, his review of the events that led to his immortalisation in "Smoke on the Water").

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