how do you like covers of
your songs? like the tubes' 'my head is my only house unless
it rains'.
i thought, at first, that it was
awfully nice.
did you play harp with the tubes?
[see note at the end - teejo.]
i played on a thing called 'golden
boy' and they turned it way down. i also played soprano on
'cathy's clone'. i like the girl who wrote it, i think she
wrote a good song. i told her i really liked what she had done
and that i'd really play for her, and i played it. i thought
it would be on there, but again it was turned down, way
down. i don't want anyone to govern me. that i didn't like too
much.
what about 'alice in blunderland'
by henry kaiser's band
'monster island'?
well, that was originally done for
elliot ingber [winged eel fingerling]. i put together
that composition and gave him the complete
freedom to play whatever he
wanted on the guitar, which i thought he should get. you know,
he never got it with frank [zappa - t.t.]. he's really
great. he wrote 'don't bogart that joint' (by fraternity
of man - ed.).
what else has elliot done?
well, right now he lives in hollywood across
the street from a windows-darkened-up bookstore. you know, one
of those places with the gynecology shots and whatnot -
trophies. he lives there on santa monica boulevard, down the
street from the 'pink pussycat' - now thére's a place - and he
just plays all the time. he'll play with me again.
he will?
he will. (but it didn't happen,
after all - t.t.) i think he's one of the greatest
melodicists of the guitar who ever lived. he's been a
tremendous influence.
what's the
deal on the original 'bat chain puller'? is it different
than this one, 'shiny beast'?
oh, definitely. glen
kolotin was the engineer on this album and man, i think he's
one of the better living engineers. he did stravinsky's last
album. on this album you can hear everything. isn't that
amazing? i wish on 'trout mask replica' you could hear
everything.
you weren't
happy with the way it came out?
well, the idea of
being able to do an album like that in that time was amazing.
i was lucky to have gotten it out. i was lucky that frank
zappa gave me the opportunity to get it out. how it was
merchandised was disgusting, but i can't put that on frank.
what could he do about that? it's just business.
i mean, he's being
sued right now. you know what? he's locked out of one of the
places he owns. he's in a big lawsuit. not by warner brothers,
but by an unmentionable jerk. i don't even want to mention his
name. i don't think the press should have his name in it. i
wouldn't want to give the unmentionable character fuel of any
kind. (the other flamingo in that fruit fight was herb
cohen, zappa's long-time business companion - t.t.)
what's
'apes ma' about?
it's obvious, isn't
it? 'you're eating too much / you're going to the bathroom too
much, apes ma / and apes ma / your cage isn't getting any
bigger, apes ma.' that's self-explanatory. i think that's
fairly good poetry.
did mary jane (eisenberg,
who
performed dances to some of the songs - teejo) do her
own choreography for that?
she did that herself
and in about ten minutes. she got that stuff at a food store.
she's good, man. that is a great dancer. i think she's the
best living dancer. the truth has no patterns, but i think
maybe she is the best. i know she sure as hell can think. and
that's the sixth time she has ever played maracas. the sixth
time! she's never been out with a band, never played an
instrument. man, that i find really uplifting.
she dug eric dolphy.
she did a piece that no one would ever do, to a thing that
dolphy did that was pretty far out. he was really hip. it was
a thing called 'senor something'. i can't remember the name of
it. i knew dolphy. i hope he doesn't come down and get me for
this, because i can't recall the name of the tune. probably
because i write so many tunes, all of the time.
so she just
came along with bruce [fowler] pretty much?
yeah. she likes my
music.
everybody
likes your music.
i don't think
everybody likes my music. if everybody liked my music they
wouldn't buy orange juice from that damn woman we were talking
about.
do you
listen to any new music?
well, anybody who's
going on at all now used to be a lot better. i was in england,
and i played a thing in france - a festival (fête du
nouveau populaire de paris on 19 november 1977, so a year
earlier - teejo). there were tén thousand people in the
rain, and me under a thing where the rain didn't hit me. i was
feeling sorry for the people in the rain. things like that are
hard if you're at all feeling.
i apologized at
least twelve times, i probably bored everyone to tears. that's
not good business. god, that was terrible. it's wonderful to
see people out in the rain, but not with me under a canopy. do
you know how cold it was that night? it would freeze the fur
on a fishing pole, i'll tell you that. contact lenses would be
frightening in that kind of cold. i think it must have been at
least ten below. [now, to someone living in the mojave
desert any european temperature is chilly of course -
teejo.]
you did a cover for the album blorp esette.
oh, ace and duce. i
like those guys. they seem to be among those people who have a
hold. which is why i did that. i was quite annoyed by the fact
that he put 'blorp esette' right in the middle of my drawing.
i think he could have found some other way to do that. he's a
nice guy.
*
are
you familiar with the 'residents' (who happen to have a track on that elpee,
by the way - teejo)?
they're pretty damn
good. i like them, i think they're really quite good. but i
don't have much time to listen to anything. i'm doing this and
doing that and training this and training that and trying not
to train anything. an artist is probably the one who kids
himself most gracefully. because somebody doing what i've
created in an awful responsibility... - puts me in a sort of
jail.
are you
still doing sculpture?
oh yeah.
your music
is very sculptural.
well, that's it.
that's what i am. that's why. it's all textures and stuff.
have you
ever heard joseph spence?
i've never heard of
him. what does he do?
he's a
guitar player from the bahamas.
does he just do that
constant beat? man, i hate that heartbeat being driven into my
mind like that. that, i think, has got to change. that's what
all of the drum things i've ever done have tried to do: to
change that. because if that doesn't change to some degree...
- and i think it won't be changed by electronics and i think
that it won't be changed with mechanicals - that's why no
electric drums. they could just hook you right into 'general
electric'.
what kinds of influences do you
see on your music?
none. never. you know why? because
it would be a distortion of the prism. you know, color
distortion. i think that an artist should be exactly what he
is, or she is. i don't think that
influences...
but these days everyone takes in
so much information.
i don't. there are books that i would love to read, lóve to read. but i'm afraid they
would influence me, and that could stop me.
