"This is a special thing for me," he says. "The Frankfurt Festival is investing an enormous amount of money to do an entire week of my music. There will be two full symphony orchestra concerts, three performances of this new piece, a lot of pieces on the synclavier, possibly a ballet staged by John Forsythe and an audiovisual installation. So it's a big deal."
So the story goes, when Esa-Pekka Salonen began his long and productive association with Los Angeles Philharmonic, he sought out Frank Zappa, primarily with the idea of organizing a concert tour to his native Finland where, he told Zappa, he and the Mothers had a substantial following. As Gail Zappa recalls, Frank would have loved to accept the offer but was forced to decline because (it had not been made public) he was slowly dying from prostate cancer.
Zappa, who was seriously exploring the idea of running for President when his health sidetracked him, follows the scene avidly via CNN and C-SPAN. Did the man who took on Tipper Gore and the Parents Music Resource Center on the issue of censoring pop music watch the conventions? You bet!
"I was so irate at the carryings-on at the Republican convention," he said. "I thought that if I can do anything to make sure that George Bush doesn't get elected again—up to and including shaking hands with Tipper Gore—I'll do it. I mean, it's that bad . . . I take back every bad thing I ever said about Clinton and Gore . . . Whoever or whatever George Bush is, if you look at his friends, or his fellow travelers, I don't want to see those fellow travelers anywhere near Washington, D.C. Enough already with Pat Robertson and these guys! So I even considered calling the Clinton campaign and say I'd be happy to give them an endorsement if they thought it would be beneficial to them. They might want to run screaming in the other direction."
Research, compilation and maintenance by Román García Albertos