The Real Frank Zappa Book - Frank Zappa

From the 'invention' of the Mothers of Invention in the early '60s to his latest 'Broadway the Hard Way' world tour, Frank Zappa has pushed popular music into new and uncharted territory, combining serious contemporary music with jazz, rock, political satire, and social commentary to create a unique art form. His outspoken lyrics, outlandish stage antics, scathing wit, and unstinting public advocacy of artistic freedom have won him hordes of fanatical fans - and the ire of the 'establishment'. Here is how Frank Zappa became the state of the art in Weirdness, as only he can tell it - from early experiments with the explosive potential of powdered ping-pong balls, to potentially explosive performances in the California desert, hanging out with Captain Beefheart, discovering Edgar Varese and Igor Stravinsky, making the scene in sixties LA, touring with the Mothers, meeting the 'Plaster-Casters' with Eric Clapton, and confronting business bureaucrats and pompous public officials around the world.

Along the way, Zappa offers his inimitable views on just about everything: art, politics, cigarettes, beer, televangelists, symphony orchestras, lead guitarists, groupies, the PMRC, marriage (as a Dada concept), and the history of rock and roll.

Told in Zappa's freewheeling, uninhibited style, The Real Frank Zappa Book is a unique autobiography - candid, iconoclastic, thought-provoking, absurd, brazenly funny - pure Frank Zappa.