Michael & Johnny...Zappa and Love

[jamestkirk]

If you missed some of my posts, in an interview from 1967, Frank name checks Love three times...much more than any other band of the day in any one interview I have seen by another artist.

LoVE seemed came up at various points, & at each point, involving a completely different thread.



KOFSKY: Love.... also have a saxophonist and are trying to combine jazz improvisation with rock.

ZAPPA: Actually, what they're trying to do is to imitate our band.

KOFSKY: I heard them first. Is it just coincidental that their album was released first?

ZAPPA: Well, let me tell you of a few interesting coincidences that I've noticed, that lead me to suspect that we're making more of an impact on the industry than the people in the industry would like to admit. I was mailed a picture of Paul McCartney many months ago, from a girl in Europe, with my mustache and my tie, with my earphones, conducting an orchestra. And this is about the time I was preparing an album for Capitol where I was conducting an orchestra [Lumpy Gravy].

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KOFSKY: Some of my students at Carnegie Tech turned me on to it [Absolutely Free] and the Andy Warhol album at the same time.

ZAPPA: I like that album. I think that Tom Wilson deserves a lot of credit for making that album, because it's folk music. It's electric folk music, in the sense that what they're saying comes right out of their environment.

KOFSKY: It's folk in the sense of relating to a milieu.

ZAPPA: Love is that kind of group too, because what they sing about is the folk music of the L.A. freak. What we sing about is the folk music of our environment from Pomona to L.A. You know, being kicked around in go-go bars, and like that.


So my question is: what influence did Frank Zappa have on Love's music, or did it colour your own approach in any way, either directly or through the natural process of exposure to such a unique and new music?

The radical number of changes in time signatures within a single song that Frank made a trademark, would seem to have influenced many artists of the day, and Forever Changes is rife with such creative compositions.

[MichaelStuart-Ware]

I don't think the music of Frank Zappa had any influence on Love's music whatsoever. I think maybe Frank Zappa and Arthur may have listened to a lot of the same jazz artists that recorded in the early sixties, so therefore I guess there are certain similarities in some of the material they wrote. That's all.

I perused Arthur's and Johnny's and Kenny's record collections many a time and I never once saw so much as one Mothers of Invention album, so... you know, before you can be influenced by somebody else's music, first you have to listen to it. In fact, as far as I know, nobody in our band listened to The Mothers. No particular reason...we just didn't.

[jamestkirk]

I don't think the music of Frank Zappa had any influence on Love's music whatsoever. I think maybe Frank Zappa and Arthur may have listened to a lot of the same jazz artists that recorded in the early sixties, so therefore I guess there are certain similarities in some of the material they wrote. That's all.

I perused Arthur's and Johnny's and Kenny's record collections many a time and I never once saw so much as one Mothers of Invention album, so... you know, before you can be influenced by somebody else's music, first you have to listen to it. In fact, as far as I know, nobody in our band listened to The Mothers. No particular reason...we just didn't.

That says it for me. Thanks, Michael.


I have to agree. There really is no comparison.

Arthur was an individual. As unique as was LoVE.
The influence of Love on others was, on the other hand, immense.

[jamestkirk]

Michael...to your knowledge did Zappa ever sit in with Love?

I had recently heard that premise asserted...just hearsay, in any case. I would think that the success of Love, known by all in Laurel Canyon, would be what Frank was striving for AND hoping for.

[MichaelStuart-Ware]

Frank Zappa never sat in with Love while I was a member. It could have happened before I joined up, I guess, but for some reason I don't think so. That sitting in thing just wasn't our bag. We were never that palsy-walsy with members of other bands. Love was more of an isolationist group.