Zappa.com

I have to admit that for me I jumped onto the FZ hype just after his death in 1993-1994 when I was 16 years old.
The first album I gave a taste was Sheik Yerbouti. A lot had to follow afterwards.

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A wann et päift, da fiert den Zuch!

When 'Valley Girl' was released my Mom HATED it. So naturally my Dad bought her a copy of ASATLTSADW. As soon as she realized what it was she threw it at him. I snatched it up off the floor and took it downstairs to the basement to slap on my rickety little turntable. I listened to it over and over. I didn't GET it, but I liked it...I was 11 years old.

1971

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Stay with me flagrantly and we'll have ecstasy for all eternity.

The moment I heard it for the first time...

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The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true Art and Science. - Albert Einstein

Dear ol' dad introduced me to Apostrophe in '92 or '93.

FZ might have made a wisecrack if he read this but I first learned about him from the Rolling Stone Record Guide in the early 80's. I borrowed two of his records from my uncle, then spent a few long years wishing I could hear his other early stuff until the Ryko CDs started coming out.

Probably 74 or 75.

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You gotta give the people something good to read, on a Sunday

Christmas '76 when my older brother brought home Zoot Allures. No explanations necessary. I liked it right away and there's been no looking back ever since.

This......which happend to be in conjunction with the release of Joe's Garage. That same year when my Social Studies teacher turned me on to We're Only In It For The Money & Hot Rats, game over.

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"Why do people say "Grow some balls"? Balls are weak and sensitive! If you really wanna get tough, grow a vagina! Those things take a pounding"! -- Betty White

Yep, about when Apostrophe came out.

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When the going gets weird the weird turn pro - HST

Miasma!

I grew up knowing Hot Rats 'cause of my Dad playing it but for me I have to say 1995 when I bought the Verve reissue vinyl of We're Only in it for the Money.
That's when the obsession started.......

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"drums are too noisy, 'n you've got no corners to hide in"

I bought the bootleg "American Pageant" (essentially Mothermania with a re-arranged tracklist) when I was about 11 and was blown away by his composite blend of psychedelic guitar rock and other weird styles and influences. I became a bit more committed Zappaholic though about 10 years later, as I familiarized myself with Uncle Meat, Hot Rats, Burnt Weeny etc.

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Lies are like quicksand, soft and comfortable, but they will swallow us. Truth is like bedrock, hard and uncomfortable, but we can always stand on it

Around 1967

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Confusion will be my epitaph

1974 (at the age of 10 - "peaches" on "Fillmore" hooked me )

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The more I learn, the less I know.

Spring 1967. My nerdy girlfriend introduced me to the first 2 albums and that was that.

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Everytime we picked a booger we'd flip it on this one winduh. Every night we'd contribute, 2, 3, 4 boogers. We had to use a putty knife, man, to get them damn things off the winduh. There was some goober ones that weren't even hard...

2001.

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Join the PackardGoose forum! Send me a PM!

My education obsession and collection began mid March 1970 at the tender age of 12, my 20 year old worldly wise cousin with a nod and a wink, slipped me a double cassette of Freak Out and Absolutely Free, which I listened to secretly (my very first adult music cassette) on dad's Philips model 1.1, 8 inch by 4 inch mono cassette player. I'd study for hours in the shed at the bottom of the garden, deck plugged into the light socket. Years later my father said he put my extended absences down to adolescent masturbation, mum thought it was just a phase I was going through, so both right then. No surpise I still have the deck and of course the still audible 42 year old cassette.

Still loving the phase (III) thanks Frank, oh and my late cousin Michael, thanks man.

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Thanks for the music Frank.

Well I'm about to get sick from watching my TV

When I went to town...

Around the age of 10, in 1975 or '76, I was extremely fascinated by the cover of One Size Fits All, which I found in a record shop in my dirty old hometown. The star map captured my imagination totally.

In 1978, I heard my first Zappa song on the radio (that I can remember) - Honey Don't You Want A Man Like Me. I also taped it, from Ivar Dyrhaug's and Sigbjørn Nedland's Pop Spesial, and listened to the tape obsessively for some months, until Sheik Yerbouti was released.

I bought the cassette of Sheik Yerbouti in the spring of 1979, and have been hooked since. My next purchases: Zoot Allures, ZINY, Studio Tan, Joes' Garage act 1 (cassettes); Joe's Garage acts 2 and 3, Burnt Weeny Sandwich, One Size Fits All, Overnite Sensation, Roxy & Elsewhere (LPs) - and so on, and on

First Zappa concert: Spring 1980; second and last Zappa concert: Spring 1988.

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We make a special art in an environment hostile to dreamers. Frank Zappa, 1971

1971 when my school mate Mark S loaned me his Just Another Band from LA & Uncle Meat lp's.

Thanks again, Mark.

On another FZ tune-related note, our in-house high school radio station got closed down in my senior year when John S borrowed my copy of Just Another Band and played it over the air waves at lunch hour. Too many complaints from too many teachers, the humorless bastards!

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This world is made for people who aren't cursed with self-awareness.

1975
Listened to Apostrophe all summer long...it was funny...then i heard Uncle Meat and i was hooked forever.

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"You can fly like a Penguin when you're dealing with Turkeys."

The seed was planted with the Yellow Snow/Cosmik Debris single when I was 11 in 1974.

The obsession started with Zappa in New York in the summer of '78.

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I'm not bald; I'm taller than my hair.

in 1968. I was eleven. my older brother came home one day with 'freak out!' and 'absolutely free'.
and that was it.

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"bit of nostalgia for the old folks."

I liked him before i had even heard a song!

I HAD heard some Zappa prior to this (Cousin played Dinah Moe Hum not long after it was released, Dancing Fool, was on the radio a lot, and I saw both times Zappa was on SNL) but It HAD to be when I first heard Joe's Garage at a party in 1980. It played off an on most of the night, and when I found it in the store the next week, and saw that there was a PART 2 & 3! I had to get them all! (on vinyl) After that a buddy gave me a copy of Sheik Yerbouti on cassette, and I picked up Ship Arriving Too Late... not long after...

Not too many years later, I really got the bug and started trying to collect EVERYTHING and went crazy trying to fill in the "list" that I received from Barfko Swill with the "official discography" on it.

Oct 16, 1971 Stony Brook, L.I. late show for me.

It wasn't instant. I then bought Just Another Band from L.A. at the local Korvette's department store and that trained my ear to appreciate Zappa. Since then, it's still almost the only music I listen to.

-jim

ps -any help out there to get a recording of this show would be appreciated - late show, i heard the early show already somewhere. thanks