Viva ! Zappa

by Dominique Chevalier

Traces the career of the controversial rock guitarist and composer, examines his music, and includes reviews of all his recordings

Genres: Music

128 pages, Paperback

First published December 28, 1986

Reviews

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Decent little book on Zappa's history up to the mid-80s. Lots of good photos, and a fairly comprehensive bio. Nothing remarkable in terms of the information -- no secrets revealed or rare interviews. Has a nice "Critical Discography" that traces some of the Maestro's Conceptual Continuity through multiple albums. Also collects a few of Zappa's published articles and has a neat bibliography of some early, and probably fairly rare, Zappa-o-philia related-merch.

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you don't know much about Zappa, you could do worse than start here. That is, of course, after you have heard his music, because that is all that really matters. Music is the best. Lavishly illustrated, Chavalier does not provide any astonishingly revealing insights or exclusive exposes. Just the facts, really. Facts that you could probably pick up elsewhere, but they may not look so good. It's a little bit cheesy but nicely displayed. There's a good round up of albums, to the time of publication, a few with review-like comments. His mind is prehensile. Not bad, not great. But I must tell you this anecdote about this book: In 1987 I was part of the 1st educational visit to the newly-liberalised (but still communist) Albania. Our overall experience can best be summed-up by the phrase "state-sponsored paranoia". At the border from Montenegro (then part of Yugolsavia) we were all asked to empty our bags. Everything else (from about 35 university students - mostly textile artists) went through without a bother. Then one of the guards found my copy of Viva Zappa. He managed to turn straight to the page of Frank placing what looks like a rhino horn into the top of his trousers on stage (so the photo has unusual lighting!). It took about 10 minutes of furious discussion between the guards before the book was finally returned with a glare. I'm not sure there's many non-pornographic books that would get such treatment. It seems that Frank Zappa did not even have to open his mouth to court controversy - he was able to break boundaries in all artistic media. We miss you Frank.