Book review

Dangerous Kitchen
(The Subversive World of Zappa)
By: Kevin Courier

Want an alternative to banal boy/girl band contrived pop pap?.
Well! Here's a road map of 60 years of fighting conservative Amerika.
From the avant-garde of Edgard Varese, Anton Webern and Igor Stravinsky, Kevin Courier traces an understanding of Frank Zappa.

"Coming from a devout Catholic family he attended church until the age of 18, when "Suddenly, the light bulb went on in my head" he told journalist David Sheff. "All the mindless morbidity and discipline was pretty sick, bleeding this,painful that and no meat on Friday. What is this shit?"
He found that there was more to come when arrested for vagrancy the night before his racially integrated 2nd band (The Blackouts) were due to appear at the Lancaster Women's Club where racial integration was deeply frowned upon.

Often as happens with history, anything that does not fit with ruling class norms is written out. It is important that Frank Zappa does not suffer the
same fate. What cannot be co-opted or exploited, especially when the music represents an "anathema to liberalism" is ignored. You cannot imagine Broken Hearts are for Assholes or The Legend of the Illinois Enema Bandit as a catchy tune to sell personal hygiene products.

In 1993 Frank Zappa joined the expanding universe he once claimed worked -
Despite our concerted efforts to continuously fuck it up.

Clive Peace.