Trouble Coming Every Day
The Countercultural Influence of Frank Zappa and Ben Fong-Torres Is Needed Now More Than Ever, And Two Recent Documentaries Are Great Reminders
“Wednesday I watched the riot, I seen the cops out on the street
Watched 'em throwin' rocks and stuff and chokin' in the heat
Listened to reports about the whisky passin' 'round
Seen the smoke and fire and the market burnin' down
Watched while everybody on his street would take a turn
To stomp and smash and bash and crash and slash and bust and burn
And I'm watchin' and I'm waitin'
Hopin' for the best
Even think I'll go to prayin'
Every time I hear 'em sayin'
That there's no way to delay that trouble comin' every day
No way to delay that trouble comin' every day”
Frank Zappa
“Trouble Every Day”
I clearly remember the first time I was introduced to the music of Frank Zappa, an event that made me a lifelong and dedicated fan.
I met David, the “cooler older kid” in the exciting but turbulent era of the mid-60s. Our father’s worked together in the Insurance business, and my family was frequently invited to the rural, upscale home of David’s family on the outskirts of Richmond, Virginia. David was an only child and had things that my parents, supporting myself and my three siblings, couldn’t afford, namely, a LOT of vinyl record albums, an electric guitar and amplifier, an actual high fidelity stereo with tone controls, and posters of various rock bands and countercultural movie stars like Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper. Also, something you couldn’t buy: awareness of what was hip and cool. I realize in hindsight that this was what I was most envious of.
I remember the transition between visits: One visit David’s room was unadorned, a typical 60s era “Leave It To Beaver” bedroom, and the next, I was in an intentionally created and designed space that was an in your face reflection of the music and art and film of the era. The room was a countercultural statement in and of itself. It forced me to realize that David, as well as the times, had irrevocably changed.
David was kind enough to let me explore and invade this space. I stared at the art on the wall, and as I thumbed through the seemingly endless volume of brightly colored album jackets, he excitedly explained about The Who’s magnum Rock opus “Tommy” and the Frank Zappa/ Mothers Of Invention records “Freak Out” and “We’re Only In It For The Money”.
It was almost too much to absorb. “Haven’t you heard Pinball Wizard?” David asked incredulously, as he strummed the chord changes on his guitar while all I could think of in response was, when did he start playing guitar? It was almost a magical transformation. In my estimation, David was now a rock star himself. He then selected an album jacket with the weirdest, ugliest band that I had ever seen in my life. David smiled as he pulled the vinyl record out of the insane-looking Dadaesque cover, a sarcastic nod to The Beatle’s “Sgt. Pepper” which contrasted starkly with the rather plain, blue, Verve Records label, and carefully dropped the needle.
“This is freaky”, he said, grinning.
Indeed.
It wasn’t “music” as I understood it (having been weaned on three-minute AM Pop hits) as much as an audio collage of disembodied, echoing voices, disconnected, interrupted song structures, spoken word monologs drenched in reverb and sped up to sound like helium-voiced cartoon characters, telephone calls, and inside band jokes. The songs and spoken word phrases bled into each other without boundaries. It defied completely what an “album of songs” was supposed to sound like. All of it panned insanely between right and left stereo channels. David, and one of his friends who had dropped by, older and more sophisticated than me, laughed as the album played like knowledgeable insiders. To my young ears it was all too weird, but, it left a deep imprint.
I didn’t begin to avidly understand and pursue Zappa’s music and art until years later when I heard his brilliant, and the more commercially accessible album “Apostrophe” when I was in High School. The musicianship was astounding, and the recording was engineered so meticulously that I felt like I was literally standing next to the musicians. (The high-end AR/Marantz system, as well as other “enhancements”, didn’t hurt either) I finally got it: Frank Zappa was weird, FUNNY, Brilliant, an INCREDIBLE guitar player, and a genius-level 20th Century composer.
Zappa was, indeed, part of the counterculture of the 1960s, and beyond, but was even more of an outsider than people imagined. With the exception of a lifelong cigarette habit and occasionally indulging in smoking a joint on tour (which he said had an undesirable narcotic effect of putting him to sleep), Zappa was never part of “Hippie Culture”, especially in terms of heavier substances that would affect his mental state, like psychedelics. As the ultimate counter-culture outsider, he saw Hippie culture as shallow and phony, as chronicled in the song from “Money” called “Who Needs The Peace Corps?”
Zappa had zero problems being identified as a freak by conservative society, but as the ultimate outsider, he was never part of any “movement” and was skeptical of just about everything: from human motives to the music industry, to religion, to government. Especially the government. One of the timeliest Zappa quotes, that resonates particularly well in 2022:
“Politics is the entertainment division of the military-industrial complex.”
Zappa was widely misunderstood but was never afraid to speak the truth to power.
The best, most recent document of many on Zappa, was produced by actor Alex Winter, in which he wisely lets Zappa largely tell his own story. Winter allows Zappa’s contradictions and flaws to come to the forefront, including his misogynistic tendencies. In hindsight, from my perspective, this is what makes me uncomfortable about certain recordings that were favorites in the past many years later. People who dislike Zappa the person vehemently and passionately dislike Zappa the artist as well. As with Cream and Jazz drummer Ginger Baker, and certain other brilliant artists with unsavory personal characteristics, I try to separate the art from the artist. Otherwise, you become morally judgemental and leave a lot of great art and music by the wayside.
That aside, Winter covers Zappa’s involvement as a largely lone figure, leading the counterculture of musicians against government censorship. In 1984, a group of wives of prominent and powerful politicians, including the wife of then-Senator and future Vice President Al Gore, convened hearings on the perceived “dangers” of song lyrics and album cover art. As much as anything else, Zappa despised hypocrisy, whether it was the above-referenced hippie community or the more powerful and invasive Federal government.
Zappa, rightly, saw a clear and present danger, then and for the future, in allowing the Federal Government to be the arbiter of “acceptable” artistic commerce and freedom of expression. The hearings had the combined effect of a witch hunt and televised show trial, reminiscent of the Army McCarthy hearings, with prominent Senators’ wives allowed to preside over the unprecedented venue of a Congressional Committee hearing to lend credibility to their agenda. With the exception of the support of an unlikely group of musicians like John Denver and Dee Snider, Zappa was largely alone in a months-long media campaign to stop the “Parents Music Resource Center” from censoring artistic expression.
Now in May 2022, with war on the horizon, the government rears its ugly head yet again in an attempt to censor and shape major narratives, and by default people’s perceptions of reality, in the form of a “Government Disinformation Board”. I can hear Zappa’s voice in the collective unconscious, calling bullshit, and heaping skepticism on the entire debacle.
It seems like a quaint notion and an artifact relegated to ancient History now, but people used to dedicate hours to reading to get a sense of what was going on in the world. The library, or subscription newspapers and magazines shaped our perceptions almost exclusively.
One of the magazines that definitively influenced my perceptions of politics and music was the iconic Rolling Stone magazine. The writing of Hunter S. Thompson, P.J. O’Rourke, and in particular, Ben Fong-Torres, were essential documents and made these names legendary.
Fong-Torres as a writer, I knew plenty about. Reading his exhaustive, detailed articles clearly conveyed his love and extensive knowledge of music. You felt like you were experiencing the moments as he did while standing right along beside him. Reading Fong-Torre’s personal interviews, with the most legendary musicians of the past 50 years was like eating a great meal. His writing style, in which he juxtaposed tales of life on the road with up close and personal Q and A is legendary. What I didn’t know was that Ben Fong-Torres was as passionate about political activism and racial injustice as he was about music.
A recent Netflix documentary chronicles his evolution from his humble origins as the son of hard-working Chinese immigrants, living and working alongside his parents in their restaurant endeavors, to being swept up in the countercultural revolution of the mid to late 60s. It’s less a planned journey with careful steps, as most people today execute, and more of an outsider blindly groping his way along until he became an ultimate insider. The great affection lavished on Fong-Torres by musicians from The Grateful Dead’s Bob Weir to Sir Elton John is a tribute to triumph over impossible odds.
There are plenty of firsts here: As Asian American editor of a major international magazine, a radio broadcaster in a sea of conservative white faces, and when it was assumed that he would be part of the essential staff when Rolling Stone succumbed to corporate media influence and moved to New York in 1977, abandoned ship to stay in his native SanFransico. Ben Fong-Torres was a brand, as strong and recognizable as the name “Rolling Stone”.
I didn’t realize until watching the documentary, the prejudice, and bullying he suffered at the hands of whites, as the only Chinese face at an all caucasian school, or the extent of his activism against racial prejudice and gang violence in the society at large, and more importantly in his own Chinese-American Community. He suffered personal tragedy exactly because of gang-related violence and buckled down harder in using journalism as a tool to combat it.
Where is that energy now? Where is the pushback? We are essentially all outsiders, and we need revolutionary thought and deed in these times. I often wonder what Frank would think of Joe Biden asking for more money to appropriate for war and a compliant Congress that wants, even more, to account for inflation. No way to delay that trouble coming every day, unfortunately.