1980 Frank Zappa on Dick Cavett

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Legendary guitarist Frank Zappa was not only a talented musician, but offered biting social commentary along with insightful political and philosophical ideas.

[@teazer999999]

27 minutes of serious conversation. how rare.

[@jamestcallahanphotographer]

Great interview with Mr. Zappa…and it takes an jntelligent person to interview an intelligent person….or to interview or anyone for that matter. Mr. Cavett did a stellar job here.

[@clintstewart5545]

Man Frank Zappa is so inteligent !!! Miss you Frank Zappa !!!

[@davidmay8104]

This interview is a treasure. Thanks for uploading. 🦊

[@highdb1]

I watch this one night when I was in high school. it was on public TV and they were requesting donations. I called them and donated $50, using my friends dads name. They kept sending him a bill for the money. It was funny because he hated all things rock ‘n’ roll. I felt bad when I got older. 😂

[@Jack-vy6uo]

I went to the taping of this show.Dick seemed like a nice cat and FZ was amused

[@oasis42morrow20]

I had a chance meeting and interesting conversation with him once. Very intelligent guy. Made a very positive impression.

[@allwordzaremadeup-voidz6229]

What did you talk about?

[@mossga]

His IQ was off the charts.

[@ThisIsNotFair]

@@allwordzaremadeup-voidz6229 Hopefully not Oasis.

[@sugarjoe50]

Zappa or Cavett?

[@ocker2000]

@@sugarjoe50 Zappa

[@HENJAM48]

"Who do you find weird Frank?" ~ What a brilliant question.

[@jeffdawson2786]

FZ really at his most relaxed and friendly. DC was the best.

[@StephanieJ777]

Wow what an insightful interview! I wish talk shows were more like this today.

[@AloisMahdal]

they are podcasts now :)

[@jtbaying2312]

Saw Zappa live in Dallas back in the 80s. Great live show one I'll never Forget. RIP FRANK ZAPPA. YOU GOT A LOTTA DIRTY LOVE!

[@DoomKid]

Excellent interview

[@crispyrobot77]

One of the BEST Zappa interviews I have ever seen. Thank You Mr. Cavett.

[@jtbaying2312]

Love Jewish Princess...To specifically happen got tha PP that's Snappin...

[@duster71]

Wow never saw this before ,Bravo.

[@kt9166]

Very good interview, although I don't think Dick listened to any Zappa before the show, nor had he ever. His music uses comedy to get people to listen to his more complicated pieces. I got the impression that Dick went into this one relatively cold. And he did not remember playing Aynsley Dunbar's drums.

[@KrogOfTurtlePeople]

Great comment. Had Dick ever actually listened to "We're only in it for the money" he would certainly have a few things to say.

[@garymoeller7832]

Frank was an amazing guitarist. Check out the recording of Black Napkin....

[@animavideography1379]

Rat Tamago too...

[@Hapmorii]

Pink Napkins was better, imo

[@JamminClemmons]

@@animavideography1379 Yes, Rat Tamago is excellent. "Rubber Shirt" off of Sheik Yer Bootie was meshed together from 2 different recordings. The song never actually occurred.

[@spookybaba]

@@animavideography1379 The original live solo from The Torture Never Stops is amazing. Though, the minimal edited version of that solo that became Rat Tomago is probably my favourite all time Zappa solo. It sounds almost composed and not improvised as it really was. The phrases are absolutely amazing, and to think that the original solo was just done there and then never to be repeated. He sure was on form playing that night.

[@julietrask7497]

Cavett was as intelligent as FZ. That’s why Frank was pleasant to him. He didn’t suffer fools gladly.

[@crispyrobot77]

Dick Cavett. A VERY special person and commentator. Frank + Dick = BRILLIANT! Franken Dick.

[@junkettarp8942]

Frank was and is a Modern master and wonderful showman.

[@ramparts1445]

17:00 It’s very odd how this is probably the only mention of any interaction between Chicago and zappa yet no one seems to bring it up

[@davidmay8104]

Frank's son Dweezil had a list of his (Dweezil's) favorite guitarists at one point, around 2011 and Terry Kath was in his top five. Frank also recorded an album with the 1975 Mothers, parts of which were recorded at Caribou Ranch. I think it was "One Size Fits All." That's all I know on it.

[@HughMorristheJoker]

People try to judge Frank based on his guitar playing. He was way more than that.

[@heatherperleberg7816]

Luckily, he's also a great guitar player

[@tony_potsandpans]

Nobody judges him based on his playing. They judge his massive ego, obnoxious opinions, and bizarre insistence that any music that isn't his own is not worth listening to

[@mononoaware1960]

@@tony_potsandpanslol what? He was a massive fan of modern classical, early blues, doowop, ethnic folk, and a good amount of jazz…. what a weird and laughably ignorant comment.

[@mikemorrison270]

Rat Tomago.

[@spookybaba]

@tony_potsandpans just goes to show how little you know about him, and more the shallow uneducated superficial personal opinion of him that you have.

[@steveconn]

The Dana Carvey impression of FZ is funny too.

[@crispyrobot77]

"Music IS the ONLY Religion that delivers the Goods" (Frank Zappa 1980)

[@mikerozicki6188]

Profound!!!

[@11Kralle]

To know about Frank Zappa is obligatory if one studies musicology in Germany - enough said?

[@HughMorristheJoker]

I had a chance to meet Zappa, but I wasn't born.

[@anthonycassillo5142]

Frank Zappa has been my personal musical idol since 1979, however I've always disagreed with him on drugs, LSD is NOT a chemical warfare drugs, it opens up parts of the brain not normally used on a daily basis. I started smoking weed & dropping lsd in 1978, I still smoke weed & still drop lsd & he imo made some of the greatest tripping music ever, Freak out, Absolutely Free, Lumpy Gravy & We're only in it for the money are phenomenal psychedelic music trips

[@marc_simmons]

You’ve been dropping acid for 46 years?

[@anthonycassillo5142]

@@marc_simmons over 4,000 hits since 1978

[@leogiovanoni6234]

I don't know, but I think he was talking about the government experiments that were conducted in the 50's & 60"s to study mind control and psychological warfare. That's how Kesey & Robert Hunter got turned on LSD. You volunteered or were paid I believe. Whitey Bulger did so he could get out of prison. I think he was doing 20 years and they cut that in half if he took part. And government experiments were I think a little more intense than any of us who sat in a peaceful space or dosed to what we perceived as a safe (in our heads or otherwise) place. The gov. in some cases were experimenting, pushing boundaries to see what you could do to a person with a head full of acid. How far they could bend & twist the mind. Just a thought. Take care.

[@benstolz6503]

You're a fool.

[@crispyrobot77]

Well, while you are right about Acid and other Psychedelics (ie Mushrooms) Frank's position was that the members of his band (paid employees) refrain from taking drugs on the job so they could perform the very difficult and complicated material correctly. He's smoked weed and has probably done Acid too but neither, as I'm sure you will agree, have a useful purpose in the workplace. But yes, Frank's Music (and the music of Pink Floyd, Genesis, Yes, etc) is VERY enjoyable on LSD.

[@Pedro91795]

I love them both but I agree with another comment that cavett went into this cold - Frank must have liked him because he was relaxed around Dick and I have seen him be ruthless with who he considered poor interviewers

[@Pb-ij4ip]

The time DID shoot past! There was an interview where F.Z. was asked about “The Monkees” and he (much to the interviewers dismay) actually praised them. Any idea who conducted that interview and when?

[@JM-vp8zc]

The Zappa-Nesmith switcheroo was banal and insipid. Love it!!

[@Civilizashum]

some of the same people on Monkees' sessions played on Lumpy Gravy

[@davery81]

Mike Douglas interview 1976 where he played Black Napkins off Zoot Allures. He liked the Monkees. He was talking around how music as a product was packaged but he liked the way it was done there. They asked him the obligatory questions about Elvis and the Beatles. He said he liked the Beatles fine. He felt sorry for Elvis. Something interesting he said about Hendrix was that Jimi should have had a musical scribe or transcriptionist to take down on staff paper or tablature the way Jimi played it so it wouldnt have been lost to the ages. Gotta tell you, an intellectual musician is a treasure to me even posthumously.

[@spiralsun1]

I get super sleepy on marijuana lol. Feel the same 😂

[@mikemorrison270]

That's why Zeus made Benzedrine. Just kidding! well, sort of...

[@helugoconache]

i believe Cavett was slammed by the cocaine remark

[@HughMorristheJoker]

Elvis Presley had a great voice.

[@jtbaying2312]

I like Turtles 🐢

[@Avasive]

Together they are the God Father 2

[@Avasive]

The "OG" DC!!!!!!!

[@duster71]

Again they go to Moon's name,I went out with a Korean girl named Sunny. People are so closed minded.

[@patricktilton5377]

If he had named her just 'Moon', well, that'd be one thing. But to name her 'Moon Unit' was what brought on the stupefaction. Obviously, she would later go by the name 'Moon' -- as if 'Unit' were her middle name! -- and here YOU are referring to her by that truncated version of her name. Is the name 'Moon Unit' beyond the pale? Because she was born in 1967 (on September 28), when NASA was getting ready to put astronauts on the Moon, her name was, in a way, a way to enshrine Modern History into her nomenclature. There was talk in sci-fi stories and articles about Man's future anticipated presence on the Moon -- with colonists living in 'moon units', etc. There was a STAR TREK episode titled "Miri" -- named after a character (a girl) who was on the verge of becoming a woman -- and there were Trek fans who named their own daughters after her character's name. I suspect that nobody else named THEIR daughter 'Moon Unit', though, not because it was 'weird' but because it was indelibly associated with Frank Zappa's world, and it deserved to remain a unique name in popular culture as a result. I'd bet, though, that if NASA were to send a manned spacecraft to Europa (one of Jupiter's moons), and if astronauts were to land on it and walk around on it (etc.), that we might easily see the name 'Europa' crop up on birth certificates to commemorate that, as 'Europa' IS a female's name from Greek mythology, after all. But I can understand how Frank's daughter might feel like she was the butt of jokes when she was in elementary school, with kids making fun of her 'weird' name, so I can understand why she would've preferred going by the name 'Moon' instead. Like Frank said at least once, in answer to questions about the names he gave to her and to Dweezil, it would be their LAST name that would get them in trouble!

[@jtbaying2312]

What about Dwezel?

[@OutOnTheTiles]

Dick is just terrible in this interview. He’s clueless with his questions but back than most interviewers were bad at interviewing musicians.

[@mikemorrison270]

Aaawww, c'mon Zofo, sure he's a bit squaresville, but Dick's squareness is of an innocent kind, even though i sort of agree with you.

[@jimbalduf1202]

The Ramones started Punk in N.Y.C.

[@augustusbetucius2931]

Sort of. Malcolm McClaren had begun the so called punk revolution with the Sex Pistols at almost the exact same time. But it wasn't just the Ramones here in the US. It was also Television, Blondie, Talking Heads and a few others. The Ramones can't lay claim to being *the* ones to start punk. The Sex pistols had vastly more public attention than anyone else.

[@cartermartin2887]

Frank Zappa got canceled before it was cool

[@jtbaying2312]

Been a fan since Zappa & the Beef Heart mothers...

[@AntonKuznetsovMusic]

2:01

[@AntwhaleNearfar]

Talks 💩 about a punk band from England and hypes up New Wave. Asked who he likes in the New Wave genre…answers “The Slits”…a punk band from England. Ok Frank.

[@jazzypaul75]

I figure Frank would have loved Television and possibly Sonic Youth if he’d come across them

[@AntwhaleNearfar]

@@jazzypaul75 Tom Verlaine was the 💣.

[@junkettarp8942]

Frank could have been president.

[@osobucodonosor1991]

19:24

[@twohamburgers]

Can this not be required viewing for high school students about now? And I'm not taking any position on ANYTHING going on politically or with cultural directions or ANYTHING. Just show this to teenagers and simply see their reaction. But MOST importantly, all for the sake of seeing the questions they have and whatever conversations, arguments, dialogue transpires within the classroom.

[@petermaxwell2965]

Why do we have to tip-toe around religious organisations ? I think he means, Sid Barrett, poor bastard !

[@5jerry1]

~ Syd, not "Sid."

[@itkojecockot]

I agree with Frank on that, but Syd was still a genius

[@ofmermaids2940]

He’d be canceled so hard nowadays

[@jamestejada3673]

You 'd think he'd give a shit.He wouldn't care.

[@idkaboutthisfuckoffyoutube1041]

Guess aids helped get rid of disco

[@11Kralle]

The disco as place of social interaction still exists under the name of 'club'. ...and the rhythmical feature of disco-music (i.e. uninspired rhythms performed by computer hardware) is striving on powerfully.

[@HughMorristheJoker]

Modern music is very disco. 126 bpm. Formulaic chord progressions, etc. Taylor Swift, Katie Perry, Beyonce, The Weekend...

[@julietrask7497]

Euro trash still love disco.

[@jtbaying2312]

Yup, Monkey Poxx for the next Generation .