The similarities are best illustrated by comparison to a Calder mobile: a multicolored whatchamacallit, dangling in space, that has big blobs of metal connected to pieces of wire, balanced ingeniously against little metal dingleberries on the other end.” In my compositions, I employ a system of weights, balances, measured tensions and releases- in some way similar to Varese’s aesthetic.

“A composer is a guy who goes around forcing his will on unsuspecting air molecules, often with the assistance of unsuspecting musicians. “What do you do for a living, dad? If one of my kids ever asked me that question, the answer would have to be: ‘What I do is composition.’ I just happen to use material other than notes for the pieces.” Since I didn’t have any kind of formal training, it didn’t make any difference to me if I was listening to Lightnin’ Slim, or a vocal group called the Jewels or Webern, or Varèse, or Stravinsky. “I didn’t know anything about twelve-tone music then, but I liked the way it sounded. “I bought my first Boulez album when I was in the twelfth grade: a Columbia recording of ‘Le Marteau Sans Maitre’ (The Hammer Without a Master) conducted by Robert Craft, with ‘Zeitmasse’ (Time-mass) by Stockhausen on the other side.” When she heard what came out of that little speaker at the bottom of the Decca, she looked at me like I was out of my fucking mind.” “The article went on to say something like: ‘This album is nothing but drums-it’s dissonant and terrible the worst music in the world’ Ahh! Yes! That’s for me!” “I turned the volume all the way up (in order to get the maximum amount of ‘fi’) and carefully placed the all-purpose osmium-tipped needle on the lead-in spiral to ‘Ionisation.’ I have a nice Catholic mother who likes to watch Roller Derby.

Goody could sell anything-and as an example he mentioned that he had even managed to sell an album called Ionisation.” Zappa is best described in his own words, from The Real Frank Zappa Book: “One day I happened across an article about Sam Goody’s record store in Look magazine which raved about what a wonderful merchandizer he was.

The real frank zappa