For the purpose of this blog, I’m gonna come clean: reading wasn’t always my thing.
It used to bore me. It used to irritate me. It used to make me furrow my eyebrows and think “Que?”
Then, once 4th grade hit, everything changed. I became a sc-fi/fantasy geek and began to read anything and everything I could get my hands on.
Despite all that, however, there was one thing I still couldn’t handle. And that was biographies.
Until, of course, this summer, when I read a totally kickass biography of Led Zeppelin (which admittedly turned me into a mini-encyclopedia, but who cares? I was a geek anyway, thank you very much).
So when my English teacher told us to find a nonfiction book to read for our upcoming book review, I was psyched! I immediately went to the library’s online catalogue and looked up everything that had to do with music. And, oh yes! I even managed to find a promising title:
Losing My Virginity: How I’ve Survived, Had Fun, and Made A Fortune Doing Business My Way
Upon reading the title, I let out a strangled kind of laugh. A friend noticed the laugh and peered over my shoulder to see what it was that I found so amusing. She read it and snorted, “Only you, Carmel,” before wandering off in search of a biography on Queen Elizabeth.
While I ended up not choosing that bio for the book review, I ordered it from my library and read it slowly and meticulously, savoring every morsel of knowledge, be it about the recording business, contracts, rockstar personas or even ballooning. I had heard of Virgin Records, yes, but they had gone out of business before I was even fully aware of all the music out there. Hearing how Virgin Music came to be straight from the horse’s mouth was refreshing and entertaining. Richard Branson, it seemed, was quite the guy.
Yet, something wasn’t working. I was already past the 50-page mark, it was the early 1970s, this guy was in the music business and Frank hadn’t yet popped into the picture. I knew he was going to show up, and by then I was antsy. Where was he?
I passed the 70-page mark, the 80-page mark and lo and behold, there he was on page 85.
Ladies and gentlemen, Frank Zappa had arrived.
See, from 1970 to 1972, Richard Branson and Virgin Music had been working on a project that only materialized in the latter half of 1972. They’d bought a large, country-side manor and set up a recording studio inside it, so bands could have a relaxing stay in the countryside, use massive amounts of their preferred poison at night and record anything that came to their high-in-the-sky minds.
They inventively decided to name it the ‘Manor’.
The Manor was becoming popular, fast, with recognition from Adam Faith, Sandy Denny and The Rolling Stones (it hadn’t been released yet, but Mike Oldfield recorded the entirety of Tubular Bells at the Manor).
In any case, Frank heard about it and was interested in “investigating the possibilities of recording there”. Richard Branson knew of Frank, enjoyed his music, and appreciated his satire. So, similarly, he thought Frank would appreciate a little joke. They made arrangements, and Richard drove Frank up from London, except instead of taking the road to Shipton, he took a detour to nearby Woodstock.
They got off the road at a “majestic arch” and Richard drove them down a long, gravel driveway leading to the door of an extravagant house. Richard told Frank to knock on the door and tell them who he was while he parked the car.
Frank did just that and a uniformed footman opened the door. He didn’t recognize Frank and regarded him with distaste and annoyance when Frank told them he’d come to stay. Not surprisingly, there was a reason Frank wasn’t recognized” he had just knocked on the door of Blenheim Palace, ancestral seat of the Dukes of Marlborough.
Frank got back in the car, swearing he saw the funny side of the joke, but never recorded at the Manor.
It wouldn’t be the first time Branson got the “fuzzy end of the lollipop” (for those of you who are confused, consult the classics—or just Some Like It Hot with Ms. Monroe). It wouldn’t be last, either.
All in all, the book was entertaining—though if I had a choice, I’d probably have to go with the Zappa anecdote featured in the Zep bio. You guys remember. The one that ended up on the Fillmore album?
What can I say? I’m going to h**l, and my car is a two-seater.
Anyone? Bueller?
One of the first non-school books that I ever read cover to cover was a Led Zeppelin biography called Hammer of the Gods. It came out @1985 and I honestly did not want to put it down. I now have a stash of biographies around my house.
Loved your blog. It sent me back to my high school days.
Hi Carmel,
If I can share with you a story. I had turned 10 years old in December of 1972, the year David Walley's No Commercial Potential -- The Saga of Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention biography was released. By this point I was a hard core Zappa fan where the catalog up to The Grand Wazoo defined my the ideology "Zappa is the best, a decade ahead of his time". So the book comes out and I start reading. I beleive it as fact where 6 years later I have a painting made on a jacket. While the ideology remained steadfast by the end of the decade I had learned that Frank Zappa thought David Walley was, and I am quoting FZ here "David Walley is a Tragic Case".
Writers use their own color in their diction. I am all for the color part but when the dialog is fabricated to the extent where a brown goo does not accurately depict the composers intent that is not too cool. When fans are mislead, that is a bad thing.
http://www.dweezilzappaworld.com/photos/21654
In regards to the Unauthorized Book "No Commercial Potential", a noted Frank Zappa Quote is depicted in the lower right thought bubble, which reads: "David Walley Is A Tragic Case" …Read more
Hi Carmel,
If I can share with you a story. I had turned 10 years old in December of 1972, the year David Walley's No Commercial Potential -- The Saga of Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention biography was released. By this point I was a hard core Zappa fan where the catalog up to The Grand Wazoo defined my the ideology "Zappa is the best, a decade ahead of his time". So the book comes out and I start reading. I beleive it as fact where 6 years later I have a painting made on a jacket. While the ideology remained steadfast by the end of the decade I had learned that Frank Zappa thought David Walley was, and I am quoting FZ here "David Walley is a Tragic Case".
Writers use their own color in their diction. I am all for the color part but when the dialog is fabricated to the extent where a brown goo does not accurately depict the composers intent that is not too cool. When fans are mislead, that is a bad thing.
http://www.dweezilzappaworld.com/photos/21654
In regards to the Unauthorized Book "No Commercial Potential", a noted Frank Zappa Quote is depicted in the lower right thought bubble, which reads: "David Walley Is A Tragic Case" Painting began 1978, thought bubbles added 1980.
Hi Carmel,
I have never heard of that Branson story and find it very hard to believe to be honest. It's like the story Alice Cooper has tried to tell me about Frank wearing a Yankees baseball uniform and chasing him down the street with a baseball bat. Hmmm...
DZ