“Rock journalism is people who can’t write, preparing stories based on interviews with people who can’t talk, in order to amuse people who can’t read.” Though Frank Zappa professes to hate the music press, he has probably given more interviews than anybody other than Paul McCartney. This is partly because he has had unfortunate experiences with his record companies and felt the need to publicise his records and tours himself. Then, later, after starting his own record company, he could not afford the payola required to get his records on to the radio. The only other way of getting publicity was again to give interviews. Zappa has always had a lot to say on virtually any subject. His political opinions have been spelled out in detail ever since the Mothers of Invention began, culminating in a serious investigation of his chances of winning if he ran for President in the 1992 elections. In the early days, Zappa gave his longest, most detailed interviews to the underground press. He later gave his best interviews to the monthly glossies aimed at musicians, some of which he even wrote for. This book contains quotes taken from about 100 sources, including transcripts of various radio interviews. Over the years, Zappa has told virtually the whole story of his early days, and the main pleasure of working on this book has been in piercing them together in chronological order to create an autobiography. His well published visits to Moscow in the late Eighties, and Prague in the Nineties, brought attention from the non-musical press and many of the quotes used here come from the business press. Finally, because just like everyone else, Zappa’s views have changed with time, the quotes are dated.