Andy Warhol Hosts Frank Zappa on His Cable TV Present, and Later Recollects, “I Hated Him Extra Than Ever” After the Present

Had Andy Warhol lived to see the web–particularly social networking–he would have liked it, although it could not have liked him. Although Warhol did see the very start­nings of the PC rev­o­lu­tion, and made com­put­er artwork close to the tip of his life on a Com­modore Ami­ga 1000, he was most­ly enam­ored, unsur­pris­ing­ly, of TV. “I really like tele­vi­sion,” he as soon as remarked, “It’s the medi­um I’d most prefer to shine in. I’m actual­ly jeal­ous of each­physique who’s bought their very own present on tele­vi­sion. I desire a present of my very own.”

Warhol actual­ized his dream in 1979, although in a venue that won’t have lived as much as his fan­tasies: a New York pub­lic-access chan­nel referred to as Man­hat­tan Cable, “which confirmed native sports activities match­es and agreed to promote 30-minute slots to Warhol for round $75 a pop,” notes The Tele­graph. Warhol made a complete of 42 episodes of his odd inter­view present. The pop artwork impre­sario “wasn’t actual­ly a nat­ur­al… when it got here to the del­i­cate artwork of chat-show host­ing,” however “he didn’t let that cease him.” By 1983, one may need thought he’d have gotten­ten the hold of it, but he appears espe­cial­ly awk­ward when cranky prog genius Frank Zap­pa appeared on his present that yr.

Luck­i­ly for Warhol, he’s joined by Zap­pa fan Richard Berlin, who serves as a buffer between the 2 tremendous­stars. (Berlin is prob­a­bly the son of William Ran­dolph Hearst’s hand­picked suc­ces­sor, whose daugh­ter, Brigid, was one in every of Warhol’s movie stars.) No less than within the excerpt above, Berlin does the entire work whereas Warhol seems to be on, appear­ing­ly stu­pe­fied. However the fact is that Warhol hat­ed Zap­pa, and after the inter­view, he wrote in his Diaries, “I hat­ed Zap­pa much more than when it begin­ed.” A part of what the present’s osten­si­ble host discovered so objec­tion­ready was Zappa’s ego­ma­ni­a­cal per­son­al­i­ty. Although Warhol, like Zap­pa, con­trolled his personal small inde­pen­dent empire, in tem­pera­ment, the 2 couldn’t have been extra dif­fer­ent.

However there was additionally some per­son­al his­to­ry between them that went again to the ear­li­est days of the Vel­vet Beneath­floor. “I remem­ber,” Warhol goes on, “when he was so imply to us when the Moth­ers of Inven­tion performed with the Vel­vet Underground—I feel each on the journey, in L.A., and on the Fill­extra in San Fran­cis­co. I hat­ed him then and I nonetheless don’t like him.” Zap­pa wasn’t sim­ply impolite, how­ev­er; at a 1967 present in New York, he turned his tal­ent for ridicule into what Kalei­do­scope magazine­a­zine author Chris Dar­row referred to as “one of many nice­est items of rock’n roll the­ater that I’ve ever seen.”

The open­ing evening was very crowd­ed and Zap­pa and mem­bers of the Moth­ers of Inven­tion confirmed as much as present their sup­port. (…) Nico’s deliv­ery of her mate­r­i­al was very flat, lifeless­pan, and expres­sion­much less, and he or she performed as if all of her songs had been dirges. She appeared as if she was strive­ing to res­ur­rect the ennui and deca­dence of Weimar, pre-Hitler Ger­many. Her icy, Nordic picture additionally added to the detach­ment of her deliv­ery. (…) The audi­ence was on her aspect, as she was in her ele­ment and the Warhol con­tin­gent was very promi­nent that evening. How­ev­er, what hap­pened subsequent is what sticks in my thoughts essentially the most from that evening. In between units, Frank Zap­pa bought up from his seat and walked up on the stage and sat behind the important thing­board of Nico’s B‑3 organ. He professional­ceed­ed to put his fingers indis­crim­i­nate­ly on the important thing­board in a complete, aton­al fash­ion and screamed on the high of his lungs, doing a automotive­i­ca­ture of Nico’s set, the one he had simply seen. The phrases to his impromp­tu tune had been the names of veg­eta­bles like broc­coli, cab­bage, aspara­gus… This “tune” saved going for a couple of minute or so after which sud­den­ly stopped. He walked off the stage and the present moved on.

What Warhol took per­son­al­ly could have simply been the irre­press­ible out­progress of Zappa’s dis­dain for vir­tu­al­ly each­factor, which he specific­es to Berlin within the inter­view. Orig­i­nal Moth­ers of Inven­tion drum­mer Jim­my Carl Black spec­u­lat­ed that he could have hat­ed the Vel­vet Beneath­floor as a result of “they had been junkies and Frank simply couldn’t tol­er­ate any form of medication.” The 2 bands had been additionally, briefly, com­peti­tors at MGM.

However per­haps Zap­pa simply couldn’t tol­er­ate any­one else tak­ing the spot­gentle, espe­cial­ly a tal­ent­ed feminine per­former. Warhol remem­bers Zap­pa’s response to a com­pli­ment about his daugh­ter, Moon. “Lis­ten,” he sup­pos­ed­ly instructed Warhol, “I cre­at­ed her. I invent­ed her.… She’s noth­ing. It’s all me.” In con­trast to the “pecu­liar” reply, Warhol writes “if it had been my daugh­ter I might be say­ing ‘Gee, she’s so good,’ however he’s tak­ing all of the cred­it.” Zap­pa could have been a musi­cal genius with a spe­cial entre­pre­neur­ial aptitude and inci­sive crit­i­cal wit, however the “intercourse­ist auto­crat… with a scabrous atti­tude,” as Automobile­lo Wolff describes him, “was not a like­ready man.” Cer­tain­ly the mild-man­nered Warhol didn’t suppose so.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Andy Warhol Dig­i­tal­ly Paints Deb­bie Har­ry with the Ami­ga 1000 Com­put­er (1985)

Frank Zappa’s Nineteen Eighties Seem­ances on The David Let­ter­man Present

When Andy Warhol Visitor-Starred on The Love Boat (1985)

Josh Jones is a author and musi­cian based mostly in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness