Customer Reviews

Frank Zappa: The Negative Dialectics of Poodle Play

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I have enjoyed reading (and re-reading) Watson's book since it first came out years ago. His passion for the music of Frank Zappa makes this book a wonderful read. I especially like the way in which Watson draws upon a wide array of musical and literary sources that help place Zappa's work in a broader artistic and intellectual context. Any Zappa fan who appreciates the relationship between theory and culture will find much value in this densely researched book, even if you find yourself (as I do) disagreeing with Watson's conclusions and the premises of much of his analysis.

In general Watson's assertions, while cogently argued and often compelling, serve to espouse theory--especially Freudianism and Marxism--at the expense of the subject, Zappa's art. This creates the unfortunate problem of teaching the reader a lot about theory but little about Zappa's music. Watson, despite a very noble attempt, is unsuccessful at demonstrating a strong link between his chosen theoretical approach and the complexities of Zappa's art which tend to resist mere reduction to Marxist and Freudian interpretations. But, as a reader, it is enjoyable to see Watson try. In fact, Watson demonstrates a lot of courage in his attempt to do so, and that in itself makes this book a worthwile purchase.

This is the "tweezed" 2005 update to the original 1998 publication. It comes with the addition of a section on 1998-2005 releases, called "Posthumous Existence."

This book is a very serious, crowded work of Zappa deconstruction and analysis, definitely not for someone looking for an introduction into the Zappa cosmology. Watson certainly knows his stuff, whether it comes to the music, its construct and content, band membership, the history and context, but his overwrought analysis, increasingly haughty tone, and his curt dismissal of virtually all other Zappa writers and historians comes off as nothing but intolerant ego.

I got this book as a work-up to Watson's Frank Zappa: The Negative Dialectics of Poodle Play. Being a solid FZ fan and prophet for a good 30 years now, I'm just a few releases short of the complete library, and have been reading up. And in reading about FZ, you can't miss the references to the massive, intimidating Ben Watson magnum opus, his Mother of all Zappa biographies/interpretations. At the same time, while these references make it clear that it's no Ulysses, one has to have a certain level of background and knowledge of FZ's work and larger issues of music and its criticism to be able to access it. This was my seventh Frank Zappa book, having read the FZ/Occhiogrosso autobiography, and the Walley, Courier, Kostelanetz, James and Lowe works. I figured I was ready to get into Watson, at least at the introductory level. But, reading this book has changed my plans; I don't think I'll be reading Negative Dialectics.

Watson comes across in this book as the worst kind of expert, the one who has complete command of the facts, never lets you forget it, and then heaps condescending scorn on every single aspect of your outlook which does not conform perfectly to his own interpretation. You get that with his snide comments on "peanut-brained `hardcore [FZ] fans'" and almost universal condemnation of authors of other FZ books, sarcastically deriding their works. I got the feeling from reading this book that the two of us would not get along, despite the fact we're both lifelong Zappa fans.

Watson's increasingly frequent references to himself and his work at first were quirky, but by the end of this short little book were just plain intrusive and egotistical. His first mention uses the journalistic third-person convention ("The author observed..."), but as the book progresses it's more and more "I," "my" and "me," with extended first-person narrative on his actions. We get more than enough references by Watson to what he wants us to know is his personally defining 1993 meeting with FZ, talks with Gail, and meetings with others in the inner circle, right down to Frank playing Watson selections from Civilization Phaze III, in Frank's living room of course. For a book with such a high gloss of academic rigor and discipline, this increasingly frequent first-person intrusion seems a desperate and needy attempt at legitimation.

As for the density of this work, it seems Watson is over-qualified to write a guide like this. His wide-ranging, reference-rich approach and his analytical touchstones are so esoteric and academic that they're going to leave most readers weary, if not totally lost. This book has Marxism, feminism, Kafka, Plato, Samuel Beckett, Shakespeare, Goethe, the vilification of "the `political correctness' that expresses the condescension of the rich and powerful," and the loneliness of pornography, among many, many other issues, concepts, persons, movements and philosophies. I mean, seriously: "Zappa's confrontation of accident and rigour bears comparison to John Cage and Jackson Pollock and their fascination with `chance.' However, although the neo-Dadaists of Fluxus liked to say they were demolishing `high art' values, the discourse that surrounded them elevated them to a plane Zappa could not aspire to." Wut?

Early on, it's pretty clear Ryko has been involved in the preparation and/or publication of this book. Watson gives clear thanks to Ryko for its decision to re-release the entire FZ catalog. And whaddaya know, all of the Rykodisk catalog numbers are listed, but all we get for the original vinyl releases is a date. For a "complete guide," this deliberate lack of release detail is unforgivable, and smells to me as coming strictly from commercial. Go to the Billy James book for a more comprehensive discography. (The James book also is better on appendices on band members and concerts, although restricted to the MOI years.)

Layout: Major sections are the introduction, "The Verve Years," "The Bizarre Years," "Discreet," "Warner Brothers versus Laether," "The CBS Years," "'Classical' Projects," " Barking Pumpkin," "Digging the Archive," "The Final Masterpiece," (that's "Civilization Phaze III") and "Posthumous Existence." Each FZ release gets its own write-up. There are no individual write-ups for each track, although certain tracks do get extensive coverage within the album descriptions/deconstructions. There's also a very interesting and helpful appendix on which Zappa recordings are most treasured and rare.

The index is a track index only. If you're looking for specific references to your favorite track, you can find it easily. But, with all of the places, studios, personnel and musicians and academic references noted here, a comprehensive index would be extremely helpful. Note to editor: upgrade the index in the next issue.

I also note for this book, as I did for the Steely Dan guide, that the print is too small. Note to editor: up-size the print for the next edition.

Bottom line: If you're new to the world of Frank Zappa, the MOI and conceptual continuity, and are looking for a book that'll give you clear background on and observation of Frank and his music, don't choose this one. This book is written from the point of view of total familiarity with FZ and all of his music, words, performances, etc. This overly dense and distractingly author-centered work is not an entry-level book on FZ; read the Real Frank Zappa Book, the word from the original hungry freak.

I have read the following books by or about Frank Zappa. In addition, this list constitutes a ranking of my assessment of the quality of these books.

1. THE REAL FRANK ZAPPA BOOK by Frank Zappa and Peter Occhioigrosso
2. MOTHER! THE FRANK ZAPPA STORY by Michael Gray
3. FRANK ZAPPA: THE NEGATIVE DIALECTICS OF POODLE PLAY
4. ELECTRIC DON QUIXOTE: THE DEFINITIVE STORY OF FRANK ZAPPA by Neil Slaven
5. NECESSITY IS... THE EARLY YEARS OF FRANK ZAPPA AND THE MOTHERS OF INVENTION by Billy James
6. COSMIK DEBRIS: THE COLLECTIVE HISTORY AND IMPROVISATIONS OF FRANK ZAPPA by Greg Russo
7. NO COMMERCIAL POTENTIAL: THE SAGA OF FRANK ZAPPA by David Walley
8. THEM OR US by Frank Zappa
9. UNDER THE SAME MOON by Suzannah Thana Harris
10. BEING FRANK: MY TIME WITH FRANK ZAPPA by Nigery Lennon

When I started reading FRANK ZAPPA: THE NEGATIVE DIALECTICS OF POODLE PLAY, I found myself having flashbacks to the days of my doctoral studies and to the philosophical debates emerging from the 60's liberation movement. While a Ph.D. student I studied Postmodernism, Feminism, Liberation Philosophers, etc. You know, all the stuff you'd think would have no application outside of graduate study. As a result, I was fascinated because reading this book was the first time I had to actually reflect back to the philosophies I studied. I actually found myself reading POODLE PLAY in the manner that I read my required readings as a Ph.D student. I checked and read some of the citations; I searched for more information on topics for which I was unfamiliar (i.e.," Situational International"); I discussed major themes and ideas with colleagues who were professors of economics, philosophy, sociology and political science. After reading the several chapters, my first impression was that Watson's book was intellectually challenging - more challenging than any recent research I have been reading.

Two critical points can be made. First, I was profoundly struck by Watson' critique of Feminist Theory within Zappa's work. I never read such an analysis and found it refreshing. I saw Zappa much more of a deep thinker and an intellectual giant. Second, some of Watson's later analysis of Zappa's work seemed to be pushing the envelop to absurdity. I began to see Watson as a pseudo intellectual particularly when he equated KING LEAR with Zappa's APOSTROPHE('). Watson writes: "In 'Nanook Rubs It' Nonook blinds the fur trapper by rubbing his eyes with snow discoloured with ... [you know]. Blindness is also central to King Lear." (page 243). I almost stopped reading.

Somehow I managed to continue to read and I'm glad that I did. When I reached the epilogue, the entire book was made clear. Here, Watson describes his meeting with Zappa and his wife, Gail, after they read the prepublished manuscript of POODLE PLAY. At that time, Zappa had terminal cancer and the book made him laugh! Clearly, this was Watson's intent for his book. I finally got it! In an attempt to define the humor found within, I spoke with Dr. Bowman who specializes in the study of humor and recreation. Currently, there seems to be no formal label for Watson's brand of humor. Bowman came to the conclusion that Watson's work can best be described as hyperbolic or benign fabrications - descriptive terms that were derived from the work of Erving Goffman. Essentially, through a series of intellectual gyration, Watson takes classical literature (throughout the ages) and draws parallels with Zappa's work. In many cases the linkages are fascinating, but other times they are absurd. It is like a very good April Fools joke. It is like tugging a barely fitting rubber band over the head of a jar.

The big question is how was Watson able to pull this off? First, it is obvious that he studied philosophy and knows the subject matter. Second, he intimately knows Zappa's work. Third, Watson discovered reoccurring themes in the history of humanity. Thus, the blindness we find in APOSTROPHE(') can be defined with the same symbolic value we see in King Lear. Did Zappa create this deep symbolism in his lyrics? Of course not! Is there some kind of collective unconsciousness within humanity in which general themes for the understanding of the meaning of life continues to surface in a unique manner for each generation? Well, that sounds like a theme for Watson's next book.

Alternately ludicrous, entertaining, informative and pretentious, Ben Watson's book on Zappa is nothing if not different. The clue is in the title: "Negative Dialectics", Theodore Adorno is mentioned almost as often as Zappa himself is (but could he play guitar like him?). The thing about Zappa is that he may be probably the most intelligent man ever to strap on a guitar in rock 'n' roll history but (like Beefheart), he ain't no intellectual. Mr Watson however is, and he has uncovered a whole barrel-load of entertaining, but frankly ludicrous, philosophical, literary, political and psychoanalyical allusion and meanings in various Zappa songs and albums. The thing that makes me most suspicious of Mr Watson is the way the lamer an album is the more time he spends expounding on it's "actual" meaning - thus Apostrophe is compared to King Lear, I could go on - no wonder Frank and his missus were in stitches.

The fact that Watson has to spend so much time and hard work on Zappa's oeuvre post-1970 perhaps tells it's own story - the fact is Zappa stopped saying anything very interesting in his songs throughout the entirety of the 1970's, only the intervention of the PMRC into his increasing smug and self-refential universe helped reignite the kind of indignation and passion Zappa had displayed in the 60's.

Watson goes thru all sorts of ingenious and amusing contortions trying to defend or explain away his hero's often rancid social and sexual politics. He does at least nail Zappa's hopelessly petit bourgeois hatred of unions but struggles to convince on such gems of Zappa's back catalogue as "The Illionis Enema Bandit" (a glorification of a convicted sex offender) and gives up altogether on the truly repulsive "Jumbo Go Away". Unfortunately, Watson, as with most Zappa fanatics seems incapable of noticing their hero's often quite considerable clay feet. IMO his sexual politics are not surprising for a guy who grew up in the 50's and then experienced the 60's counter-culture's knuckle-dragging sexism at first hand - ...Zappa was a middle-aged rock star by the 80's, and he sounded it.

Towards the end of the book it becomes little more than a track-by-track review of each album - a trifle wearying if truth be told. Plus Watson is annoyingly self-aggrandizing at times, for instance mentioning that Zappa had introduced him at a party as "some kind of genius"!

Still, worth a look

This book will prove a good source of Zappa info for anyone with an academic approach (and an equally academic sense of humor)to music, sometimes so ridicoulously free-form and speculative that it just makes you laugh with disbelief at some of Watson's more absurd connections between Zappa as a lyricist and numerous philosophers, writers and political figures. I found it amusing, funny, if not totally believable. It seems Watson's been using Zappa's work as a launch pad for his own philosophy, sometimes interpreting lyrics, and titles really strange. When he managed to extract the Biblical name Onan from the title mONtANa, leaving only MTA, which could be read "empty, eh?" I couldn't tell if he was serious or not, but I sure was laughing! A couple of really fascinating anecdotes and a great interview with Zappa by the author improves the overall impression. Recommended.

Frank Zappa is certainly one of the most complex and interesting rock stars to pick up a guitar. Musically, he was a spectacular player; lyrically he was both humorous and dense, prompting comparisons with James Joyce. Ben Watson adds his voice to the undeservedly scanty body of material analyzing Zappa's work with the same humor and iconoclasm of his subject. However, Watson's approach is somewhat skewed. Despite written and spoken evidence to the contrary, Ben Watson insists that Zappa's work supports Marxist and freudian theories of society. He cites references from all aspects of academia, from Theodor Adorno to William Wordsworth, from Jean Paul Sartre to Marxist eighties bands such as The Clash and heaven 17. Many of his arguments are tenuous at best, while some are based entirely on coincidence . Moreover, he is often factually incorrect, mishearing lyrics or taking quotes out of context. Nonetheless, The Negative Dialectic of poodle Play is still extremely useful. It is the only work so far to attempt an in-depth discussion of the entire body of Zappa's official releases. In addition, though some of Watson's analasys is entirely wrong, much of it (especially regarding the early Mothers of invention) is at least thought-provoking, raising some very interesting points. Even the inaccurte arguments are amusing, sometimes provoking laughter. In particular, there comes to mind a chapter comparing the album Apostrophe (of "Don't Eat the Yellow Snow" fame) with King Lear by William Shakespeare. Also of especial interest is an appendix detainlin the meeting of Watson and Zappa in which they discuss several topics in Poodle Play. While this book is oriented towards Zappa's immediate audience, those whose interests include the theory of cuture will certainly enjoy reading about hte ideosyncrasies of both Zappa and Watson.

It's amazing that so much different music came from one man, the genius Frank Zappa. Also amazing is Ben Watson's knowledge of Philosophy, Psychology, recorded music and literature. and politics.and history.and etc. This book is a combination of Frank Zappa and Ben Watson. Ben using loads of intellectual,materialist arguments to analyse FZ's music (well, mostly his lyrics). The method of negative dialectics brings low culture and high culture together and ridicules the class system, or something like that. It's quite difficult, one moment you can be reading the lyrics to Easy Meat, and suddenly you're plunged into the intellectual reduction of Beethoven's music to orgasm. It's heavy stuff, and it isn't helped by the long-windedness of the writing.

The chapters on the early stuff, from freak out to 1972, are pretty damn good.He draws a lot of his information from other books (Michael Gray Mother!The story of Frank Zappa - loads of quotes from this book; also david walley 'no commercial potential'), but he gives us loads of his own insights too, loads of Karl Marx and Freud. For example, the uncle meat analysis is brilliant.(When he reads it to Frank in the epilogue section, frank leans over to shake his hand). Ben uses a lot of quotes from a philosopher guy called Theodore Adorno, these are used to illustrate certain points but sometimes are incredibly difficult to understand( to non-philosophy readers like me).

Then things get really insane. Overnite sensation and apostrophe are analysed almost to death, and this is where he starts bringing in Shakespeare and Plato and James Joyce and other things. He doesn't talk a great deal about the 'music' in these albums, it's all poetry. Some of his conclusions are amazing eg montana is about masturbation because you can extract the word 'onan' from it (onanism). One size fits all is also given a hefty workout.

Things get more down to earth after these albums, but still plenty of great speculation ('fine girl' for example). 'Lather' is given a super treatment, a great blend of information and 'are you serious Ben?' analysis. For albums like 'shut up' and 'guitar' he can't really say much except that they're great albums, and refers to the solos as either 'pungent' or 'devastating'. The book then gets into a dullish album by album ,track by track analysis, which is great if you want to look up a single album (but not so great if you're reading the book through). For example, if you buy 'thing-fish' and are wondering what it's all about, Check out this book for some excellent tips. (jwcurry is mentioned as an important zappaphile here). He also goes through the 'stage ' series , some useful stuff . Great chapter when he finally meets Frank, and some funny barbs to the critics in the postscript.

Overall, i would only recommend this book to Frank Zappa fans who have a lot of the stuff, or who are on their way to 'a higher plane of Zappa appreciation'. It's certainly the only book of its kind. Thank you

I read this book for no reason that is very clear to me anymore, since when I bought it I was neither a left-wing academic nor a Zappa fan. I think the sheer obsessive folly of the whole thing got me hooked. And in fact, quite apart from it's virtues as a treatise on philosophy (which, among other things, it is) or a book about Zappa, it's one of the best books ever written about rock music. Watson's brilliant inspiration was to try to bring together his dedicated left-wing politics and his love for the vast and ungainly oeuvre of the decidedly non-left-wing Frank Zappa. It's a heroic attempt, and the amazing thing about it is that it's persuasive. Zappa's hatred of religious fundamentalism, his dedication to music, his humour, his indomitable determination to stick to his guns, his courage in opposing repressive government policies, are what get Watson really enthusiastic. It's true that there's not all that much here about the music qua music, although Watson considers Zappa to be an important composer and the finest rock guitarist since Hendrix (and he's not far wrong about either); but the minute attention to Zappa's lyrics produces some of the most unlikely and brilliant literary criticism since William Empson. The section when he goes to visit the ailing Zappa in LA is remarkable (Zappa seems to have generally approved of the book, and is a gracious interviewee even when he claims that he can't stand Shakespeare.) "Preposterousness is an underrated quality" claims the author in a letter to Zappa's wife, and this book bears him out. It also turned me into a Zappa fan. Now that has to be a good thing.

Clearly not your typical rock an roll book, which tend to fall into the categories of either poorly written self-aggrandizing "autobiographies", or breathless anecdotes from managers, groupies, hangers-on, etc. Ben Watson's book is a thoughtful examination of Frank Zappa's lyrics and the overall meaning of his career.

Sadly, the book does not devote as much attention to Zappa's music, which most people would consider far more significant than the lyrics. Although many reviewers point out Watson's farcically "deep" reading of Zappa's lyrics, it is his relative disinterest in the music which is the book's greatest stumbling block.

That being said, there is an awful lot for hardcore Zappa fanatics to chew on here. In the end it's certainly worth the effort.

as i swam through the output macrostructure delighting in the accidents of conceptual similtude i streamed into a smoky chamber where a host of zappophiles cast off their fetishistic ways proclaiming themselves the sons of ben and set fire to the booklets photos and packaging they had purchased with their cds and getting high off the smoke when ben himself appeared in a cloud saying don't just burn the packaging burn the discs too for everything that lives is smelly and so the smoke from the burning discs blended with the outside world so diluting it was no longer visible but infinitely audible and the host of zappophiles gasped as they realized that the outside smoke was beginning to take on the audible characteristics of the zappasmoke as it blended combining and strengthening and just as they began to really get off they gathered and built an enormous tent to contain the smoke so it would not further dilute into the atmosphere so naturally the smoke that was kept inside the zappatent was consumed commodified and died but what escaped grew in strength and joyfully recombined endlessly recreating its own delights and life itself