The album that made John Cale “hate” Frank Zappa
Frank Zappa, as talented as he is, is not for everyone. At his best, his guitar playing and compositional ability was hard to match, not to mention the sheer volume of acclaimed records he released during his lifespan. Zappa might have been an eccentric weirdo, but there’s no denying that he was a wizard at his craft.
Except, many people do choose to ignore that, and have either derided his prowess as a musician or come to blows with him in the past in feuds over sharing bandmates. David Bowie famously disliked Zappa for how petulantly he handled a situation when he pinched the services of guitarist Adrian Belew from under his nose. Zappa, who was reluctant to let go of his trusted guitarist, repeatedly uttered the phrase “Fuck you, Captain Tom” in response to everything Bowie and Belew had to say for themselves when they met to discuss Belew’s move, which Bowie saw as Zappa being something of a waspish crybaby.
Lou Reed and Sterling Morrison also had some choice words to share regarding Zappa and his pretentious exploits, with Reed expressing that “Frank Zappa is the most untalented musician I’ve ever heard,” before further slamming him, saying, “He can’t play rock ‘n’ roll because he’s a loser.” Morrison was no less polite in his assessment of the guitarist’s work, saying, “If you told Frank Zappa to eat shit in public, he’d do it if it sold records.”
While the Velvet Underground were an astounding group that defined counter-cultural movements in the 1960s and ‘70s, they were clearly also the most prominent Zappa ‘hate club’ to have existed, as it wasn’t just Reed and Morrison that were flinging shit at the musician. Former Velvets bassist and keyboard player John Cale also had plenty of opinions on Zappa as both an artist and human being – none of them flattering.
This long-standing feud saw Cale level criticism at Zappa in 1994 during an interview with Oor, where he stated that Zappa “isn’t really interested in music…he’s using music for ammunition.” While this isn’t the most unsavoury thing Cale could possibly have said about him, music magazine Uncut would stoke the fire once more in an interview with Cale in 2013 when they asked him which album of Zappa’s filled him with the most ire.
To Cale, this was an open invitation to explain everything that he hated about Zappa, starting by saying, “I have a healthy resentment for him. He had a great, acid sense of humour, but this guy, with all his technique and ability, never did anything that made me want to love music.” While he made small room for a compliment towards the late guitarist and his wit, this alone is already a damning indictment. However, Cale wasn’t quite done with his tirade at this point.
“I think he trained himself in his expertise to spite his parents,” Cale continued before saying, “he had contempt for the rock music he played. And self-contempt. Fear, loathing and self-hatred.”
So, which album of Zappa’s albums did Cale hate the most? “Thing-Fish just postured at nihilism,” he would finish his argument by saying. To be fair to him, he isn’t wrong – Thing-Fish is a botched attempt at a satirical rock opera that doesn’t do itself any favours by pandering to racist and homophobic stereotypes for almost two hours. However, it is also undoubtedly Zappa at its core, and if you’ve any knowledge of how stubborn he could be when it came to not backing down over an idea, then he was always destined to make the odd duff record, no matter how misguided it was.
