The definitive account of Frank Zappa's prolific musical career.
"Greg Russo has done an incredible job of reporting and organizing a gargantuan amount of information about FZ. Extra thanks go out to Greg for his more than rational assessment of Ben Watson's failure to communicate any real idea of what Frank was about in his unreadable attempt at analysis. Many of us hated and rejected the 'Negative Dialectics Of Poodle Play' debacle, and Greg's book is the first time that I have seen anything in print that had the guts to take it to task. 'Cosmik Debris' is an amazing book!" - TOM BROWN, RHINO RECORDS' creator of the "Beat The Boots!" series
"I have read the book, and I enjoy it immensely. I'm definitely impressed by it, and I speak as one who has read all the rest of the books. It is a perfect read for both the long-time fan and for the Zappa newcomer. A long-time fan like myself will probably get a pretty worn out copy after a while, and for the newcomer it's a mighty fine introduction to further reading too.
It's seldom that I am amazed by reading about Zappa, but this time I was amazed several times. Many facts pointed out in the book were new to me. The biography is simply great too: short, but on the whole, a true rendition of his life, as well as plenty of little-known facts thrown in. The language is easy to understand, even for international readers, and the book avoids those rude subjective remarks littered throughout other books. It's nice when the author has an affection for the subject! Greg Russo should be very proud of this book, because it's a success!" - FREDRIK JOHANSSON, Zappa fanatic, Sweden
"Of all the Zappa books I've seen and read (six or seven), Greg Russo's is certainly the one most worthy of attention, because it's the ultimate Zappa information source. This book has a straightforward brief: 'The facts, ma'am, just the facts' and it fulfils this brief admirably. In other words, if you're interested in a blow-by-blow factual account of Zappa's life and career, complemented by exhaustive listings of recordings, gigs, radio shows and so on... in short, Information, then This Has To Be The Book For You.
Russo's research is clearly extremely thorough. He sorts out all kinds of details that have gotten muddled in the past, such as exactly how Zappa first got interested in Edgard Varse (which the man himself misremembered in "The Real Frank Zappa Book"), and the full facts about the infamous "Studio Z" raid by the cops. And did you know that Don Preston toured with Nat 'King' Cole before joining the Mothers? To back all this up, there are numerous press cuttings - pictures of the actual bits of newspaper. There's a good selection of photos, many of which I hadn't seen before. There are also plenty of reproductions of record labels and sleeves, as well as concert posters and other forms of advertisement, to add to the general authenticity.
Overall, there's a refreshing lack of bull**** about this book. It's unpretentious, written in a simple journalistic style, and straight to the point. Russo has gone into tremendous detail on the early years, which in many ways is the most interesting period - we always like to know about the formative influences on our heroes.
When dealing with individual albums, he inserts special box-outs in the text, headed "CCC" for "Conceptual Continuity Clues". These highlight how various tracks - often the lyrics thereof - on the album relate or refer to other points in Zappa's and other people's output. Some of these are quite revealing.
And... those LISTINGS! For the true completist, the back pages of this book are worth the cover price on their own. There are:
- differences between CDs and the original LPs;
- a very complete discography (singles, LPs, cassettes and CDs);
- a complete, alphabetical track index;
- foreign (ie, non-US) releases;
- radio shows and appearances;
- unreleased compositions and projects;
- a complete concert and recording session calendar going back to 1954 (!) ... and that's only a selection of the listings!
If you're a serious Zappa follower, I do strongly recommend that you purchase this book! - CHRIS SANSOM, Highway 57 Zappa Zone, England
"Congratulations to Greg Russo for a great book and an amazing research work." - ROMN GARCA ALBERTOS, Frank Zappa site administrator, Spain
"It's a reference book, kind of a very elaborate discography, and a very good one. Simply put, I like the book and found it very useful. Now you don't need to pay needless, extra money for Ben Watson's Marxist mind-jerking just to get Greg Russo's real stuff! Hi-ho silver!" - VLADIMIR SOVETOV, ALT.FAN.FRANK-ZAPPA newsgroup administrator
"Russo's focus is clearly on officially-released recordings, and he really knows what he's talking about in that area. The book contains photos of many rare album covers and 45 labels, including at least two items that have been claimed not to exist. He also comes through with two bombshells: he debunks FZ's story of how he first learned of Varse through a Look Magazine article on Sam Goody, and he reveals that Michael Erso, who replaced Tom Fowler for four nights in November 1974, was actually Mick Rogers, lead guitarist and vocalist with Manfred Mann's Earth Band. This book really has something to offer." - CHARLES ULRICH, "Planet Of My Dreams" editor and contributor -- From The Publisher
