ABOUT THE IDIOT BASTARD
As many of you probably know, since 1988 I have
been a regular contributor to Fred Tomsett's
excellent little organ T'Mershi Duween.
During this period I have also written a monthly From A to Z column for Cindy Zeuli's sadly now defunct Dweezil Zappa Fan Club Magazine, and other bits and pieces for the also
now-demised Society Pages and the
short-lived Z-Zine.
This activity led to credits and/or acknowledgements in Michael Gray's Mother! The Frank Zappa Story (Plexus,
1993), Ben Watson's Frank Zappa: The
Negative Dialectics Of Poodle Play (Quartet,
1994), Neil Slaven's Electric Don Quixote: The Story Of Frank Zappa (Omnibus, 1996) and
Kevin Courrier's Dangerous
Kitchen: The Subversive World Of Zappa (ECW, 2002). With the
ever-increasing gaps between issues of TD,
I asked Fred whether he'd mind me putting out a non-profit making newsletter.
Nothing happened for ages. Then I got around to buying a computer.
I have posted this site purely so that I can
continue to write about Frank, his music, his collaborators, and any other old
crud I choose to stuff up the cracks to help keep the memory alive. The site's
inception has resulted in: further credits and/or acknowledgements in Billy
James' Necessity Is...The Early Years of
Frank Zappa & The Mothers Of Invention (SAF, 2001), Greg Russo's 'son
of revised' Cosmik Debris: The Collected History and
Improvisations of Frank Zappa (Crossfire, 2003), Nigey
Lennon's updated edition of Being Frank:
My Time With Frank Zappa (California Classics, 2003), Barry Miles's Frank Zappa
(Atlantic Books, 2004), and the liner notes of the Tornadoes CD, Now And Then (Crossfire, 2005); Don
Preston designing me the Idiot Bastard Son logo (see above); the Muffin Men
bequeathing a previously unreleased tune and awarding me a Green Muffin (see
above - from which Fred has since taken a big bite); my recording debut on the Eyeinhand Sampler, Volume 1 (Vaso
Music, VM 032), an album dedicated to the memory of FZ and featuring a plethora
of alumni; my helping Thana Harris to rehearse two
songs from Sleep Dirt for her
Zappanale #13 appearance; my liner notes for the Zappanale 13-18 CD sets; my
compiling the Zappanale 17 and 18 double and Bonus discs; my helping Napoleon
Murphy Brock and the Muffin Men get together for Zappanale #14; my listing as a
private supporter of the authorised adaptation of Thing-Fish at the Battersea Arts Centre
in August 2003; contributions to the Arf Dossier; the
appearances of Nigey Lennon, Ed Palermo and Candy
& Bob Zappa at Zappanale #13; copious unbecoming mentions in Academy Zappa - Proceedings Of The First International
Conference Of Esemplastic Zappology
(SAF, 2005); the uncredited inclusion of my 'inbetweenie' track (Lou-Lou)
on the third disc of the Zappanale 15 CD set; my appearance in the Muffinz Moovies Vols 2 and 3 DVDs; and the compilation of 20 Extraordinary Renditions of The Idiot Bastard Son (Cordelia Records, CD043).
The last edition of T'Mershi
Duween was published in April 2000, comprising both
issues 63 and 64. There are currently about 28 or so issues of the 64 still in
print, the earliest being 25. There are then a few extant between 29 and 39,
but Fred has a complete run from 41 to the last dynamic double issue.
Everything else is out of print and likely to remain that way. Stocks of some
of these issues are very low, so don't dawdle. Fred can be contacted at hope.pandorasboox@tiscali.co.uk
if you have any queries or want to order copies.
Pip! Pip!
The Idiot Bastard
(a.k.a. Andrew Greenaway and, occasionally, Stanley Hope)
Somewhere in
March 2008
Contact: disco.boy@blueyonder.co.uk