Quote: Frank Zappa on rock journalism (antedating); Also a question about the Rolling Stone magazine archive

[Garson O'Toole]

Jesse Sheidlower wrote:
  [Referring to the Frank Zappa quotation about rock journalism:]

> This is not found in a formal interview; it's in a pullout box headed
> "Loose Talk," containing a few humorous quotations. The first one is:
>
> "Rock journalism is people who can't write interviewing people who can't
> talk for people who can't read."--Frank Zappa
>
> (in _Rolling Stone_ 26 Jan. 1978 p. 15)
>
> That seems to be the earliest example of this in the magazine itself.
> There are a number of pieces by Michael Duffey in 1977 and one in 1978,
> but they don't contain this. At least according to the search engine.

Thank you very much Jesse. It is interesting that the quote appeared
in the syndicated newspaper column before it appeared in the magazine.
Here is a slightly earlier citation for the same column.

Cite: 1977 December 31, Gazette Telegraph Colorado Springs, Rolling
Stone: Sober Season by Michael Duffey, Page 35D, (NArch Page 67),
Column 5, Colorado Springs, Colorado. (NewspaperArchive)

Frank Zappa on the merits of writing about rock 'n' roll:
"Most rock journalism is people who can't write interviewing people
who can't talk for people who can't read." Thank you, Frank. We'll be
in touch.

Fred Shapiro wrote:
> In my files I have a citation to Toronto Star, Sept. 24, 1977, for this
> quote.  I probably did not see the original source, and would
> welcome anyone verifying it.

I did notice that the Chicago Tribune citation given in the YBQ refers
to an earlier appearance of the quotation in the Toronto Star.

Cite: 1978 January 18, Chicago Tribune, People, Page 12, Chicago,
Illinois. (ProQuest)

No offense, all you Rolling Stone and Gig magazine fans, but  Frank
Zappa said it in the Toronto Star: "Most  rock journalism is people
who can't write, interviewing people who can't talk, for people who
can't read."

Google News archive has some articles from the ProQuest archive of the
Toronto Star. But the ProQuest repository description states: "The
Toronto Star archive contains articles dating back to 1/1/1985."

http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/thestar/about.html


The Toronto Star is digitizing its microfilm, and below is a
description of the project. I was unable to find a list of dates that
have been digitized so I sent a query via email.

In 2001 The Toronto Star contracted Cold North Wind to digitize the
complete microfilm archive of The Star. Building the digital archive
involves scanning the original records from microfilm print masters to
create high quality digital images of the original page format. …
Early each year a new year of page content is added to Pages of the
Past.

http://www.pagesofthepast.ca/Default.asp

Garson

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