Frank Vincent Zappa was an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, composer, and bandleader. His work is characterized by nonconformity, free-form improvisation, sound experiments, musical virtuosity, and satire of American culture. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa composed rock, pop, jazz, jazz fusion, orchestral and musique concrète works, and produced almost all of the 60-plus albums that he released with his band the Mothers of Invention and as a solo artist. Zappa also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed album covers. He is considered one of the most innovative and stylistically diverse rock musicians of his era.
The Synclavier was an early digital synthesizer, polyphonic digital sampling system, and music workstation manufactured by New England Digital Corporation of Norwich, Vermont. It was produced in various forms from the late 1970s into the early 1990s. The instrument has been used by prominent musicians.
Terry John Bozzio is an American drummer best known for his work with Missing Persons and Frank Zappa.
Simon Phillips is a US-based English jazz, pop and rock drummer, songwriter, and record producer. He worked with rock bands during the 1970s and 1980s and was the drummer for the band Toto from 1992 to 2014.
Edwin Jobson is an English keyboardist and violinist noted for his use of synthesizers. He has been a member of several progressive rock bands, including Curved Air, Roxy Music, U.K., Jethro Tull and Yes. He was also part of Frank Zappa's band in 1976–77. Aside from his keyboard work Jobson has also gained acclaim for his violin playing. He won the "Lifetime Achievement" award at the 2017 Progressive Music Awards. In March 2019 Eddie Jobson was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Roxy Music.
Steven Lee Lukather is an American guitarist, singer, songwriter, arranger and record producer, best known as the sole continuous founding member of the rock band Toto from its founding in 1976 to its latest hiatus in 2019. A prolific session musician, Lukather has recorded guitar tracks for more than 1,500 albums representing a broad array of artists and genres. He has also contributed to albums and hit singles as a songwriter, arranger and producer. Most notably, Lukather played guitar on Boz Scaggs' albums Down Two Then Left (1977) and Middle Man (1980), and was a prominent contributor to several studio albums by Michael Jackson, including Thriller (1982). Lukather has released seven solo albums, the latest of which, Transition, was released in January 2013.
Sheik Yerbouti is a double album by Frank Zappa, first released in March 1979 as the first release on Zappa Records. It is mostly made up of live material recorded in 1977 and 1978.
Flo & Eddie are a musical pop duo consisting of Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan (Eddie).
Civilization Phaze III is the sixty-third album by Frank Zappa, released posthumously as a double album on October 31, 1994. It was the first studio album of new material from Zappa since 1986's Jazz from Hell. The album marks the third part of a conceptual continuity that started with We're Only in It for the Money (1968), with the second part being a re-edited version of Zappa's 1967 album Lumpy Gravy. Zappa described the album as a "two-act opera", but in lieu of traditional recitatives and arias, it alternates brief spoken word passages with musical numbers created on a Synclavier using a combination of sampled and synthesized sounds. Much of the sampled material in the second half of the album was originally recorded by Ensemble Modern and other musicians to Zappa's specifications.
U.K. were a British progressive rock supergroup originally active from 1977 until 1980. The band was composed of singer/bassist John Wetton, keyboardist/electric violinist Eddie Jobson, guitarist Allan Holdsworth and drummer Bill Bruford, who was later replaced by drummer Terry Bozzio. U.K. reformed with John Wetton, Eddie Jobson and Terry Bozzio for a world tour in 2012.
Derek Sherinian is an American keyboardist who has toured and recorded for Alice Cooper, Billy Idol, Yngwie Malmsteen, Steve Vai, and Joe Bonamassa. He was also a member of Dream Theater from 1994 to 1999, is the founder of Planet X and also one of the founding members of Black Country Communion and Sons of Apollo. He has released seven solo albums that have featured a variety of prominent guest musicians, including guitarists Slash, Yngwie Malmsteen, Allan Holdsworth, Steve Lukather, Joe Bonamassa, Billy Sheehan, Zakk Wylde and Al Di Meola.
Gary Panter is an American cartoonist, illustrator, painter, designer and part-time musician. Panter's work is representative of the post-underground, new wave comics movement that began with the end of Arcade: The Comics Revue and the initiation of RAW, one of the second generation in American underground comix.
Dale Frances Bozzio is an American rock and pop vocalist. She is best known as co-founder and lead singer of the '80s new wave band Missing Persons and for her work with Frank Zappa. While with Zappa, she performed significant roles in two of his major works, Joe's Garage (1979) and Thing-Fish (1984). In her solo career, Bozzio has released four albums and one EP.
Back Against the Wall is an album released in 2005 by Billy Sherwood in collaboration with a number of (mostly) progressive rock artists as a tribute to Pink Floyd's album The Wall. A year later, Sherwood followed it with the release of Return to the Dark Side of the Moon, a tribute to Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon.
Crass were an English art collective and punk rock band formed in Epping, Essex, England in 1977 who promoted anarchism as a political ideology, a way of life and a resistance movement. Crass popularised the anarcho-punk movement of the punk subculture, advocating direct action, animal rights, feminism, anti-fascism, and environmentalism. The band used and advocated a DIY ethic approach to its albums, sound collages, leaflets, and films.
Kevin Siembieda is an American artist, writer, designer and publisher of role-playing games.
As an icon of counterculture and underground rock the American rock musician and composer Frank Zappa has been featured and referenced in various different media.
"Rosanna" is a song written by David Paich and performed by the American rock band Toto, the opening track and the first single from their 1982 album Toto IV. This song won the Grammy Award for Record of the Year at the 1983 ceremony. "Rosanna" was also nominated for the Song of the Year award. It is regarded for drummer Jeff Porcaro's half-time shuffle, commonly known as the "Rosanna shuffle".
David Anthony Kraft also credited simply as David Kraft, is an American comic book writer, publisher, and critic. He is primarily known for his long-running journal of interviews and criticism, Comics Interview.
Ant-Bee is an American experimental musician and writer. In his musical work, he is a psychedelic era revivalist, working with members of The Mothers of Invention; the original members of the Alice Cooper group, and Captain Beefheart's Magic Band.
