Celebrating Frank Zappa on his 75th birthday

Frank Zappa would have been 75 on Monday. Jonathan deBurca Butler pays tribute to the man who mixed mad antics and great music with a large dollop of cleverness

SHORTLY after his death from prostate cancer in 1993, the musician and sometime film director Frank Zappa was honoured by the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Centre which named an asteroid after him.

The citation announcing the naming of 3834 Zappafrank appeared in the Minor Planet Circular and noted that “Zappa was an eclectic, self-trained artist and composer with incredible energy and a biting wit”.