POP/ROCK - May 26, 1988

Glasnost , that seemingly irresistible force, met popdom’s most immovable object, namely Frank Zappa, in Mannheim, West Germany, on Tuesday--and Zappa was not swept away. Seems an Mannheim-based editor with the Soviet Union’s Tass news agency relayed an official invitation to Zappa to appear as headliner at a Soviet-American pop concert in a Moscow stadium on Sunday--right at the beginning of the Reagan-Gorbachev summit there. But, according to members of the Zappa tour, the independent guitarist-composer nixed the idea. The reasons: lack of adequate time to cancel European dates and the unavailability of air transport for his tour equipment. Said a Zappa spokesman: “Neither the Soviet or the American military were able to make a transport plane available to Frank. So we said nyet --regretfully.”