"Far more than a merely symbolic representation of freedom of expression, [the Czech rock band] the Plastic People were an embodiment of [Czech President Vaclav] Havel's notion of 'living in truth'. The group borrowed its name from a song by Frank Zappa about phonies and hypocrites which lampooned the President of the USA, but their unconcern about being identified with the song's targets is indicative of the strong musical influence which Zappa exerted on avant-garde and underground rock throughout the USSR and eastern Europe. In 1990 Havel, a long-standing fan of Zappa and Captain Beefheart's 1975 album Bongo Fury, appointed Zappa as a special adviser on trade, culture and tourism to the Czech government, causing some embarrassment to the American ambassador to Prague, Shirley Temple. The appointment was not so much a theatrical impulse by the playwright Havel which matched the theatricalisation of politics in the USA, as evidence of Havel's commitment to redressing the cultural deprivation of Czech youth. Zappa's appointment drew sympathetic comment from The Economist's Prague correspondent, who commented on the proliferation of pop musicians and disc jockeys in the Civic Forum administration, and on the centrality of rock music to Czech politics, in a way which rehearses traditional arguments about generational conflict and rebellion against officialdom."
Tony Mitchell, "Mixing Pop and Politics: Rock Music in Czechoslovakia before and after the Velvet Revolution"
