As a child, Frank Zappa played with mercury—an anecdote as bizarre as it is true. His father, a chemist in the defence industry, would bring home used lab equipment, passing it to his pre-adolescent ...

For a man who preached about love and peace so much, though, John Lennon could be cutthroat when he wanted to as well, and Frank Zappa was less than thrilled looking back on everything they did ...