Zappa's mail-order merchandise business, Barfko-Swill, established during the 1980s by Zappa's wife Gail, offers t-shirts, videos, posters, sheet music, and collector's recordings, most of them unavailable thru other media. Gail has explained why Barfko-Swill was founded: "Just piles and piles of fan mail sitting around unanswered or with no response. The first thing that we did was put a list together from the fan mail and made a Barking Pumpkin t-shirt available which we still have – same old shirt, same old logo, same old price – just to see what would happen. Everybody would write to us and ask us if there was something they could get besides records. ... That was really the primary reason for getting into the business – for setting up Barfko-Swill – in those days was to be independent. To not have to rely on a major record company's interest and ability to promote your product. And that was what the challenge was for me. I prefer the autonomy."
