Five Years without Frank
by Chris Quinlan
A personal reflection on what Frank Zappa means to a musician
suffering badly from mid-life crisis.
On the 4th December 1998, it will be have been five years since
Frank Zappa went on his final tour (as his family put it), losing his battle
with prostate cancer ...... for me, being a complete Zappa nut-case; my
brain broke a few years before that in September '91, that was when
my dad died, Miles Davis died and Zappa's cancer diagnosis all came
within three days of each other. Somehow those three events have
been intertwined since then.
I've never thought of myself as the kind of deranged fan who parks
themselves on the pop-star's door-step, but I'm sure a lot of people
may well see me that way. I remember the radio-alarm going off at
7am, Monday 6th December 1993 and the first thing the news
announcer said was: "Weird pop-star Frank Zappa is dead from
cancer." I was ok for a few minutes, I knew he was really sick, but I
went to water after I got up and put on "Watermelon in Easter Hay"
from the "Joe's Garage" album.
I later found out that most fellow Zappa fans still remember exactly
what they were doing that day and did much the same thing I did.
In early January '94 a friend of mine, Stephen, told me to give this
bass player Craig a call; the rest of '94 was taken up with "The Band
from Utopia" our Zappa-cover band that had five lead-guitarists in nine
months as well as Tim, Andy and Tony; and me practicing and
transcribing charts up to five hours a day to try to get all the drum
parts down.
I have great memories of Tony the "Mudshark" riding Tim "The Stallion"
on stage dressed in an ancient Roman costume with 200 people
screaming "HAIL CAESAR!!!!" ... with Tony doing the "Welease
Waddewick" routine ......
We later found out that the ex-Zappa band members were touring as
"The Band from Utopia!", at least we thought of the name first! They
later changed it to "Banned from Utopia" because I think Gail Zappa
cracked the shits with them.
Anyway, back to the dinky Aussie version: Craig wanted to call it quits
at the end of the year when the band self-destructed on stage during
"ZAPPATREK" at the Grainstore in King st Melbourne, (ZAPPATREK
because we did the gig dressed in Starfleet uniform and me hitting the
drums with a rubber chicken) but I wanted to keep going, so our
Zappaband Phase two happened ....
..... It started off with just me, Craig on bass and Brett on keyboards;
an Emerson, Lake and Palmer kind of lineup that we re-named
"Kemerson, Kaked and Karl Karma"; we wanted to call our first album
"FARKUS" and the single was going to be "Fanfare for the Common
Dickhead" .... but that's another story .....
........ we advertised for musicians who could read and the only people
who rang were Peter and Angus, so we all got together at my place
during Easter '95 and five months later, played our first gig to 110
people to our complete shock, we thought we'd only pull 20 mates! .....
by then I also had a little TV show called "Melbourne Musos" on
Channel 31.
"The Zappa Instrumentaale" (prounounced "aaarrhhlll") as we decided to
call ourselves, played all the hard polyrhythmic instrumental numbers
and bit by bit we had special guests play (and sometimes sing) with us,
people like Allan Zavod; who played with Zappa in '84, Richard Piper
and Kate Kendall as guest singers (you can see them pop up on that
TV cop-show "Stingers" on Channel 9), Bob Sedergreen, Richard
Lewis, Geoff Achison and various other famous or about to be famous
people.
Richard Piper was the perfect "WILLIE THE PIMP" in fact, he played
WILLIE better than WILLIE himself!!! I have video of him tumbling all
over the stage in an acid-burnout attack and being helped up and
supported by his teenage-prostitute, Kate Kendall; a dazzling
temptress of stunning beauty; everytime she was on stage with the
band, I played with three drumsticks .... two of them were made with
wood.
I had the chance to meet and film ex-Zappa people like Terry Bozzio,
Chad Wackerman, Steve Vai and The Ensemble Modern for the TV
show and find out a few inside stories and learn a few tricks on how to
play the really tricky stuff. Terry Bozzio let me put my camera literally
under his armpits while he was showing me some of his licks, some
treasured memories.
We held down a residency at The Club in Collingwood for two years;
We were filmed by Optus Vision and Paul Grabowsky's "Access all
Areas" (all 45 seconds worth), on the ABC; I've done two Ultimate
Drummers days playing The Black Page#1 and wrote a Drumset exam
syllabus with Zappa's music included. Craig left mid-'97 and we
managed to find Scott real quick and keep on going .......
..... we did ok for playing weird shit.
I even got to go and play in Europe in April-May '98; I played with a
German 12 piece band called "Tinsel Town Rebellion" and mucked around
with "Dancin Foolz" a Zappa-cover band from Amsterdam;
Tinsel Town Rebellion were an awesome band ....... really precise in a
typical German way, basing themselves on the Zappa '88 band format;
some songs I thought they played better and tighter than some of the
original versions except their accents gave them away .....
.... "She was Easy Meat" became "She wiz Izzy Mart" when translated
to German for a quick example.
"Dancin Foolz" would play a song then when it came to a real hard
instrumental bit .... sang it instead of playing it ..... I thought it was funny
having five Dutch guys playing through a song then stop and yell
"OO-OO-RANNA-RANNA-DIDDLY-RAANNAA-OO-OO"
While I was in the Netherlands, I met a 12 year-old girl named
"Sharleena" who has a Zappa repertoire she plays on Violin and Piano,
a real talent. One Italian band, "Ossi Duri" is made up of a bunch of
thirteen year-olds, apparently they can play "The Black Page#1"
one of the hardest pieces of music you have ever seen and apparently
these kids can play it great ..... the little bastards .....
God bless the Internet; I've met so many Zappaheads; two great
friends in particular; Jos Schooner and Thomas Reinicke who are a
part of the European Arf-Society; every August they have a
"ZAPPANALE" .... a two-day Zappa Festival in Rostok, East Germany
consisting of all the European Zappa Cover-Bands .....
...... 1999 will see the 10th anniversary "ZAPPANALE" ...... I don't
want to miss that.
Jos collects Zappa albums ..... I mean he has SIXTEEN copies of
"Overnight Sensation", he collects them to see the differences, like
whether the Australian pressing has the word "fuck" censored out of it
etc ..... a real full-on Zappa junkie.
Thomas once had Bunk and Buzz Gardner and Jimmy Carl Black from
the original Mothers in his car driving them from gig to gig when they
were doing the "Grandmothers" Tour ..... Bunk had his hair slicked back
with vasoline, fell asleep with his head against the window leaving a
grease slick on the window ..... Thomas never washed that window
again ...... Jos was really proud when Jimmy Carl Black tried to hit on
his old lady ....... Jos and Thomas ..... real Zappa freaks!
So, it's five years since he died and basically five years of me playing
his music ..... I've worked out 130+ tunes and I've found a lot of friends
in all sorts of different places; Hardly anyone rings me up for gigs
because I think they're too shit-scared of me putting in a fill-in with
quintuplets and septuplets, and I don't blame them, I probably would.
People often ask me why I listen to Zappa so much ...... probably
because there is every style of music and musical expertise in his
albums; if I want to rock; there's heaps of it; if I want jazz; if I want
classical; if I want avant-garde; all of it is there and played incredibly
well by incredible musicians ......
...... incredible music played by incredible musicians written by an
incredible composer who was absolutely, resolutely fearless in his
words, his thoughts and music .....
.... in a lot of ways, playing his music for five years with The Band from
Utopia and The Instrumentaale has been a kind of therapy for me,
everytime I played "Watermelon in Easter Hay" ... I thought of my dad
.... everytime I tried to work out a new Zappa song I would learn a new
polyrhythm or sticking pattern ..... everytime I heard of some ex-Zappa
musician coming to town, I would try to film them .... to give you an idea
of the amount of music there is, I've listed his releases, broken down
loosely into the following sub-groups .....
1) The original classic Mothers of Invention: 1966-69
Freak out
Absolutely Free
We're only in it for the money
Lumpy Gravy (released as solo Zappa)
Cruisin' with Ruben and the Jets
Mothermania (best of compilation)
Uncle Meat
Burnt Weeny Sandwich
Weazels rip my flesh
Ahead of their time (released '93)
__________________
2) The Mothers (1970-71)
featuring Flo and Eddie and Aynsley Dunbar
Chunga's Revenge
The Mothers Fillmore East-June '71
200 Motels (featuring the London Symphony Orchestra)
Just another band from LA
Playground Psychotics (released '92)
_________________________________
3) "Solo" Albums and Grand Wazoo (69-72)
Hot Rats and music written whilst recuperating in a wheelchair after
being pushed off stage.
Hot Rats
The Grand Wazoo
Waka/Jawaka
_________________________________
4) Zappa and the Mothers (73-75)
Arguably Zappa's musically best/most popular combo
Overnite Sensation
Apostrophe'
Roxy and Elsewhere
One Size Fits All
YCDTOSA vol. 2 (The Helsinki Concert; released '88)
_________________________
5) Frank Zappa/Mothers becomes just Frank Zappa ('75-78)
Terry Bozzio drums the Black Page, Norman Gunston guests, and
Warner Brothers Sux!
Bongo Fury
Zoot Allures
Zappa in New York
Sheik Yerbouti
Baby Snakes Soundtrack
____________________________
6) The Warner Brothers Trio ('78-79)
Zappa takes Warner Brothers to court and Greggary Peccary finds a
new trend.
Studio Tan
Sleep Dirt
Orchestral Favorites
_________________________________
7) Frank Zappa ('79-82)
Zappafan heaven, a new album every four months! Joe's Garage, Vinnie
Colauita and Steve Vai.
Joe's Garage acts 1, 11 & 111
Tinsel Town Rebellion
Shut up 'n play yer guitar
Shut up 'n play yer guitar some more
Return of the son of Shut up 'n play yer guitar
You are what you is
Ship arriving to late to save a drowning witch
________________________________________
8) '83-'87.....The '84 tour
featuring Allan Zavod plus Frank Zappa discovers that the Synclavier
doesn't need a muso's union like The London Symphony Orchestra
does.
The Man from Utopia
Zappa/London Symphony Orchestra Volume 1
Boulez conducts Zappa/The Perfect Stranger
Them or Us
Thing-Fish
Francesco Zappa
Frank Zappa meets the Mothers of Prevention
Does Humor belong in Music?
Jazz from Hell
London Symphony Orchestra Volume 2
Guitar
___________________________________________
9) '88- '93............
The '88 Tour...........Zappa's best band and Sonic Solutions create
YCDTOSA's, live masterworks of all incarnations segueing together)
Please note:
Frank found out about his Prostate Cancer around '90-91.
Every project thereafter became urgent deadline material.
YCDTOSA vol. 1
Broadway the Hardway
YCDTOSA vol. 2
YCDTOSA vol. 3
The best band you never heard in your life
Make a jazz noise here
YCDTOSA vol. 4
YCDTOSA vol. 5
YCDTOSA vol. 6
Playground Psychotics
Ahead of their time
Beat the Boots (Zappa's collection of all bootlegs and released them
himself to stop people ripping him off)
____________________________________________
10) Posthumous Frank
The Yellow Shark
The Lost Episodes
No Commercial Potential
LATHER
Frank Zappa plays the music of Frank Zappa
Strictly Genteel
Have I offended anyone?
200 Motels (digitally re-mastered film and CD of Zappa's cinematic
masterwork)
Mystery Disc (to be released late '98)
___________________________________________
...... that's the Cd list, not to mention his Video List, his Book List, his
Sheet Music-list and his Web-site. In the Zappa Family Vaults there
are many yet to be released gems he was working on up until he
couldn't work anymore.
There are many books out and literally hundreds of web-sites you can
check out ...........
the main official one being: http://www.zappa.com
So there you have it, I'm reading this article back and I don't know if
this is what I was originally going to do or was I just going to rattle off
the usual tribute article ..... all I can say is that after five years there
are a lot of people I've met who miss Frank Zappa terribly ....
...... so come December 4th this little black duck will be putting on
"Watermelon in Easter Hay", having a look in the sky to see if the
Zappafrank comet (yep, there's a comet named after him) pokes out
from behind a cloud and making a toast to one of the most talented
shit-bags ever born.
P.S. 16th January 2004 ..... Ten years without Frank ........ It's been over five years since I wrote the above and I still miss the man; Update today? Well ... the band broke up and uh-oh .. looks like we'll never play again! .... but what I've done is made available a special eight cd and one 2hr dvd set called .....