Winter 1978—European Tour
Roy Estrada
February 1978, Good News, Switzerland
Zappa-Zirkus in Bern [...] Sie besteht aus folgenden Musikern: Frank Zappa (guitar & vocals), Adrian Belew (guitar), Peter Wolf und Tom Mariano (keyboards), Pat O'Hearn (bass), Ed Mann (percussion), Roy Estrada (vocals).
Bill Harrington, c. 2000
The article credits Roy Estrada on vocals, however, at the last minute Roy had cancelled from the tour.
February 5, 1978—Festhalle, Bern, Switzerland
Frank Zappa onstage in Bern, Switzerland, in February 1978. (Keystone/AP)
February 14, 1978—Sporthalle, Cologne, Germany
The night we played in Cologne, Germany unbeknownst to me Brian Eno was in the audience. Brian knew David Bowie was looking for a new guitarist for his upcoming tour. He called David after seeing our show and told David he should come see the guitarist for Frank's band.
February 15, 1978—Deutschlandhalle, Berlin, Germany
The next night we performed in Berlin. There was a part of the show where Frank took an extended guitar solo and m...ost of the band members, including myself, left the stage for a few minutes. As I walked to the back of the stage I looked over at the monitor mixing board and saw David Bowie and Iggy Pop standing there.
Wow! I couldn't believe it!
So I walked over to David Bowie, shook his hand and said, "I love what you've done, thank you for all the music". And he said, "Great, how would you like to be in my band?" I motioned back towards Frank and said, "Well, I'm kind of playing with that guy." David laughed and said, "Yes, I know, but when Frank's tour ends my tour starts two weeks later. Shall we talk about it over dinner?"
David said he would meet me back at our hotel and sure enough when I arrived back at the hotel David Bowie and his assistant Coco Schwab were sitting on a couch in the lobby. As I walked past them they whispered to me, "Get into the elevator, go up to your room, come back down in a few minutes, and meet us outside. we have a car waiting."
It was like something out of a spy film.
When I came back down and went outside there was a black limousine waiting. The driver opened the door and I got in the back with David and Coco. David immediately launched into all this plans for his upcoming tour, the songs we would play, the staging, and so on, and how much he loved my guitar playing! It was so exciting! He said they were taking me to one of his favorite restaurants in Berlin.
How many restaurants are there in Berlin? 25,000?
We arrived at the restaurant, went in the front door, and who should be sitting at the very first table but Frank Zappa and the rest of the band! So the three of us sat down with Frank and the band. David, trying to be cordial, motioned to me and said, "Quite a guitar player you have here Frank."
And Frank said, "F••• you Captain Tom."
(note: Frank had demoted David from Major Tom to Captain Tom.)
David persisted, "Oh come on now Frank, surely we can be gentleman about this?"
Frank said, "F••• you Captain Tom."
By this point I was paralyzed. David said, "So you really have nothing to say?" Frank said. "F••• you Captain Tom."
David and Coco and I got up and went back out the front door. Getting in the limo David said in his wonderfully British way, "I thought that went rather nicely!"
I met David Bowie for the first time when I was spending my last year with Frank Zappa's band. I heard that whenever Frank played a concert in Berlin, Bowie would come to see the show. I was so excited to see him that I went back to the dressing room, changed my clothes, calmed down and went to the room where they were. When I introduced myself, saying "I'm Terry Bozzio, the drummer," he said, "Oh, you're very energetic," and then turned away and started talking to someone else. That got me a little disappointed.
We all went out to dinner that night, and after a few beers, David said something provocative when talking with Frank about music, and they got into a bit of an argument. I was shocked and did not sleep well that night. When I met Frank the next morning, he said, "Can you believe that guy was such an asshole?"
Years later I got to know Frank a little bit, and he was very decent to me. We went out for a burger once in Berlin, to a bright lit cheap and greasy joint, with David Bowie. That was pretty funny and unusual. Frank was kind of a wry person, and as he made clear in his film "200 Motels," he had a certain ambivalence about English rock stars. I went along with Frank later that night and kept him company for a while at the Hilton hotel, until his Berlin girlfriend showed up.
For no exact reason, I remember feeling that Frank was a very lonely cat. He was all alone, and the suite was so dark and cold. The girl who came over later was kind of a troubled type, but I think he enjoyed the company and that was about it. Earlier that night at his show, Frank played one of his incredibly long guitar solos while his hired lead guitarist, Adrian Belew, had to wait his turn. That was the moment when David basically hired Adrian away for his own next projects, in a conversation behind the PA stack. I thought that was pretty funny.
February 26, 1978—Vorst Nationaal, Brussels, Belgium
Now it was official: I was being offered a 4-month tour with David Bowie. (In reality it turned into more than a year).
Later that day we were on a bus to an airport. I decided to break the ice. I walked to the very last row in the bus where Frank was sitting. I told him about David's offer. I reminded him of his plan to edit his film and pay me a retainer and asked him if it didn't make more sense for me to join David's tour for 4 months instead. I told him I would gladly return after the tour. Frank reached out and we shook hands.
That evening, February 26th, we played a concert in Brussels, Belgium. One of Frank's songs we did was "Yo' Mama". But for that show Frank substituted the words "Your David".
February 28-March 1, 1978—Hammersmith Odeon, London, UK
Two nights later the tour ended in London at the Hammersmith Odeon. There was an onstage occurrence which angered Frank. Fortunately I had nothing to do with it. Frank cut the show short and stormed off. The next day most of the band members flew back to L.A. where they all lived. I was told later that Frank fired the band on that flight home.
I got on a plane to Dallas for two weeks rehearsal with David Bowie.
Orchestral Music
I used to sit and watch [FZ] write it in airports or other places where he had some time to kill. He would pull out one of his manuscripts from a briefcase and sit there putting dots of pen on paper.
Richard Emmet, copyist
We went to Cal Arts together—I got him his job with Frank—and we lived within 5 blocks of each other in LA.
I believe I copied all three movements—the other copyist who ever did full scores (Richard Emmet) had a sufficiently different hand than I did, so I'm pretty sure about that. I have no idea how long it all took. Months. All the staves were hand-drawn.
Richard Emmet, interviewed by Matthew Galaher, Society Pages #9, 1991
My job was really as a music copyist, more than a transcriber. I got it through a friend, David Ocker, who I'd gone to music school with. I had recently graduated and was looking for work and heard that David had been doing some copy work for Zappa. So I went to him and asked if he thought Frank might need another copyist, and much to David's credit, he said, "I don't know, I'll find out." Frank left word to call him, and the first thing he hired me for was a job that lasted two weeks as a transcriber. He gave me some guitar pieces to transcribe. I finished them, and that was it, for then. Several months later David Ocker told me to call Frank because he might need somebody again. I called him and I was hired on, full time.
[...] In copying orchestral scores for Frank, we would start with a blank page. So we'd draw staff lines, clefs . . . everything.
It was the Spring of 1978. I was living in a one-room, flea-infested apartment
on the beach in Venice, California. I'd graduated from music school almost a
year earlier and was playing guitar and flute for a theater company in Los Angeles.
When the phone rang, it was my friend David
Ocker on the other line. He said, "Frank wants you to call him."
The Frank being referred to was Frank Zappa. And life changed.
[...] My friend David, a fellow musician and composer, had been hired recently by
Zappa as a music copyist. I asked David if Frank might need another copyist
on his staff, and David agreed to ask him. A couple of weeks later came his
message to call Frank.
The deep voice on the other line was instantly recognizable. "Hello,"
he said, and I introduced myself. He asked, "Can you come over at four
o'clock?" and I said, "Sure." Frank was a man who spoke succinctly.
He gave me directions to his house, which was nestled in the winding hills of
Laurel Canyon, and said, "Bye."
So I drove to his house. (I discovered later that Ringo Starr lived on the
same street.) Frank shook my hand and showed me around his basement studio.
We chatted for a while, and he asked if I was capable of transcribing some pieces
he'd written. "Transcribing" entailed listening to the music on a
cassette tape, figuring out what the musicians were playing, and then writing
down all the notes and rhythms. Since I also composed music and had been a musician
for many years, I didn't think this would be too difficult, so I said, "Sure!"
(I thought "Sure" was a good thing to say around him.) Frank then
officially hired me to transcribe these pieces, offering me a weekly salary
higher than what the theater company paid. I didn't know how long the job would
last, but I was thrilled to have this opportunity fall in my lap. I worked at
home for the next two weeks and brought the transcriptions back for Frank to
see. He liked what I brought him but had no other work for me at that point.
A couple of months later, however, I got word to call him again, and this time,
he hired me as a full-time music copyist. The job lasted almost five years.
David [Ocker] got the job, and when I heard about it a couple of months later, I asked him if Frank might need another copyist. David said he'd ask, and a couple of weeks later Frank called and invited me over. I drove to his house (now owned by Lady Gaga!) on Woodrow Wilson Drive in the Hollywood Hills and met Frank and his wife Gail. But instead of hiring me as a music copyist, he asked if I could transcribe a couple of his recorded guitar solos. He gave me a cassette and a 1/4 inch reel-to-reel tape to work from and I methodically plowed through the complicated improvised solos. I returned several days later, handed over the transcriptions, and that was that. [...]
A couple of months later Frank called again and hired me as a full time music copyist. The job lasted about 5 years, from 1978 to 1983.
The Summer 1978 Tour
Peter Wolf interviewed by Michael Davis, Keyboard Magazine, June 1980
The one thing that was not very strong in our band was the vocal part. [Guitarist] Adrian Belew and [drummer] Terry Bozzio could sing some, but that was it. Tommy could sing some backup, but there was not one guy in the band who was a monster lead singer like Nappy [Brock] was. After one year, Frank got [guitarists] Ike Willis and Denny Walley in the band. They are both really strong singers, so immediately the concentration was back on vocals again. We really enjoyed that a lot. There was not so much soloing going on as in the band with Adrian and Terry, but with the vocals it got into a different dimension again.
Adrian Belew
Adrian Belew, interviewed by Gary Marks, T'Mershi Duween, August 1994
Q: Is it true that Bowie and Eno approached you at a concert?
AB: Not entirely true. It was David Bowie and Iggy Pop, but Brian Eno was the one who instigated it. Eno had seen the Zappa show in Cologne, called Bowie and said, "I think this is a guitar player you should use on your next tour." Then David came with Iggy Pop in tow to the Berlin show and that's where I first met David.
Q: What was Frank's reaction when you wanted to leave?
AB: He didn't like it (laughs). I think Frank didn't care much for David Bowie personally, and then secondly I don't think he liked the idea that I was leaving so soon. But he shook my hand and said, "Good luck and I hope it works out for you." He ended up firing the whole band at the end of the London shows and was very upset about it. It had nothing to do with me, and since I had already in a sense removed myself from the picture, I didn't feel too responsible, but I did go and see him that last night of the tour after the show, and he said, "Good luck." The firing of the band had something to do with some incidents that happened on tour, where people had gotten into trouble with drugs. Not me. I was drug free (laughs).
I had a year long agreement and I intended to stay much longer than that if he would have me. But what happened, we started touring in Europe and . . . see it's kind of a long story but the little known part of it is that when we first started in Europe, several people in the band, not myself but several other people were busted which is a cardinal sin in Franks band. I didn't do drugs so I wasn't a part of it but it made for quite a horrible scene and it led everyone to believe that at the end of the tour he was simply going to fire the whole band which in fact is what he did.
[...] So what happened though, in the meantime, we played in Germany and Brian Eno heard me play in Cologne, called David Bowie who was in need of a guitar player for his upcoming tour. David came to the Frank Zappa show. I saw him on the side of the stage during a break in the show where I usually left the stage and I went up to talk to him and he asked me to join his band. haha . . .
So what followed after that was before the tour was even over I had a decision to make to either continue with Frank or to go move forward with David. And the real thing that made my decision for me was Frank told me that when he finished the tour he was going to spend four months back in his house. He was going to rent a film editor and he was going to edit the movie "Baby Snakes" and it would take him four months. And that during that four months I would be on a retainer. In other words I wouldn't be doing anything. And so, Davids original offer to me to tour, in fact, for four months. So it made sense and I went back to Frank and told him and he said, "Yeah, that makes sense to me too. You know, I think you should go ahead and do that."
I expected to come back into Franks band but things changed on both ends; the Bowie tour went more, much more than four months and Frank took much less time editing Baby Snakes and started another band. hahaha . . .
[...] David did not have any problem with Frank but when the two of them met together . . . and it was obvious David was trying to steal me from Frank. Frank was a little bit mean to David, hahaha He kept on calling him Captain Tom, hahaha So, um, I don't think David had anything against him. I doubt that Frank had anything against David either, he just didn't know his music very well. And it's true for David too, he didn't know Franks music.
Adrian Belew, interviewed by James Santiago and Daryl Trombino, Virtual Guitar Magazine, 1999
During our tour in Germany, Brian Eno came to a show in Cologne and called David Bowie and said, "Hey, I just heard this guitar player with Frank Zappa. You've got to hear him, this is the guy." Then David came to the show in Berlin and offered me a job there. It worked out that Frank's tour was ending, and two weeks later the David tour was resuming. So I just jumped from one band right into the next.
Adrian Belew, interviewing Steve Vai, Guitar For The Practicing Musician, January 1994
STEVE: Isn't that true? He told me the story about when you guys were in Germany and David Bowie came to the show. You went back to your amp to do a guitar solo and Bowie says, "Hey, come on and join my band." Then you went out and did the solo, came back and said, "Okay." Is that right?
ADRIAN: It was kind of like that. There was a segment of the show where Frank did an extended solo and I think Patrick O'Hearn (bass) and Terry Bozzio accompanied him and the rest of the band could leave. I looked off the side of the stage and there was David Bowie and Iggy Pop. I walked over and said, "Hey, David, I've always appreciated your music." And he said, "How would you like to join my band?" I said, "I'm in a band right now with this guy over here," and pointed to Frank. It worked out later that Frank was sort of finished with his thing and it was time for me to go and do something else. That band broke up at the end of that tour but I don't think I created the breakup.
STEVE: Can I tell you what Frank did when I was in the band? You know (keyboardist Tommy) Mars.
ADRIAN: I love him.
STEVE: Scott Thunes was the bass player when we toured Europe and we played the same hall that David Bowie had come to in Germany and met you. We received this note after the show and it said, "Dear Scott and Steve: I really like the way you guys play and I'd really be interested if you want to join my band and stop playing this comedy music." It was a really long note and it was signed "David Bowie." It was something that Mars and Frank put together! It had phone numbers and fax numbers—I thought it was real.
ADRIAN: That's hilarious.
STEVE: I'm like, "Wow! I've got to call this guy and tell him no way—I'm in the middle of a tour here." It was Frank fooling around with our heads.
ADRIAN: I remember one night we were playing the song "Maybe You Should Stay with your Mama." Frank changed the words to "I think maybe you should stay with your David." Apart from that he never gave me any grief about it. He wished me well and it was very generous of him. I often have felt like it was an opportunist move on my part and I wish I hadn't done it, but those things happen. I was young and stupid.
Patrick O'Hearn
[FZ] told me that he fired Bozzio and O'Hearn because they were taking too many liberties with his arrangements instead of playing the parts he had given them. Then he hires Vinnie who was allowed, even encouraged, to pretty much play whatever he wanted to play.
Terry and I were not fired: we left the band in order to start our own group. The 1978 European tour had concluded and Frank would not be touring again for another five or six months, so the time seemed right. Frank, although sorry to see us go, was understanding and supportive.
Terry Bozzio
I auditioned with Group 87 to get a deal with CBS the day that we started to resume rehearsals again after a break in Spring of 78. And I went in, I'd cut my hair, I was wearing different clothes, I'd just played this audition and been offered a deal with a record company. We started to rehearse, me and Pat, and Frank could tell I wasn't really into it. So he called me into his 'office', as he would say, we stepped behind the stage and he said, "I think its time you go off and do your own thing."
He was in the group 3 years and then he decided he wanted to be a Rock'n'Roll Star, in capital letters. He joined UK a year and a half ago. When Eddie Jobson and Terry Bozzio were both in my group they were the best of friends. In UK Eddie was the boss, and as well as that he had two Englishmen and an American who were his slaves. Terry couldn't stand it. He left.
I'd been playing with Patrick O'Hearn, Mark Isham and Pete Maunu as Group 87 and we'd been to audition for a deal at CBS. I was late for rehearsals with Frank because of it. Frank sensed what had happened that day. We get up and we started playing something and Frank felt that I didn't have the heart for it anymore. He said, "Bozzio, step into my office", and we went behind the little riser in the rehearsal studio and he said, "I think it's time you go out and do your own thing." And once again I said, "Are you sure I can do this?" [Laughs] Like a good father he kicked me out of the nest.
Arthur Barrow
My audition was on Wednesday, June 15, 1978, at 4:00 p.m. at soundstage 16 on the old MGM lot in Culver City at 9339 Washington Blvd. A soundstage is a very large room with a high ceiling that is used for indoor filming. It was perfect for rehearsing a band like Zappa's because he could set up the full P.A. and light rigs just as they would be in a real live show.
[Electronic Music Laboratories] had a small business of professionals that would use [the Electrocomp], but it was mostly for education. And that's how Arthur found out about it, and it was so funny when Arthur got in the band and he found out that I played the Electrocomp, he was so elated because he actually had one! And I couldn't believe that he actually had one. [...] That was a big bond for us when he got hired.
Vinnie Colaiuta
Steve Vai, interviewed by Michael Brenna, Society Pages #10, May 1982
[Vinnie Colaiuta] went down to audition. Frank was auditioning many drummers, and he played the "Black Page" for Frank. Frank thought maybe he was just lucky, so he gave him a piece of music to play entitled "Mo 'N Herb's Vacation."
Vinnie finally made the decision to move to Los Angeles permanently in January, 1978. A few months of rough times followed until April 1978, while doing a gig with Tom Fowler. Fowler mentioned that Frank Zappa was looking for a rhythm section.
VC: I had always been a big fan of Zappa's and had every record. In fact, I had just bought Live in New York and loved it. It was funny and it was musically great. The irony is that I called the office and bugged the hell out of them, asking if I could bring a tape by. They said, "No tapes", but I dropped one by anyway. I'd go there every day until one day they called and said "Alright, Mr. Zappa will listen to you Wednesday night." My heart dropped and I literally sank to the floor. I was so happy, not just at the prospect of a gig, but because it was him!
RF: What was the audition like?
VC: I just went in there with the attitude that I was going to shoot my shot and not going to get real uptight because it Zappa. I would just go for it. This was it and I was going to put it all forward. I went there and was watching these people audition. The average time they lasted was like fifteen seconds.
RF: Why do you think they weren't cutting it? What was lacking?
VC: It seemed as though they just couldn't go through with what Frank wanted out of a musician. Frank would put this music in front of you that was ridiculously difficult, like equally on par with 20th-century compositional kind of stuff, and rhythmically it was incredible. These guys would sit there and they could play grooves but they couldn't read or vice versa. He looks for a special combination of elements in a person and I guess they weren't there. I auditioned on Bozzio's drums. I had never played on two bass drums, but I said, "Screw it—I'm going for it!" He put this thing in front of me, "Pedro's Dowry," and it was the melodic part that I had to sight read in unison with the marimba. So I sight read a little bit of that. I just had to concentrate on it completely, and to my surprise, I didn't make any mistakes. He was about to give me "The Black Page." I had tried my hand at transcribing it, so I had it memorized and before he gave me the music, I started playing it. I got about two-thirds through it and I guess he had heard enough because he said, "Okay, yes, you can read." Then he started playing this thing in 21/16 and he wanted me to play along. I grasped it; it was all subdivided in threes and twos. Then he told me to take a solo, so I played on it. Then he came back in and played and said, "Okay, that's enough of that." He started throwing tune after tune and we went through about four tunes. The whole thing lasted about fifteen minutes, which was like a record. Then he pulled me aside and asked me when I could start. I turned white and said, "Anytime." And that was it. That bailed me out of my whole living and financial situation.
Ike Willis
Ike Willis, interviewed by AJ Abrams, Jam Bands, March 2000
I went to school in St. Louis and it was a jazz hub and
my mom was a jazz singer so I grew up with a musical background. [FZ]
came to do a concert at Washington University [October 2, 1977] and I was on the
student concert crew. I met him and we hit it off and he invited me
out to LA for an audition.
[...] He wanted a new lead vocalist because he didn't want to
do it anymore himself.
I was in my dorm room in summer school . . . the last two weeks of summer school . . . he called me in my dorm room and said "Hey it's me. I'm back. I'm keeping my word. I told you that I'd like to fly you here to audition for the band." [...] He was in LA and I was still in St. Louis. He just got back . . . he gave me a call. I said "Ok sure Frank. If that's really who you are." (hahaha) This is like 8 months later. I really hadn't expected him to call me back, but he did. He flew me out the next week and essentially I made it. That's where I met Vinny Colaiuta, Artie Barrow, Peter Wolf, Tommy Mars . . . all those guys. I ended up passing the audition and I was with him from that point until he died in 93.
[...] He said basically, "Here's your ticket." He called me on a Tuesday and called me back the next Friday and said "Ok I got your ticket for Tuesday afternoon and I'll see you then. Can't wait to see you." So basically I flew into LA and we were rehearsing at the old Desilu studios from the old I Love Lucy show. I walk in . . . everything was all set up. It was Denny, Tommy, Ed, Peter Wolf. Frank was looking for drummers, vocalists, keyboard players and guitar players. We had to replace Adrian Belew, Terry Bozzio and Patrick O'hearn on bass. Essentially, he had everything all set up for me. He had a mic and a mic stand, an amp . . . and plug in your guitar . . . give me a hand with these other people that are auditioning too. I looked over to the side of the room and there was a whole long line of people waiting to audition. He gave me a big bear hug and said "Glad you made it. Help me with these guys here. I'll get to you later. Let's get to work." I was there and I pretty much didn't leave. That was on a Tuesday and on Thursday he gave me 20 seconds on my audition and goes ok let's get back to work. On Friday, he hired me and Vinny and Artie Barrow.
Ike Willis was a roadie at a college date in St. Louis; he was helping set up the equipment. He said he played the guitar and sang, so I told him I'd give him an audition. I did, and he turned out to be fantastic.
Q: Is it true Frank fired Ike in 1978 to learn to play the guitar?
E: No. There was however a period at the end of the US tour when Ike got sick and was not in the band.
Q: The band with two bassplayers?
T: Yeah. Patrick (O'Hearn) came in for Frank's solos. He was utilised just as a solo bassist.
E: And then Arthur was just playing the arrangements.
T: Ensemble parts.
E: It was funny. And they were playing in ten's and twelve's and things; it was funny, kind of cool.
My first two years in the band, I wasn't allowed to do any solos or any ad libbing, simply because I was a new member of the band. It was best for me to actually learn Frank's techniques and how his methods worked before trying to branch off and reinterpret any of his arrangements or anything like that. I thought it was a grand idea. After my first few tours, after the first couple of years with the band, then I was given more freedom to open up, and that's why you can hear us laughing back and forth, because it was more comfortable.
Ed Mann The Clonemeister
FZ, interviewed by Ralph Denyer, Sound International, April/May 1979
I'm kinda proud of the band at the moment because they know more complicated arrangements than any band I've ever had before. I've started doing rehearsals a different way too. I started last year hiring one guy in the band to run four hours of drill before I get there. I give 'em the notes. They either have it written down on paper or they've been told what their parts are. Then it's just a case of drilling and memorising it. And so I get one guy out of the band who gets to be drillmaster, he gets a double salary for doing that. Last year it was the percussionist Ed and this year it's the bass player, Arthur.
[...] But the other thing is that, invariably, everybody else in the band ends up hating them by the end of rehearsals. That's why Ed didn't want to do it this year because he wanted to be 'one of the guys'. So now Ed is giving Arthur a bad time.
[I was] appointed (not asked) to be Clonemeister for the 1978-79 band. I did a good job, but I did not enjoy having the responsibility of being a disciplinarian.
[I told] Frank that I no longer wanted to be Clonemeister after the summer of 1978 rehearsals were over.
Ed Mann, alt.fan.frank-zappa, April 27, 2002
Frank always treated the clonemeister(s) with respect. BTW—historical trivia—that name "clonemeister" comes from me and Tommy Mars.
It was a full time job. In fact we used to have to punch a time clock. It was 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week, Monday through Friday, yes sir.
[...] Actually it was 4 to midnight, but it was still 8 hours. When [FZ] walked in the door . . . guitars strapped up, tuned up . . . everybody's ready to go. We had gone over the stuff that we needed to go over for that day. At that Ed Mann was our clone-meister. Basically he was the student conductor. We'd go in and work on the stuff that Frank wanted us to work on and he'd come in from the house and start cracking the whip. That's how it always worked.
On Monday, June 19th, the rehearsals began in earnest, with Vinnie, Ike and me as the brand new hires. Denny was hired too, but he was already a vet from the Bongo Fury days. Rehearsals were grueling and wonderful. We rehearsed at least 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, for about 6 weeks before the tour. Rehearsals usually got started at 4 pm, although Tommy Mars was almost always there early working with his keyboard set up that he loved so much. One of the band members, Ed Mann, served as "Clonemeister," leading the rehearsal for the first half of the day until Frank arrived and took over. He would often come in and change a lot of things that he had us learn the day before, which could get very confusing.
Gear
Frank and a couple of the other cats went to Manny's (Manny's music store in New York) and he was buying some stuff, and he says "Mars, I've got the greatest instrument for you; you are absolutely going to have a heart attack". I says "What's up?" He says "I've bought you a choir!" (laughs). He says it's an instrument called a vocoder, and I'd heard the name but I'd never actually seen one before, and sure enough, they had it all set up for me at sound check. And I mean I didn't even know how to work it or learn how to use it so that it didn't feedback with ambient sound, it had its own incredibly sophisticated properties, but he actually said "You're going to use it tonight aren't you?" I said "Frank what are you talking about? I've just got it!" He said "I want you to use it tonight", so we actually used it, I think the gig was up at Stony Brook (State University of New York, Stony Brook—15th October 1978), that's the first time I ever used it.
September 15-October 31, 1978—Fall Tour
I just loved playing the church type of things. You remember when Patrick O'Hearn used to preach a little in his solo and I used to play the organ behind it.
I'll never forget one time in Boston. Patrick started to get a little out on his preaching and people starting throwing hot dogs onto the stage. I was playing choirmaster type music in the background and all of a sudden I got winged by a hot dog. And then he never got his solo back, not even a bass-solo. Frank took the whole thing away from him. I thought it was real cute in the beginning, doing a little preaching.
September 28, 1978—Cobo Hall, Detroit, MI
Anne Sharp, "With Decadent Display, Zappa Molests U.S.A.," The Michigan Daily, September 30, 1978
Frank Zappa strolled onstage at Cobo Hall thirty-five minutes late Thursday night, due to a delay in setting up xylophones. No one complained; they just shook their fists happily on high, lustily yelling "ZAPPA!" Their idol, the moustached, raven-locked Salvador Dali of contemporary music, could do no wrong. And he knew it..
Casually dressed in Levis, a simple blue cotton shirt, and red sneakers, Zappa nonchalantly joined his band for the opening instrumental, then launched into a medley of tunes centered around the singles-bar scene, including "Dancing Fool" and "Easy Meat."
FRANK ZAPPA, the performer, is cool, urbane, scornful of television, disco, and the bourgeois way of life. This outlook is typified in the lyric he sang, "I am a moron and this is my wife/She's frosting a cake with a paper knife." He also possesses a scatological streak a mile wide, epitomized in a tune he performed about anal sex, complete with meaningful grimaces at the audience and appropriate gestures at parts of his own anatomy.
Zappa can be so gross! And yet, with screaming feedback and xylophones scurrying through the melody like cartoon mice from outer space, his music is always innovative and technically well-done. he is also a comedian with a gift for improvisation. Plucking a stray Frisbee from the stage, he clapped a baseball cap onto it, and held it like Hamlet contemplating Yorick's skull. "Not only are you intelligent," he told the Frisbee, "but you have a very nice complexion."
"This is the romantic part of our program," Zappa announced. He went on to criticize mass-market love songs like Peter Frampton's "I'm In You" ("And they complain about me with songs like 'Dinah Moe Humm' and stuff! That's soft core porn!") He then sailed into "I Have Been In You," a lecherous reprise to Frampton's tune.
THE AUDIENCE lapped it up, and tried to show their appreciation by throwing things and crowding round the platform. Onstage, however, Joe Cool looked blankly at them and told them not to hassle the T-shirted goons (he called them "ushers") Cobo supplies to keep order during rock concerts.
On the second curtain call, the strangest thing happened. Rather than work the audience into a frenzy (as any red-blooded rock and roll star would have done) by playing a few beloved, rowdy numbers like, say, "Dinah Moe" or "Camarillo Brillo," as he did for the first encore, he performed two long, esoteric instrumentals, "Strictly Genteel" and "Black Napkins."
Dozens of fans who had clustered in the near aisles, ready to rush the stage, drifted back to their seats, bewildered. Unmoved, Frank continued playing his guitar. He wanted none of their love and adoration; how else could he have remained so cool and sardonic, under such circumstances?
October 13, 1978—Passaic, NJ
Patrick O'Hearn
Shortly before we played in Passaic on October 13th, I got a surprise visit to my hotel room from Frank and his wife, Gail. I was informed that Patrick O'Hearn would be added to the group for the remaining two weeks of the tour. Frank said he would work out some two bass arrangement ideas for some things, and that Pat would be doing the jamming parts. I was devastated, to put it mildly.
[...] I don't know for sure, but I heard that the Mean Girls in the band had been complaining to Frank about my playing. They were in touch with Pat, and influenced Frank to add Pat to the line-up. [...] Pat is a nice guy, and we got along fine.
Frank reached out to me in October of '78, I believe, and asked if I'd be willing to join the band on the road for a few dates. Evidently there was tension between Arthur and the band members, and Frank thought I might add some moderating levity to the mix.
[...] Playing with Vinnie was a blast. He's a wonderful musician and a soulful chap.
October 15, 1978—Stony Brook, NY
I remember one day we were in New York and we had a gig out at Stony Brook in Long Island—we called this Christmas at Manny Day. We all went to Manny's Music on 48th St, except me—I had to go visit somebody. I remember going to the soundcheck and Frank says 'I got a surprise for you'. I said 'What? What, Santa?' and he said 'Well, you know how you've always wanted an instrument that will double your voice or play chords? We always thought we'd only be able to do with a delay. But I got a whole synth that will do that for you. They came out with an instrument called a Vocoder and I just bought it. I don't know anything about how it works, but I know you're going to love it, Mars.' It had already been put up on my rack and I'm starting to play with it, and Frank says 'You are going to use it tonight, aren't you? You'll use it tonight, right Tommy?' And he looks at me in that way, and I say 'Well all right . . .'
That Vocoder had only two sounds on it: this heavenly angelic choir sort of sound and what we called the Ant Sound which had no vibrato and sounded very flat and monotone. That's what Frank liked on his voice, the ugly sound.
Ike Willis
Ike had been sent home back in October when he was spotted by Gail at the Gramercy Park Hotel bar in New York after skipping the gig in Stony Brook, saying he was too sick to perform.
