recorded at Record Plant, L.A. engineers: Michael Braunstein, Davey Moire re-mix engineer: Frank Zappa
Later, during the spring of 1975, I was engineering for Frank, and Davey Moire was the front desk receptionist. He was such a Zappa fan—so eager to get into the studio—that I asked to have him be my assistant. He even ended up doing some vocals and playing harp on a couple of tunes.
Starting in 1975, Moire worked on several albums with Zappa in Studio B at The Record Plant. "It had this lovely API console with the API 550A EQ modules, and that beautifully warm API input stage," Moire recalls. "A lovely desk and 3M tape machines. We did a lot of really cool stuff. Frank once had me cut a piece of foam out and mount a Pignose amp on the harp of a Bosendorfer grand piano, pointing down to the soundboard in the piano. Then he went out and put a sandbag on the sustain pedal, determined what he was going to play, and then, with those little rubber mutes that piano tuners use, he muted out the detrimental harmonics, knowing what he was going to play, knowing which strings were going to resonate."
[After the European tour] I took a few weeks off and got a call from Frank, "I had to let Roy, Andre & Napoleon go, so it's just you and me again. Why don't you come down to the Record Plant and play on some stuff I've been working on."
I walked into the Record Plant. Frank's (my) huge drumset was all set up and mic'd. He had recorded a bunch of tunes we had been playing with a "Rhythm Ace" drum machine—he had played bass, guitar and keyboards—I had never played with a beat box before, and playing drums to an already recorded track was a totally new concept to me. (never mind the fact that this was the second track I had ever recorded in a studio period!)
I found I could play comfortably following the music & beat box and Frank was impressed and complimentary as we recorded the likes of "Disco Boy," "Torture Never Stops," "Gas Station" and "Pinky."
Met and began working with Stephen Stills in September of 1976. He was just off the aborted Stills/Young Tour and looking to do a solo album. [...] In many ways, Stephen and FZ could not have been more different.
IT: Is there any basic difference between your new album and the other ones?
Z: Of course—I play most of the instruments on this one.
IT: Do you prefer playing instruments to singing?
Z: Well it's the first time I've had a chance to do that—it's a different experience—I'll probably do some more of it.
IT: About 3 or 4 albums back you suddenly started singing an awful lot.
Z: Well somebody had to—you can't just go hiring lead vocals and expect to get the ideas across—just because somebody's born with a nice voice doesn't mean they should be able to sing my lyrics.
[Brucie] asked me one day if I would like to go down to the Record Plant recording studio where Zappa was working. It was a chance to meet Frank and hang out for a while. Of course I said yes! On April 11th, 1976 we walked into the control room, and there was Frank Zappa in the flesh.
[...] He was recording Terry Bozzio on drums; no other musicians were involved. I think the song was "Disco Boy" which was later released on the album Zoot Allures. He was doing the drums as an overdub to already existing tracks. [...] It was the first time I had seen this done. [...] Frank was an innovator, and had recorded the other tracks to some kind of steady beat thereby making the drum overdub feasible.
photography: Gary Heery, Design: Cal Schenkel
I had this affair with this girl who had a cosmetics company and she said to me, "What do you want to do?" I told her I wanted to be a photographer and it turns out her last boyfriend was a photographer called Norman Seeff.
We went to a studio down on Sunset right next to the Chateau Marmont. Norman was a five-foot-three, longhaired South African ex-doctor who became a photographer and who just so happened to be the top record cover photographer in L.A. He said, "Can you develop film?" I had done a bit of everything but I just completely faked it. That night we were shooting Ike and Tina Turner. All of the jobs were in the evening—it was party time.
I think I worked for him for about a year. I did a couple of record covers for him (I shot Frank Zappa's Zoot Allures) and decided quite quickly that I'd like to do this myself.
Frank had an all-day photo shoot with this famous photographer who did the cover of Zoot Allures, and he had this amazing technique which really looked cool—really had a vibe to it. So Frank is there all day, red face, black face, polka-dot—all of those later albums that had the make-up off, he was like drowned, greasy, exhausted rat—and we walk in at seven o'clock, fresh out of the shower—three young guys—and he thought the contrast of that was really funny. And that was when he decided to retire the Mothers Of Invention. He said: "I'm going to call the new band 'Zappa'—you know like, 'Montrose"'—which I thought was really funny. And then he goes: "Why don't you guys get your stuff together, and open the show as 'The Cute Persons', and then we'll do our stuff as 'Zappa"' He liked the contrast—and liked the fact we were a bunch of guys who did everything together. I had a little Volkswagen, and used to drive Frank home every night, because he didn't drive. And we would jam in his basement. When the Warner Brothers suit came down, and his ex-manager sued, and his assets were frozen cause he was getting ripped off by those fuckers—he almost didn't have enough dough to pay us, so we jammed and rehearsed in his basement, and he was doing legal crap all day long—instead of writing music. And we said: "You know we can hang—if you don't have enough dough to pay us." We believed in the cause, but he was really good with finances, so he scraped together the money to pay us.
"I remember when Frank went through the law-suit," said Terry Bozzio, "he said he might not be able to pay us. We all said, 'Well, we're willing to hang in there for a few months as long as the savings hold out,' in the hopes that things would get better. Frank was really depressed at that time. It was just me and Patrick O'Hearn and Eddie Jobson. I was going to be the sort of lead singer, and do the stuff that Napoleon did. It was a very strange time, you know. Then he got Ray White." [T'Mershi Duween, 28, "One More Time For The World", interview by Andy Greenaway.]
Art Rock: You are on the cover, but you didn't play on this album?
Jobson: I don't think so. Frank makes albums differently from other people. Most people go in studio, record album and they put a picture of group on. Frank doesn't work like that. Frank doesn't really go into studio to record an album. Frank's tape is running constantly. He records everything, even rehearsal. [...] And that goes on tape somewhere...and some future point Frank would take that tape and do something else to it, put somebody else on it, and cut it off and edit it. God knows what he will do with it! And it will show up on an album! You may be in the group when it comes out, or maybe you left the band 5 years before the album comes out. That's how he makes records. I just joined the group here. This album was made up of all different tapes, different thing from different period. I am not even sure Patrick O'hearn is on it. I don't think he played on the record either. Terry was on it because he'd been in the band for 3 or 4 years longer at that point.
The latest Mothers are Zappa plus three, with Ruth Underwood a "possible" return. Their rock and roll event, "Night of the Iron Sausage," is due in September, with Terry Bozzio on drums, Eddie Jobson (Roxy Music) on violin and keyboards, and Patrick O'Hearn on bass while Zappa plays guitar, bass and keyboards. A U.S. tour is planned for the fall.
Before the release of "Sausage," Zappa will unleash a recorded performance of the Abnuceals Emuukha Electric Symphony Orchestra; a "classical" album of avant-garde Zappa music.
Frank Zappa is buzzing around the office with test pressings of his 23rd album with the child-like excitement of a first-timer.
At the initial hint of interest in his new Disc Reet Records double-album set, Zappa's ponytail bounces towards the stereo equipment stacked on glass shelves in the corner of the room. "It's called Zoot Allures," he says over his shoulder as his fingers adjust the numerous knobs on the amplifier. "Zoot Allures" is an English corruption of a French expression [Zut, alors] that translates as "oh, shit." Combined with the album's cover photograph, the title makes for what Zappa refers to as a "sight gag."
Zappa returns to his chair just as the first notes fill the air. He whips his briefcase onto his lap, snaps open its lid, and pulls from it a glossy photograph of massive teen appeal. Left to right: Mothers veteran Terry Bozzeo, newcomer Patrick O'Hearn and Roxy Music keyboardist Eddie Jobson Iine up behind Zappa, who hardly looks any older than he does in the earliest shots of the Mothers.
"The album is me playing most of the instruments and Terry playing the drums on all the cuts and a variety of other people playing incidental things. Patrick is playing bass on one of the cuts and Eddie's not on the album."
[...]
In the background, Zappa's leading his studio band through "Disco Boy," a typically tongue-in-cheek tribute to one of the ironies of modern civilization. [...] The next tune, "Friendly Little Fingers," is a mystery even to its creator. [...] The table gets a thorough going over as the deep throated lyrics of "Wino Song" squeeze between the room's atoms. [...] Zappa won't reveal the story behind "Night of the Iron Sausage," saying only that "it's a real long story." The song was originally a set item from a past tour, but on the new album it's slimmed down to a basic guitar solo. "Let that be the title of mystery," Zappa offers.
The second side of Zoot Allure is comprised of two extended cuts with minimal lyrics. The first is "Sleep Dirt," a basically acoustic cut that finds Birdlegs Humans trading licks with Zappa. The title cut follows, an instrumental that began as a Jam between Frank on a 12-string and Terry on drums. Patrick O'Hearn later overdubbed bass tracks, and much later Zappa added a guitar solo played through a Pignose amp. [...]
The kinkiest song of the whole set opens side three. Entitled "Pinky," the song tells the tale of a hot date with a lifesized doll's head. [...] The next tune, "Filthy Habits," again features a healthy dose of Zappa on guitar, but rather than break-neck time changes, the notes are held and squeezed out for maximum effect. The freedom to conduct lengthy solo excursions that comes from having four sides to play with is used to full advantage by Zappa.
"Finder Finer" offers Uncle Frank's advice to young men in search of one-night love affairs. [...]
Side four opens with a live recording of "Black Napkins" taken from a concert in Osaka, Japan. [...] The final tune is Zappa's current tribute to the old concept of the "freak out." We find the main character trapped in the dark recesses of someone's twisted fantasy where "The Torture Never Stops." The song was originally written for the Bongo Fury album, but Captain Beefheart couldn't get the vocals right so Zappa saved it.
I was left with the new album that will be released this Fall. Frank picked up his attaché case and left for the bank as I sat in a perfect spot listening to his music, full blast. While he was gone I was thoroughly involved with his latest conquest. Just as the fourth side of the album was completed he returned looking no worse from his business trip.
[...] I asked him about the new album scheduled to be released in September. He told me that he wondered if the album might not be too long as a double album and would be released as a single one. Most of the cuts on Zoot Allures were done with just Zappa and Terry Bozzio. Terry Bozzio, Patrick O'Hearn and Eddie Jobson (former member of Roxy Music) are in his new touring band. He was delighted about the new band and showed me a picture. The picture was startling. The three other players were young, blond and very cute and in the center of those angels stood Frank Zappa looking diabolically shrewd.
ZW: There were some rumors the name of your last album would be Night Of The Iron Sausage. Is that right?
FZ: Yeah, I decided to change the name and just keep that one line in one song.
Paul Hill of Pasadena, CA, writes in, "The CD version of Zappa's Zoot Allures is the worst reissue disc I've ever heard, replacing Yes' Relayer on my list. It sounds like it was mastered from a cassette! The drums, bass and vocals have all lost their presence, and the dynamic range and frequency response sound incredibly narrow. The LP is so superior that I recommend that any Zappa fan rush to their local used record shop to find (an LP), before it's too late." [...]
Finally, what about the Zoot Allures complaints? "I wouldn't willingly send something out the door that I thought was worse than the original," Zappa says. "I've got no explanation for that, but I'll certainly get the CD and try to figure out what he's complaining about. And if it's really horrible I'll make another master. I'm actually flattered that people are listening that closely to the albums, but what's disturbing me is that they're listening to the production more than the music."
RUMOURS HAD been reaching London of Frank Zappa being locked out of his own studio and of enough writs flying between him and Herbie to stuff a mattress.
Frank's new album "Zoot Allures" is out on Warner Brothers instead of Frank's own DiscReet label—it was obviously time to find out the poop.
He was staying at the Playboy Towers in Chicago when I phoned—part of his 1976 World Tour—two months in the US and Canada and then on to Hawaii, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, and all through Europe in the early spring.
I asked what happened between him and Herbie. Frank says he fired him. "Law suits are, in the usual way, impending."
It sounds as if Frank has been studying the art of English understatement. One alleged "problem" was that Frank couldn't get the 30ips master tape of "Zoot Allures" from The Record Plant.
"Listen to this: I am the chairman of the board of DiscReet and the president of the company—also those guys are supposed to be my friends—but they wouldn't release the master tapes to me unless Warner Brothers indemnified the studio from any legal action that Herbie might take against them."
Warner Brothers agreed—providing Frank indemnified them. "Can you believe it? An individual artist having to indemnify one of the biggest record companies in the world so that they can bring his record out?"
So Frank mastered the album from his own 15ips safety copy of the album. He always takes 15ips safeties home with him after every recording session. "When I go home after 20 hours in the studio, what am I gonna listen to—Bob Dylan records?"
The safety copies were very good; "You can't tell the difference, only an engineer would be able to tell that the transient response . . ."
[...]
Another ex-Mother, Don Preston, is playing with Leo Sayer. This brought up a sore point with Frank because Warner Brothers is paying all the freight costs and subsiding club appearances for the Sayer tour, whereas for his tour he claims he has received minimal support. Normally a tour is used to promote a new album.
"They've been giving me the shits on this new album. Normally you come into town and there's the local Warners representative to take you to the local radio station. Well so far on this tour I've only seen five guys . . . In New York we sold out three nights a the Felt Forum. Warner Brothers bought 15 tickets for the press."
Warners are worried about the breakup of Frank's DiscReet label and don't know how to promote his new album without getting entangled.
Despite no promotion to speak of, "Zoot Allures" did 117,000 in the first week, which ain't bad. I had been expecting the US radio stations to censor the album but apparently not.
"It's getting played everywhere, except oddly enough in Toronto, Canada. I was doing an interview on what used to be one of the most progressive stations there when I noticed that the album had white stickers on two of the tracks: on 'Black Napkins' and 'The Torture Never Stops'."
Frank immediately began to criticise the station over the air and in the end, the station manager came in and he and Frank had an on-the-air discussion about censorship. I bet Frank loved it.
"What it amounted to was that he didn't understand the lyrics. All he knew was that they made him hot so he thought they must be bad!"
In a recent interview—this was uh just a couple months ago—you said, "Manny the Camper really wants to buy some white gas," and what did you mean by that?
White gas, that's what we call kerosene.
[...] Who's singing that high vocal part at the end of that tune?
Davey Moire, who is the engineer on the session.
If you've been there too, let me see your thumb
"Let me see your thumb" is probably from a commercial TV Spot for "Gulf" gasoline from the sixties. At the end of the commercial one would see a gas-station employee putting up his thumb in order to suggest that Gulf is good. Which corresponds to Good Gulf.
A multitextured free-far-all, the tune got its title from "a black napkin sitting on a table in a Milwaukee hotel, Thanksgiving, 1975."
"Black Napkins" is a song I've had for a year or more but it was finally named last Thanksgiving when we were having this horrible Thanksgiving dinner in Milwaukee. Sliced turkey roll with the fucking preservatives just gleaming off of it, and this beat-up cranberry material. The final stroke to this ridiculous dinner was the black napkins sitting next to the dish.
"Black Napkins"?
Oh, well, "Black Napkins" commemorates this one tour we're in Milwaukee—
My hometown!
And it's Thanksgiving. And while everybody else is having a real Thanksgiving dinner we're in a rock and roll band and we got to eat Thanksgiving dinner in a hotel. And we're, you know, most of the guys in the band got together, went downstairs to the dining room and go in and sit down and it was really a lousy meal, and to top it all off they had black napkins. That'll cheer you way up in Thanksgiving.
Black Napkins was a piece that I wrote and that's a planned piece of music. The solo itself is an improvisation, but you know it's one of the first tunes that I wrote for the guitar, the guitar solo instrumental.
There were also some live tracks like "Black Napkins" (recorded in Japan—if you listen closely you can hear the little Japanese girls yelling "Telly!—Telly!!" on the record. He always laughed at that!).
I re-listened to WAR's The World is a Ghetto and the title track reminded me heavily of Black Napkins (mainly the guitar line sharing a similar progression and tone, with the horns in the background being slightly reminiscent of the backing vocals).
Do you ever play slide guitar?
No, but I do have a fretless guitar, and I'm pretty good on that. At one time Acoustic manufactured a fretless guitar, they made a prototype and tried to interest people in it, but nobody wanted it. So the prototype ended up at Guitar Center. I walked in there one day and asked them if they had anything new, and they said, "Have we got one for you!" And they brought out this thing, and it was really neat, so I bought it for $75. The only restriction was they had to take a chisel and some black paint and scratch off the word "Acoustic" on the headpiece, because Acoustic didn't want anybody to know that they had made such a grievous error as to make a fretless guitar. I've put a Barcus-Berry on that, too, and I send the magnetic pickup to the left and the Barcus on the right. The thing that sounds like a slide guitar on "The Torture Never Stops" is actually a fretless. It's also on "San Ber'dino" and "Can't Afford No Shoes" [both from One Size Fits All]. It's different than a regular guitar; you don't push the strings to bend them, you move them back and forth like violin-type vibrato, which is a funny movement to get used to. But you can play barre chords on it—it's fun.
FZ—guitar, bass, keyboards, voc., director of recreational activities;
IT: Can I ask you what was happening in "The Torture Never Stops"? I read that you didn't want to tell the interviewer how you went about recording the screams.
Z: Very simply; you set up a 4 track, tape-recorder in the basement, and you get two girls in there, and you work them over, and you put them on the tape, and you put the tape onto the other tape.
IT: Did you have a good time?
Z: Of course.
"The sound effects to 'The Torture Never Stops' were an evening's work," [FZ] told Pauline McLeod. "We did most of it in the bedroom of my house. There were two chicks there—one was my wife—plus myself. I think they enjoyed it very much. We got four hours on tape and then cut it down to just under ten minutes. My friend opens up with the first grunt and it carries on from there. Er, I don't think it's worth telling you precisely what went on . . . you wouldn't be allowed to publish it." [Daily Mirror, February 14, 1977, "Sheer Torture but Zappa has it all taped."]
In the night of the iron sausage
Zappa won't reveal the story behind "Night of the Iron Sausage," saying only that "it's a real long story."
Iron Sausage:
John Smothers
JOHN SMOTHERS
IRON SAUSAGE
JOHN SMOTHERS
Iron Sausage
Terry: The tradition of the iron sausage was further perpetuated by one of those private-like European urinal stalls, you know, they have those little walls between them. Where John said, "Boy, I gotta stand back," to make room for the salami, you know. But I really couldn't see, you know. And then, man, he made the mistake of, uh, changing into his karate pants one night when I was around. And finally, I looked over and said, "Man, I thought you had some salami in there!"
John Smothers: I told you, that shrunk up in the bay! Oh, Terry . . .
| Zoot Allures (1976) Zappa Records, 1990 | Thing-Fish (1984) Rykodisc, 1995 |
|---|---|
| 0:00-1:04 | 00:00-01:04 |
| 1:04-2:06 | |
| 2:06-7:00 | 01:04-05:59 |
| 05:59-07:54 | |
| 7:00-9:39 | 07:54-10:32 |
I'm about 90% sure the percussion bits at the end of guitar solo in The Torture Never Stops are from The Big Squeeze.
- "The Torture Never Stops" contains reverbered samples from the ending part of "The Big Squeeze" (7:43-7:54, 9:06-9:09, 9:45-9:47, UM CD)
"We saw an ad in a Finnish magazine for a rubber head called Miss Pinky. It's got a vibrator in the throat and a bulb that you squeeze to make the jaws suck in. When in action, Miss Pinky sucks you off. When I saw the ad, I just said 'Jesus!' We got two of them, one for the crew bus and one that Roy Estrada used to sing to during our concerts. I figured something as wonderful as that should be memorialized in song," he says with a straight face.
Ms Pinky is a song about a "lonely person" device. I saw an ad for it in this Finnish pornographic magazine, and when the band got to Amsterdam, I sent Smothers [Zappa's large bald bodyguard] out to see if he could find one. Sure enough, for $69.95 he came back with Ms. Pinky. It was even worse than I had expected. Not only is it a head, it's the size of a child's head. The throat is sponge rubber and it has a vibrator in it with a battery pack and a two-speed motor. Sticking out of the neck is a little nozzle with a squeeze bulb that makes the throat contract.
"Seeing as how the main problem with the teenage male set is today, and always has been, how to get reamed, then maybe some of them haven't figured it out yet. But you're not gonna get any action if you've got any brains, so let's get it together: be as dumb as you can, folks. You can discuss it later with your intellectual friends."
1975 recorded in a dressing room at Hofstra University and over-dubbed at the Record Plant, Los Angeles, California
originally released on the Warner Brothers album "ZOOT ALLURES"
engineer: Davey Moire
original recording medium: 24-track analog tape
musicians: Frank Zappa, various guitars and bass / Ruth Underwood, percussion & ARP 2600 / Roy Estrada, drone bass / Terry Bozzio, drums
guitars: Gibson acoustic-electric, Custom fretless, Hofner bassThis is one of the earliest examples of a technique I developed called Xenochrony (strange synchronizations). [...]
The solo and drone bass was recorded on a 2-track Nagra, 15 ips, with a pair of Neumann U-87 microphones in a rather wet-sounding dressing room, warming up before a concert at Hofstra University on Long Island. This pair of tracks was later Xenochronized to a drum track out-take from 'The Ocean Is the Ultimate Solution.' The introductory orchestration was added next, and then the Hofner bass (recorded at half-speed), rhythmically splitting the difference between the two different track tempos.
"There's no reason in the world that that song should exist and here's why: the lead guitar track was recorded at 7 1/2 on a Nagra in a dressing room at Hofsberg University. I listened back to the tape and thought it was a nice little guitar track.
"So one day I tried an experiment in the studio. I transferred that tape to an existing drum track from a song that was already an improvisation. The time signatures don't match, nothing matches, except that it all matches perfectly. And it's one shot. I never tried to adjust any of the synchronizabions or anything. I just laid it on there and let it lay where it may, and it sounds like the drums are right in there with the guitar." It's not often that Zappa expresses wonderment at his own talent.
"That was originally written in 1968 when we were working in a place in Boston called the Ark. I didn't do anything with it until Jeff [Simmons] needed another song for his album. He had an instrumental track that was similiar to the original version, so I suggested we put my words to his song. So the first recorded version of "Wino Song" appears on Jeff's album (Lucille Messed Up My Mind, Straight Records): I've changed the words and music to make it more current."
05/30/73 (12-3PM, 3:30-6:30PM & 7-10PM) Bolic Sound—Zomby Woof; Wonderful Wino
MUSICIANS: FZ, Ralph Humphrey, Ruth Underwood, George Duke, Tom Fowler, Bruce Fowler, Salvador Marquez06/01/73 (10AM-1PM, 1:30-4:30PM, 5-8PM & 8:30-11:30PM) Bolic Sound—Zomby Woof; Wonderful Wino; Cosmik Debris; Fifty-Fifty
MUSICIANS: FZ, Bruce Fowler, Jose Salvador Marquez, Ian Underwood
Basic Tracks recorded at Trident Studios, June 21, 1970
Aynsley Dunbar—Drums
Jeff Simmons—Bass
Overdubs recorded at Bolic Sound, May 1973
Mixed by FZ and Kerry McNabb at Paramount Studios, June 1973
| The Mothers 1970 (2020) | The Lost Episodes (1996) | Zoot Allures (1976) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1.6. Wonderful Wino (FZ Vocal) | 1.12. Wonderful Wino (FZ Vocal, Alt. Solo) | 23. Wonderful Wino | 7. Wonderful Wino |
| Shared instrumentation | |||
| drums, bass, piano | |||
| guitar, vocals (FZ) | |||
| saxes | saxes? | ||
| guitar (2:03-3:08) | |||
| guitar, brass & sax | |||
| vocal (Ricky Lancelotti), clavinet | |||
| drums (Terry Bozzio); bass, guitar, vocals (FZ) | |||
| The Mothers 1970 (2020) | The Lost Episodes (1996) | Over-Nite Sensation 50th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition (2023) | Zoot Allures (1976) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1.6. Wonderful Wino (FZ Vocal) | 1.12. Wonderful Wino (FZ Vocal, Alt. Solo) | 23. Wonderful Wino | 1.08. Wonderful Wino (Complete Edit) | 6. Friendly Little Finger |
| 0:00-0:12 | 0:00-0:12 | 0:00-0:12 | 4:04-4:17 | |
| 7. Wonderful Wino | ||||
| 0:12-0:26 | 0:12-0:25 | 0:12-0:25 | 0:00-0:12 | |
| 0:26-1:44 | 0:25-1:43 | 0:00-1:18 | 0:25-1:43 | 0:12-1:30 |
| 1:44-2:13 | 1:43-2:13 | |||
| 2:13-2:52 | ||||
| 2:13-2:42 | 2:52-3:21 | |||
| 2:42-4:11 | 3:21-4:58 | 1:18-2:46 | 1:43-3:15 | 1:30-2:59 |
| 4:11-4:51 | 4:58-5:30 | 2:59-3:38 | ||
| 4:51-5:11 | 5:30-5:50 | |||
Sparkie Parker—bg. voc
Sharkie Barker—bg. vocal
"The inspiration for that comes from a place in Copenhagen called the Disc Club. We spent a week in Copenhagen for rest and recreation between the Japanese part of our last tour and the European part."
With arched eyebrows, Zappa continues, "I don't know what you've ever heard about Copenhagen, but you'd think you could have a good time there. Five or six days in that city was the pits. It was colder than shit. The record company people were showing us the amusing highlights of the area and they took us to the Disc Club, which was the local nose-in-the-air discotheque.
"One night I went to the toilet and I couldn't get in because all these guys were in there combing their hair. But they're pretending not to. They look in the mirror and give themselves a quick little checkout and quickly zoot their hair back. They check out their-expression and adjust their clothing and zip out the door. And there's this endless rotating armada of Danish disco gents out outside the room. So I just went back to the hotel, got out some stationery, and cranked it off."
Nykyisin kuuntelen discomusiikkia. On aivan turha halveksia discomusaa. Sehän vain täyttää tehtävänsä tässä maailmassa. Se ei pyri olemaan enempää kuin se todellisuudessa on. Se on tehty tanssittavaksi. Seuraavalla LP:lläni on myös muutama discobiisi, mm. eräs, jonka nimi on "Disco Boy". Tein sen Tanskassa. Olin nimittäin discon veskissä ja jonotin vuoroani pytylle. Kesti saamarin kauan ennen kuin pääsin toimittamaan asiani, sillä joku idiootti oli nauttinut sietorajansa ylittävän määrän juovukkeita ja piti itsepäisesti kahvasta kiinni öristen kopissa. Tämän tuskallisen odotuksen kestäessä jouduin tarkkailemaan diskopoikia, jotka tulivat veskiin "käsipesulle". Itse asiassa he vain teeskentelivät pesevänsä käsiä, sillä suurimman osan ajasta he käyttivät peilaamiseen ja kampaamiseen ja itsensä ylenpaittiseen ihailemiseen. Tein tästä ikimuistettavasta wc-visiitistä biisin.
Google Translate
Nowadays I listen to disco music. It's absolutely pointless to despise disco music. It just fulfills its mission in this world. It doesn't aspire to be more than it actually is. It's made for dancing. My next LP also has a few disco songs, e.g. one called "Disco Boy". I did it in Denmark. I was actually in the mill of the disco and I was waiting for my turn in the pitty. It took a hell of a long time before I was able to get my work done, because some idiot had taken too much alcohol and was stubbornly holding onto the handle in the shack. While enduring this painful wait, I had to watch the disco boys who came to the mill to "wash their hands". In fact, they only pretended to wash their hands, as most of the time was spent in mirroring and combing and self-admiration. I made this memorable visit to the toilet into a song.
| Zoot Allures (Universal, 2012) | Zoot Allures (Zappa Records, 1990) | Understanding America (2012) | Have I Offended Someone? (1997) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0:00-0:03 | |||
| 0:03-2:38 | 0:00-2:34 | 0:00-2:34 | 0:00-2:33 |
| 2:38-3:03 | 2:34-2:59 | 2:34-2:58 | |
| 3:03-3:10 | |||
| 3:10-4:30 | 2:59-4:18 | 2:58-4:18 | 2:33-3:53 |
| 4:30-5:00 | 4:18-4:47 | 3:53-4:23 | |
| 5:00-5:22 | 4:47-5:09 | ||
| 5:22-5:29 |
Research, compilation and maintenance by Román García Albertos