Random FUQ

  • On the Colorado Springs concert included on the Apostrophe 50th anniversary set, FZ shouts, “Hey, Bobby!” during Jeff Simmons’ harmonica solo. This was in reference to Frank’s bodyguard at the time, Lorenzo Robert ‘Bobby’ Adams, who was at the side of the stage. In the fifties, before becoming a bodyguard, Bobby sang second tenor in The Calvanes, a West Coast doo-wop group. Their 2001 reunion album In Harmony included a rendition of the Zappa/Collins composition Memories Of El Monte. The CD was mastered by UMRK recording engineer Bob Stone.
  • In 1975, Frank described the 1957 doo-wop song Let’s Start All Over Again by The Paragons as “Prototypical and it has the unmitigated audacity to have the most moronic piano section I ever heard on any record – and it repeats it often enough to convince me that it’s deliberate.” It’s pretty clear that his Oh! In The Sky was a pastiche of the tune too. The Paragons song was used on the soundtrack to Martin Scorsese’s 1995 film, Casino, which also included a cameo by talk show host Steve Allen, who of course had the young FZ on his show playing a bicycle in 1963.
  • Beverly D’Angelo wrote and sang Bagged Me A Homer for an episode of The Simpsons. The song features a harmonica solo by Tommy Morgan, who was a member of the Abnuceals Emuukha Electric Symphony Orchestra and was introduced as a special guest artist by FZ at the UCLA Orchestral Favorites concerts in September 1975.
  • There were at least three other ‘talking heads’ who could have appeared in Alex Winter’s Zappa movie: firstly, Del Casher (briefly a Mother in 1966), who was actually filmed (see the Freak Out! Classic Albums documentary). Secondly, Lorraine Belcher Chamberlain, Frank’s buxom red-haired companion from Studio Z, who told me “They came to San Francisco to interview me, but [very sadly, her now late husband, the underground cartoonist S. Clay] Wilson was just out of the ICU and I just couldn’t. I feel terrible about it. Bad timing! It was just before they needed to do the final edit.” And thirdly, Robert Davidson, the man who shot Zappa...on the Krappa. He was asked about being interviewed for the film but declined.
  • Ian Underwood played synthesizers on James Horner’s soundtrack to Disney’s Honey, I Shrunk The Kids (1989). The screenplay to the film’s sequel, Honey, I Blew Up the Kid (1992), was co-written by Peter Elbling, who was one half of The Times Square Two, a music-hall, comedy and juggling act. The Times Square Two opened for the Mothers on their UK tour of 1969.
  • Earle Dumler played baritone sax on Joe’s Garage (credited as ‘Marginal Chagrin’) and oboe with the Abnuceals Emuukha Electric Symphony Orchestra and various Wazoos. He told me, “We never called the smaller group ‘Petit Wazoo’ – we toured as ‘The Mothers’. In that band, he called me ‘Gort Maringa, the golden geek from Venus’,” a pseudonym inspired by the 1951 cult classic sci-fi movie, The Day The Earth Stood Still.
  • Before Art Tripp, and before Billy Mundi, the Mothers had Denny Bruce drumming alongside Jimmy Carl Black. He had to leave prior to the recording of Freak Out! however due to getting mononucleosis. Bruce and Zappa do though appear on the same album together: the soundtrack to The Monkees film Head, where the former plays percussion on As We Go Along and the latter’s “That’s pretty white,” line from the movie starts the track Poll.
  • Dweezil told me he took the photo on the cover of his father’s Zappa In New York album from one of the World Trade Center towers. It shows the Verizon Building, which received only moderate damage on 9/11.
  • Zappa In New York features osmotic harp overdubs by Lou Anne Neill, who gave harp lessons to Moon Unit.
  • In his memoir, Shell Shocked: My Life with The Turtles, Flo and Eddie, and Frank Zappa, etc., Kaylan also writes that Sir Tom Jones nicknamed his “legendary-for-good-reason schlong”  Wendell. In her book, Let's Spend The Night Together: Backstage Secrets of Rock Muses and Supergroupies, Pamela Des Barres reveals that – before she met Frank – Gail turned down an opportunity to meet Wendell at The Carlyle Hotel in Manhattan.
  • When Dweezil toured Japan with singer songwriter Eikichi Yazawa in 1992, Albert Wing was also part of the band. On June 18, 1993, FZ answered the 818 PUMPKIN phones for a few hours. Carroll Zeuli, mother of Dweezil Zappa Fan Club Fanzine editor Cindy, spoke to him about Dweezil's tour with Yazawa. Frank was apparently on good form and told of Yazawa's "deranged sense of humour": waiting to leave one hotel in torrential rain for a four hour drive to the next gig, Yazawa informed the crew "We have big problem. Bus on strike." Asked if they would then be travelling by train, he replied, "No, we take truck," whereupon a large flatbed truck with deckchairs set up on it pulled up in front of the hotel. Imagining what a four hour drive in the pouring rain was going to be like, Dweezil & co. boarded – only to be driven around the block to the waiting tour bus. "Pretty funny, right?" said Yazawa.
  • The sunburst Fender Stratocaster guitar, given to FZ in 1968 by Hendrix’s roadie Howard Parker (better known simply as “H”, who later married Pamela Zarubica to enable her to live in London), was set on fire by Jimi on the stage of the Finsbury Park Astoria on March 31,1967; the Astoria was later converted into the Rainbow Theatre, where FZ was pushed into the orchestra pit on December 10, 1971.

This is a selection of random facts taken from all three of my Frank Zappa FUQ books. Illustration by ArtForDinosaurs for Vol. 4 (now out in paperback).

Create Your Own Website With Webador