Zappa did the responsible thing and quietly advised the crowd to remain calm. Then he threw his guitar on the ground and ran to get the hell out of there. The kids were now throwing our amplifiers out of the windows behind the stage in order to jump the two stories to the ground below. There were pushing and shoving bodies everywhere and, as you can imagine, a great many injuries. We escaped by running through the kitchen and then down the side stairway, just in the nick of time. The entire building burned to ashes. Fortunately, nobody died.
We were taken, by bus, back to our hotel across the lake, and stood there, looking out of the scenic lobby at the Alpine view of a column of flame and smoke reaching to the sky. The whole band was there together. We sipped brandy and watched our equipment vaporize. Despite the severity of the situation, it was Frank who spoke first with a logical conclusion.
“Well, that’s it for me. Somebody’s trying to tell me something. Tour’s over. I’m going home.”
What? Hell, no, Frank! Please. Remember, we get paid by the show. And we had a lot of European dates left to play on the continent before a sold-out, two-week run in the British Isles. That’s a lot of shows and a lot of lost income. We needed the work. We needed a plan. We begged, pleaded, and cajoled. Finally, we got Frank to concede. A few calls were placed and, within a couple of hours and after an atypical band meal, a decision was made.
Later that night, Aynsley and I were the last ones standing and he was, uncharacteristically, in my room inhaling the tars of India when we heard a single knock on my door—the knock of an insider, so we knew it wasn’t hotel security. I answered and Zappa walked in.
“Mind if I hang for a while?”
“Shit no, man. Come on in. We were just contemplating our futures.”
“Me too,” said the Man.
And the three of us just sat there, passing the dreaded reefer and watching our equipment fry across the lake. It was a spectacular sight. After about twenty minutes, Frank got up from his easy chair and started making his way to the door.
“That’s it for me, boys. Bedtime.”
“What are we gonna do, Frank?”
“I don’t know, man. I’ve got a lot of thinking to do.” He went back to his room and we never had the chance to smoke with him again. But it was great while it lasted. We were finally a band after all this time. And I suppose that some things just weren’t meant to be.
We would, regrettably, have to cancel a few shows, notably Brussels, Paris, and Lyon, France. That was a damned shame. But we could borrow equipment from the Who and Led Zeppelin, neither of whom was working at the time, and at least complete the ten shows or so that we had scheduled for the UK. It was better than going home.
The next day, December 5, I walked around Lake Geneva to the scene of the crime. The ruins of the once-famous music hall were still smoldering. Every single guitar and amplifier was destroyed. A single microphone stand stood ominously where I had been, on what used to be the stage. Mark was there too, combing through the rubble. He found an old cowbell that we used to use during “Call Any Vegetable.” It was charred and smoky, but it hadn’t melted. It sounded like shit, but we had to have it. It remains our only souvenir of the big Swiss fire. It felt like Dresden.
On the following day, we all trekked back to London and our familiar digs at the Kensington Palace. Everybody ran out to get their pictures developed. Then a bunch of us went to this amazing Mexican restaurant and got ridiculously buzzed back in the room. Hash and tequila—dinner of champions.
The next morning, I ordered this fantastic skirt for Dianne at Kensington Market and bought some tasty tops at Biba, a supertrendy boutique. Bolan came over about 7 and we went up to his place for cognac and cocaine, but shortly after we arrived, he and June started arguing and things got really ugly. Bolan was acting his character now, 24/7. He had become the Cosmic Warrior and June’s traditional ways seemed to slow his roll. He was antsy and it wasn’t just the coke. I got extremely uncomfortable and had to leave. I cabbed it to the Speakeasy and got drunk, bumped into Mickey Finn of T. Rex, who had some blow, and stayed up until 8:30 in the morning, talking to Dianne.
I slept through the next day, not opening my eyes until 3 P.M. The band guys went over to the Rainbow Theatre to try out the newly borrowed gear, but I certainly wasn’t needed. To my surprise, Danny Hutton appeared at the hotel that afternoon with copious quantities of inhalables. Between him and Miranda, our UK rep, we kept ourselves amused with food, and Mickey Finn always seemed to be lurking about with the other stuff when we slowed down. I called Dianne late but happy.
Up at noon on Friday, but I didn’t leave the hotel until 2 P.M. Something felt wrong—it really did. There was a very uncomfortable sound check at the Rainbow and I was bombarded with ticket requests for a show that had been sold out for months. It was a bullshit day punctuated by a cheap Greek dinner. The first of the Rainbow shows was at 7.
♦ ♦ ♦
Again, it was the encore—something about that damned encore.
We had finished our first set, which went amazingly well, considering the alien guitars and drums we were forced to use. The audience loved it and I did too. We had already taken our group bow and I was happily leaving the stage, feeling fulfilled and exonerated. As I reached the wings, I heard the audience suddenly stop applauding and gasp as one. There was a shocked silence in the Rainbow. I ran back to the stage, but I couldn’t see anybody. Band and roadies were standing on the apron at the edge of the platform and gazing down into the darkness of the orchestra pit below. I ran over to see what the lack of commotion was all about. It sure didn’t sound good.
There, at the bottom of the pit, lay Frank Zappa. He was unconscious and silent, his twisted body fallen below in the shape of some anatomical swastika. His arms and legs were bent at bizarre angles and I couldn’t tell if he was breathing or not. Humans aren’t supposed to bend like that. There was no reason to believe that Frank Zappa was still alive.
This had been a very deliberate act. It seems that an audience member named Trevor Howell, who was very, very high indeed either a) didn’t feel as if he had gotten his money’s worth or b), more likely, was responding to his girlfriend articulating her crush on Frank at the end of the concert. For whatever reason, this maniac jumped onto the stage just as Frank, his back to the audience, was placing his guitar in its stand. He pushed Frank in such a way that he first hit his head on the wall of the orchestra pit before falling to its bottom. We all thought Frank was dead.
Howell tried to get away, but the audience restrained him and brought him to the front of the theater. Here, official accounts vary. But I was there, and I know. Before Howell was delivered to the local authorities, Herb Cohen personally beat the shit out of him. Newspaper stories through the years have attributed this beating to angry roadies, but in fact, it was Cousin Herb who took control of an out-of-control situation. We were ushered out of the theater and back to the hotel before anyone with authority could tell us anything. Sure, why tell the band anything?
Trevor was sentenced to a year in jail. Me, I didn’t know what to do. I called Dianne, but sympathy didn’t go very far. I didn’t want to be alone, so Danny Hutton came over. So did Mickey Finn and David Byron from Uriah Heep. Many drugs were consumed. Many condolences were offered. It looked like I was out of work again.
I walked around Kensington the following morning before we had to meet with the Scotland Yard detectives in the hotel’s banquet room. Everyone was somber. It was all over. Mark and I went to a double feature to take our minds off of reality: Where’s Poppa? and Bananas. If you can’t forget your troubles after those two, then your problems must be real.
And oh, they were.
I was pissed off the following day when we again weren’t allowed to see Frank, or to even get an update on his health. Harry Nilsson came over and Danny returned. Brothers of the Road are always around to help another musician in need.
Monday arrived with still no word about Frank, so we all packed up
and made arrangements to get to the airport. Only, remember, we flew Air India, and they decided not to honor our return tickets, which were for the following week. So we all sat in our rooms, our suitcases packed, trying as hard as we could to smoke all of our accumulated hash before departure. Finally, we got the word: Frank had just undergone a leg operation, was still broken and confused, but had asked to see us before we all returned to the States without him.
The guys in the band were let in to visit with Frank one or two at a time. Mark and I went first. Frank looked like death warmed over in that hospital bed. He was pale and fragile. His eyes were druggy from all of the medications he was on and his voice was raspy from the tubes that had been stuck down his throat. He was still hooked up to several IVs and it appeared difficult for him to turn his head to see us as Mark and I walked into his room. Neither one of us knew what to say, but Frank was the one who wound up breaking the ice.
His eyes opened about halfway, he sort of lifted his arm as if to conduct us and said, “All right. ‘Peaches en Regalia’… One, two, three, four…”
That was the way we used to open the show. We knew then that Frank was okay. The three of us spoke briefly and then our time was over.
Our Air India flight was three hours late, so of course I missed my connection to Detroit and wound up crashing for a few hours at a Ramada Inn in New York. I cabbed to LaGuardia at 4:30 in the morning but my plane malfunctioned and returned to the gate. I was losing it. An hour later, I fell asleep on my flight into Detroit. Dianne picked me up and drove me to her parents’ house in Troy. I met her father. I made love to her throughout the afternoon, and later, we shared a family-style dinner. Then, we went drinking, ate at the good old American Burger King, and danced until I collapsed in Dianne’s arms and sobbed myself to sleep.
TWENTY-TWO
Air Supply Is a Better Name Than the Phlorescent Leech and Eddie!
I shortly discovered that the only true cure for melancholia is an acid-laced bota of wine and a Grateful Dead concert. Which are what Dianne and I enjoyed on the very next night in December ’71. I was served something called cheese biscuits for breakfast, roast beef and Yorkshire pudding for dinner, and still had time to go to the Hill House in Ann Arbor to pick up the tickets. The Dead were amazing; they really were. The New Riders of the Purple Sage opened the show. Truthfully, I didn’t know who the hell was up there on that stage, and I doubt I was alone in that sentiment that night. There was a wonderful feeling of rebellion in the little Hill Auditorium at the University of Michigan, like the revolution played there last week and it worked. The two of us stayed in and around Detroit for the rest of the week and flew back to L.A. six days before Christmas.
Every year since 1967, when I married Melita and Mark married Pat, the four of us, plus progeny, got together at the Volmans’ house on Lookout Mountain, just up the hill from our original Canyon home, on the occasion of Christmas Eve. It wasn’t a big deal, just an informal annual gathering that gave the girls a chance to catch up. We would eat popcorn, play Win, Place & Show, and listen to each other’s most bizarre new vinyl acquisitions. I was determined that this year would be no exception. Pat, of course, had only recently met Dianne and had come to know and confess her secrets to Melita, who would never be around again. Melita and Pat had their children together. Now, somebody else was sitting in Melita’s chair. It was an awkward evening, to say the least, made a bit easier with the inclusion of Jim Pons, solo, to act as master of ceremonies.
Christmas Day was even stranger. I picked Emily up at Melita’s mom’s and did my best to serve her the turkey, give her the presents, and offer up the normality that I thought she needed. There were no presents or trips to Disneyland that could make up for a lack of parenthood, but I needn’t have worried: Melita already had multiple extra daddies waiting in the wings. It is truly sad that the poor girl never exactly knew who to call Poppa at any given time, but at least there were always a few of us around and still are. You’ll always be fine, kid.
We tried to be a normal couple. Dianne got a sewing machine at Sears to have something to do during the day besides THC. Jim came over for dinner and brought his date, Enid Finnbogason! I nearly shit. We started going to hockey games: the L.A. Kings at the Fabulous Forum. It was a great natural rush. We flushed the horrible THC and told the guys in Ann Arbor not to send us any more.
Herb’s brother, Martin (aka Mutt), held his annual New Year’s party at his incredible house at the top of the Canyon, replete with wine dungeons and wandering goats, and I got to introduce Dianne to everyone there. There were the odd whispers, of course, but no one had really known Melita anyway, and this was Hollywood, after all, and Mutt was working on wife number six or so at the time, so I wasn’t exactly a pariah. Eric Burdon was there. Mutt was his lawyer. I spent a long time talking to Don Schmitzerle, who headed up Reprise Records, the Warner’s company that distributed Frank and Herb’s labels, Bizarre and Straight. You never know, right?
I probably should have known better than to invite Lin over. She and a friend had hitched to L.A. for the holidays and Dianne, ever the open-minded partner, had nudged me into inviting them to the house to share some cheer. I almost shared my cheer with Lin and a bottle of champagne while parked at the top of Appian Way on the way to drop her off at the Holiday Inn. Happy New Year. Almost. Dianne was one resolution I didn’t intend to break.
We made the sweet, sweet love everywhere in my zip code. January 3, 1972, on the beach, and the next day and the next. Not having that lethal synthetic crap around certainly proved to be a change for the better. I could actually carry on a conversation again, although while lunching with Paul Williams, a guy didn’t need to talk much.
♦ ♦ ♦
And then, just like that, on January 5, I was back in depositions again. But this time, I was going to court with Melita. Ouch. Still, I was feeling pretty good, considering. The only elephant that was missing from the center of the room was Frank.
We had no idea at all where our next meal was coming from. None of us. Mark and I spoke, but not really about business stuff—there was no business stuff. My VW van kept blowing up, and we didn’t have the five hundred in cash to rebuild the engine, so both of us would hitchhike to the bottom of the hill for milk or laundry. I sure didn’t feel much like a rock star. Mark and I met with Herb about management, which was an early clue as to Frank’s future, but we were all understandably wary, and Velvert Turner just up and disappeared one day, leaving me with a dozen garbage bags full of toxic undeterminables. I stayed up all night picking up after the well-connected rocker. His then-producer, Tom Wilson, who had done the first Zappa records, told me not to worry. He lied. It was my second shady experience as a landlord.
At the end of the third week of 1972, I got a call from Paul Almond at Mutt’s office. I never knew what to expect when that office called: This could have either pertained to my career or my divorce. I braced for the worst. Instead, it seemed that Johny Barbata and Jim Tucker had hired a lawyer together. Johny hadn’t been in the band for over a year, but he knew that his contributions had been worth something. Tucko left in 1967, but in such a litigious time, did we really want to be saddled with his ass? The Turtles had been a big band back in the ’60s, but those days were over, and since Mark and I had obviously moved on, John and Jim wanted a lump sum of cash to just go away. It wasn’t like the Turtles’ name was worth anything. We would be in court for years and then what? Our time had come and gone. Corporation or not, give them some money and they’d both sign on the line and disappear.
We weren’t sure why and we never really talked about it, but both of us knew instinctively that this would be the best bargain we ever made. We were absolutely certain that the Turtles weren’t dead yet. People needed their memories and we had been part of a historical time, already gone. We wound up borrowing the money from Cousin Herb and paid them each a few thousand dollars. They signed.
While we were in management talks with Herb, we were also weighin
g his traditional management techniques against what, we were certain, was a new way for us to actually have some artistic control over our future as performers. We had made the acquaintance of a soft-spoken and well-meaning dude by the name of Larry Heller, who had been on the periphery of the business, in publishing or accounting or something. A nice smile, a hearty handshake, and a really good beard weighted the scales heavily toward his side. Larry offered the following intriguing proposition: Mark and I would start our own corporation, just the two of us. Well, three, actually: Larry would need to have a small piece of the pie. Then we would basically manage ourselves. We’d rent a nice office, wait for the phone to ring, sign these big record deals, and laugh at the traditional ways of old Hollywood.
Now, evenings were spent either in the company of Larry and his wife, Barbara, or at the home of our dear friend, Allan MacDougal, a most excellent Scot whose acquaintance we made while in England but who now worked down the hall from our buddy Paul Williams at A&M. These guys made me feel like I was still sort of in show business. I wasn’t. I was collecting unemployment for the first time in my life. Hey, aren’t you the guy I just saw with Zappa? Nope. Sorry. I get that a lot.
♦ ♦ ♦
Mr. Zappa, meanwhile, had returned home and was contemplating his next move even as we went into the studio to master the Just Another Band from L.A. album. I was impressed with how good we sounded on the big studio speakers, considering that, once again, the entire project had been recorded on Frank’s little two-track recorder with no overdubs at all. Frank was confined to his wheelchair and still didn’t know if he’d ever tour again. But his spirits were relatively high and I realized how much I had missed him. At the same time, Mark and I met one last time with Herb about management, but we had new ideas in our heads again, and if history was about to repeat itself, we weren’t yet done riding our wave of bad decisions. We told Herb thanks but no thanks. Despite everything. I had a drink at the bar next door with Herb’s great secretary, Ona Sheleika, and returned to my chores.
Shell Shocked: My Life with the Turtles, Flo and Eddie, and Frank Zappa, etc. Page 19