Electric Don Quixote: The Definitive Story of Frank Zappa

by Neil Slaven

  UNCLE MEAT

  After the basic backing tracks had been recorded, most of the work was completed by the four band members who could read music, Frank, Art, Bunk and Ian. As the sleevenote indicated, some sections contained as many as 40 overdubs. This sort of manic profusion was only possible because Apostolic had a prototype Scully 12-track tape machine. Even so, it required a very quiet desk to ensure that excessive tape hiss didn't build up during the frequent mix-downs.

  "There was this music left over from ['Run Home Slow']," Frank told me. "What we tried to do was play all the individual lines in this orchestral score. We had two wind players who could read, that was Ian and Bunk. And so they would be playing these parts two at a time, and we'd be stacking them and bouncing them together. And then we added the percussion and the woodwind and the other stuff. It took days just to do a few seconds of music that way. But it was an experiment that needed to be done."

  It was to be a pivotal album. In it, Zappa deliberately moved away from the confrontational stance that gave Freak Out!, Absolutely Free and We're Only In It For The Money their abrasive identity. He announced on the inner sleeve: "The words to the songs on this album were scientifically prepared from a random series of syllables, dreams, neuroses & private jokes that nobody except the members of the band ever laugh at, and other irrelevant material. They are all very serious & loaded with secret underground candy-rock psychedelic profundities."

  Uh huh. That certainly applies to 'Dog Breath', 'In The Year Of The Plague' and 'The Uncle Meat Variations', but there's some continuity of sense in 'The Air' and 'Cruising For Burgers'; 'Electric Aunt Jemima' (written about an amplifier) and 'Mr Green Genes' fall somewhere in between. Live, 'A Pound For A Brown On The Bus' and 'Sleeping In A Jar' were usually performed together under the title 'The String Quartet', since they originated in a string quartet that Frank had written in high school. Spoken interludes on Uncle Meat were rationed to interjections by Suzy Creamcheese, Jimmy Carl Black complaining "this fuckin' band's starving" and Ian Underwood explaining his arrival in the band.

  For the first time, live recordings were interlaced among the studio tracks. The most celebrated was the moment when Don Preston assaulted the Albert Hall organ; there was also a brief satirical rendering of 'God Bless America', recorded at the Whisky A Go Go, 'Ian Underwood Whips It Out', from Copenhagen, and the final segment of 'King Kong', recorded in March at the Miami Pop Festival. The latter, lasting 18 minutes, took up the album's fourth side, skillfully spliced together from a number of takes.

  The album's main themes, like 'King Kong', would become concert favourites; 'Uncle Meat' and 'The Dog Breath Variations' were often combined on stage, and 'A Pound For A Brown On The Bus' launched many extended solos. By contrast, 'Nine Types Of Industrial Pollution', its title inspired by a drive through New Jersey, was created in the studio, a guitar solo which quickly freed itself of rhythmic and tonal constraints as it developed against a backdrop of spluttering percussion. 'Zolar Czakl' was a brief reversal of the main theme, a dazzling patchwork quilt of different musical fragments edited together as one continuous performance. 'We Can Shoot You' and 'Project X' both stretched Ian Underwood's and Bunk Gardner's breath control as they alternated between dense harmonic clusters and sustained slurred notes. Once in a while, speeded up woodwinds and keyboards skittered across the aural picture.

  Another fresh feature throughout these tunes was the precision of the percussion overdubs, for which Art Tripp was joined by Ruth Komanoff, later to become Mrs Underwood. She had been a regular at the Garrick: "One night my brother and I went to the Village Gate to hear Miles Davis. We were standing around waiting for show time and Frank was just walking down Bleecker Street. This was before bodyguards; he was just a guy on his way to work. My brother accosted him and said, 'You should hear my sister play! She's a great marimbist!' I was totally embarrassed. Frank turned to me and said, 'Fine. Bring your marimba backstage and we'll check ya out.' The next thing I knew I was recording Uncle Meat at Apostolic Studios on East 10th Street."22 Interviewed for BBC2's Late Show, she admitted, "I remember being very upset when they finally finished their stint at the Garrick Theater and went back to LA. I felt as though the real heart had gone out of New York City and I had to get back on with my conservatory music training life, which seemed very dull after this."23

  Bizarre Records commenced operations in March with offices at 5455 Wilshire Boulevard; as with all of Frank's enterprises, it was a division of Intercontinental Absurdities. The Bizarre logo, an arcane Victorian stirrup pump, appeared on what should have been the outer sleeve of We're Only In It For The Money, which finally escaped Paul McCartney's clutches that month. Frank's visual satire remained but MGM/Verve's craven lawyers had forced him to invert the artwork, so that the front and back covers now formed the inside spread. The company had also finally bought the Lumpy Gravy tapes, thus allowing Frank to add a speech bubble by his grimacing face — "Is this Phase One of Lumpy Gravy?"

  Eighteen months after suggesting in the Los Angeles Times that aspirin should be taken before listening to Freak Out!, Pete Johnson evinced more respect than enthusiasm in his review. "Zappa is a brilliant musician with a flair for satire," he wrote. "Unfortunately, he tends to do things a couple of years before people are ready for them and often crowds so many ideas into such brief musical space that they get lost in the confusion." He concluded: "The record is largely a series of polemics but Zappa's barbs are witty enough to make his messages entertaining. Zappa is pop music's bravest iconoclast and perhaps its brightest."24

  Melody Maker reviewed the album in June, although its release was delayed until October, when the Mothers played at the Royal Festival Hall. Under the headline, "Zappa masterminds a Mothers' masterpiece", reviewer Bob Houston wrote: "Musically, the Mothers are streets ahead of most pop groups. The send-ups of various styles, from Jimi Hendrix, the Kinks, New Vaudeville Band(!) to Beatles' neo-Indian are brought off brilliantly and incorporated into the overall scheme of the album."25

  THE HANDSOME CABIN BOY

  By the time that review was published, everyone had been back in Los Angeles for a month. Frank had sent Gail and Moon on ahead in April to scout out fit living accommodation for the rock star he was becoming. Frank's brother Carl described her eventual choice:

  "The house she selected is a stunning early American dwelling right in the heart of Hollywood (on the corner of Laurel Canyon Boulevard and Lookout Mountain Avenue). The exterior is tastefully done in scrub pine and eucalyptus bark. To enhance this rugged facade, clumps of moss treated with Karo syrup are neatly ticked into delicate crevices. This unusual effect gives the house the appearance of a blighted avocado."

  Inside, the decor was "cheerful Ruinic, done in malaga, mauve, gold ochre and muted khaki cream . . . On one of the living room walls are mounted two mahogany-stained shadow boxes. Each contains a ceramic duck, a miniature storm lamp and tiny dolls dressed in colourful Japanese, Scandinavian and Latin-American costumes. The clever blend of warm decorating techniques and zany originality on the part of the designer was scarcely noticed by Frank when he arrived. What he was most interested in was the seemingly endless room the house afforded."26

  This was the Log Cabin, once reputedly owned by Tom Mix, set in several acres, with caves, a stream and a small lake in the grounds, which also contained the remains of his beloved horse, Tony. When Gail signed for the $700-a-month lease, the cabin already housed a commune of freaks, presided over by Carl Franzoni, who lived in the one-lane bowling alley at the back of the premises. In the vault next door lived two girls, Lucy and Sandra; a large dressing room opposite was occupied by Christine Frka. They, along with Sparky and Pamela (Miller), were members of Vito's dance troupe; they referred to themselves as the Laurel Canyon Ballet Company but would soon become Girls Together Outrageously.

  Frank flew in on Sunday, May 5, and was still investigating his new home when Carl came to visit two days later. The pair went through a door in the foyer and down a sto
ne staircase into a cave which was actually the entrance to a tunnel that led to Harry Houdini's house opposite. The tunnel was sealed with concrete and stone, the reason for its excavation long forgotten. Back above ground, Carl met Frank's secretary, Pauline Butcher, who was to help prepare an encyclopaedia of 'useless information' to be published by Stein and Day in New York.

  Carl borrowed a few Johnny Otis albums and left so that Frank could get ready for his appearance on The Les Crane Show that evening. "On my way home I couldn't help thinking that what Frank does and how he does it has become a recognisable phenomenon," he wrote. "As a composer and performer, he's amazingly proficient. As a creative person, I know he has all the qualifications. As my brother, he's really a mother."27

  The Log Cabin became the home of Frank's commune, which included Pamela Zarubica, Cal Schenkel, Christine Frka, who'd been hired to be Moon's nanny, not to mention sundry Mothers, road managers and the almost constant presence of the LCBC. One evening the girls turned up in plastic baby bibs and oversized nappies, their hair in pigtails. Frank was so impressed, he invited them to dance on stage with the Mothers at their Orange County gig that night. He wanted them to call themselves Girls Together Only but, after some discussion, Outrageously was settled on. However, the Orange County coneheads wouldn't allow halfnaked girls on stage and their only audience that night were the men detailed (but not de-sexed) to prevent their appearance.

  The final element of The GTOs persona was bestowed upon them by Herbert Khaury. Before coming to Los Angeles, he'd performed Twenties' Rudy Vallee songs in Greenwich Village, where he called himself Darry Dover and Larry Love. As Tiny Tim, he'd become a frequent celebrity guest on The Johnny Carson Show, made an album, God Bless Tiny Tim and a hit single, 'Tiptoe Through The Tulips', for Reprise. The girls went to see him at the Sunset Marquee and his quaint punctiliousness in calling them Miss Lucy, Miss Pamela, etc. completed the image that the GTOs would present to the world.

  The momentum of the Mothers' career was mounting. Gigs in larger halls for more money were becoming more frequent, and even though radio exposure was unthinkable, the press were beginning to pay more than sneering lip service to the music. Jazz & Pop voted Frank 'Pop Musician of the Year' and Newsweek ran a feature in their June 3 issue, in which he was ranked second behind John Lennon as the "leading creative talent in pop music". The Mothers were "missionaries with a message, first-line musicians using their gifts to reshape the minds of America's teenagers". A "hawk-nosed, spectral Frank Zappa" explained their show as "the sound of your transistor radio burped back at you, a panorama of American life". With the memory of his near-deification in Europe in mind, Frank stated, "Half of America is under 25, yet there is no real youth representation in government. It's not my job to organise them. The best I can get them to do is ask a few questions. If we reach a million, maybe 500 will become active and get out and influence the opinion of others. But those 500 could be dynamite. I'd be happy to have that."28

  On June 5, Frank and some of the Mothers went into RCA's Hollywood studios to work on a collaboration with Jefferson Airplane's Grace Slick. A largely improvised piece, 'Would You Like A Snack' bore little resemblance to the song that would later be part of 200 Motels. In fact, it languished in the RCA vaults for 25 years before being included in the box-set retrospective Jefferson Airplane Loves You.

  The June 1968 issue of Life contained Frank's article, "The Oracle Has It All Psyched Out", in which the genesis of rock'n'roll and its effects on society and business was filtered through his own experiences as a Fifties teenager. He concluded with a teasing nod to brainwashing techniques already featured in films like John Frankenheimer's The Manchurian Candidate, planting the disturbing thought (for Life-enhanced parents) that loud noises and flashing lights might be used as tools for the indoctrination of innocent American youth. The seed of this conclusion had been sown in an earlier digression about 'The Big Note' and its theory that the universe was made up of vibrations.

  It was his way of advertising the release of Lumpy Gravy, which was reviewed in the June 22 Rolling Stone. Jim Miller found the music "strangely sterile" but called Frank a "protean" talent (twice) and concluded: "It might be said that Zappa makes mistakes other rock composers would be proud to call their own best music; Lumpy Gravy is an idiosyncratic musical faux pas that is worth listening to for that reason alone."29 Not too many agreed with him and the album spent just five weeks in the charts, peaking at number 159.

  Two issues later, Frank was the subject of the Rolling Stone interview, conducted by Jerry Hopkins, now graduated from the Freep. Hopkins asked how Frank looked back on his albums. "It's all one album. All the material in the albums is organically related and if I had all the master tapes and I could take a razor blade and cut them apart and put it together again in a different order, it still would make one piece of music you can listen to."30 He also previewed his next two releases; Whatever Happened To Ruben & The Jets? was referred to as "a secret project", the other would be a three-record set, No Commercial Potential. The latter had "such eight-minute titbits as police busting our recording session. New York cops! Live! In person!" 'The Bust' was never to be released, as the set shrank to two records and became Uncle Meat; similarly discarded were 'Agency Man', 'Randomonium', 'All The Way Down To The Tonsils', 'Get A Little IF, 'Wedding Dress Song' and 'Handsome Cabin Boy'.

  Also from this period was a proposed live album, culled from the tapes of the Mothers' July 18 gig at The Ark in Boston. Frank took a set of rough mixes home from TT&G but someone absconded with the master tapes. Some time later, a bootleg album appeared with artwork imitating Cal Schenkel's Uncle Meat dental frenzy. After the 'warm-up trash' of 'Big Leg Emma', 'Some Ballet Music' was a six-minute piece for flute, clarinet, klaxon, car horn and drums, elements of which turned up later in Greggary Peccary. 'Valarie' and 'My Guitar' completed Side One, while Side Two comprised a medley of 'Uncle Meat' and 'King Kong'. "I know (they're good)," Frank told Black Page, "because the tapes were made on a 4-track machine and they've been stolen from me: so that's the worst kind of bootlegging."31

  7:

  OUR BIZARRE RELATIONSHIP

  Frank had Bizarre business on his mind. The MGM/Verve contract had been due for renewal in March 1968 but someone in the legal department neglected to take up the company's option. With Herb Cohen, he'd negotiated the release of Cruisin' With Ruben & The Jets and a 'best of compilation, Mothermania. But that wasn't all. "I filed suit against them right around the time that the deal was lapsing," Frank told me. "There'd been a certain boost in sales right around that period with We're Only In It For The Money, which did a lot better than the first two albums. They didn't really want to let us go but they were fucking around with accounting procedure. The royalty statements were in the realms of science fiction." The situation would not be resolved until 1976.

  Now that they were free to seek another distributor, Herb met with Mo Austin at Warner Brothers and convinced him that Frank's projects were exciting enough for Warners to provide finance. There would be two labels; Bizarre, already incorporated, would be for Frank's projects, while Straight, as a division of Bizarre, would release more diverse material principally from artists also managed by Herb Cohen. The initial Bizarre releases would both be double albums: Lenny Bruce — The Berkeley Concert and An Evening With Wild Man Fischer.

  Larry Fischer was one of life's casualties; committed to mental institutions twice by his mother, he sang for dimes outside the Whisky and other establishments. As well as street recordings, his album consisted of songs and monologues recorded at Sunset Sound and in the basement of the Log Cabin. Some tracks featured percussion overdubs by Art Tripp, Frank constructed backings for 'The Taster' and 'Circle', and Strip personalities Kim Fowley and Rodney Bingenheimer cried up Fischer's talents on a meandering monologue, 'The Madness & The Ecstasy'. 'In The Wild Man Fischer Story', Larry conducted a Norman Bates dialogue with his mother. Finally, 'Larry Under Pressure' revealed the vertiginous panic underlying F
ischer's 'wildness'; the listener becomes an unwanted intruder in a private hell.

  "I don't know if people will enjoy him," Frank told Chris Welch, "but for the first time in recording history you will have a chance to hear a man's thoughts as they happen. You'll be laughing at home and saying, 'He's out of his mind', but he's not out of his mind. You will be hearing a person who has been stuck in an institution and told he is insane."1 Frank talked about recording another character, Crazy Jerry, with a craving for electricity, who made Larry Fischer look like 'a mere buffoon'.

  At the end of July 1968, the Mothers played the Whisky and the GTOs performed 'Getting To Know You' and danced with the group. Before leaving on a short summer tour, Frank told the girls to write songs with a view to making an album of their own. He also launched the idea of The Groupie Papers, which if they'd ever been published would have created the sub-genre of 'fuction' 25 years before it was applied to UK MP Edwina Currie's Westminster bodice-ripper, A Parliamentary Affair. The principal contents would be Pamela Miller's diary and the extensive notes of Cynthia, one of the Plaster Casters of Chicago.

  AHEAD OF THEIR TIME

  Frank had been introduced to Cynthia and Dianne by Eric Clapton, when the Mothers had opened for Cream at Chicago's International Amphitheater. Characteristically declining their attentions, he was fascinated by their method of making plaster casts of group members' members. Dianne (who'd taken over from Cynthia's friend Barbara) was the 'plater' or oral exciter while Cynthia, with her sometime assistant Marilyn, prepared a vessel of alginate. This was a powder used by dentists to take casts of patients' teeth; when mixed with water, it first became rubbery and then hardened to make an exact mould. The vessel, varying in size from a vase to a plastic coffee cup (sorry, boys), was plunged over the fully excited 'rig'. When the alginate had hardened it was removed, along with any ancillary foliage; small talk (or larger) and energetic pastimes ensued while the resulting mould was filled with plaster and a triumphant 'statuette' ultimately emerged.