Electric Don Quixote: The Definitive Story of Frank Zappa

by Neil Slaven

  Baby Snakes was premiered at the Victoria Theater, New York on Friday, December 21. Critical opinion was generally dismissive. Tom Carson's review in The Village Voice was typical: "In Baby Snakes, Frank Zappa manages to come off as avuncularly benign as David Crosby," he began. Noting that, at two hours, forty-three minutes, it wasn't the longest rockstar self-indulgence (that accolade went to Bob Dylan's Renaldo and Clara), Carson pilloried Baby Snakes as an ego trip, "but on a picayune (that's 'insignificant', if you're not American), low-rent scale. It may be the first rockstar movie ever designed from the outset as a cult item."

  Flourishing his scalpel, Carson thought that Frank was "still trying to act as if he symbolises a whole culture, but the culture isn't there anymore; in this movie, it's more like the Lost Patrol. At the same time, by turning himself into warm, lovable Uncle Frank, telling the same jokes over and over for an audience that already knows all the punchlines, he obviates whatever edge his satire might have left. He's become the ageing avatar of the same hippie pieties he once worked to subvert." Presumably Carson had blocked out the whole of Frank's lecture at the beginning of 'I Have Been In You'. He concluded: "Once, Zappa built a satirist's career on the idea that all of fife was just like high school; now it turns out that all he ever wanted, apparently, was a high school clique of his very own and on the evidence of Baby Snakes, he's found one."18

  The high-school metaphor is easy to apply to any rock concert, but by the same token, that 'apparently' is a 'prefect' word, designed to imply superiority when incomprehension stalls the critical faculties. Earlier in the review, Carson noted that without Bruce Bickford's "decorative touches", this was just "another rock-concert film". It was easier for him to appreciate the animation work, since the visual is more easily described than the musical. For example, he thought the concert sequences "some of the best I've seen — cleanly photographed, smoothly edited"; but the music had "little life to it". Forgot to listen, eh?

  Critics like Carson got caught out by confusing the arbitrary with the meaningful. They should have taken their cue from the opening, speeded-up sequences of Frank using an editing machine, and his questioning of Bruce Bickford, where the point is made that the artist has no responsibility for the way in which others view his work. Frank experimented with film in the same way he did with music. He wanted to see what would happen when separate elements were put together in a certain way. They could just as well be placed in other ways to obtain the same result.

  Long-time road manager and 'snorker' Dick Barber made the point when talking about the making of 200 Motels. "With Frank, nobody knew what was gonna happen from one night to the next, which was one of the reasons it was exciting and challenging, because nobody knew what was happening. Now, I think Frank, in some way, in a lot of ways, approached the making of 200 Motels the same way, and so, we kinda ended up in England, and we got this script, but the script was being rewritten by the minute, and I think that was a little frustrating for Tony Palmer. You really can't, and shouldn't, for the most part, make movies on that basis."19

  Frank's literal, nuts-and-bolts approach to assembling film denied those expecting meaning the means of their satisfaction. Even the on-stage sequences sometimes cut back from tight head shots to reveal Frank stalking the stage apron with cameras on either side of him. At other times, he involves the camera in his cueing of the band, gestures at it with a toy poodle, and during Patrick O'Hearn's bass solo, one cameraman shows Frank instructing another on how to frame his shot. It seemed that at all times, Frank was intent on puncturing the idea that any of this had any meaning beyond what was taking place at the time. Similarly, the animation sequences were prefaced in a way that undermined pretentious interpretation.

  Baby Snakes had its faults. Some of the backstage sequences were tedious, unfunny and inconsequential; Roy Estrada, with his demented busby of a haircut, takes far too long doing far too little with his inflatable friend; band members mug and talk to the camera, and carry on 'faggot' badinage with a kaftaned John Smothers. The layered sound sometimes makes the words of the person on camera hard to distinguish; and the fens' contributions add nothing of value or interest. Since its premiere, it has been shown rarely. Two years later, it was awarded the Premier Grand Prix for a musical film at the First International Music Film Festival. Though available on video in America, it has yet to be issued in Europe.

  As 1980 began, Frank had been off the road for nine months and hadn't played a gig in America since November 1978. He spent February and early March rehearsing a band that dispensed with Peter Wolf but saw the return of Ray White. Tommy Mars, Ike Willis and Arthur Barrow, who occasionally doubled on keyboards, were retained, while Vinnie Colaiuta was replaced by the nebulous David Logeman. Keyboard magazine sent Michael Davis to interview Frank to the cacophony of workmen putting the finishing touches to the Utility Muffin Research Kitchen.

  Despite the considerable talents of his current band, Frank was not satisfied. "I think I'm probably gonna start auditioning again," he said, "because I haven't yet found a keyboard player who is 'readable' and who can really read music . . . I'm talking about someone who can look at the most difficult stuff on a page and the notes come flying off, that means less time and trouble teaching the stuff to the rest of the band. Then he would have to be roadable. By that, I mean have the flexibility to go from playing simple backgrounds to really difficult written-out stuff, plus have the attitude so that he would enjoy touring. I haven't had too much luck finding someone who can do all those things because he probably doesn't exist. But maybe there's someone out there and I just haven't found him yet."

  Another problem that he encountered was his keyboard players' lack of understanding when it came to their efforts being used for texture rather than emphasis. "Well, see, the music is based on contrasts, contrasts between things that are very simple and things that are very complicated . .. This is a problem I face as a composer and an orchestrator; musicians always look at it like anyone who tells them what to play is inhibiting their lifestyle. Once the musicians learn the songs in rehearsal, once they learn the arrangements and we get out on the road, the songs sound good. But as soon as the lights go on and the audience claps a few times, everybody starts adding their own little things. By the end of the tour, a lot of things sound like chaos. This is one of the reasons why some people lose their jobs."20

  Perhaps that was what had happened to Peter Wolf. Frank had more to say on the subject of keyboard players' on-stage attitudes. "The rigs I provide for (them) to monitor themselves with are really elaborate. Each guy can sound like a million bucks to himself, but they always crank the bass up so they can rattle their groin while they're doing it. . . The mixer is always telling them to take some bass off, and this makes them unhappy that they can't give themselves a scrotal massage while they're playing. At the end of the show, you have these keyboard players walking around like you'd stabbed them in the heart because the mixer told them to lower the low end out of their set-up or told them to play softer."21

  Starting with a gig at the Seattle Center Arena on March 25, the Zappa band spent much of 1980 on the road, with a European tour sandwiched between two American tours. In the break from mid-July until the end of September, a new album would be recorded, the first to be made in Frank's own custom-built facilities.

  16:

  UTILITY MUFFIN RESEARCH KITCHEN

  As his fortunes waxed and waned through the Seventies, Frank had always ensured that, within the constraints of available finance and any ongoing litigation, the instruments he and the band played and the equipment they used were at the leading edge of whatever technology was available at the time. Nigel Leigh asked to what extent his work had developed in tandem with technology. "Right along with it," he replied, "because in many instances we were the bait, a test site for some of these things, or at least some of the first customers for the objects themselves. There have been a number of items where I bought the prototypes and I used them right away in recordings, lik
e Syn-Drums, for example.

  "The guy who invented these things brought them over and showed them to me and I bought 'em right away and started incorporating them into the arrangements. When you're doing electric music, every new device that comes along that allows for the creation of a sound that might not have existed before should be of interest to you. This is to a certain degree contingent on your budget, because none of these things are cheap; and so you take a risk purchasing the new piece of equipment. It might make a really wonderful sound but then explode in your face three weeks later, and the company will be out of business and then you will have laid down a bunch of money. And I've been that route before. But generally speaking, if there's something new and if I think that for the kind of music that I do there's a use for it in my writing, I'll get it."1

  He'd been an early experimenter with a wah-wah pedal. "I think I was one of the first people to use (one). I'd never even heard of Jimi Hendrix at the time I bought mine; I didn't even know who he was."2 Later, Jimi's guitar roadie, Howard Parker, gave him the sunburst Strat that Hendrix burned at the Miami Pop Festival, which Frank would pass on to Dweezil. He also used something made for him by Bob Easton called the Electro Wagnerian Emancipator. "It's a very attractive little device that combines a frequency follower with a device that puts out harmony notes to what you're playing ... Its main drawback is that the tone that comes out of it is somewhat like a Farfisa organ."3

  Frank would also search for different guitar sounds in the studio. Since the Over-Nite Sensation sessions, he'd used a tiny Pignose practice amp, giving him stadium-quality distortion at low volume which he could then record in stereo for either an ambient sound or so that each track could be separately EQ'd. Alternatively, he could place it in an echo chamber to get that 'hockey rink' resonance.

  These and other considerations went into the design of the Utility Muffin Research Kitchen (UMRJC). As well as providing him with a range of possibilities when it came to recording his guitar, Frank also ensured that his facility would have a wide variety of keyboards, acoustic and electronic, at his disposal. "I've got a warehouse full of keyboards," he informed Michael Davis. "A lot of my synthesisers are going to be mounted on a semipermanent basis in my studio. In the control room, there's going to be one master keyboard that's patchable out to the other synthesisers, so that instead of one big toot coming out, you play the keyboard and the individual voices can be played in the live echo chamber through eight speakers going through an air space with stereo microphones in the chamber."4 Pride of place went to a Bosendorfer Imperial grand piano with its extra octave in the bass, and a Hammond B-3 organ, intended primarily for road use, with a modified keyboard that also drove a Minimoog and a set of Syn-Drums.

  Frank enthusiastically embraced the development of synthesiser technology. "All the heavy-duty hardware that a rock'n'roll touring band would use, I've purchased and supplied to whoever the keyboard guy is who does the tour. So I know basically what the consumer end of the synthesiser stuff is like, even though I'm not a keyboard player and never expect to be."5 He told Downbeat that the string synthesiser was "the best thing that could happen to pop music because when you consider the attitude of normal string players, even jazz string players, it's so disgusting doing business with them that it's great that somebody has finally invented a box that will help you do away with them and their aura."6

  Tim Schneckloth asked him if it had got any harder to find sounds that wouldn't quickly become bland. "Absolutely not," he replied. "That surface hasn't even been scratched yet. Without even touching a synthesiser, there are so many things you can make with normal instruments, and in a diatonic context. There are so many people who are dashing away from diatonic music in order to give the appearance of being modern which I think is a waste of time. I've developed different types of notation that accommodate the different things that synthesisers can do . . . If you're a composer or arranger and you want to use the synthesiser, you have to know all the basic language of what the instrument is dealing with ... so you can communicate with the people who play the instruments."

  What about the people who claimed that all electric instruments, including synthesisers, detracted from the 'humanity' of music? "People who worry about that are worried about their own image as a person performing on the instrument. In other words, the instrument is merely a subterfuge in order for the musician to communicate his own personal, succulent grandeur to the audience which to me is a disservice to music as an art form. It's the ego of the performer transcending the instrument ... I don't want to go and see somebody's deep inner hurt in a live performance. I don't want to hear their personal turmoil on a record, either. I like the music."7

  Frank had once maintained that Americans hated music but loved entertainment. "The reason they hate music," he explained, "is that they've never stopped to listen to what the musical content is because they're so befuddled by the packaging and merchandising that surround the musical material they've been induced to buy. There's so much peripheral stuff that helped them make their analysis of what the music is . . . The way in which the material is presented is equally important as what's on the record. It's the gami du jour way of life . . . Americans have become accustomed to having a gami dujour on everything . . . It's equally true of the jazz world. The whole jazz syndrome is smothered in gami dujour."6

  YOU ARE WHAT YOU IS

  UMRK came into commission on a piecemeal basis. One of the first fruits was 'I Don't Want To Get Drafted', a single recorded with Vinnie Colaiuta on drums and released in May 1980. The idea for the song grew out of a discussion during a rehearsal break. "We were having a dinner break," Tommy Mars said, "and it was just around the time when there might have been the draft in America. Frank was talking about World War Two . . . Then all of a sudden, he was working on [the melody line]; that was like a guitar-solo at the time. So he said, 'Put down the burritos, I think we got a new tune, boys.' And he started writing the lyrics right out."9 On the B-side was a guitar solo, 'Ancient Armaments', taken from the 1978 Halloween show at New York's Palladium and previously slated to appear on the three-album set, Warts And All. CBS were happy to release the single in Britain but Mercury-Phonogram declined to distribute it in America.

  The Kitchen's first major task was the next album, due for release towards the end of 1980. The Zappa band had been on the road for over three months before the sessions began in July. By that time, much of the material had been thoroughly road-tested. From March 25 to May 11, they played 26 dates across the United States; after a 10-day break, they then set off to Europe for another 34 dates, ending on July 3 in Munich, the last of 15 gigs in Germany. That gig was later broadcast in America on the King Biscuit Flour Hour on June 28, 1981.

  As usual, Frank continued to write on the road. On Saturday, May 3 at Boston's Music Hall, he addressed the audience before the last song of the evening: "Here's the deal. We have a new song here — we have this song that was written about three days ago and we rehearsed it this afternoon. We're getting it together, you know what I mean? We've never played it for anybody before. You guys'll be the first people on the face of the Earth to hear it." Then he counted the band in on a very tentative version of 'You Are What You Is'. Interestingly, the first verse began, 'A dandy young man from a nice Jewish family'; by the time it had been recorded, the young man had become 'foolish' and his 'fam'ly' middle class.

  A significant part of the set consisted of two suites of interrelated songs. 'Society Pages', 'I'm A Beautiful Guy', 'Beauty Knows No Pain', 'Charlie's Enormous Mouth', 'Any Downers' and 'Conehead' were all performed in one unbroken sequence, and in another, 'Mudd Club', 'The Meek Shall Inherit Nothing', 'Heavenly Bank Account', 'Suicide Chump', 'Jumbo Go Away', 'If Only She Woulda' and 'I Don't Wanna Get Drafted'.

  Frank's initial intention was to compile a single album, to be called Crush All Boxes. Its first side would contain 'Doreen', 'Fine Girl', 'Easy Meat' and 'Goblin Girl', and the second side the 'Society Pages' suite of songs. At
some stage that all changed as Frank envisaged a way to rejig elements of the aborted Warts And All in an ambitious set of releases that would emphasise different aspects of his several talents. In the meantime, he set about recording the current band repertoire, adding 'You Are What You Is' and a handful of other songs.

  One of these was 'Teen-age Wind', which came about through Arthur Barrow's childhood friendship with Chris Geppert, who grew up to become Christopher Cross and sign a deal with Warner Brothers. His debut album, released in 1980, featured 'Ride Like The Wind', a song that became a Top Five single and earned Cross Grammy awards for Best Record, Best Album and Best Song. Barrow heard it while he was driving to a rehearsal: "I recognised the voice immediately. I went up to Frank when I got to rehearsal and I said, 'I can't believe it! This guy I went to high school with has got a song on the radio.' And I started playing it on the piano and singing as much of it as I could remember. Frank says, 'Aw, gimme a pencil and paper and I could write a song like that in five minutes,' and he whipped out the lyrics to 'Teen-age Wind'. When Cross heard that Frank was writing a take-off of his song, he remarked, 'Oh God, I hope he doesn't release (it) while I'm peaking.' "10 Soon after, Frank took to commenting, "I'm peaking, I'm peaking," on-stage.

  Then there was 'Dumb All Over', a devastating critique on the blind prejudice of institutionalised religion. "I was on a flight back from Germany when I came up with the idea for the song," Frank said. "I scrawled out three pages' worth of ideas on the plane. I couldn't wait to get into the studio to record it." The song was inspired by the hostage crisis in Iran and the jingoistic fervour motivating various televangelists, modern-day hucksters who'd traded their tents for television stations, to call down God's nuclear wrath on anyone who didn't agree with their particular brand of spiritual guidance.