All things Zappa Who could imagine?

TAE

All you have is now
I was 16 in 1969 when I was introduced to the wild n weird world of Frank Zappa...Freak Out had been out for a couple years before I ever heard it....I still love it. Being an LA native myself, Frank is considered "ours" tap tap no tag backs. Frank had a strange beginning working at PAL studios where infamous surf hits were cranked out in minutes..I find it crazy that wipeout ( great story on that) Pipeline and Surfer Joe were all recorded in this tiny little studio @ 40 miles east of LA city in the far out there in the grape vineyards area of Cucamonga...now known as Rancho Cucamonga ( probably was originally called that too) ..But growing up in Covina, Cucamonga was way out in the sticks. Flash forward 55 years and there are no vineyards to be seen...urban sprawl killed it all... EZ and also my daughters shacks are just @ a half block away from where this crazy studio once stood...demolished to widen the street :( ...... So to start this thread I decided to post a few pics of Frank's humble beginnings where he learned the art of recording and getting tossed in the can for making **** ( edit) LOL the system censored the short word for pernography...well least that's what they said... What a trippy cat and crazy beginnings....Frank bought PAL studios and turned into Studio Z it only lasted about a year before he was evicted so they could tear it down but that's where I'm starting this at.....
 

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Just this past Thursday, I went to the Dweezil Zappa Hot Rats Live + Other Hot Stuff concert. The man is an incredible musician, and a credit to his dad. My first Zappa album was Absolutely Free. Been a fan ever since, although it took a bit to understand what was going on!

Funny thing was, I got that album instead of Sgt Peppers. My mom objected to Sgt Peppers because of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. It was about drugs, y'know, and kids didn't need to be doing that stuff. Instead I put the headphones on at night and listened to Brown Shoes Don't Make It.

Ironic, eh?
 
Just this past Thursday, I went to the Dweezil Zappa Hot Rats Live + Other Hot Stuff concert. The man is an incredible musician, and a credit to his dad. My first Zappa album was Absolutely Free. Been a fan ever since, although it took a bit to understand what was going on!

Funny thing was, I got that album instead of Sgt Peppers. My mom objected to Sgt Peppers because of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. It was about drugs, y'know, and kids didn't need to be doing that stuff. Instead I put the headphones on at night and listened to Brown Shoes Don't Make It.

Ironic, eh?

You should have played 'Dirty Love' for her.
 
For a taste of very early Zappa check out Rare Meat.

There's tons of great Zappa material, but I'm partial to Shut Up and Play Your Guitar.
 
I got to see the Dweeze at House of Blues in the Disneyland sector of Anaheim @ 8 years ago...dang! HOB only holds about 300 peeps packed like sardines but truly a Waaaay cool experience. Only got to see The Frank live at the Santa Monica Civic ( one of the cooler smaller LA venues back then @ 2500 cap) in 1980...He was introducing a new guitar player to the world...some hack named Steve Vai ;) Holy Guacamole! truly who could imagine? This is pre cell phones...I was so blown away by Vai I ran out to a payphone in the lobby that was close enough to the stage you could hear the band and called the guitarist I worked with back then to hear someone that for the first time in my life I actually believed was on par with him ...maybe even better :facepalm:...

The concert did not fail to exceed my expectations...

YouTube
 
So during those crazy days in the sun I came to know a kooky kat named David Kimber..I met him when he was selling keyboards at Hanich Music in Covina....( recruited from Guitar Center Hollywood ...or was he fired?) He was a damn good player, funny as shit and we both dabbled in illegal substances at the time. We became friends and he would tell me about all these famous people he knew and worked with...yeah yeah whatever Dave...Then he gives me a picture of him with Frank outside a studio in Burbank...OK maybe....Dave's big claim to fame back then was writing the music for Give a hoot don't pollute...I saw the damn royalty checks which pretty much funded his illicit activities. Flash forward we're old and David lived an amazing life and almost had to say bye bye to this world due to a cancer bout last year soooooo...He decided to Chronicle his more exciting life experiences in a blog....They include Princess Diana, Sir Elton, Herb Alpert, Elvis, Stevie Wonder, Led Zepplin, Sammy Davis Jr. and so on oh yeah and FRANK! So here's a link to the blog page that tells the story of David fulfilling the dreams of a blind "French" keyboard player friend to meet Frank....The story includes mentions of Joni Mitchel and Stevie Wonder ( that is a whole other VERY cool story).....Frank was an A O K cat...To my fellow inmates here at HR.com Jean-Phillipe Rykiel Gets His 3 Wishes – Frank Zappa, Joni Mitchell, & Stevie Wonder – Kimbertales.info

David is a very entertaining writer with a great memory or imagination or maybe a little of both :D
 
Here's a little "local" trivia for my area in Kentucky.

Back in 1968, a local band called the Oxfords wrote a song called "Come on Back To Beer". Frank Zappa was the inspiration for the song. The Mothers were playing at a local club called Kaleidoscope. The Oxfords were opening for the Mothers show. According to Jay Petach who cowrote the song,

"Okay, it was a joke. But in 1968 we got to meet Frank Zappa and open for his band when they played a rock club in Louisville. We also got to ride with him from the airport to the club. There was a billboard along the way for a local brewery whose slogan was "Come On Back To Beer". Frank thought that was very funny, and during his concert kept saying, "Hey Louisville...come on back to beer!" I thought it would make a good parody song. It actually inspired me to write a rock musical that was performed at several colleges. I unfortunately picked a bad title for the show... "Grease". But that's another story."

The song actually went #1 on the local top 40 radio stations.
 
I got to see Frank in about 1982. A 13 year old Dweezil came out and did his solos on Charleena and Stevie's Spanking, trading off with Steve Vai.
 
I know it sounds like BS but by chance @ 1975 when I was young and my heart was an open book I dated a foreigner....a Brazilian girl who's parents were both math professors at Pasadena city college. She was incredibly beautiful, knew 7 languages and had spent her teen years in an all girls boarding school in Montreux, Switzerland. Circa 1971 ( her senior year) she and some of her friends had slipped out one night to a local pub and met this strange group of musicians that were hanging out because the casino they had been playing at had caught on fire and they were bumming cause all their equipment was now just ashes and smoke.....Yep smoke on the water
 
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