Early Mothers Memories

  I was lucky enough to grow up in LA and was exposed to Freak Out while still in high school, after which friends and I all had to own one of those funky, hairy, coats that Zappa wore on the cover.  We played that old vinyl over and over and, as I recall, Wowie Zowie was probably our favorite, followed by all the wonderful old LA-style doo wop songs that Frank adored.  Then there was Trouble Comin' Every Day which is amazingly as relevant today as it was after the Watts riots.

Shortly after Absolutely Free came out in the last few weeks of HS, I packed up and went to school in Ohio (big mistake!  In those days Ohio seemed a decade behind the times).  Nonetheless, by playing Freak Out and Absolutely Free almost continuously, I was joined by half a dozen others in my dorm who saw value in songs like Plastic People, etc.  Lucky us when Zappa scheduled a show in Cincinnati in April of 1968.  We excitedly drove the couple hours from Columbus to Cincinnati for the show at Taft Auditorium and this was my first Mothers show and a terrific indication of live performances to come as Frank played almost nothing the audience might have expected, with only Status Back, Baby as a "hit".  The rest of the setlist included Baby Love (Supremes), Shotgun (Jr Walker), Louie, Louie (Kingsmen, et al), King Kong (well before the album was released) and the encore was Help, I'm a Rock.  Boy, were my friends pissed off at that setlist and no one spoke to me on the way back to the dorms (as though I'd created the setlist!).  Little doubt that they all brag now about seeing the Mothers way back when.

 After the show Frank graciously gave up around 30 minutes of his time to chat with a couple dozen of us.  He probably asked us more questions than we him, but it was a great close up experience of his wit and general cynicism, most all of which was relevant and something that put Frank well ahead of the curve of his teenage boy fanbase.

I got the hell out of Ohio and went back to LA in the summer of '68.  My college was a few blocks from the Shrine Auditorium and Exposition Hall and that was one of Frank's favorite places to play, so was lucky enough to see at least half a dozen shows there, all completely different.  The Shrine also hosted Cream, Hendrix, Led Zep, the Dead, the Kinks, Santana and I could go on and on.  In those days, the band just wandered around the hall before and after sets and were receptive to talking to just about anyone, so you could get a hot dog while in line with Ray Collins, Bunk Gardner, et al.  Now THAT'S crowd interaction!

One night, while strolling along the Strip, we heard about an open party at Zappa's log cabin in Laurel Canyon.  We raced over there and basically just wandered all over the house, especially enjoying an old bowling lane in the basement.  The house was mobbed with some very stoned people and the upshot was that Frank wasn't even there.

Perhaps my favorite show of that era was at the Shrine 12/7/1968.  It was more or less a showcase of acts Frank had signed to Bizarre Records and included Alice Cooper (before he became Alice Cooper and was simply a guy singing songs, no make-up, but an interesting artsy backdrop of a building with windows and doors that would pop open to reveal Alice), Wild Man Fischer (who was a nutcase Frank picked up on a corner and with whom recorded such songs as "I sell the Free Press, and I'm never depressed"), the GTOs,  and Lowell George who had just joined the Mothers as the original group was expanding with the addition of Ian Underwood among others.  Here are a few snippets of the LA Times review:

David Mark Dashev, Los Angeles Times, December 10, 1968

Frank Zappa's Christmas show at the Shrine auditorium this past weekend, with an entourage of performers from his Bizarre Productions, displayed the talent which has earned him the genius status he enjoys in the music industry.

Highlighting the cast was Wildman [Fischer], the GTO's and Zappa's own group, the Mothers of Invention.

[...] Wildman [Fischer's] repertoire consists of personalized anecdotes and memoirs sung to the accompaniment of a paper guitar. Frequently pausing to tune the paper, [Fischer] strummed and strutted his way through six poignant numbers.

The GTO's are six young ladies and one man (dressed as Santa Claus for the ocassion) who are so out of it that they are in. Their offereing was an elaborate production number in which each assumed the role of a coquette asking Santa for a special wish.

Zappa and the Mothers (there are now 10 of them) provided a finale by performing some of their earlier songs as well as some from their latest album, "Ruben and the Jets." The earlier songs were complex orchestrated pieces which establish Zappa's musical brilliance.

[...] The last part of his set was a droll tribute to old rock 'n' roll that included banal rhythms, suberb harmonies and inane lyrics tightly woven around themes related to the problems of adolescence

Among other memorable shows of the time, I was able to enjoy Frank and Captain Beefheart at a tiny club on the Strip (Thee Experience, 11/28/69) as well as an amazing guitar performance with the Hot Rats band at the Olympic Auditorium (3/7/70) and an interesting show at the Anaheim Convention center which opened with Three Dog Night (!) before they became famous.  Another Shrine show featured Fleetwood Mac, nearly 10 years before Rumours made them international stars.

Many years later, some brave soul opened a club in 1997 called Lumpy Gravy just outside of Hollywood.  Absolutely cool place, but it didn't even last two years.  Fortunately, Bunk Gardner and Don Preston had teamed up and were semi-regulars at the club.  One night I spent every single break at the bar with them, rehashing old times.  I remember telling Bunk that me and most of my friends thought he was the greatest sax player ever and how his playing turned me into a jazz fan.  When I referenced Charlie Parker, Bunk said that's who he was listening to in the '60s, so some of us were getting a jazz education without even knowing it!  While not at all seeming bitter, they both complained a bit about getting screwed over by Zappa, especially when their parts were re-dubbed from some of the earlier LPs when they went to CD.  I guess that's why the Zappa family felt the need to re-release the original Ruben and the Jets, since the dubbed version was pure musical crap and it seems hard to believe Zappa would have ever released it.  Sorry, I digress.  They played a wonderful set of old stuff as a duo with a drum machine.

Later years have included an enjoyable show with Dweezil in Austin (Zappa Plays Zappa) in 2007.  So over 50 years later and I still love Frank and am happy to bring these old memories to others (or just have them for myself if no one reads them!).