Source: slime.oofytv.set

Source: slime.oofytv.set

Source: Fulvio Fiore

Source: Fulvio Fiore

Source: Fulvio Fiore

A case assessment of the late Wild Man Fischer, foremost clown in Frank Zappa's circus.

After The Turtles, you did a 180 degree turn and you and Mark joined The Mothers 0f Invention. To some that may seem an incongruous match.
Frank always knew something nobody else knew. He was very much Bowie-esque with that. He could see the future. Way back in the 70s he was the first guy who said to us, “Wait and see, nobody’s going to be in a band. There’s gonna be these supergroups where a guy from this group, a guy from this group and a guy from this group are gonna get together and make real music. In every band, there’s only one real player and when those players get together to make music it’s going to be incredible and that’s the future.” That’s what he thought. I know why he wanted Mark and I in the band. He wanted to add a pop sensibility to the Morhers who were always sort of cast off as being the least playable band in music. So when we he heard that The Turtles had broken up – we were friends of his – he asked us to join.
The musicians in Frank’s band were the most shocked. When we walked into that first rehearsal, Jeff Simmons looked at George Duke, looked at Ian Underwood and looked at Aynsley Dunbar, and went, “What the hell is Frank doing?” They knew he was gonna audition new singers. They knew there was gonna be a new Mothers that were gonna make this movie 200 Motels and go to Europe. They were waiting for whoever came through the door and thought it might be someone like Gregg Rolie [Santana] but when it was us there was so much scepticism. As soon as we would leave the room there was all this, “Frank, what the fuck are you doing? Those aren’t the guys! They’re pop idiots and they’re gonna bring the band down.” And Frank said, “I don’t think so, I think they know what they’re doing.”
So he was right. We even questioned his sanity at the time, as did the audience for the first few shows in Arizona and in Europe. And then they saw what he meant. It wasn’t so much the first few shows where we had to do what Other Mothers Of Invention players had done, which was sing new arrangements of Frank’s material.
Fairly quickly it became a tight-knit group who had been through a whole lot of shit together – the fire in Montreaux, Switzerland [noted in Smoke On The Water], the European tours, the Berkeley orgies. All of these things Frank hadn’t done with his other bands: this was different now. We were sharing experiences fand hanging out and he was getting high with us. It was very different and I’m thrilled to have been part of that era because it ended quickly and his distrust for humanity kicked in big time again after that accident in England where he was seriously injured. He was never quite the same and went back to being the cynic he’d been prior to this closeness. I don’t think any band member permeated that again. I know that at the end of his life he asked us back. We reminisced and talked, but he was close to that bunch of Mothers Of Invention and it never really was the Mothers of Inventions again after that. It was different.

Source: Fulvio Fiore

Source: Fulvio Fiore

Review of Zappa And Jazz by Geoff Wills.

Source: Fulvio Fiore

Source: Fulvio Fiore

"Though he could sing like a (rather gruff) bird, Frank Zappa preferred to hear other voices on his records. Some of those voices talk to RC's Alun Hamnett."

Source: Bill Lantz

Record shop racks were once heaving with US underground progressive rock. Kris Needs tells the heavyweight tale of its influences and birth.

Source: Fulvio Fiore

Frank Zappa poster

Only known example which was "wheat pasted" to a wall in the East Village during the winter of 1966 to promote the first ever New York City appearanve of the band, post-Freak Out! release.

See also Hake's Americana & Collectables - MOI Balloon Farm 1966 poster.

Source: Hake's Americana 

Session musician Carol Kaye played 12 string guitar on Freak Out! and Absolutely Free, bass on Lumpy Gravy.

Source: Fulvio Fiore 

We also recommend reading the interview with Japanese pianist Hiromi, a big Zappa fanatic, on page 47 and the article about Shankar, an Indian violinist who collaborated with Zappa, on page 126.