MOTHER OF REINVENTION

The World Wide Web – what a wonderful place. Think of a name, type it in, and search: hey presto, you can contact anyone you want. Like Nigey Lennon. And a week later you’ve interviewed her and got her first album in your grubby little mitts. Her book Being Frank, about her physical and working relationship with FZ, raised a few eyebrows when it came out. Not so much for the tales of extra-marital dingle-dangle-dingle, but because most of us die-hard fans knew nothing about her half a dozen or so appearances with the ‘vaudeville’ band. Having now completed her first album (which you can get via dinghyrecords@hotmail.com), it seemed like a good time to have an on-line chat.

IB: Will your “super-bitchen debut album” include some of the stuff mentioned in your book, like: ‘Opus One’; ‘Statement Of Earnings’; ‘Moto Guzzi’ (with Don Preston); ‘Heavy Lip Action’; ‘Ruin’; ‘Chicken Fried Sex’; ‘Green Marimba’; ‘Jupiter’s Basement’; the trumpet fanfare from ‘Agon’……?!

NL: Unfortunately, tape stock is prone to severe degeneration over a 28-year period, especially when it’s kept in uncontrolled conditions (stored in the original cardboard boxes in dusty garages, moldy basements, smoky back rooms, etc.). The material mentioned above was recorded on 7 1/12- and 15-i.p.s. stereo tapes which were found to be in poor-to-unspeakable condition when I dragged them out and examined them a couple of years ago. I had thought I’d be re-arranging and performing a lot of the ‘Nigey Lennon’s Greatest Hits’ material on ‘Reinventing the Wheel’ - until I listened to the original demos. That was a humbling experience. I was struck rather forcibly by the fact that Time Marches On. Musical styles mutate, sometimes radically. Technology takes giant steps forward. Things that once seemed awesome can begin to sound - well, you get the idea. So, the only material from that era that made the final cut on RTW was ‘It Must Be a Cigar’ and ‘Yer Wife Don’t Like Me.’ However, at least 80% of the tracks on RTW have a direct connection to the period during which I knew Frank, and the entire project is linked to him through the participation of Candy Zappa, Mike Keneally, and Urban Gwerder.

IB: So what’s to happen to the recordings of some of those songs that you made for your demo all those years ago?

NL: The tapes themselves will be re-packed, hopefully a bit more carefully than formerly, and when I move to New York in a couple of weeks I’ll take them to Sound Archeology Mastering on Long Island, where my collaborator John Tabacco may or may not be able to bridge the gap between technology and miracles. If they can be saved, I might release some of the stuff one of these years. However, see above for some reasons why you maybe shouldn’t hold your breath.

IB: Tell me more about the album. I have a tape featuring ‘Jihad!’, ‘Messin’ In The Kitchen’, and your reggae version of ‘Any Way The Wind Blows’. Are they gonna be included?

NL: All three are on 'Reinventing the Wheel', albeit in new and improved form. The tape you mention is probably a second- or third-generation dub of three demos I made for Reinhard Preuss at Muffin Records in 1998. Muffin, which unfortunately went out of business last year, was originally going to release RTW. Candy Zappa (Frank’s sister) sings on ‘Any Way The Wind Blows,’ which of course was written by Frank. She has been singing that song since she was a teenager and has some great vocal harmonies for it. Other tracks of possible interest to Zappaphiles are ‘It’s Just a Black Guitar,’ on which Mike Keneally plays about 20 hilariously cliched wank-’n’-spew guitar parts, ‘It Must Be a Cigar,’ an instrumental which is a stylistic cross between ‘It Must Be a Camel’ and ‘20 Small Cigars,’ ‘Yer Wife Don’t Like Me,’ which Candy Zappa sings, and ‘Mesmerized Cowboy,’ which features lyrics by Urban Gwerder (Swiss eccentric and publisher of the Zappa ‘zine Hot Ratz Times during the 1970s). Mike Keneally contributes some guitar parts throughout the CD, and does vocals on ‘The Pirates of Old Northport’ and ‘Mesmerized Cowboy.’ David Walley (author of the first FZ bio, No Commercial Potential) provides the “last laugh” on ‘Messin’ in the Kitchen’, which Candy also sings.

IB: How on earth did you manage to get Candy Zappa and Mike Keneally involved?

NL: Candy lives in the L.A. area, and one day in 1996 she called to say she had read Being Frank and wanted to meet me. We subsequently hooked up, I heard some demos she had made when she lived in Las Vegas, and we became friendly. (She will be performing live with me, John Tabacco, and Victoria Berding next year.) John Tabacco, my collaborator on RTW, was a big fan of Mike Keneally and wanted to have him play on something. It just so happened that I mentioned that fact on the phone to my friend David Walley, who the next night went to a Keneally/Beer for Dolphins gig somewhere in New Hampshire and in his inimitable fashion, walked up and asked Mike if he’d play on my CD. Anyway, Mike and I exchanged a few e-mails, and he finally drove to L.A. from San Diego to play on the CD. He seemed to enjoy himself, although I think he’d expected that he’d just breeze in and nail everything in half an hour. John had written out a bunch of parts for him on ‘Just a Black Guitar’ - ‘tuplets with controlled feedback but specific pitches, places where there were highly structured rhythmic breakdown “events” (we called them “singularities”) - in sum, a bunch of diabolical things that would give a lot of players the heebie jeebies. The ‘Black Guitar’ parts were supposed to sound like a weekend warrior-type guitarist going bonkers in a Sam Ash store, but they were actually technically demanding. If they hadn’t been, I would have played them. Mike, of course, got through everything OK, and then at the end I asked him to go back and play those feedback ‘tuplets again, this time over a bolero beat! After that we asked him to do a couple of vocal parts, both of which were off the wall. On ‘Mesmerized Cowboy’ I asked him to use the ‘Johnny Cash” voice he did on Frank’s ‘88 tour - you know, the ‘Ring of Fire’ shtick. He said he hadn’t done that voice since the tour and was kind of reluctant to do it again, probably for sentimental reasons. But to my ear, he almost does it - it sounds a bit more like John Wayne than Johnny Cash, maybe. He was a good sport, I must say.

IB: In your book, you don’t dwell too much on the specifics of your “optional recreational activities” with Frank, but you do refer to him as a degenerate - care to elaborate now?

NL: There was a TV documentary done on Frank for, I think, the Arts & Entertainment network here in the U.S. It was shot during the last few months of his life and it ended with a great valedictory scene. You see Frank sitting in his work chair at UMRK, and he looks spectral, skinny, gray-haired, very tired, and his voice is barely audible - but there’s a wicked gleam in his eye as he whispers, “I’m unrepentant.” Frank’s energy was perverse. He loved being ‘bad’ - and doing whatever he wasn’t supposed to be doing. In a very real sense, he turned the polarity of negative energy around and it kept him going, gave him a sense of purpose in life. He was a Catholic, what can I say?

IB: Gail has said that she won’t read Being Frank. If the purple sock were on the other foot, do you think you could say the same?

NL: Hard to say. I can’t imagine being in that position.

IB: She says she anticipated books like yours, and she’s sure other people are thinking of doing them - “but it doesn’t necessarily imply there was an ongoing relationship”. Obviously there was. And she appears a few times in the book, so must’ve known of your existence. Can you give any more details about any encounters with Gail?

NL: I avoided her. It was the right thing to do under the circumstances, don’t you think?

IB: You obviously feel you deserved a credit on ‘Over-nite Sensation’ - can you be more specific about your contribution? Is that you on the extended version of ‘Dinah Moe-Humm’ on ‘Have I Offended Someone’?

NL: If you mean the vocal on ‘Dinah-Moe Humm’, the moaning and groaning stuff, I believe that’s Bianca Thornton. I contributed the following to the tracks on ‘Over-nite Sensation’: keyboard and rhythm guitar parts on ‘Dirty Love’; guitar on ‘Camarillo Brillo’; backup vocals on ‘Dirty Love’ (which were later re-recorded by Tina Turner); backup vocals on ‘Camarillo Brillo’ (which were not used); and a few VSO’d vocals on ‘Camarillo Brillo’ (which are audible). These tracks were recorded at Whitney Studios in Glendale. On ‘Camarillo Brillo,’ Frank basically came into the studio with some lyrics and a simple chordal riff - V, IV, I, etc. It was late at night, and the band had gone home, so he asked me to sit down at the piano and play some chords to help him flesh out the song (he was basically a one-fingered keyboard player). I ended up adding a minor-chord change and fleshing out the voicings, and suggesting a rhythm guitar part, which he then asked me to play on his guitar. He had tape rolling during both the piano and guitar parts, and later he copied the parts exactly. I also recorded three backup vocals, which were nice, although I didn’t expect him to keep them because the pitches weren’t great. On ‘Dirty Love’ he had a series of basic instrumental tracks and the lead vocal up on the board, including a harpsichord part by George Duke, which he said he didn’t like the tonality of. Duke’s keyboards were set up in the studio, and I sat at the clavinet and played another part. As far as I can tell, that’s the same part that was released on the album. I’m also fairly sure my rhythm guitar part on ‘Dirty Love’ is intact, although it’s extremely low in the mix. I’ve already explained in Being Frank about the backup vocals on ‘Dirty Love.’ I came up with the parts and recorded them, but they sounded so white-bread that Frank and I were rolling on the floor laughing. A little later when Frank was doing sessions at Bolic Studios in Inglewood, which was Ike Turner’s studio, he got Tina Turner and a couple of the Ikettes to re-record them. I think it would have been appropriate under the circumstances for Frank to have given me a credit, even if it was just a “thanks to.” It really used to bug me, though I think I’ve gotten over it. Hell, it was a long time ago.

IB: Apart from the ‘thong rind’ on ‘Andy’, what other references to your relationship are there in Zappa’s work?

NL: The song ‘Muffin Man’ seemed to refer to what he believed was a relationship I was having with Ray (“muffins.. pumpkins.. .vegetables” etc.) Collins. While he was recording ‘Apostrophe’, he called me and asked if I could ask Ray to contact him about doing some vocals. Ray was out of work at the time and was living in a fleabag hotel, the St. Moritz, which was next door to Frank’s office and rehearsal complex on Sunset Boulevard. Frank apparently didn’t want to call, or have someone ‘official’ call Ray at the St. Moritz. I told him I thought that was kind of cowardly, and he got pissed off and the next thing I knew he’d recorded ‘Muffin Man’ - “girl, you thought he was a man, but he was a muffin.”

IB: Since completing the book, have you had any further encounters with Ray Collins, either of the Underwoods, or Captain Beefheart?

NL: No. I’ve been through some major changes in the past few years. My marriage ended, I subsequently got into a great relationship, I had some serious health problems, I met John Tabacco, and I’ve been spending more and more time on the East Coast. Frank, and the people I met through him, and Los Angeles, have begun to take on an increasingly ‘historical’ aspect for me.

IB: In an interview you did with Bob Dobbs in 1995, he said he’d talked to Frank through a medium and had a message for you. So, did he like the book?

NL: I don’t remember what Bob’s medium said on that score, but Candy Zappa has a psychic friend who claims to have contacted Frank, and she claimed he was still fond of me, for what it’s worth. He didn’t specifically mention the book, though.

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A fredited version of this interview will no doubt appear in a future issue of T’Mershi Duween. Photo of Nigey (with John Tabacco at Zappanale #13) taken by the late Peter Mackay.

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