ZAPPANALE #15
Heard some great things
about Dutch Zappateer Remko Serban’s
‘Zappa Unplugged’ set in the Kamptheater, so it was a shame that we missed him (although
he did turn up again later…keep reading). We also arrived just a little too
late to catch The FoolZ. But I have a live CD of theirs and, while
they’re obviously talented musicians, they pretty much sum up the downside of
these events for me with their not so hot vocals on straight-ish covers of
‘Keep It Greasey’, ‘Dancin’ Fool’, ‘City Of Tiny Lites’, ‘Torture’, ‘Bamboozled
By Love’ and the like. Their ‘Zoot’ on the excellent Lemme Take You To The
Beach CD is about the best thing I’ve heard them do, so I hope I’m
pleasantly surprised when the festival CD set is released. I understand the
video image on the live webcast for the openers was perfect, but that the sound
was very bad (but was sorted by day two). Arf from Switzerland were the 
first band we actually caught. They’re allegedly artsy
fartsy punk anarchists, or somesuch. Their potty-mouthed singer sang one song
about fucking your mother. Little rebels. Frogg Café featuring the first
appearance of one of the three FZ alumni, Mr Ed Mann, were next. “We met,
rehearsed for one hour, and then played our set – all on the same day,” Ed later revealed. It was great to see him in action
again but, not surprisingly, things did appear a little under-rehearsed. They
started with a violin-led ‘Peaches’ then mixed their own compositions with
‘King Kong’ (which featured a quote from ‘Dupree’s Paradise’ and Ed’s first solo), ‘Little House’, ‘Call Any Vegetable’ and
‘Inca Roads’. And an encore of the Flo & Eddie-era rendition of ‘Dog
Breath’. While it was fun to watch generally – especially the Chuckle Brother
on the drums counting out every beat – I have to admit that, having been awake
since 6am on the Thursday morning, and having been travelling
since 6.30am of this very morning, I was almost falling asleep on
my feet by the time they finished. But I really wanted to see Mats/Morgan
Band. I mean, I’d heard them first strut their stuff with Zappsteetoot many
eons ago, and loved their brief involvement on the Broadway tour and at Zappa’s
Universe. And also Morgan’s drumming with Z. But when they started with a
couple of quite bland sounding tunes, I decided to go for a lay down and hope they’d
be better after 30 minutes or so. Sadly, 30 minutes or so turned into the next
morning. Apparently they did indeed get much, much better as their set
progressed – and Mr Ågren turned in a fine solo as part of one of their well
rehearsed encores. In the inimitable words of Mike Keneally, “Boy howdy,
bungling jangle, effervescing, mingus mangle Tower power, clanging me.” I did
briefly awake to hear Ensemble Creativ doing an impersonation of the
FoolZ. But I’m pretty sure I didn’t hear Ole Lukkoye. Sorry.
So, on on to Sat’dy barfly and Cellomania, four German cellists
(surprisingly!) knocking out strangely faithful versions of New Model Army’s
‘Vagabonds’, Queen’s ‘Bo Rap’, Nirvana’s ‘Teen Spirit’, the mighty Zep’s
‘Stairway’ & ‘Kashmir’, Chicago’s ‘25 or 6 to 4’, …oh, and a medley of
‘Elvis Has Just Left The Building’, ‘I Have Been In You’ and ‘Easy Meat’ (now
this is a great way to hear that tune played at the Zappanale). A good start to
the day. The Polish band Przasniczki were entertaining enough, with
their strange bumblebee outfits. And anyone who plays ‘We Are Not Alone’ is
alright in my book. They banged out some more traditional fayre, did a rocking
version of ‘Apostrophe’, had some faeries cavorting about licentiously, and the
bassist slapped his way through ‘Willie The Pimp’. But I wanted to hear The
Wrong Object featuring Ed Mann. I guess I thought Ed would do a Napi or a
Mike and just make a few guest appearances with some of these bands. But, no,
he was a permanent fixture throughout both this and the earlier Frogg Café
sets. Now I’d also heard a CD by the Wrong Object (they’re close to securing a
record deal so, fingers crossed, we all will soon) and liked what I’d heard:
nice stylish tunes of their own together with overhauled readings of his
master’s works. Guitarist Michel Delville told me “Performing at Zappanale was
a great opportunity for us to try a few new tunes and arrangements – including
our pseudo-klezmer version of ‘Eat that Question’ – on a big audience.” They
also played ‘Filthy Habits’, ‘Chunga’s Revenge’ (featuring great sax and
marimba soli), a jazzy, elongated ‘Outside Now’, ‘The Closer You Are’
(according to 
my notes, though this seems an odd choice now) and ‘King
Kong’. As well as their own Beatles quoting ‘Wet Weather Wet’ and ‘Malign
Siesta’. Again, tight but loose at times. “I am reading music
on stage…not the best way to deliver the ultra performance – and my first such situation
in 26 years. But it basically worked and I appreciate that these guys were OK
with that – focusing more on the fun factor than the accuracy factor.” said Ed.
Having lobbied hard for the Tornadoes to
play Frank’s ‘Grunion Run’, you can imagine how thrilled I was when beforehand
Mick Zeuner showed me the band’s enormous set-list with this right near the
start. My heart tells me their set was the highlight of the event: nothing like
the rest of the music played – just short, joyous bursts of surf/good time
music on a sunny Saturday evening. They were close to turning a field in
Germany into an English working man’s club, with covers of ‘Splish Splash’,
‘Wipe Out!’, ‘Surfin’ USA’, ‘Miserlou’, ‘My Girl’ and ‘Johnny B. Goode’ (during
which some Idiot lead the chants of “Roly!
Roly!”), but given that they actually recorded the latter less than ten years
after Marty McFly first played it at the Enchantment Under The Sea Dance,
I think they were entitled to do so. Afterwards, the band’s Gerald Sanders
(Roly’s brother) told me “We had 9 songs that we didn’t get a chance to play
because of a time shortage – including ‘The Cruncher’…but we had a wonderful
time. We were extremely pleased with the reception the audience gave us and the
feedback from staff afterwards. We all hope to return to Europe soon.” Now if I ever get around to writing my desert island discs for
the Arf Dossier, I’ll certainly include Genesis’s The Lamb Lies Down On
Broadway. I bought it for my brother’s 21st birthday when it
first came out, and we both still love it to this day. But hearing it with the
lyrics translated into German and with a violin playing some of the keyboard
lines…well, it was too harsh, too horrible. I left before Daniel Rohr
stripped down to his underpants again. I’ve never heard Kraan before.
And tonight was no exception. But they did their job by bringing in a big crowd
that helped to make the festival the financial success that it probably was
(one local newspaper said 8,000 people attended this year’s festival, compared
to 6,000 in 2003). Many Zappa fans however expressed concern about the lack of
Frank’s music on the Saturday night. I found out the next day that the FoolZ
had played two acoustic FZ sets in a nearby field during this other music. If I
knew then what I know right now…
On paper, Sunday was always gonna be the best day overall. And in
reality, it was! And a great way for it to start was by watching Napi rehearse
with Sweden’s Zappa Graduates. Between tunes, we overheard
Napoleon say that Don Preston wasn’t in Germany. We were later informed that he’d lost his passport.
I’d already twigged that Bunk Gardner was not going to be a part of the Grand
Mothers for Zappanale (from the Lira Productions’ Press Release); I’d heard
that the reason for his non-appearance on the European tour at the start of
this year was fiscal; apparently this time it was physical: Napi said he’s in a
pretty bad way, so our good wishes are with him. Hi ho. Anyhoo, first things
first: when we had the opportunity to vote for Friday’s opening band, mine went
to Jazzprojekt Hundehagen. But they lost out to the FoolZ. That is,
until Gail helped Captain Ahab get their marching orders. As last minute
stand-ins, they did a sterling job mainly performing instrumentals with great
guitar playing. Frank Goos – Surprise was a bunch of newly trained (by
FG) musicians – plus a few professionals, such as the aforementioned Remko
Serban – playing wacky arrangements of FZ’s finest on big sticks, human
beatbox, harmonica and more traditional rock instruments (and one of their own,
called ‘Jazz Is Not Dead’ including much sax strangulation by Mr Goos). Their
mad set ended with an extremely lively and uplifting ‘Sharleena’ by Remko. The Zappa
Graduates basically kicked Paul Green’s arse; while his kids were great
last year, they were kids. You forgot that when you heard these little guys,
coz they played real mature. My brain tells me this was actually the highlight.
They didn’t keep bringing out different line-ups so much as whittled away
players, until it was just two guitar-playing brothers on stage. And then they
built it back up again. As a result, we got a bass and percussion only
‘Peaches’, as well as a full rock band with strings and horn(y) section
rendering (as part of a “pieces medley” that also included ‘Cosmic Debris’,
‘Inca Roads’ and ‘Montana’). The acoustical guitar duo’s interlude of ‘Who
Needs the Peace Corps?’, ‘Oh No’, ‘Blessed Relief’ and (naturally) ‘Sleep Dirt’
was pretty staggering. When one of the bros switched to, first, electric bass,
and then keyboards for ‘G-Spot Tornado’, it aptly demonstrated the gulf between
last year’s youngsters. Napi joined them for ‘Inca Roads’, ‘Village Of The Sun’
and ‘Echidna’s Arf’, and also had them play his own lovely piano and strings
piece, ‘Patience’ (with a Gary Jules look-alike tinkling the ivories). Other
people will tell it better than me (such as Michel Delville: “I was completely
blown away by the professionalism and talent of the Zappa Graduates.”), but I
thought they were shit hot. Now my ears tell me that Ed Mann & Friends
was actually the highlight of Zappanale #15, but they could hear more
than he and the guys from the Wrong Object backing him. I think it was appropriate
for the Grand Mothers to take top billing from Ed, who’s first and foremost a
musician – not a jukebox/entertainer. His ambient set started with loads of
gongs and sound problems, before segueing into the entire ‘Yellow Snow’ suite,
with Ed banging out the vocal lines. ‘Inca Roads’ followed ‘Black Page,
followed ‘Yellow Snow’…hang on, I’m going backwards here. Lots of cool, calm
and collected tunes – including Mingus’s tribute to The Loneliest Monk, and
Dizzy Gillespie’s ‘A Night In Tunisia’ – came floating down and whisked us
gently away, with Ed generously letting the musicians (who included Frank Goos)
take plenty of solos. Until ‘Tryin’ To Grow A Chin’ brought us back down to
earth with a thud and a happy grin. Ed’s Cajon (a Cuban
rhythm box) introduced a rousing
‘Dinah Moe Humm’, which also saw the Grannies’ tub-thumper Christopher Garcia
sitting in. And before we knew it…it started to rain. Ed and the Wrong Object
said they really couldn’t hear what each other were doing up onstage, but the
band had more than one 
day’s rehearsal with Ed and, out front, they sounded
great. Ed commented that his set “was an experiment – my desire is to
push the bounds of the traditional Zappa arrangements instead of reiterating
them verbatim, but do so in a way that maintains integrity. And so this
requires knowing the Zappa material intimately, and also the ability to use
that same material as essential components for improvisation. Anyway, it was an
interesting first experiment – it worked well enough to tell me that this idea
is worth pursuing (and to remind me that extensive sound checking is even more
important with this approach), and I look forward to the next opportunity.” I sincerely hope some of Ed’s set makes it onto the
CDs. Michel Delville told me “Ed Mann is one of the nicest persons you’ll ever
meet on and off stage, and performing with him was a real treat. We all feel
that we have learned a lot from him. And not just on a musical
level.” Okay, nearly there. My eyes told me the Grand Mothers were the
highlight, with Ed taking over the space created by Preston (perhaps he was actually mourning the death of Jerry Goldsmith?). It
rained throughout, but they were a sight for sore eyes: as Gamma observed at
the Borderline: “Napoleon – you’re so young and beautiful!” I love hearing Roy, whose utterances lifted ‘Big Swifty’, but unfortunately failed to blow
away those dark clouds ‘In The Sky’. They played a similar set to the one
played at the Borderline, but we additionally got tip-top readings of ‘Pygmy
Twylyte’ and ‘San Ber’dino’. I was quite tired and emotional by the time the Finale
came, but that was the usual unorganised chaos.
I assumed that the live webcast would be via just the one static camera,
but evidently Fabchannel utilised about five (including those up on
stage), making for a full professional concert experience. But I’m still glad I
was actually there to see it.
***
The basic tracks for this article were recorded during a mad typing
frenzy on the afternoon of Saturday 31st July 2004. Overdubs and remixing took place shortly thereafter.
The Idiot would like to thank: Michel, Gerald
and Ed for allowing me to quote them freely; Dave for his comments from home
about the webcast; Ian, John and Mike, for being excellent
travelling/camping/drinking companions; and, of course, Spanien, Yellowshark
& Amaretto…
© 2004 A Snapping Slugs Production
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