Zappa - the importance of being Frank.

Those who know me will be surprised that it has taken me so long to get round to writing about Frank Zappa in this blog. I never met him but I did see him playing live and life was never quite the same again. He has been a lifelong inspiration and challenge to me, as I hope will become clear. At present there are five books about Zappa on my bookshelf and that is not counting magazines, articles and a pictorial history. On my computer and in my CD collection I have more music by this man than any other artist.  The greatest musical challenges I have faced have been indirectly or directly posed by him. All of which begs the question - why? What is/was the importance of being Frank.

The concert I attended was in Newcastle City Halls in ( I think) 1969. The Mothers of Invention at that time consisted of:

Jimmy Carl Black - drums
Art Tripp - drums, marimba
Don Preston - keyboards
Motorhead Sherwood - baritone sax, percussion, vocals
Ian Underwood - alto sax, piano
Bunk Gardner - tenor sax
Buzz Gardner - trumpet
Roy Estrada - bass, vocals
Frank Zappa - guitar, drums, vocals

I was seventeen years old and had never seen anything quite like these freaky looking Americans and the nonchalant way they played complex musical arrangements and clowned around at the same time.  Zappa himself was a brooding, chain-smoking presence who , even then, had that wry, mocking way of talking to his audience. After that concert I was very difficult to impress and, over the years that have elapsed since then, I have been at many memorable concerts but for me  forty-three years later, that is still the one.

Back then in the late sixties, Zappa was something of a hero for the "counter-culture". Anti-establishment, long- haired and outspoken, with the freakiest looking band imaginable and a complete disdain for commercialism, he was a natural.  But, with Frank, nothing was ever that simple. He quickly managed to fall out with the hippy orthodoxy over a number of issues. At a teach-in in the London School of Economics he managed to alienate his revolutionary audience by asking them difficult, practical questions about what to do after "the revolution" and by declaring that, "Revolution is just this year's flower-power." Even more heretical was his attitude to drugs. When all around people were turning on, tuning in and dropping out, Zappa regarded drugs as a waste of time and a wilful waste of many talented artists' lives. Looking back at the history of the era, it is difficult to contradict him.  Asked by Nicky Campbell (yes honestly) in an interview about drug-taking and the pros and cons, he said, "Well, it all depends on what you want to do after you take them..."

And politics...

American politics to me ( like many of my countrymen) is difficult to follow sometimes but when Zappa declared he was a Conservative, it was hard for me to accept. How could he be so against the excesses of modern life, so critical of big business and corruption, so ready to side with the oppressed and yet be a Conservative?  Isn't a Conservative always a Conservative? The answer lies in American politics, where I always thought it would. Enshrined in the constitution are various truths - all concerned with equality, freedom and the right to think for yourself. These are extremely inconvenient for politicians on the take, businessmen out to cheat ordinary people and TV evangelists trying to make money - all the people Zappa fought. As a "libertarian Conservative" he sought to fight these people by using the self-evident truths of the constitution against them - in much the same way as he cut his hair and donned a suit and tie to battle with hypocrisy and vested self-interest on American TV.

But, much as I admire the various stands he took socially and politically, the music is why he is  important to me. Back in 1969 in Newcastle City Halls,  he stood at the mic and said (and I still remember his exact words after all these years), "I hear that  Newcastle has a reputation for having difficult audiences. Well, this is the one if you're waiting for a chance. This is a hard one to play..." We were then treated to the Mothers playing a fantastic live version of  "Brown Shoes Don't Make It"  This would have been not hard but impossible for most bands of the era to play live but not for the Mothers as they were then. I had worn the grooves of "Absolutely Free" album nearly flat listening to that very song and if they had made any mistakes I would have spotted them - this was seriously unusual musicianship for the time. Since those early days Zappa had various different incarnations of the Mothers before he abandoned the  name (to my regret) and the sheer volume of music he put out defies description in a short piece but I said at the outset that I would try to explain why he was so important and  music is the key. The first serious guitar solo I "learned" - not note-for-note but true to the spirit of the piece was "Son of Mr Green Genes" from the Hot Rats album and my own playing ability and understanding of what I was playing and why was immeasurably increased thereafter. If you haven't checked this track out, it is based on a melody from the Uncle Meat album and, for me, was far ahead of the other guitarists of the era - and this was very much the era of the guitarist.



A much maligned piece of guitar playing by Zappa, "Watermelon in Easter Hay" is another of my favourites. Many intellectual Zappa fans dislike this piece as they regard it as conventional and sentimental but they are wrong. The melodic hook is (for Frank) very accessible and emotional, hence the intellectuals' disdain, but the criticisms of this piece are wrong-headed and elitist and ignore three very important facts:

1. Its place in the narrative structure of Joe's Garage. Joe's last imaginary guitar solo ever - shouldn't really have to explain further...

2. The musical irony (so often lost on "intellectuals" who can only spot verbal irony).

3. The edge that the unusual time signature (taken at a slow tempo) gives the soloing. It's the perfect remedy for slipping into cliche - not that Zappa did much of that.

I could write about Frank Zappa and what he means to me for the next year and not be finished. However, I will mention that, as a composer, he has had the admiration and affection of those who were lucky enough to work with him, including, Pierre Boulez, Nicolas Slominsky, Kent Nagano, The Ensemble Moderne (probably the best classical orchestra in the world) and a whole host of rock giants like Terry Bozzio, Scot Thunes, Steve Vai and so on to infinity...

Finally, as I said at the beginning, I never met the man but I do so admire the dignity with which he died and the tenacity and creativity of his life. Whatever his faults - and we all have them - he was honest and true to himself, creative, talented, original - and sadly missed today.

PS - here is a link to my own version of Watermelon in Easter Hay
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4gzNbJN7zE

Cities - a poem

This is an unusual poem for me in that it is very firmly fixed in time by events in Iraq in 2003. It's also a longer poem than I usually write. A good friend and poet told me he thought it was too personal but I have always had faith in it as a poem - not always the case with me and my work. Every time I read it it takes me back to that time, those places and the huge change that was happening in my life.

Cities

The endless crowd teems in Glasgow
As I walk - half-run - down the wrong streets,
Scan the infinity of faces passing,
Looking for you hopelessly among thousands.
In memory I zoom out from my searching figure.
I vanish as the crowds become streams,
The streets rivers, that day in Glasgow a memory.

Across the world, British troops in Basra - US in Baghdad,
Unconfirmed reports of the death of Chemical Ali,
Rubble in the streets, frightened children, looters,
All the while the hawks circling above
And the eternal sound of bombs, near and far,
A constant reminder.

Paris in cold spring sunshine, Montparnasse,
Un cafe at Le Select as the peace marchers pass.
"George Bush! Assassin!
Retrait les troops US!"
I knew you could not be there
But searched for your face nonetheless,
Knew your heart was there, against the bombs,
On the side of the children and the angels.

Back in Kinning Park underground,
Knowing it was hopeless, I found my cheeks wet with tears
That had crept out and caught me unawares,
Betrayed my position to the enemy.
"Haw look! That man's greetin'..."

"Tony Blair! Terroriste!
George Bush! Assassin!
Retrait! Retrait! Retrait les troops US!"
Still I carry out security checks on the faces as they pass,
My vantage position on Montparnasse,
Knowing you will escape undetected.

The last throes of Baghdad,
Power struggle aftermath,
Looters arrested, shot,
Saddam fled, right-hand man surrenders,
Gory scenes in hospitals an afterthought in the World News.

Night in Glasgow, Buchanan Street empty
Save for a doorway sleeper and a drunk straggler.
I know you cannot be there but still I search.
Midnight in Pere Lachaise.
The dead of wars and Nazi camps,
Broken hearts and broken promises,
Are still in the quiet dark.
Monuments and sculptures stare coldly at eternity.

Overhead in Baghdad the planes circle
For eternity it seems,
And the chanting crowds are ghosts
Receding as they pass my shade
There at my post waiting for you to pass
My phantom checkpoint in in Montparnasse.

I wrote this (or rather finished it) in April 2003 but it still resonates with me each time I read it. Maybe it is too personal, as my friend said,  but I don't think it is difficult or obscure.  Then again,  I wouldn't, would I?

Beatles - in my life...

So much has been said and written about The Beatles that I will probably be unwittingly echoing someone's opinions(s) here but so be it. My teenage years were the sixties so my whole experience of popular music has been shaped by the group, their records and their personalities. The first record I bought was their Twist and Shout EP, so cool because, unlike a single, it had a cover with a  picture of them on it.  Why I and millions of others idolised them so much has been debated many times but never successfully resolved mainly because, I think, there is no one reason. Partly by coincidence and partly by design many things came together (no pun intended) to ensure that The Beatles as a phenomenon of popular music would never be equalled. Given the immense amount of documentation on this subject mentioned above, I am not going to attempt a comprehensive account of the reasons for their success. I just want to explore the main factors that made them so special for me and, I suggest, many others.

Guitars have always been special for me. I was really entranced by the echo-laden twangy sounds of the Shadows and loved the rhythmic chord work in The Everly Brothers' songs before I ever heard the Beatles. But for me the guitar parts in some Beatles songs are the key to their sonic magnetism. I had never heard anything like the quirky riff that plays behind, "Won't you please, please help me..." in Help. In fact I still haven't.  The first time I heard the fade-in volume control trick, now a commonplace technique among guitarists, was on Yes It Is recorded in 1965.  The opening guitar riffs in Please Please Me, I Feel Fine, Ticket to Ride and so many others are, for me at any rate, the main hooks, before even considering the songs themselves.

Then there's harmony. I mentioned The Everly Brothers  in connection with guitars but that ringing sound of two (or more) voices in harmony which characterises their music is present in most Beatles songs. In many Beatles hits, the harmony involves three main voices, Lennon, McCartney and Harrison. Listening to songs like I Feel Fine and Yes It Is and the assured and masterful use of harmonies, it is astonishing that such recordings were made in relatively short times with (by modern standards) primitive recording equipment.  Why harmony is so aurally attractive can no doubt be scientifically explained but it's not just a matter of the note choice and pitch: the individual attributes of the singers voices go together in a way that defies explanation. The three main voices have something which can't be reproduced artificially and the resonance of those three voices together was immensely attractive

And of course, Yin and Yang, light and dark, Lennon and McCartney... Any attempt in a short piece to fully explore this is doomed to failure but it is at the heart of the Beatles identity and greatness. When listening to She's Leaving Home, for example, McCartney's plaintive narrative, smoothly delivered, needs the sardonic counterpoint of Lennon's interjections "We never thought for ourselves, never a thought for ourselves..." as he knowingly intones the cliches that ordinary people fall into when life slaps them in the face. Emotionally it is a huge song but only because it is delivered in these two ways.  It's no accident that Beatles fans tend to be McCartney or Lennon partisans. They brought such different attitudes and skills to the songs. What I value in McCartney's work is his vocal range and his ability to bring words and music to life. In Lennon's case I love the emotional tension that he brings to the songs and his use of simple melodies (sometimes one-note melodic phrases) over more complex chord changes. But the more I try to pin either of them down, the more confounded I become by contradictions, exceptions and complications. Perhaps truly wonderful things won't be pinned down.

That might have been the place to stop but you can't write about the Beatles without mentioning two others.

Ringo didn't make a substantial contribution to the songwriting or singing but he was more than a safe pair of hands behind the kit. He had great technique, the modesty to do his job without trying to grandstand and instinctive good taste that told him when not to play - a rarer gift than non-musicians might imagine. I still get a huge buzz from his fill in Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds - all two beats of it. So simple but so right.

George Martin, often referred to as "the fifth Beatle", is immensely important.  Again it's tempting to oversimplify - to say he was the technician who facilitated their creativity. Of course he was. But he was so much more. The string arrangements in songs like  She's Leaving Home and Eleanor Rigby are obvious examples of musical and creative input. Sergeant Pepper, arguably the most important album of the sixties, couldn't have happened without him - but I think his influence went beyond that. I think the fact that he came from a classical background and was not influenced by the fads and fashions of the time helped to ground them and focus them on music. And judging from the many documentaries about them, they did need a bit of that from time to time.

In the end, after the inevitable split and the bickering that ensued, that is what matters. The screaming girls, the jelly babies, the cuban-heeled boots and "Beatle Suits" are just fluff. The well-publicised tax wrangles and personal differences of opinion are interesting to some,  but what they put on vinyl in those few years in the nineteen sixties changed the world of music and we are, to this day, indebted to them for that.

Sopranos, Alabama 3 and wonderful Radio Bland

This year I started watching a TV series called The Sopranos. Most of you are probably way ahead of me as I have come to it very late. In fact the Guardian Guide recently referred to some elements of the last episode in one of their articles, so I am behind the times and just catching up with  the earlier series on DVD. For anyone who hasn't seen it, it deals with an American-Italian organised crime boss called Tony Soprano and his associates and family. He is based in New Jersey and the legitimate front for his business is waste-management. It has impressed me so much because it is intelligent, scarily realistic and deals with character, motivation and human frailty at a much deeper level than any other series I have seen on television. The first time I watched it, though, what really struck me was the fantastic theme music over the opening credits.


"Woke up this morning, got yourself a gun..." - superb vocals with fantastic wailing harmonica and instrumentation that blurs the lines between country, blues and acid house. I thought of it as exciting and different, but quintessentially American - a new (to me) and original kind of music from the US. I found out that the band responsible was Alabama 3 and their CD, Hits and Exit Wounds is now one of my all-time favourites.


The big surprise came when I discovered that this "quintessentially American" band hail from Peckham!  This has only served to increase my admiration for them as has the discovery that they have achieved great success without courting the vampires of the British Music Industry. As much as any band ever did, they invented themselves and managed to make it on talent, originality and integrity.  The songs are often narratives based around the alter-egos of the band members who are, according to the latest information on Wikipedia:

• Rob Spragg AKA Larry Love: vocals
• Jake Black AKA The Very Reverend Dr. D. Wayne Love: vocals
• Simon (The Dude) Edwards AKA Sir Eddie Real: percussion, vocals
• Orlando Harrison AKA The Spirit: keyboards, keyboard bass, vocals
• Mark Sams AKA Rock Freebase: guitar, bass guitar
• Aurora Dawn: vocals
• Piers Marsh AKA Mountain of Love: programming, keyboards, harmonica
• Jonny Delafons AKA L. B. Dope: drums, percussion
• Steve Finnerty AKA LOVEPIPE: production, guitar and vocals
• Nick Reynolds AKA Harpo Strangelove: harmonica, percussion, vocals

To give you a flavour of the originality of the songs here are a couple of my favourites:

"Hello...I'm Johnny Cash" is about a man who sweeps up in a factory but in his inner life is Johnny Cash - the man in black.  It's country music with a twist, irresistibly sad and funny at the same time.

"U Don't Dance to Tekno Any More" again tragedy and humour blended and some very tight playing in this story of a retreat into the world of narcotics and loneliness.

"Sad Eyed Lady of The Low Life" a great piano track and a dark and catchy chorus:

"sad eyed lady of the lowlife

come on burn a while with me

put the high life on the bonfire

let's go steal some gasoline"

Here is a band with originality, talent, humour, versatility and fantastic danceability. I listen to radio in the car - a lot. I can't listen to BBC Radio 6 Music, though, as I don't have a digital radio in my car. But I listen to Radio 1, Radio 2 and Radio 4 and various local radio stations as I buzz up and down the motorways to the South Coast from Scotland. I have never heard Alabama 3 even once on mainstream radio. 

Thank God for the CD player.