Life is very sh Part III

since I'm on this train of thought, I would like to clear up one more thing.
a few months back I was asked by dweezil zappa to join the zappa plays zappa
show in canada for an onstage performance of flakes, the dylan imitation.
in an email to me dweezil also asked that I make certain
andre cholmondeley, my tour manager and guitar tech,
would be persona non grata.
in other words dweezil did not want to see andre at the show.
there is an ongoing battle between the zappa family and andre.

I told dweezil I would try my best to insure he would not see andre.
but I put it off and put it off and I want to make this clear:
I did not say anything to andre.
andre had no idea that he should keep out of dweezil's sight.

why did I not keep my word to dweezil?
andre is a valued member of my crew and a friend.
I know how much he loves frank's music.
I could not bring myself to hurt andre's feeling.

naturally, the worst happened.
andre was banished from watching the show
by one of the zappa crew members
and things got a bit ugly.

I want to apologize to both andre and dweezil.
I should have told andre or should never have
given my word in the first place.

on a happier note:
when I walked onstage to sit in with zappa plays zappa
armed with only a harmonica and my pitiful dylan voice,
I suddenly felt transported back to my time onstage with frank.
dweezil so resembles his father in looks and in voice
that I had to do a double take to be sure where I was.

it was a very special moment for me
which brought back a flood of memories.

I miss frank.

Anecdote #555 part one

Stormy Weather.
one night in 1976 I was playing in a dark dank biker's bar in nashville. it was called "fanny's". the inside was painted black. the way the club was laid out, when you were onstage you could see the people entering down a long hallway. imagine my surprise to see frank zappa walking toward the stage with a small group of strange-looking rock musicians and his huge body guard john smothers.
frank had played a show in nashville earlier that night and was looking for somewhere to go afterwards. he asked his chauffeur for a recommendation. terry pugh was the chauffeur. he was also a big fan of the band I was in.

sweetheart was known regionally not just for our killer covers of songs by steely dan and stevie wonder, but also for our radical appearance. to be in sweetheart you had to cut your hair 40's style and wear authentic 1940's vintage clothing. all the time! even in the daytime if you were going grocery shopping, the rule stood: you dress like a gangster. three-piece suit, tie, tie pin, fedora hat; the works. it was actually a lot of fun, especially finding and buying the clothes. we scoured warehouses and old jewish tailor shops across the midwest and south and found some remarkable deals on clothing that had been in storage since WWII. the look was way ahead of its time, before the vintage craze that caused gabardine pants to soar in price on melrose avenue.

anyway, there was frank zappa unmistakably seated in front of me. to me he was the only person in the place. I played and sang with a fervor. I was excited to play for a legend. after 40 minutes the zappa entourage were leaving. we were playing give me shelter when frank came up to the stage and reached out to shake my hand! I bent down and he said, "I'll get your name and number from the chauffeur. I would like to audition you". wow. that was a thrill.

despite the cool threads and great band, life was not easy. I lived alone in a small two-room apartment on 21st avenue south. the rent was $300. I drove a used beat up VW. sweetheart was considered a top band on the cover band circuit which included mostly small clubs and frat gigs. on a very good week with sweetheart I might earn $125. but many weeks were not very good. some weeks I earned nothing.
funny the little moments you remember indelibly. I was driving up 21st avenue south one day when a new song by david bowie came on the radio. it was heroes. the guitarist on the song was robert fripp. the producer was brian eno. I loved that song. the vocal was so emotional, the guitar playing searing. within 2 years I would be playing that song in david's band.

that seemed impossible in 1976. things got worse in a hurry when just six months after shaking the hand of mr. zappa, sweetheart decided to call it quits. I knew very few people in nashville and had to scrounge fast to find work. weeks went by before I ended up in a disco band called 11o in the shade. nice people but a dreadful band. we had a keyboard player named "stormy". every night somewhere during the third set I would hear a loud rumbling. stormy would be face down drunk asleep on his organ. it was a "weekend warrior" band. the first time we went out of town to play a show I was in shock. with sweetheart we at least afforded cheap motel rooms to share. 110 in the shade slept in stormy's van. before I knew what hit me, I was 3 months behind in my rent, in a band with no future, and going nowhere fast.

that's when frank zappa called.

Anecdote # 828

Mr. Clean.
frank called him bald-headed John.
John Smothers was frank's body guard
ever since mr. zappa was tossed into
the orchestra pit by an irate fan.
(resulting in broken bones,
a lost year, lawsuits, the end of a band, etc.)

John looked like a black Mr. Clean.
tall, big build, smiling, bald, black man.
at a time when bald was weird.
john had a tight protruding belly
like Buddha.
he tried to seem ominous but he was
really a very sweet person.
a pussycat.

it was john's conversational skills
which defined him.
frank once told me he loved having
john around for the things he said.
john completely man-handled the english language.

I heared the equipment's being shipped out of chorus crispy, he said.
sitting down to breakfast he rejected coffee
ordering water instead,
I'll have a glass of HpO.

along with frank and our tour manager
(who deserves his own chapter)
john was the person I hung out with most.
sitting next to him on a plane
he would show me pictures of his girlfriend
freckles.
boy she had 'em.
he would pull out his wallet stuffed with large bills,
look at this, abe, mister zappa pays me well,
he would say.

I loved john.

onstage he tried to be stone cold.
crossing his arms over one another
like the famous mussolini shots.

moving mr. zappa through a crowd
he held a threatening stick
that looked like a slender telescope.
"what is that, john," I asked him.
that's my polka, he would say.
"so what do you do with it?" I asked.
well, I pokes people with it, he told me.

the thing was, john never got my name right.
throughout the whole two month tour
he never got my name right.

he would start by calling me andrew
for a week or two,
then he'd shorten it to andy.
for a while.
then he'd move on to andre.
and stay with andre until I became
atrium, (my personal favorite).
it's nice to be architecture.

we were good with atrium for a time
until I simply became a.
that lasted for a while.

then one day john got all
philosophical on me,
started calling me
abraham.
a nice biblical tome.

he shortened that to
abrums.
(there may be an h in there somewhere,
I'm not sure of the spellings of my name
by this point.)

still not content
abrums begat abe.
finally after two months of daily conversation
that's where we left off.
abe.

honest abe belew.

no wait, I don't think he ever tried my last name.

Anecdote # 37

The Fourth Day Of My Professional Touring Life.

and so it was in June of 1977 I moved to L.A. to begin rehearsals with frank zappa. I rented a non-descript one bedroom apartment on Canyon Drive in North Hollywood not far from the famous Hollywood sign. who says 'nobody walks in LA'? I sure did. I had no car. frank's brother-in-law Midget Sloatman was often my ride and my only friend.
one curious thing happened. one night I dined alone at a famous spot called Musso's and Frank's, the oldest restaurant in Hollywood. frank had taken me there for dinner once. it was a long walk back to my sad apartment and I had nothing to do, so I stopped in a bookstore along the way. I bought a book on Elvis. I never knew much about his life and this book was written by his bodyguard Red, reportedly close to Elvis all those years. I took the book home and settled into a long read on the couch. I fell asleep about 2 AM. the next morning the world's headlines read:
Elvis Is Dead!
he had died that night while I was reading about his life.

rehearsal's were held in a huge movie studio on Melrose Avenue where they used to make Laurel and Hardy films. for 3 months 5 days a week we rehearsed there before we ever stepped in front of a real audience. most friday nights I went home with frank for the week-end to get a jump on learning next week's material. I can't say I enjoyed the rehearsals which were long and tedious. I felt like an outcast. it seemed like the other player's were custom-made to be in frank's band. all of them were readers, very familiar with zappa material, and all of them actually lived in LA. it was a lonely time for me.

the rehearsals drug on and on. we learned five hours of zappa material! the huge film lot was a strange place, there was no telling what might be happening there from day to day. one time I watched them filming in blue screen the Spiderman TV series. strange watching a guy crawling along on the floor and seeing him projected onto the side of a building in the playback screen. they were forever correcting his positions, "pull your left foot in a bit, you're supposed to be standing on a window ledge". another time I watched them film an Apple Jacks commercial. they had a huge 30-foot Apple Jack box and these jacks the size of lounge chairs.

at certain times I wasn't needed during rehearsals. I would walk down melrose avenue to a huge old building called Western Costume. there I could roam floor after floor of authentic costumes used by all the major film companies over the years. this was the place that outfitted the movies. for example, you might find yourself on a floor filled with civil war period clothing. surrounded by hundreds of uniforms of all types, as well as the accoutrement's: boots, prince nez glasses, hats. canteens. anything you've ever seen in a movie Western Costume had it. it was a fascinating way to kill an hour or two.

finally after three months you could tell it was time to go touring. extra people began to arrive at the film lot each day. more crew members. Big John Smothers arrived to the thrill of the other band members who had already toured with him. and a new tour manager introduced himself as Ron Nehoda. seemed like a nice person.

the tour started. my first professional show ever was in Tempe, Arizona September 8, 1977. then we flew to San Diego for a show on the ninth. the third show was in Las Vegas at the Aladdin Theatre. wow! Las Vegas. it was every bit as exciting as I expected. electricity in the air and big show lights everywhere.
the Aladdin was a sizable complex which included our hotel and of course a large gambling casino on the bottom floor. after the show most of us ended up checking out the casino, but I didn't stay long. not much of a gambler. the window in my room would not open. I found out why.

frank's tour had something no other tour I've been on since had: a bag boy. Pancho was a fresh 19-year old kid who was responsible to pick your bags up each morning outside your door to be delivered to the airport for the day's flight. he was a nice kid but like Ron, I barely knew him.
the morning after our show at the Aladdin Pancho came around 9 AM to pick up the bags. when he got to Ron's room there was no answer. eventually he had a security person open the door. Ron was sitting quietly in a bathtub full of water and blood. he had slit his wrists. evidently Ron had a serious gambling addiction as well as a taste for coke. he had gotten himself so coked up the night before he had gambled away frank's earnings from the concert (reportedly about $15,000.00) as they took him from the tub he was still alive. he said to poor Pancho. "I'll tell you about it later".

there was a serious shitmist inside the plane to Tucson, our next concert. I remember we checked in the hotel and frank asked us all to meet him in the empty lounge on the ground floor. there he reported calmly that Ron had in fact died and went on to say there was nothing more for us to do but play a show that night, that's what he wanted us to focus on. and he was right in saying that. the strange thing to me: I never saw anything in the press about Ron's death. I expected something in Rolling Stone's Random Notes or somewhere but...what happens in vegas.

and that began the fourth day of my professional touring life.

Anecdote #646 part 1

Uneasy Meetings with Gods
part one.

place: a Frank Zappa concert in
Cologne, Germany 2/14/1978
my first tour of europe ever and
as a member the frank zappa band.
although I wasn't aware, this night
brian eno is in the audience.
next day eno calls david bowie
knowing david
is looking for a new guitarist.

Berlin, Germany 2/15/1978
the following night david comes
to the show ostensibly to see me play.
there is a break in the show where I
normally leave the stage while frank
plays an extended guitar solo.
as I'm leaving I glance over
to the monitor board. I'm shocked to see david bowie and iggy pop!
I walk over, shaking david's hand I say, "I've always loved your music".
"great", he says, "how'd you like to join my band?!"
"well, I'm playing with this guy right now..." I stammer, pointing to frank.
"yes, I know, but your tour ends in two weeks and mine begins two weeks later."
we agree to meet back at the hotel after the show.

what followed was like something out of a spy film. david and his assistant coco tried to rendezvous with me without letting anyone in on our little "secret". I suppose the idea was to avoid letting frank know I was being wooed away from his band. I was too dumb to notice. at one point, david, coco, and I stepped into the hotel elevator when no one was around. whispering, coco said, "we have a car out front. we'll meet you there in ten minutes."
david wanted to take me to one of his favorite restaurants to discuss my future. he had lived in berlin for several years. so his driver set off with the three of us in the back madly chatting about songs we'd play and places we'd go. we pulled up to a nice looking restaurant and walked in.
at the table right in front of us sat frank and some of the band!
the jig was up as they say.
can you imagine? how many restaurants are there in berlin?
so we invited ourselves to join them at their table.
feeling slightly uncomfortable david tried to engage frank in friendly discourse.
david said, "really enjoyed the show".
frank shot back, "fuck you captain tom".
"c'mon frank, we can be adults about this, can't we?" david replied.
"fuck you captain tom."
"no, really I'd like to talk."
no matter what david tried, frank kept saying, "fuck you captain tom."
so we left the restaurant.
outside david said,
"that went down rather well, didn't it?"
david, coco, and I spent the rest of the evening at an authentic 1920's private cabaret. david knew the owner and we had a wonderful time. some kind of girls gave us a show. the marlena dietrich owner of the club awarded me a lifetime membership card.

a few days later as frank sat at the back of a bus we were riding I approached him. I knew frank was planning on editing his movie baby snakes after the tour which would take perhaps 3 or 4 months. I explained it might make more sense for me to tour with david during that time rather than languish on frank's payroll. in his customarily frank fashion he reached out, shook my hand, and wished me luck.

Neptune Pool

neptune pool
volume 3 number 21

when asked for advice on how to compose music
Igor Stravinsky recommended placing parameters
on the size of your intentions.
for example, you might state before beginning
'this piece is for these 15 instruments, and nothing more'.
I have often tried to utilize his rule of thumb.

neptune pool began as a finger-picking exercise I devised
for the dobro which, as always, was tuned to DADDAD.
it's tricky to play the melody over the continual bass line
which is played with your thumb.
to orchestrate the music I added 14 more instruments:
piano, string bass, tympani, thundersheet*, theremin,
harp, muted trumpet, two trombone, two clarinets,
flute, oboe, and bass clarinet.
all the orchestration except piano and string bass,
was emulated with my trusty gr-700 guitar synth.

this is one of my personal favorite pieces I've written,
in fact it was played at our wedding and I would like it
played at my funeral when I'm 85 and a half.

neptune pool was only ever released as a hard-to-find
"CD-5 Maxi Single" for pretty pink rose which included
the LP version of oh daddy as well as the acoustic guitar/vocal
version of shoe salesman.

*frank zappa was infamous for long 3-hour soundchecks which were often recorded to be used later. on one such occasion we were at the Hammersmith Odeon, a magnificent hall in London. the second day there frank ordered in some special instrumentation to record within the sound of the grand hall. I was asked to play a "thundersheet", a long piece of thin sheet metal with handles at one end. I was positioned in the balcony with the thundersheet hanging over the front of the balcony. at frank's signal I would gently rattle the giant beast which sounds like wind. I'm not sure where this sound ended up but you can bet its on a zappa record somewhere.

dobro, piano, string bass, guitar synth: adrian
engineer: rich denhart
assistant: dan harjung
recorded at Royal Recorders in Lake Geneva, Wis. on december 19, 1989
length: 3:04

Anecdote #464 scene one

this story might be best served as a play with 3 scenes.

Flakes.
it begins in late 1977 in the basement of frank zappa's hollywood home. it's a saturday and as usual I'm learning the material for next week's rehearsals. being the only "non-reader" in the band this was a common way for me to prepare. today's lesson is a brand new song frank has just written called flakes.
frank did not play guitar and sing at the same time. if you watch footage of his concerts he's either playing the guitar or singing, never both. I found out why. he quietly played and sang the middle section of the song for me. it sounded terrible. like a bad folk song. I started making fun of him by singing it in a bob dylan voice; "I asked as nice as I coouuld".
"that's it," said frank, "that's in the show."
and that is how I ended up doing a bob dylan imitation on a frank zappa record.
I always wondered what bob dylan might think of it.

Anecdote # 555 part two

The Audition For A Hand Shake.
my first phone conversation with frank went something like this:
frank: "do you read music?"
adrian: "no, I don't, but I can learn from records pretty well."
frank: "alright, here's a list of 12 songs. try to figure out how to sing
and play as much of them as you can. I'll see you here next week".

I borrowed the records I needed to learn from
(I couldn't afford to buy them) and went into high gear.
every day for the next week I was consumed from morning till night
with learning frank zappa music.
man, it was hard.
the day came to fly to his house. it was the first time in my life I had been past the Missisippi. one of frank's crew members met me at the airport in a white cargo van. it was hot in california. the windows were down. he was shouting questions as he drove like a madman up the canyon's winding hills. I was deposited at frank's house. me, my strat, and my little pignose amp.
there was the beginnings of a studio in frank's basement. he sat behind a console chain smoking. I stood in the middle of the room with my little amp and sang into a microphone.
frank would say, "okay, try wind up workin' in a gas station". I would play and sing for a minute or two, he would stop me. "that's enough".
"now try andy".
I would play and sing for a bit and he would stop me.
and that's how it went.
the problem was the commotion. there were roadies rolling equipment around the room and people busy doing things to prepare for rehearsals. it seemed like there was an army in that small basement.
I knew I hadn't done well. I had nowhere to go until my flight back home so I stayed around all day watching other torturous auditions. I watched tommy mars' piano audition. it was frightening. but tommy was fabulous. I was told later frank had auditioned 50 guitar players!
as the day was ending and things quieted down I had a moment to say something to frank. I told him I knew I hadn't done well but it was not what I'd expected. I thought it would be the two of us somewhere quiet. he said, "well fine. let's go upstairs".
we sat on the purple couch in his living room.
I put my pignose amp face down on a pillow so it wouldn't be too loud.
and frank gave me a second audition.
at the end of it he reached over and shook my hand.
he told me I had the job for one year
and went on to explain his pay arrangements
(i.e. so much for rehearsal, so much for shows, etc.)

with that hand shake my life was changed forever.

ps: the Stratocaster I'm playing in the photo above was owned by Jimi Hendrix.
he burnt it up at the miami pop festival in 1967.
somehow frank inherited the guitar which was in 3 pieces,
had it put back together, and set up for slide playing.
I played it in the song jones crusher.
recently dweezil zappa auctioned off the guitar at Sotheby's in London.
it sold for 350 thousand pounds or a whopping $500,000!
I should have carved my name and number on the back.

Anecdote #46

Closure.
my last time seeing frank zappa face to face
was just months before his death in December 1993.
I went to the zappa abode for a short visit.
he looked like the picture above,
which was a shock.
frank was obviously ill, his voice a whisper.
instead of the vibrant frank I knew
there was an older man.
only 52 but seeming very weak and tired.
in place of his usual habit of chain-drinking espresso
he was sipping orange juice freshly squeezed by his maid.
frank talked about his latest project.
the conversation drifted off.
I felt a tinge of guilt taking his time.
soon he excused himself to rest for a while.
our interlude was over.

I prefer to remember a different ending.
one night in late 1992 I woke up from a vivid dream.
I looked at the clock. 6 AM.
I couldn't get back to sleep.
in my dream frank and I were laughing and talking,
having a lively conversation about music and things.
it felt good, like a friendship.

since I couldn't sleep I went downstairs
and sat in a chair, replaying the dream.
there was no such thing as e-mail then,
about the fastest delivery was by fax.
so I decided to send a fax to frank.
in my fax I told him about the dream.
then I said I had never properly thanked him
for all he had done for me
and I wanted say "thanks".
I had no idea at that time that frank was ill and dying.

later that afternoon I got a call.
it was frank. what a great surprise!
he said to me, "that was sweet".
that's the word he used: sweet.
not a word you would normally associate
with the acerbic edgy satirist.

we proceeded then to have a wonderful conversation
much like the one in my dream.

and that's the way I remember frank.

Anecdote # 28

My First Studio Recording.

Eno is a nice name. even nicer backwards. One.
on three occasions I've worked with eno in the role of producer.
laurie anderson's big red
and talking heads' remain in light.
but the very first record I made with eno was
david bowie's lodger.
it happened to be my first studio record ever*.
eno was producing along with Tony Visconti
and david was...well, being brilliant.
but before I get into the making of lodger I should give you a colorful background of where the deed was done.

in Lake Geneva, Switzerland there was a popular lakeside casino which sometimes featured name bands in concert. one such event was Frank Zappa and The Mothers Of Invention. long before I worked with frank, they played a show at the casino. as the story goes, someone with a flare gun shot a flare into the ceiling while frank was playing, the ceiling caught on fire, and the casino burnt to the ground.
frank told me after they evacuated the building he and his band walked around the lake to their hotel where they sat and watched the place burn down with all their gear and instruments inside. the next day there was nothing left. even the cymbals had melted.
this is of course the story which prompted the song smoke on the water by Deep Purple. the casino was re-built and expanded to include a recording studio. it's where the Montreux Jazz Festival is held each year**.

at the newly-built studio we recorded lodger in late 1978.
we stayed in a nice big swiss hotel right on the lake.
my room had a large canopy bed with thick wooden posts.
it was the most comfortable bed I'd ever slept in.
a set of french doors opened out onto a small balcony
overlooking beautiful lake geneva with the mountains in the background
and the real 12th century Chillon Castle down the end of the lake.
looked like a postcard.

Tony Visconti was married at the time to the irish folk singer Mary Hopkin.
she had a hit song called those were the days produced by Sir Paul.
mary was visiting while I was there. tony and mary's room was next door to mine.
mary had a habit of singing in the morning, exercising her voice I suppose.
she would sing these lovely old folk songs and I could hear them.
they would wake me up.
the hotel served the most delicious hot chocolate I've ever had.
so I'd wake up in the morning,
order a pot of hot chocolate from room service,
and drink it on my balcony overlooking lake geneva
while mary hopkins serenaded.
I thought I had died and gone to heaven.

now to the making of the record:
the new studio/casino was built out of thick concrete.
it looked like a world war II bunker.
no more fires.
the strangest feature of the studio was this:
the control room was on the first floor and the recording room
was up the stairs on the second floor above it.
usually you can see the producer, engineer, etc.
through a glass window but in this case you could not see them,
but they could see you through a closed circuit tv screen.

by the time I was brought in there were supposedly 20 tracks to work on.
I was very anxious to hear them but david and eno
patiently explained their concept.
the record was to be called planned accidents and so they wanted
to capture my accidental responses to the songs by not allowing me
to hear them beforehand!
so I would go upstairs into the recording room, put on my headphones,
look into the closed circuit camera and say,
"what key would this one be in?"
I'd hear a disconnected voice,
"don't worry about the key, when you hear the count off
just start playing something."

I would be allowed perhaps 3 tries and then we'd move on.
just about the time I knew the key.
later david, eno, and tony would "piece together" their favorite
bits from whatever I'd managed to play.
that's how we did I am a DJ, boys keep swingin', and red sails
to name a few of my favorites.

years later david told me boys keep swingin' was written with me in mind.

*my first record ever was frank zappa's sheik yerbouti, but my parts were all recorded live, not in the studio.
**a few years ago king crimson played at the same place for the Montreux Jazz Festival.

Like Peas in a Boxcar

for the brave few who already have downed peas*
in fact for those who have not yet down-loaded it,
let's take the time now to reflect upon further fine points
of the peas opus.

following ms. christys opening 68 eighth notes

a) in verse 1 we discover a man has evidently perished
from too many peas, a vegetable he says he adores.
The King Elvis Himself steps forward to sing the eulogy:
"give me peas on my plate..."

c) at the funeral
while ms. christy refines the melody on farfisa
the morgue is filled with mourning ladies
and their flowery dissings of other morning ladies.
meanwhile two old men,
two very old men,
reveal in conversation that our dead vegan
in fact worked his whole grain life in produce.
(oh, life's little ironing).

d) just as the reverend william janssen ruminates on life in produce aisle 7
the tiny band of peas begin to practice their musical magic.......voila!
only to be aborted by mean mr. getz. (see volume 1 no. 2)
which brings us to the bridge.
("peas appease me" sung by neville chamberlain).

e) what ever happened to b)?

now, to those of you who are still thinking of downing peas,
can't you see what you missing?

*drummer jerry hertig was the drummer for sweetheart the nashville band frank zappa plucked me from. known to all as Mr. Tig he was an all lanky Ohioan who looked perfectly at home in zoot suit tie and fedora. stay tuned for more fascinating nougats of uselessness.

How To End Up Wearing A Dress On Stage In A Concert Film With Frank Zappa

this one is more serendipitous.
to begin with your first road manager
has to kill himself
(see Anecdote # 37 blog from August 15.)
then, he has to be replaced by a road manager
of a different stripe: the "Road Mangler"
which is the title Phil Kaufman goes by.

Phil is an extraordinary person with a colorful past.
friends with Charlie Manson, before the massacre.
friends with the legendary Gram Parsons.
at Gram's insistence Phil agreed
to burn Gram's body out in the desert
if he were to die.
they made a pact.

a few years later
Gram Parsons died,
Phil stole his body,
drove it into the desert,
and promptly burned it.

you meet Phil after his prison tenure
and find him to be one hilarious fellow.
dressed in his best Harley garb,
he has (at that time) a knack for staying
completely smashed on booze
and yet doing his job very thoroughly.

one morning at breakfast with Phil
the waitress asks for his order.
he replies, "I'll have a Turkey Club."
the waitress says,
"I'm sorry sir, we're only serving breakfast,
no sandwiches until lunch."

"it's a type of whiskey, dear", he informs her.

next, you have to be fortunate enough
to take part in one of frank's annual rituals:
the Halloween concert in New York City
at the ancient Palladium Theatre.

since it is halloween
Phil will look after the costuming
for willing band members.
and since you are already in a costume of sorts
(a paratroopers jumpsuit bought
at an Army/Navy store on Melrose Ave.)
you're happy to oblige.

as it happens the entire concert is being filmed
to be released as a live concert film called baby snakes.
so when Phil shows up late in the afternoon
with your costume you try to put on a brave face.
the costume he's chosen is a WAC uniform
(a female military outfit from the 40's)
which matches your paratrooper jumpsuit
and just so happens to fit you perfectly.

at some point during the evening's concert
you find yourself offstage
changing into the WAC uniform.
the film crew surrounds you as you don
the now-infamous $500,000 Jimi Hendrix strat
and step back onto the busy stage
in front of 2,000 people
and a host of lights and cameras.

it's at this precise moment you realize:
you're wearing a dress.

time to fly...

this saturday the 19th I leave for my month in amsterdam.
daniel rowland will be flying with me, john sinks will meet us there.
VPRO is providing me an apartment along with
the very healthy schedule of things to do listed below.

feb. 19: fly to amsterdam arriving early morning feb. 20

feb. 20: working through the score with tom trapp, followed by
an interview with one of holland's largest newspapers in the evening
to appear in the paper on thursday feb. 24

feb. 21: rehearsal in Hilversum, at Studio 3
with the Metropole Orchestra rhythm section only

feb. 22: first rehearsal with the Metropole Orchestra
followed by the taping of the tv show "Vrije Geluiden"
("Free Sounds") filmed at the Bim Huis in amsterdam
which will include a solo performance and interview

feb. 23: second rehearsal with the Metropole Orchestra

feb. 24: recording e in studio 3 with the Metropole Orchestra

feb. 25: recording e in studio 3 with the Metropole Orchestra

feb. 26: day off

feb. 27: The Big Event: the Paradiso concert in Amsterdam.
(the soundcheck will be recorded as well)
the concert will be filmed by VPRO
and will include a half-hour solo guitar set,
and the world debut of the orchestral e
(as well as a surprise or two)

feb. 28: day off (phew...)

march 1 thru 5 : mixing the studio and live recordings
in Hilversum at studio 3

march 6: "painting with guitar" solo concert
at the Paradox in Tilburg, Netherlands

march 7: taping an interview for the autobiographical
radio shows to be broadcast march 10 and 11

march 8: travel to Verviers, Belgium to perform a
"painting with guitar" solo concert

march 9: travel back from Belgium. day off

march 10: a 4-hour masterclass at the Amsterdam Conservatory
(what on earth am I going to teach for 4 hours!)

march 11: a two-hour masterclass at the Rotterdam Conservatory

march 12 & 13: days off for museum scanning
and happy nights at Biblos!

march 14: fly home

here is the schedule of radio shows happening in march
for VPRO's "painting holland belew" series:

thursday march 3 VPROJazzLive radioshow (2 hrs)
Adrian Belew Power Trio, live recording
+ website (audio on demand, video impression)

saturday march 5 De Wissel radioshow
musical highlights from the seventies & eighties:
Zappa, Bowie, King Crimson, guitar (& other instruments)
playing & gear developments.

thursday march 10 + friday march 11 VPROJazzLive
radioshow (total 2 hrs) AB’s "Life In A Nutshell" expanded,
incl tracks from discographic history, interview fragments
+ website (audio on demand, video interview)

thursday march 24 VPROJazzLive radioshow (2 hrs)
Adrian Belew & the Metropole Orchestra, live recording
from feb. 27 + website (audio on demand, video impression,
making-of video)

thursday march 31 VPROJazzLive radioshow (2 hrs)
Adrian Belew's Painting With Guitar, live recording from march 6
+ website (audio on demand, video impression)

a splendid time is guaranteed for all.
wish me luck!

ps: concerning the hat:
no hat.

Masters of Rock Guitar

back in february I was asked to write the preface
for a book called Masters of Rock Guitar,
published by the italian company WhiteStar.
I was already familiar with their work due to a
couple of superb books they have on vintage cars.
"masters" includes a foreword by joe satriani,
an excellent text by ernesto assante, and piles of cool
pictures of 66 guitarists, including yours truly.

the guitarists featured range from people
I actually know (robert fripp, jeff beck, ry cooder)
to guitarists I once knew (frank zappa, les paul)
to guitarists I would love to have known
(george harrison, jimi hendrix,).

I have a hard time imagining a fairly stupid kid
from northern kentucky with no musical training
from a lower class working family who had no
connection whatsoever to the world of music and art
ending up in such illustrious company.
me and eric clapton in the same line up? wow.

my body is covered with marks
from pinching myself all the time.

I just received my copy which I'm very pleased with.
Masters of Rock Guitar is an excellent book albeit
one that may be difficult to find. I know I had a hard
time navigating the italian website: whitestar.it
so I figure most of you will have to read my preface here:

what is it about the electric guitar that so fascinates?

what began as a plank of wood on someone's workbench
has transformed into the icon of rock music and the most
popular instrument on the planet.
the electric guitar has many features to recommend.

portability hard to imagine lugging a baby grand back
to your hotel room each night but you can carry
the guitar in a back pack.

simplicity your basic electric guitar has perhaps two
knobs and one hole to plug into; pretty straightforward.
it's fairly easy to learn. but hard to master.

versatility a player can do just about anything with
the electric guitar these days. when I began playing if
you had a fender amp and a fuzztone you were hot!
today I can play my guitar through my laptop.
there is a billion $$ industry of after market
accouterments. everything from amplifiers
and synthesizers to picks and string winders.

longevity when les or chuck or scotty first appeared
who knew it would go this far? but a funny thing
happened: rock music never went away!

sound it can range from raucous to sweetness.
it can squeal or cry.

volume no question about it, the rock guitar is not shy.
as a communication device it's hard to ignore.
it can blow a horn section right off the stage.

beauty the sensual form of the guitar's body has long
been noted. it's sexy. in the hands of a premier luthier
the wood becomes a modern sculpture. as seductive
as a sports car at a fraction of the price.

it's fashionable true, it can make you a rebel or a
preacher, but I believe the fashionable bit soon wears
off. there has to be something more.

personality? now we're getting closer.
players and manufacturers have done just about
everything to personalize the electric guitar.
we've added strings, pulled out frets, sawed off the
headstock, and cut the body into a myriad of shapes,
sizes, and colors.
there was one guy who even burned his on stage!
anything to express your inner self. and that's it!
the one thing that sets the electric guitar apart
is it's capacity for self-expression.

there is simply nothing like feeling your fingers
bending a note and hearing the guitar sing.
through self-expression comes passion.
through passion comes perseverance.
through perseverance you get to be one
of the players on these pages.

so let's celebrate the electric guitar
ands the players who have made it unique.

Happy 25 Years

for some reason I woke up this morning musing over
the music from desire caught by the tail.

my third solo record.
the first record on which I played all the instruments.
my first all instrumental record.
the record which cost me my record deal,
the record label (island) hated it so much.
and so the record was unceremoniously dumped.
many fans didn't even know about it.

one fan (sic) hated it enough to break the vinyl
record into pieces and send it back to me!

but frank zappa after hearing desire was quoted
as saying "adrian has re-invented the electric guitar".
thanks frankie.

so I went to the kitchen computer and played the first
piece, the seven and a half-minute tango zebra.
it brought back a flash of memories of fiddling with
the earliest guitar synthesizer, of playing the steel-
bodied dobro with the daddad open tuning,
of playing on the back of the dobro
with rubber mallets to create drum sounds.
of riding my bike to the closet-size studio each day,
thinking of myself as some kind of "artiste".

and as I reeled from the sensory overload I realized:

this is desire caught by the tail's 25th birthday!

to this day it remains undiscovered by many people
who like my music and that's a shame.
the japanese re-issue CD we sell at the online store
is so perfectly re-mastered that the quality sounds
as fresh as though it were made yesterday.

...25 years ago...
wow.

Anecdote # 101

isn't an anecdote something you give a person who's bitten by a snake?
I knew pat metheny's half-sister, we called her tall nancy.
she went out into the desert to find peace and solace and sat on a rattlesnake.
it bite her somewhat.

anyway, I'm always asked to tell anecdotes about my meetings with remarkable men
and I always tell them the same way,
so I'm going to start giving each one a number.
that way I can refer interested parties to this site for any particular story they might need.
"oh yeah, that's #207, go check it out".

next week we'll be playing at the rock n' roll hall of fame for frank zappa day.
it is an honor to do anything for frank as well as the hall of fame.
I was interviewed by the Cleveland Plains Dealer and asked for an anecdote
about life with frank so I'll start there:

Anecdote 101
At Home With The Zappas.
the first of many weekends I spent at frank's house we were sitting in his living room on the purple couch when his 5-year-old son dweezil came in riding a little red tricycle around the room. dweezil had beautiful long spit curls and he was doing circles around the furniture.
I said, "frank that's a beautiful little girl you have there". dweezil wheeled his trike right up to me, gave me the finger, and said, "fuck you!"

to open my eyes ever wider

so I might see life differently.

that's my new year's resolution.

when I was 27 years old frank zappa
once scolded me for being "too happy-go-lucky".
my aim is to get back to that status.

time to get happy.

Happy New Year!!!

Men In Helicopters String Quartet

men in helicopters string quartet
volume 1 number 12

as with last week's download the string arrangement for men in helicopters was first conceived in my head. I could hear the parts I wanted just as I can hear harmony parts I want to sing. but putting the proper notes on paper requires the help of a trained musician. with big blue sun it was Al Jewer who helped me; with men in helicopters it was the viola player Kristin Wilkinson.

Kristin and I sat at the piano. while I played out the lines I heard in my "head arrangement" she wrote the notes down. being a "trained" string player she was able to inform me of the ranges of the instruments, and certain little helpful details. for example, would this part sound best played on the low end of the violin or the high end of the viola? she took the parts home with her to write them out correctly and even made a little home demo for me to hear.
the recording session was quick. all I needed to do was to set the tempo. the players were easily able to play the parts correctly and within a few passes we were satisfied.

when I worked with frank zappa in 1977 I asked whether or not I should now learn to read music. frank said I already knew it my own way, I just didn't know the terminology. he said it was perhaps even helpful for me not to know the rules. at any rate he recommended not to bother, saying the time it would take would not be worth it for someone at my stage of development.

for the last few years I've been listening intently to my 10-year old daughter Ava
as she practices her piano lessons in the living room on Howard the piano,
reading the notes from books.
(we moved Howard upstairs to the living room for exactly that purpose.)
it seems like she's reading out loud to me.
I can observe her thought processes.
I am more and more amazed as she gets better and better.

frank was correct in saying in effect it was too late for me to start,
but with all the available resources nowadays,
I highly recommend proper training.

first violin: david davidson
second violin: david angell
viola: kristin wilkinson
cello: john catchings
string arrangement by kristin wilkinson and adrian
engineer: ken latchney
recorded at StudioBelew in Mt. Juliet, TN.
on April 17, 1997
length: 3:22

The Great Erasure

following in the footsteps of The Sorrowful Tale Of The Wrecked Refrigerator
(see anecdote # 303) comes another saga from our children's learning program
The Worst Days Of Our Lives or As The Stomach Churns.
told in contemporary fairy tale form.

Once upon a time there was a zappa-headed boy named andrew.
curious as a cat was he and this kept him happily occupied all the wee hours.
he loved to tinker with sound modules and cause them to do unexpected things.
to no one in particular he would read aloud from his japanese manual:
"Please Now To Edit: turn Purple knob to Fantasy setting before holding
button for 2 seconds forward, please."
in this way andrew would make the most unlikely of sounds.
and thus he did for hundreds of days!

one afternoon his friend ben came over to play.
"Let's download your programs to a back up disc," said ben.
"You know how to do that?!," said andrew excitedly.
"How hard can it be," came the reply.
so andrew read aloud from his japanese manual while ben
pushed all the right buttons just as the manual instructed.
"What? That's not possible!" exclaimed ben,
It has bulk erased all your programs!"

try as they may, soon it was apparent all those hours of work
and the most unlikely of sounds were lost forever.
the two foolish boys were so distraught they cried out,
"We deserve no better fate than to be stripped entirely naked,
and put in a barrel which is studded inside with pointed nails,
and two white horses should be harnessed to it,
which will drag us along through one street after another,
till we are dead."*

The End.

I am relating this tale as an introduction to our next download staged fright which may be the last recorded example of my work with the beloved GR-1. more to follow...

*that last bit I pilfered from the grimm brothers story "the goose girl".
what a barrel of laughs they must have been.

Anecdote # 404

The Birth Of The Rhino
in 1979 I had finished touring the world with david bowie
and was comfortably esconsced in the madness of cwazy wabbit.
making funny music with friends
when the call came to fly to Blonay, Switzerland
to repair some live guitar tracks from the bowie tour.
david had a large comfortable swiss house on the hillside
just up from Lake Geneva.
we were repairing tracks in the same lake geneva studio
that so famously begat "Smoke On The Water"
when frank zappa played there and the place burned down.
now it was a concrete bunker where david, eno, tony visconti,
(and I) had made the lodger the year before.

the tape operator Eugene looked so familiar.
finally someone asked him about it and he replied,
"well, Charlie Chaplin was my father".
"oh", we said.

the Chaplin mansion Manoir de Ban in Corsier
was just miles away from david bowie's house.
eugene invited david, david's assistant coco, and me
to join him for dinner with his mother at the mansion.

charlie chaplin's widow Oona was a beautiful woman.
that kind of older woman beauty that only comes
with wealth and pamperment.
oona was the mother of actress/dancer geraldine chaplin.
oona's own mother was there as well
but old enough to be silent.
while david and oona held courtly conversation
over dinner I was walking on air.
in charlie chaplin's house.
not everyone appreciates the full extent of his genius.
few people realize he wrote the music
for many of his films.
and he wrote it on the grand piano
in the room where we were sitting.

after dinner eugene escorted us down to the wine cellar,
now converted into a film archive of charlie's work.
a large stone floor lined with shelves of film cans.
eugene picked out a film and we went back upstairs
where he erected a home movie screen
right there in the living room.
oona and her mother sat on the sofa.

the movie was The King In New York from 1957.
the plot: because of a revolution in his country
King Shadhov (chaplin) comes to New York City
where he befriends a young boy born of
communist parents who is full of rhetoric.
the boy eventually softens the King's views.
the young boy/actor was chaplin's son Michael.

when the movie ended and the lights turned up,
oona and her mother sat crying on the sofa.
that's understandable, I thought, they missed charlie.
but back at the bowie bungalow david enlightened me.

michael, a favorite of his father, had later in life
turned politically and otherwise against charlie
and had embarrassed him by writing a tell-all book
called "I Smoked Pot On My Father's Lawn".
charlie never spoke to michael again
and this is what oona and her mother were crying over.

that night I went to bed on the third floor
of david's house, just down the hall from a wardrobe
hanger full of his old ziggy stardust costumes.
needless to say, I couldn't sleep.
I had just had dinner with david bowie
and charlie chaplin's widow at chaplin's mansion.
phew...!

I had no guitar in my room
so i began to practice memorizing music.
this was something I'd been trying lately,
trying to write a song in my head without an instrument.
the song I came up with was lone rhino.
I could hear it like it was a real record playing.
and I kept playing it over and over
in my mind to remember it.
I took notes about specific phrases
(I'm a lone rhinoceros)
and production ideas (must have a snorting guitar sound)
I knew it was a metaphor for a lonely person,
trapped in life who perhaps felt like
the last of his kind.
like charlie chaplin may have felt.
I had the youthful audacity
to imagine it would be sung by ringo starr!*
I wrote it for his voice and range.
that melancholy ringo english voice.

it wasn't until a few weeks later back at home
that I finally worked out the chords,
completed the words, invented a suitable guitar snort,
and had the lone rhino.

*ringo was one of my earliest heroes. a sensational drummer.
(I was a drummer at the time)
no one else could have propelled the beatles in the same way.
his drumming had such presence and taste.
and I liked his voice.