Here's a Tommy Mars synth solo + voice bit that I always liked- at around 2:20. Gave me a chuckle the first time I heard it! Weird, but cool.
I've got one of the original copies of Flexible that Vai had pressed sitting in my LR under my piano....with a handwritten note on a napkin from his mom and dad that they handed me when he debuted it at My Father Place on Long Island. I'd gone down to review the show for a local magazine and his parents heard I was "press" and came over to smooze me...the note says something like "Please write something nice about our son Steven." Pretty cool piece of RnR momento.
I recall my drummer and I being at the show and when Vai came out on stage, at dirst we thought it was our former guitarist, Eric Rudy, who had left our band a year earlier to replace Stave Morse in the remaining Dixie Dregs. He looked and played almost the same as Vai. Really strange. That same guitarist actually showed back up a couple years later when we were auditioning new guitarists yet again (we'd just lost Al Pitrelli to Alice Cooper.) We'd just auditioned 100+ guys in NYC and Eric shows up, unannounced with a full plaster cast on his right arm from a recent car accident, and proceeded to outplay every other guy even with the cast on his arm. One of those amazing players who never really the exposure he deserved.
I ran into one of Zappa's old keyboard players a couple years back, who was sitting in a local eatery/pub called Shiro's, near my place in New Orleans. He would pop in and sit at an old upright piano and play inpromtu songs and sing. At first I didn't realize who he was but kept thinking "this guy can play his ass off." He came over and sat at my table and after talking a bit, his Zappa history came out. Damned if I can recall his name at the moment...white guy, also sang great, likely gay (if that is any clue that might narrow it down,) probably in his late 50s. I think he said he was in a 70s Zappa line-up.
One of my favorite Zappa shows was when I was still underage...my best friend and I hopped a train into NYC and got into a Mothers of Invention show on Mothers Day at the Fillmore East. Flo and Eddie line-up and the entire band came out and did the show in full drag for Mothers Day. Quite an experience when you are 15 y.o....we got grounded for sneaking into NYC and getting back at 3 a.m.but it was worth it.
Found this story on the guy who hired Zappa in the 60s, while searching for the keyboard player's name.
http://www.mercurynews.com/obituaries/ci_22274071/ray-collins-dies-co-founded-zappa-band-mothers