Zappa live 1978 w/two bassists

[hieronymous]

I started out like Scott Thunes the best, then Tom Fowler. But I think my favorite bassist for Zappa is erroneous - in fact, he is part of the backstory for my own name hieronymous. I also like Jim Pons on "Live at the Fillmore East."

[Barklessdog]

A conversation I can join in. I discovered Zappa when my brother in the army was stationed in Korea during Nam (the war). We discovered his record collection including freak out, we are only in it for the money and captain beef heart fish mask. Quit an awakening for someone in elementary school.We would play them at all different speeds and laugh our arses off. Another funny thing was playing Lumpy Gravy during the old batman TV show with the sound off eating TV dinners on TV trays.

Looking back now, we did some crazy stuff for little kids in the early 70's

My mom caught us playing the records at different speeds and being the good catholic mother, said it was the devil's music and sold his record collection at a garage sale. My brother was discharged, came home and was eternally pissed at us to this day.

[Barklessdog]

I stopped listening to Vai after Passion and Warfare. I saw Zappa at a Halloween concert in Cleveland  with Vai Bozzio and Adrian Belew. They would play for two hours straight without any breaks in the music.

My favorite Zappa bands were the Roxy and Elsewhere and the early Mothers.

[mc2NY]

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

[chromium]

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.

Would that have been Don Preston?

[hieronymous]

Would that have been Don Preston?

Or Bob Harris? Tommy Mars?

[mc2NY]

Or Bob Harris? Tommy Mars?

He did sort of look like an older Don Preston but I am SO terrible on names when I first meet someone that I don't recall.  It was definitely not Mars because I would remember that name...unless that was a stage name and he is back to a real name?  Funny thing is, of all the great playing and singing he did, the only specific song that sticks in my mind was "Don't Stop Believin'" by Journey. Sad...but I think it was because he also nailed the vocals.

LOTS of musicians in my part of "da hood" in New Orleans. I run into some of the Nevilles at the corner deli and I have a world class recording studio right behind my house on the next block, six houses away across from that same deli. So when it is time for a recording break, whoever is in there stops in. Diverse music scene...Little Wayne just took over the penthouse in the new condos they made maybe 1/8 mile down, in a 100+ y.o. rice mill on the Mississippi River...and Fats Domino's house is about 1/8 mile the opposite direction. Lenny Kravitz and Elvis Costello both seem to pop in alot at the local clubs. I have to say it is the ONLY city where a 6' black man with gold teeth, built like a linebacker, can front a band playing a WASHBOARD and have it be cool and pack the club to capacity

[hieronymous]

Finally got to watch the video! Definitely enjoyable playing from Tommy Mars – didn't realize he had such great organ chops!

Dual-bass-solo starts around 8:40. For a second I thought it was FZ on bass! The guy with the moustache is playing a Gibson (Ripper? Grabber? G-3?!!) – I'm assuming it's Arthur Barrow because the other (Fender?) bass sounds fretless which was Patrick O'Hearn's specialty.  Interesting that the slapping is coming from the Gibson.

A conversation I can join in. I discovered Zappa when my brother in the army was stationed in Korea during Nam (the war). We discovered his record collection including freak out, we are only in it for the money and captain beef heart fish mask. Quit an awakening for someone in elementary school.We would play them at all different speeds and laugh our arses off. Another funny thing was playing Lumpy Gravy during the old batman TV show with the sound off eating TV dinners on TV trays.

Looking back now, we did some crazy stuff for little kids in the early 70's

My mom caught us playing the records at different speeds and being the good catholic mother, said it was the devil's music and sold his record collection at a garage sale. My brother was discharged, came home and was eternally pissed at us to this day.

That is a great story, though tragic to hear about the loss of the albums! Would she have considered it devil's music if you had been playing the Monkees or something else at different speeds?

My first exposure to FZ was from a friend of my father's - he was younger than my dad, who was born in 1929 so not the rock'n'roll generation. But this guy played guitar and knew I was interested, so he gave me a cassette tape with the John Mayall's Blues Breakers Beanie album in order to introduce me to Eric Clapton. He told my dad "you might want to censor side 2" but my dad either didn't hear him, didn't take him seriously, or didn't care. It was Frank Zappa Live at the Fillmore East! Corrupted at age 12! I've gone back to that album over and over again in the thirty years since - underneath the comedy is some amazing music (with Jim Pons on bass I believe) including the Willie the Pimp guitar solo, Happy Together, Lonesome Electric Turkey and Peaches en Regalia.

[Barklessdog]

Yeah it was funny how Cleveland top 40 radio used to play Dinomo Hum regularly. So much so you got sick of hearing it. They also used to play Alex Harvey's Gang Bang. Times were very different back then.

I really enjoyed the Zappa Lp with the couch on it, can't remember the name? One size Fits All?

[chromium]

Yeah it was funny how Cleveland top 40 radio used to play Dinomo Hum regularly. So much so you got sick of hearing it. They also used to play Alex Harvey's Gang Bang. Times were very different back then.

I really enjoyed the Zappa Lp with the couch on it, can't remember the name? One size Fits All?

Yep - One Size Fits All

Michael Hedges did a nice acoustic rendition of Sofa #1 off that album:

[Pekka]

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.

Robert "Bobby" Martin perhaps? I don't think he is gay but "white guy, also sang great" fits perfectly. He played in the 80's line-up 'though.

In the seventies he had Eddie Jobson and Peter Wolf too but both were not singers.

[Pekka]

Finally got to watch the video! Definitely enjoyable playing from Tommy Mars – didn't realize he had such great organ chops!

Dual-bass-solo starts around 8:40. For a second I thought it was FZ on bass! The guy with the moustache is playing a Gibson (Ripper? Grabber? G-3?!!) – I'm assuming it's Arthur Barrow because the other (Fender?) bass sounds fretless which was Patrick O'Hearn's specialty.  Interesting that the slapping is coming from the Gibson.

Arthur played a Ripper first and later changed to a Jazz Bass, his parts on "Joe's Garage" definitely sound like a Jazz. O'Hearn plays Jazz here too (not sure if it's a fretless 'though), he used a fretless and fretted Precisions during his "real" stint in the band. "Purple Lagoon" from "Live In New York" contains some excellent soloing from him and there's a great soundboard bootleg from Germany 1978 where the whole band (Zappa, Belew, Mars, Wolf, Mann, Bozzio, O'Hearn) is just excellent.