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Andrew Jones wrote the following
to the affz newsgroup:
If you can¹t be bothered to read this long a post,
you may find the following synopsis is all you need:
Why?: To experience 5 days of Frank Zappa music
with friends
Where: Bad Doberan, Eastern Germany close to the
Baltic coast
Number of CDs bought: 6
Units of alcohol consumed: I wasn¹t paying
attention.
Highlight of festival/ weekend: far too many to
recount
Low point of festival: scheduling of bands on the
last day, sound quality all weekend
Oddest comment of the weekend: Finns telling me
that Welsh looked and sounded strange. Ever seen/ heard Finnish?
People I missed the most over the weekend: Claude,
Alex, Antal and Penny
Biggest improvement over last year¹s Zappanale: a
comfy double bed
Danke: Wolfhard and family, and the Arf Society
Now on with the story......
Thursday 24th July 5 am- a stupidly early time to
start the day, but then I had a made a stupid mistake and booked a late
morning flight from Stansted Airport (located on the wrong side of the
London for those of us living in Cardiff) instead of an early evening
flight. This piece of stupidity was obviously destiny as a few days
after booking, Schroeder told me that rehearsals began at 8pm, Thursday
long before my planned flight would depart for Lubeck. So hurray for
stupidity.
The journey by rail, tube and rail again to
Stansted was tedious but smooth, Stansted Airport was the model of
inefficiency, but hey, the flight was cheaper than my rail fare to get
there. The flight to Germany was enlightened by Ashley Khan¹s book on
the making of Miles Davis¹ Kind of Blue and the passionate antics of
the couple next to me- nice thong......
The flight was followed another train journey from
Lubeck to Bad Doberan, home of the Zappanale. At the Bad Doberan station
I rang Jaan in an attempt to find out where I was going to be staying
that night- you read right, I had travelled 12 and a half hours without
accommodation firmly nailed down. Jaan was somewhat vague when I spoke
to him, suggesting I got something to eat and meet them at the Kamp
Theatre at 8pm , which was 'easy to find', but somehow impossible to
give directions to...
One meal and half an hour of getting hopelessly
lost later, I arrived in a park at 7.55 to be greeted by Schroeder who
remarked he'd thought "You wouldn¹t miss the rehearsal"
but......, I was, of course the last to arrive but it damn good to see
Mike, Jaan, Jenny, Carsten and Jimmy Carl Black.
Rehearsals were in the Arf Society¹s offices- Jaan
and Mike plugged their guitars into a metallic sounding PA, as all the
amps were already at the Festival site. There were Zappanale posters all
around including the poster with "Mike Keneally and Band" (not
Mike Keneally and Friends-sigh) in typeset three times the size of the
other bands. This meant that Mike, Jaan and Schroeder were very much the
headliners and this was reflected in the seriousness of their work. As
this was Zappanale, suggestions had gone back and forth between the band
for Zappa songs, concentrating on songs in the main that were rarely
performed at Zappanale. The aim was to get a set that was roughly 60%
MK, 40% FZ.
There were lots of great moments in the rehearsal
from the teenagers applauding widely from their listening point at the
open window, to Carlo , the guitarist from Scouse Zappa-band the Muffin
Men doing the same later on in the evening, Jenny falling asleep, to be
woken by an impromptu version of Lennon¹s 'I¹m tired' by the
band. Four hours passed quickly and it was then back to the bistro to
hear Jaan sing the correct lyrics of the Finnish tango from the
Helsinki Tapes 'Satumaa' to Napoleon Murphy Brock.
Jaan offered me (and Jenny) use of his hotel room
to crash in for the festival (which was easier than the 5 in a room and
3 in the bed arrangements for Amsterdam). However when he was
informed that he would be staying at the promoters he wasn¹t certain if
we could crash. We needn¹t have worried. Wolfhard(the promoter) and all
associated with the festival are extremely generous people and his house
had a separate annex where normally his teenage daughters lived and
where a number of the guests were housed for the festival. So instead of
crashing in Jaan¹s room I ended up in a double bed of my own over a
lounge fully equipped with a tv, hi-fi, vcd, dvd and comfy sofa. Bliss.
I slept long and deep that night.
The following morning was spent breakfasting with
Jimmy Carl Black and wife (as you do) and generally relaxing in the back
garden making friends with the family dogs. chatting with the bi-lingual
compare Jim Cohen, listening to the chorus of crickets and looking
at the horses.
The band also rehearsed (without amps or drum kit) some more keen
to do the material and themselves justice, furthering refining their
arrangements and starting to consider a set list.
As Zappanale proper began Friday afternoon, we
travelled down to the Festival site. Mike was sitting in with German
band Octafish and went immediately over with band to sort out their
arrangements for the songs he was sitting in with, there was no actual
rehearsal as such.
We had met Octafish backstage at the Karlsrule gig
in March and some of us had formed very definite opinions about
the band. Nice people, but they gave off a ³student band² vibe. Some
of us had used the phrase "well, they had better start rehearsing."
Expectations were not that high, in all honesty.
Well, how wrong can you be?
Very wrong.
(Except the part about them being amazingly nice)
Octafish are an amazingly tight jazz-funk outfit,
playing with commitment, passion and ability. Most of their set was
originals, but they did an incredibly tight Zappa medley with Mike which
they had broken down into how many bars they were to play for each song.
They also did a very good version of "Bulleys (sic)"
And then they persuaded Mike to play with them on
their well deserved encore- their take on "Barbie Girl" at
double speed ska.
They had earned their applause.
Next came up The Jack and Jim Show featuring Eugene
Chadbourne (who arrived 6 hours later than planned) and Jimmy Carl
Black. It took me a while to warm up to the set- one of the perils of
being in the backstage bar with free drink and food- although the banjo
version of Hot Rats was truly insane. Mike jammed with the band- Jimmy
Carl Black was keen that this should happen and then it all came
together with a song (loosely titled) "I Support The Troops, I Love
My Mom and Dad (and now I want a refund)" which really struck home
with lyrics like "I support the troops through my taxes (and now I
want a refund) or least be allowed to decide who they invade".
Classic.
Jaan, Jenny and I went out front for the Muffin Men¹s
set with Ike Willis and Napoleon Murphy Brock. There were some
disadvantages to this.
One was the back stage sound fed from the on- stage sound was much
better than the frequently harsh PA sound, secondly Jaan and Schroeder
were recognised by many lovely people that either we had met on tour or
they had seen the band earlier in the year. The only problem was these
lovely people did have a tendency to go on and on when the music was
playing. Of course, it was great that Schroeder and Jaan were getting
their due props.
You could tell the Muffins were a little nervous-
they weren¹t playing their normal set (that was to come the next day
with JCB) but Carlo was playing some amazing guitar and the Muffins are
a band who know their strengths and weaknesses and play to their
strengths superbly. Great fun.
The evening was rounded off by Australian "party
band" Prawns with Horns who sent the crowd off to bed in a damn
fine mood. They were what the festival needed at that point. We all
eventually got to bed late, some in better condition that others and
slept the sleep of the blessed.
The musicians staying at Wolfhard¹s were all asked
to be ready for breakfast at eleven to be held at the garden table for
the benefit of MDR television. Jenny and I made damn sure we were not
going to take part in this truly absurd venture, in part because we had
no business being there- being non- combatents; and in part it meant the
bathroom was free. I did take some photos of everybody trying to be
natural at the breakfast table while being interviewed with large video
cameras and boom microphones- hey I guess it happens every day......
Then Mike and I grabbed a lift to his guitar clinic
in Schwerin, travelling through the flat beautiful East German
countryside to an Industrial Museum which had a temporary but very
extensive Ibanez guitars exhibit. After a Iraqi lunch- nice bread- Mike
started off with an acoustic set. He had asked for a request of me
before hand- L¹il but I gradually came to the view a 'Desired Effect'
would be lovely which took Mike by surprise especially as it is in an
alternative tuning (how was I supposed to know that?). Then he switched
to electric. The place was packed- all the chairs were taken and people
were standing and sitting all around. A beer was part of entrance
fee- very civilised.
Very few people seemed to know Mike¹s music- some were there for the
Vai connection- an attempt to get people to sing along to the chorus of
'Montana' resulted in a very low volume and tuneless Welshman being the
only one to sing along. But they were prepared to listen and they
clearly loved what they heard. They were also initially shy to ask
questions,that changed to the extent that one 'rock On' roller' in the
audience complained about the amount of talking and got and ironic
dedication to Rosemary Girl for his comments and the clear annoyance of
Pingu the clinic organiser.
This being an Ibanez related event, Mike
demonstrated on an Ibanez guitar how to play part of the Attitude Song
by Steve Vai (the vibrato bar harmonics bit-if that makes any sense) and
explained the challenges faced by him playing Steve¹s music with
shorter fingers than Vai.
It was a fun time and people were impressed. We
then had to move fast to get back for Sheik Yerbouti¹s set which Mike
was guesting. When we reached Zappanale, Mike got immediately called on
stage to jam with the Muffin Men- lured by the offer of playing a Gibson
SG and then onto the Sheik Yerbouti band to finalise arrangements. The
Shiek Yerbouti band
was another full sounding band with a great horn section and a very good
singer. They did a great version of Bamboozled By Love with Mike, with
quotes from Whole Lotta Love and the guitar solo of Stairway to Heaven.
Lots of fun.
Jenny, Jaan and I wandered out in the Festival
grounds, with the sun eating down. Two semi clad men were outstretched
on the ground burning in the sun. So Jenny started rubbing sun block on
their faces and arms as they gradually returned to consciousness. There
are worse ways you can wake up.
I was backstage for most of Dr Dark¹s set which
was dedicated to such amazing accurate Beefheart covers, you feared for
the man¹s voice.
Walking around to the front of stage I found he was dressed exactly like
the Good Captain on the back cover of Trout Mask Replica. Just a little
bit scary...... and we spent a fair amount of time hanging out with the
man afterwards.
Next up was Sex Without Nails Bros¹s musical
production of Joe¹s Garage, which divided people¹s opinions
dramatically. Schroeder was put off by the two introductions in German-
which he felt were patronising and arrogant and also delivered in a
pretty awful Austrian dialect. I think its fair to say his low opinion
was shared by Jaan, Jenny and myself.
Mike on the other hand really enjoyed the staging and the whole
performance. Indeed he was heard remonstrating with Ben Watson backstage
on the performance. Jaan then also asked Ben what he had against Finland
which got a frosty response...... Ben Watson looks exactly like what you¹d
expect a Socialist Workers Party intellectual- jacket, coloured
shirt and glasses- even the body language conformed to cliché. Oddly
enough, Ben and I got on fine, because we both hate London with a
passion...
Saturday ended up with a nod to the locals- Nina
Hagen and Band were meant to headline, but she pulled out the night
before with a ³skin complaint² (make of that what you will), so Philip
Boa, a popular German new-wavish act was brought in at the last moment
and went down a storm with the Germans there- quite a few had come just
to see him- Bad Doberan not being on the regular concert circuit.
After some confusion we got back to the country
house and unwound gradually in the open air preparing ourselves for
sleep and the big day up ahead.
Sunday began with another open air breakfast- no
complaints here- around half eleven and then for Mike and Jaan with
another rehearsal session in the garden. Leaving Jenny to further sleep
off the previous night¹s indulgences we arrived at the racetrack for
Ike Willis and Stu Grimshaw¹s performance ³Der Fremde²- a musical
performance with band and string quartet. It was lovely to hear Ike¹s
voice in a different context than Zappa lyrics, and his Dick Van
Dyke-esqe accent made a change from Thing Fish. The music hit the
spot and I really need to hear n album of this music.
I suppose the fact that we had caught Ike¹s
performance despite arriving late to the Zappanale site should have
alerted us to the fact that things were behind schedule, but that kind
of slipped us by...
Next up was an undoubted highlight of the weekend,
The Paul Green School of rock Music- 23 kids and young adults aged 12-17
playing Zappa music.
There seemed to be three different ensembles with guitarists, bassist,
percussionists, keyboard players and horn sections. Just like a
teacher,Paul Green counted in the songs and ensured each group of
children and young adults were on stage at the right time. If you wanted
to quibble, some of the performances reflected technique over taste, but
the sight of a 12 year playing Vai type solos on a guitar three quarters
his size, or a 15 year old girl belting out ³Keep It Greasy² or the
sheer verve these folks were playing this complex music was joyful. As
the young musicians came off the stage each one of them was applauded by
each of the four ex Zappa musicians and many of the other bands
backstage.
I had met some of the parents backstage over the
weekend. They were as excited as the kids (although it must be said I
saw none of the parents trying to score dope, unlike some of the older
children) to be in Germany- for most it was their first time in Europe
and gushing about the friendliness of all the musicians and how
wonderful the audience was and... and.... It was great to see these
suburban ³soccer moms² take in the whole event.
Next up was a repeat performance by Sex Without
Nails Bros, this time performing without a play and sounding so much the
better for it, and with Napoleon Murphy Brock (who had also sung and
played with the Paul Green Schoolkids). The highlight for me was sitting
in the shade out front with Jaan and Jenny and her Chinese meal
listening to Uncle Remus.
Halfway through the set we decamped backstage to prepare for the
upcoming performance. I was shooting the video stage right for the band
and I was getting ever so slightly nervous. Jaan replaced all the
batteries in his pedals to ensure they would work, I fiddled around with
video equipment, Jenny decided she was so nervous she¹d go out up
front.
It was a glorious summer festival early
evening, with sunlight streaming on the stage. After a brief and very
public soundcheck, Jim Cohen introduced the band and they went into ³My
Dilemma². The setlist has been worked upon over the weekend, Jaan and
Schroeder wanted the comfort of a set list to diverge from (no-one was
really expecting the setlist to be precisely adhered to, but they wanted
to have an idea where the Zappa songs were coming up). My Dilemma was
chosen as the opener as it was a song the band were confident about,
rather than opening with ³You Probably Wondering Why I¹m Here² which
appealed to everybody¹s sense of humour. My Dilemma, of course,
includes a bass solo, which Mike improvised a keyboard part around- no
playing safe just because it was a large audience.
Mike did a short off the cuff speech on Frank in
his life and on the weekend, and then it was into the first FZ
song of the night with ³You Probably Wondering Why I¹m Here², played
at aggressive speed. Following that, the song pretty much played at
every European show this year- ³We¹ll Be Right Back² with Mike taking
a guitar solo on the catwalk on the stage to the crowd¹s delight.
Backwards Deb was introduced as a ³rock song² and this time Jaan and
Mike went on the catwalk in true big rock show fashion- the crowd
responded accordingly and you could see what was going to happen next-
they got carried away grandstanding to the crowd and Mike had to run
back to the microphone to sing the next verse- hey it made me grin from
ear to ear....
The band wanted to avoid the traditional Zappanale
issue- that is by the end of the weekend you¹ve heard 7 different takes
on ³Stick It Out², so they wanted to do songs which could be played
well by a 3 piece and were rarely performed. So ³Cucamonga² came up
next to the crowd¹s surprise and delight and Ike wandered on stage (as
he is wont to do at Zappanale- no invitation necessary it seems) to add
backing vocals. Ike stayed on stage playing pretty inaudible keyboards
to ³Day of the Cow².
After ³Day of the Cow², things turned weird- Ike
decided to stay on stage and continue to play keyboards. Now Ike has
many strengths as a musician, he¹s an amazing vocalist, he¹¹s
developed as a guitarist since the Zappa band days, but he can¹t
improvise sensitively on keyboards to save his life, especially on a
delicate song like ³5 Legs² which he clearly didn¹t know, and the
song just died, which saddened me no end.
This band had always played the song beautifully on stage- it was the
turning point at the first gig in Helsinki when the band came together-
but here in Bad Doberan Mike just had to abandon it and move into an
aggressive solo and then into a medley of four Frank Zappa songs
OSleeping in a Jar> Time is Money> Wind Up Working in a Gas
Station> Yo Mama (the latter with particularly lovely backing vocals
from Ike- who was still on stage at the keyboard- and Jaan, when he
worked out his new harmony part). The songs were approached aggressively
to recover from the uncertainty that 5 Legs had caused.
Ike left the stage after Mike decided to deviate
from the set and play at the keyboards for 2 unrehearsed songs- ³Joe²-
an audience request; and ³I Was Not Ready for You² which mutated into
a prog jam with hysterical mock prog narration.
And then things got frustrating strange again. The
stage manager announced to Mike¹s surprise that he had five minutes
left. Mike consulted with Jim Cohen who advised him, that the only way
to have the grand finale jam session was to wrap the concert up with the
next song. The previous nights concerts had gone on past 1 am, but there
was a strict curfew of 10pm for Sunday night and the concert organisers
had failled to ensure that the previous bands sets had been
kept to schedule or trimmed to accommodate the headliners. Mike had
written out a set for 1 and half hours (which was nearer 2 hours long in
truth) and no he had to make an immediate decision which song was to
bring the set to an abrupt end. Mike choose Skull Bubbles and invited
Gabe, a young (and some might say ³cute²) American up on stage to ³fuck
some shit up².
Gabe had demonstrated his skills at scratching without a DJ deck the
night before to a few of us. In all honesty I had been unimpressed, but
damnit on stage during Skull Bubbles, Gabe starting off with ³I hear
you¹ve been having trouble with pigs and ponies² and scratching away
vocally entertained me and everybody else present mightily.
Mike was keen for the jam session to take place,
asking for Paul Green, Eugene Chadbourne and others to come up on stage.
While people were setting up, Mike went into ³Taster² which ended the
set proper.
I had real mixed feelings: after the 4 FZ songs,
the set list looked like this originally:
Father¹s Day (chosen because lyrically it was
about acceptance following some judgemental FZ songs)
Blameless
What Happened Next
Uglytown
Skull Bubbles
Top of Stove Melting
Inca Discharge (Inca Roads with about 3 minutes of ³The Jazz Discharge
Party Hats²)
But that didn¹t happen.
The end jam session - based around ³Black Napkins²
and a blues song was as chaotic as event as you would expect - the stage
filled up with musicians and Mike acted as MC for the soloists. Jaan got
replaced as bassist by one of the older Paul Green school females who
more than held her own and much dancing took place.
After the finale, we met up surrounded by people
such as the Muffin Men raving about the performance and with the
exception of Mike (who always concentrates on making the best of
whatever happens on stage and whether you communicate with the audience
or not), people felt a little deflated, I felt a bit disconnected from
it all- the performance¹s
potential wasn¹t achieved and yet people loved it.
Then we had a few drinks and unwound- people had
been admiring Jaan¹s bass and he allowed people to have a go at playing
it. Sami (the luthier, guitarist and composer)¹s contact details were
spread around.
Then we had a few more drinks.....
We had fun backstage and eventually made our way
back to Wolfhard¹s where Jaan and I greeted the dawn with some mad
photos and went to sleep in the sun¹s rays, it felt so good to be
alive.....
I surfaced for breakfast at midday joining Ike
Willis around the breakfast table. Ike was supposed to be on a plane
bound for Prague, but according to Ike the lift failled to arrive.
Luckily the gig in Prague was scheduled for the next day and a delighted
fan gave him a lift to Berlin. Once he left, a number of people remarked
how difficult it could be to wake Ike and how reliable the people that
were supposed to pick him up at 6am were.
Schroeder and Carsten arrived partly to say
good-bye before the long journey back to Freiburg and also to collect
the gig money. Others began to wake up for a lazy sunny day in the back
garden. Loose plans to wander down to the beach were gently abandoned in
favour of gentle conversation and laughter in the sun. Mike surprised us
all by having a short go on the trampoline, to much merriment from all
present. Napoleon Murphy Brock told us stories
Schroeder and Carsten left at around 4, keeping the
goodbyes as short as possible. Napoleon departed giving us all a hug and
then it was time for dinner. Jaan, Jenny and I went into Bad Doberan for
an Italian meal with Zappo, a character in the world of German Zappa
fans and dealers. He showed his photos of Mike and Napoleon¹s concert
in Sweden, talked about
the weekend and Zappa and general, but was otherwise was fairly quiet
due to tiredness.
We wandered over to Kamp Theatre, met the singer
for Dr Dark in search of the rest of his band and then went back to the
house for a barbecue.
We got talking with one of Wolfhard¹s daughters (whose name eludes me-
sorry) about her taste in music, played Radiohead, Tim Buckley on the
stereo, and watched Jaan and Jenny trampoline to the sound of ³Song 2²
by Blur.
It was an early night for me as I was travelling
back home early in the morning, so I was packing at 2.30 am. One bonus
of the trip home was that Jenny was off to Dublin visiting a friend via
Stansted Airport, so I had company for most of the way.
Waking Jaan with the magic word Jenny taught me
(and which must remain a secret for now), Jenny and I quickly said
goodbye to Jaan. The thought of waking Jaan up by rubbing sun-block on
his face occurred to me, but there are better ways to wake up and I
decided against it...
After a quick breakfast, Jenny and I were given a
lift to the train station, by our friends the Zappanale organisers. We
arrived in good time, then realised we were standing on the wrong
platform two minutes before the train was due to depart, so rucksacks on
our backs we raced for the train.
The train journey involving 2 changes was
commendably efficient with one exception. As we found out it was
possible to make a two hour journey for a mere 3.50 euros, which might
explain why the German state is bankrupt. The journey was a mixture of
sleep, gossip, song quotes and making silly jokes about the martial
music played before each station announcement. We certainly got some
stares from some of the Germans on board.
We arrived at Lubeck, had a drink and soup at
Turkish bar, whose staff were convinced I was totally henpecked by
Jenny- hey I¹m not proud- and then we took the bus to the Airport.
Lubeck Airport is small and totally devoid of effective
air-conditioning. This called for more drinks.......
Finally we got on board and I noticed the amorous
couple from my flight out were two rows in front of us. They both seemed
rather tired and the woman rested her head on his lap- well in fact all
you could see was this mass of long blonde hair over his crotch....
Jenny spotted some Barbie items for sale in the
Ryanair catalogue which she just had to have, so we burst into the
chorus of ³Barbie Girl² to celebrate. The man in the row in front of
us turned around and asked ³Octafish?². Turns out he had been at
Zappanale and the older couple next to him were from Bad Doberan. Small
world after all.
We arrived in Stansted to rainclouds and Jenny and
I parted after Customs- long goodbyes add nothing to the experience.
The train journeys back home to Cardiff passed
without real incident- it was of course raining when I got home, which
told me the weekend away was the right thing to do.
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Conducted
by Nicholas Kok
