finnishzappatribute

The Finnish Zappa Tribute Band is exactly what it says. Previously named "Music of Frank Zappa", the band changed its name to "Finnish Zappa Tribute Band".

	finnish zappa tribute band: demo (2006, dvdr-promo, finland, private release) - all compositions by frank zappa
	finnish zappa tribute band feat. napoleon murphy brock, denny walley & stanley jason zappa: zappanale 19 (2008, dvdr, germany, private release) - all compositions by frank zappa
	various artists: zappanale 19 (2009, mp3-dvd, ger, arf society) - incl. various artists playing frank zappa compositions

Antti Kivimäki is one of the people behind the Finnish Zappa Tribute Band. As the band will be headlining the Zappanale festival, I asked Antti for some extra info.

The Finnish Zappa Tribute band was actually first called Music of Frank Zappa (we have used a lot of imagination with the names!), and it was founded by our drummer Joni Leino. Joni, me on the bass, Mikko Enqvist on the guitar, Mikael Kakko on keyboards were school mates at the Sibelius High School and we were playing fusion jazz type music during that time( 1999-2001). In the end we got tired of it and we didn't play for a while together. But in 2002 Joni was asked by a bar keeper in Nurmijärvi to assemble a project that would play something different from the mainstream, so he had the idea of putting together a big Frank Zappa tribute band with marimba and horns. He asked us and we all loved the music of Zappa, so we joined with him and started recruiting musicians for the band. Singer Antti Koivula, sax player Petteri Hietamäki, trumpetist Janne Toivonen, trombone player Heikki Tuhkanen were all studying at the same music school as me and Joni, I knew the marimba player Olli Kari from the band Uzva. They were all to be asked first and they were enthusiastic about the idea, so we started working in the fall of 2002. Me, Mikko and Joni selected, transcribed and arranged most of the songs and started rehearsing them and soon we had two sets of material.

We have had only with two gigs, both in the spring of 2003. First one was at Nurmijärvi in a bar called Duetto, the second one was Arabia Hall at Helsinki. Both concerts were recorded, the latter was also filmed and the material can be found at www.youtube.com under the name of Finnish Zappa Tribute. After the concerts we were planning to arrange more gigs, but then Mikael announced that he would go study abroad in Utrecht Netherlands in fall 2003, so the idea was postponed.

In the summer of 2006 I was playing bass in the band Uzva and we were coming to play in Germany, so I decided to take some dvds of our zappa performance and hand them out to promoters etc. I handed out one for Charly, a promoter for Burg-Herzberg festival, who liked our material and recommended us to Wolfhard Kutz (Arf president at the time). Mr. Kutz contacted me later and expressed his interest of wanting to see the dvd. I sent him one and I guess he liked what he saw and booked us for Zappanale 2008.
Nowdays most members of our band are professional musicians and we have been very lucky in getting such good players to our band.

About performing with Napoleon, Denny and Stanley Jason, I don't know who's idea it was, but Thomas Dippel contacted me with the idea this spring. Of course I said yes and he started working on the idea. Now it seems to happen and we are really honoured, hopefully we can fulfill the expections that they seem to have for us.

Me and Olli are also playing with Uzva on Sunday on 11 am. The horn players and Olli are going to perform with Stanley Jason Zappa, I think it's also on Sunday. I'm looking forward of seeing other Zappa cover bands and also other Finnish band Alamaailman Vasarat that I haven't yet seen.

Finnish Zappa Tribute band live @ Arabia-sali, Helsinki(25.3.2004):

Antti Koivula - Vocals
Janne Toivonen - Trumpet
Petteri Hietamäki - Alto sax
Heikki Tuhkanen - Trombone
Olli Kari - Marimba & Vibes
Mikael Kakko - Keyboards
Mikko Enqvist - Guitar
Antti Kivimäki - Bass
Joni Leino - Drums