Zappanale:The Ultimate Music Festival

After a long journey from Brecon to Bad Doberan, the first delight was the exposition on Jimmy Carl Black near the ‘Arf Society’ office. Featuring a huge collage of album covers, a video installation and several of his sculptures, the event provided a thoughtful start to this year’s festival. Having sadly died last year, the affection that Jimmy is held in was really touching, and as this was my first Zappanale, a genuine surprise. It is fantastic how ex FZ alumni are given the respect they deserve during these three days, a factor that must be responsible for the growing numbers of ex players’ attending. After leaving the exhibition (which also featured some fabulous Zappa influenced art work from Helmut King), my first musical experience was the ‘Paul Green School of Rock’ at Kamp Bad Doberan. This ‘Rolling Stones’ influenced gig led me to speculate why the UK or indeed other European counties don’t have a similar widening participation venture, where any young person can begin to learn the important repertoire of the popular music canon. Any project that can encourage young musicians to play Zappa’s music (which they did on day 2 of the official festival) has to be paid a great deal of respect. Food for thought when I get back to university. It is apparent that Zappa’s bust, which adorns the town, is small in size, but large in significance, as the freedom inherent in his music is somehow captured in the broad smile that adorns its face. This freedom was of course something the East German people did not enjoy until the demise of the Berlin Wall in November 89, a factor that makes this festival and Zappa’s joyful disposition all the more meaningful.

On day one, on the ‘main stage’ campus, ‘Captain Cheesbeard and the Children of Prevention’s’ outstanding contribution set the standards for the rest of the festival, with a line up mainly reminiscent of the 74 Roxy era. In addition to numerous faithful renditions of Zappa’s catalogue, they also performed their own arrangements of tracks like ‘City of Tiny Lights’ and ‘Outside Now’ – very impressive. This playful adaptation of Zappas’s music was continued with ‘Jazzproject Hundehagen’s’ reggae version of ‘Muffin Man’. Brilliantly fronted by their guitarist leader, they also played 2 amazingly accurate Mahavishnu Orchestra pieces, with  the violin giving the Zappa arrangements an interesting edge, while also authenticating the Mahavishnu pieces. For me, the first day was highlighted by a brilliant Steve Hillage set that reminded me, like Zappa, how original he is as a guitarist, a factor that seems to be lost with many of today’s generation of virtuosos. I was lucky enough to interview him after the gig, where we had the opportunity to discuss topics such as the importance of ‘Hot Rats’ to his musical development (in particularly ‘It Must Be A Camel’ – which he sung note for note) and how Zappa’s comparing of the first Gong gig in 1969 gave the festival special significance. More on this later. A penultimate highlight of day 1 was ‘Project Object’, an American band coordinated by Andre Cholmondeley and this year featuring alumni such as Ike Willis, Don Preston, Denny Walley, and Bobby Martin. The availability of these musicians provides another dimension to the festival, as it engrains a dimension of authenticity that can only come from ex side men. To see these musicians playing with local musicians in particular was a real delight and is a process reminiscent of the practice of established American jazz musicians ‘spreading the word’ when performing with local musicians across Europe. A process that is still common today.

Day 2 commenced with a fascinating discussion on ‘Billy The Mountain’ by Jim Cohen followed by an interview with myself at the ‘Kamptheater’ in Bad Doberan, enabling me to discuss some of my research at Zappanale for the first time. This was followed by a visit to Warnemunde Beach near Rostock, one of several in the area and a great way to give family members some ‘Zappa respite’! Even returning to the campus at 6.30 enabled me to catch three fantastic sets. The first by ‘Sheik Yerbouti’, who periodically featured Napoleon Murphy Brock, Bobby Martin and Danny Walley. This set was punctuated by another moving tribute to ‘The Indian in the Group’ – Jimmy Carl Black. Throughout the festival his presence was tangible, and the 30 second silence was adhered to by the majority of those attending. This was followed by the amazing Gong, celebrating 40 years together, and the first band I ever saw live as a young boy in the mid 70′s – a gig that changed my perceptions of music forever. The day was completed by ‘Sex Without Nails Bros’, in a set that featured more outstanding musicianship and a genuine snapshot of what a real Zappa gig may have sounded like live. This is of course something that would be lost forever if it were not for Zappanale and some of the incredible acts that have performed here over the last 20 years.

Like several other performances throughout the festival, ‘The Grande Mothers’ set from the final day featured ex alumni from incongruent generations, a ‘conceptual continuity’ gesture that I am sure Zappa would have approved of.  As this band have been performing in various guises for the best part of 30 years, they have a special aura about them, with two of the early Mothers Of Invention line up (Don Preston and Roy Estrada) indicating real lineage. The final day finished with a fabulous Terry Bozio set, who was later inaugurated as an honoree member of the Arf Society.
All in all, this initial Zappanale represents by far the best music festival I have ever been to, and it was a real honor to be asked to contribute in the very small way I did. In addition to the events outlined above, this year also offered an opportunity to rub shoulders with ‘The Amazing Mr Bickford’, who was working on clay models in front of my eyes!  God willing, I hope this will be the first of many visits, where in addition to checking out more music and speaking to likeminded colleagues, I will have the opportunity to live in ‘Zappa Land’ for three days – can’t wait until next year.

PS: As an added bonus, I bolted a visit to Berlin onto the end of my trip, and managed to find time to visit Frank Zappa Strasse – a street in the east part of the city named after the man himself.  The site is a council block tenement and houses one of the largest rehearsal spaces in Europe. Well worth a visit for the enthusiasts amongst you.

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An Autocratic Approach to Music Copyright?: The potential negative impacts of restrictive rights on a composers legacy – The case of the Zappa Family Trust.

Here is the abstract of a paper I am preparing for a conference (somewhere). Let me know if you require any details about it.

Since the death of Frank Zappa in 1993, there has been an ongoing legal battle between the Zappa Family Trust (ZFT) and the so called ‘tribute bands’ that are determined to continue translating his music through live and recorded mediums. It could be argued that these ensembles effectively not only pay direct homage to Zappa’s legacy by interpreting his music in numerous innovative ways, but also keep his memory alive by interfacing with both his long standing audience, and with a younger generation who may not be aware of his music. The most famous of the rock based ensembles is entitled Zappa Plays Zappa and has the unusual credit of being ‘legally’ sanctified to perform his music live. This legality is no coincidence, as the band is headed by Zappa’s eldest son Dweezil and features the ‘Vault Master’ responsible for compiling the legal recordings heralding from the ZFT – Joe Travers on drums. After outlining the means through which Zappa consistently translated and adapted his own and other composers’ work over his 27 years in the public eye, this paper will explore how and why such a diverse range of bands and ensembles are so intent on continuing to experiment with his music, despite the legal challenges outlined above. This paper will subsequently examine the various philosophical, legal and industrial factors behind why the ZFT, an organization who have contributed so much to Zappa’s legacy over the last 15 years, seem intent on selectively prohibiting recorded and in particular live performance of his music, followed by a conclusory discussion of the cultural impact of this stance in the light of the supreme irony that Zappa was himself someone who ‘borrowed heavily’ from his diverse influences such as Surf Music, Do Wop and Chicago Blues, in addition to ‘serious’ composers such as Stravinsky, Stockhausen and his childhood hero – Edgard Varèse.

 

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An Autocratic Approach to Music Copyright?:A Frank Zappa case study

I have been aware for a number of years that there has been a legal battle between Gail Zappa, head of the ‘Zappa Family Trust’, and the so called ‘tribute’ bands that are determined to continue performing his music live. As some of you may know, there are numerous Frank Zappa tribute bands on the circuit at the moment that not only pay homage to Zappa, but also keep his memory alive. This is achieved by not only appeasing his current fans’ appetite of listening to this fantastic music live, but by spreading the word to a younger generation who are simply not aware of him. The most famous of these bands is called ‘Zappa Plays Zappa, and has the unusual credit of being legally sanctified to perform the great man’s music. This legality of course is no coincidence, as the band is headed up by Zappa’s son Dweezil (on guitar), and features the ‘Vault Master’ responsible for compiling all of the legal releases heralding from the Zappa Family Trust – Joe Travers on drums. The work that the Zappa Family Trust has implemented over the last 14 years deserves great respect, as it has unearthed numerous recordings that would otherwise not have been available to the general public. This is a laborious labor of love, and it is important that this process is quality controlled to avoid posthumous substandard releases that are associated with artists such as Jimi Hendrix for example. However, although I agree that copyright control of recorded music needs to be very carefully controlled, it is a different matter with live music. Bands such as Project/Object, The Muffin Men, Ugly Radio Rebellion, Bogus Pomp (which features guests such as Napoleon Murphy Brock and Jimmy Carl Black),The Band From Utopia, Frank Zappa Memorial Pancake Breakfast (amazing Finish band), The Zappatistas (UK) and a host of others have all performed Zappa’s music with great aplomb over many years. Indeed many of these artists come together to celebrate Zappa’s music at the Zappanale festival in Bad Doberan, Germany, which has itself been subject to the Zappa Family Trust’s legal force.  Earlier this year, I was lucky enough to witness an excellent Zappa tribute band in Cardiff called ‘The Grandmothers Of Invention‘. This band featured as far as I am concerned some of the legendary musicians who played with Zappa during the 1960′s – 1970′s, including Don Preston on Keyboards, Roy Estrada on bass (both of whom played on Zappa’s first album ‘Freak Out’), and Napoleon Murphy Brock on vocals on Saxophone. This was a fabulous opportunity for someone such as myself, who never saw Zappa live, and more importantly was too young when these musicians played with Zappa in the 60′s – early 70′s. The irony of the Zappa Family Trust’s attempt to ban bands from performing Zappa’s music is that fact that Zappa was a keen protagonist of linking current ‘projects’ with past ‘objects‘ and to me many of these cover bands represent a perfect representation of what he entitled ‘conceptual continuity” . Zappa used this process to continuously reshape his past compositional portfolio, even using it to ‘virtually’ create utopian concerts and performances that included the best aspects of various gigs, songs and recordings over the years (Check out the ”You Can’t Do That On Stage Anymore’ series for an example of this). This process however also involved Zappa using aspects of other composers’ music. For an example of this process in a single song, listen to ‘Wipe Out’ (2.54), Nite Owl (3.38) and allusions to The Beatles Sergeant Peppers (2.00) on the title track of “Joe’s Garage”. On the same album we can hear Richard Strauss’s ‘Also Sprach Zarathustra’ (2.33) and his own ‘Mo ‘n Herbs Vacation’ (2.11) in ‘Fembot in a Wet T Shirt’ . Zappa labeled some of these extracts ‘Archetypal American Musical Icons’, and would use them as a means to get audiences to associate his music and live performances with the cultural memories associated with these works. I therefore find it difficult to believe that Zappa himself would advocate the hard-line approach his trusties are imposing on the very musicians who are attempting to honor him.

I read an article with Dweezel recently that almost seemed to claim that musicians’ outside of the ‘circle of trust’ were not capable of understanding the intricacies of Zappa’s music, and for this reason should refrain from playing it. As alluded above, this is a process that Zappa implemented to great aplomb, his music being a mixture of Do wop, Varese, Stravinsky, Musique concrète, big band jazz (although he would never admit it), rock, as well as non musical influences such as Spike Jones, cheap science fiction movies, Amos and Andy, etc etc.

Dweezel stated: “Frank’s music is much more like classical compositions than standard rock fare, The cover bands that attempt to do it don’t do it well because they’re changing things in the music to avoid the difficult parts. Most guitar players have a pattern-oriented mentality, and there’s nothing about Frank’s music that is pattern-oriented. It’s really hard to learn, especially if you’re learning things on guitar that were never meant to be played on guitar, like ‘Inca Roads’ and ‘St. Alfonzo’s Pancake Breakfast,’ things that were written to be played on marimba and keyboards, instruments that are laid out very differently than guitar. It required a complete physical transformation in terms of what I was capable of. I had to change my picking technique. It’s sort of like training for the Olympics.”

Performing Zappa’s music proficiently is indeed equivalent to competing at an Olympic games, but to me this statement represents a patronising slant on what many of these tribute bands are attempting to do. How would Zappa himself have learnt his trade if his heroes Varese and Stravinsky had asked him to stop appropriating their music into the popular music canon? How can musical ability and indeed our culture grow if we are not allowed to experience from the inside what the great masters have already done? Zappa was outspoken about this very process, as typified by the Central Scrutinizer character in “Joes Garage”. His much publicised confrontation with the ‘Parents Music Resource Centre’ also allude to his disdain for government control over musical content. It seems to me that The Zappa Family Trust is attempting to implement precisely what Zappa despised, and in doing so doing his memory a disservice.

After the result of a legal battle in the late 1970’s (I think), Zappa’s music ceased to be covered by ASCAP/BMI blanket licensing (the equivalent to the UK’s PRS/MCPS). Does this mean they can forbid other people performing their music? I ask this because I don’t know what the legal position is. I am a PRS member, but how could I stop other people playing cover versions of my music I have not registered? More importantly – would I want to? As opposed to attempting to sue these well intending venues and artists, is it not more appropriate to attempt a more amicable approach, possibly by investigating ways that live performance publishing royalties can be secured through independent publishing means? Indeed I would be really interested if anyone has examples of this procedure in practice. Alternatively, is this just a consequence of independent publishing??

There is an on-line petition for anyone interested in opposing this autocratic approach to music publishing. It can be found at http://www.PetitionOnline.com/ZFT/

- I suggest you sign it.

PS: For other excellent blogs about this subject area – please refer here and here

For a list of other bands playing Zappa’s music, please refer here.

Also check out the legal ‘jam band’ album tribute to Zappa here

Other tribute albums: Strictly Off Limits – Music Of Frank Zappa & Tommy Fortman

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