Jeff Berlin fired by Frank Zappa

[jerry]

How on earth did those two bands end up on the same bill? Talk about opposite ends of the spectrum!

*warning....back-in-my-day-old-guy-content*
The first time I saw MO they were opening for a rock band that I can't remember at the moment. In those days concert bills were a little more eclectic than they became in the latter 70's. Bill Graham loved to mix jazz and rock bands at his Fillmore shows. Music started can really polarized towards the end of the 70's, I remember going to concerts that were in 1500-3000 seat halls that were great! As concerts got bigger, people got a lot more stupid [throwing cherry bombs at the stage etc], about that time I discovered the beauty of seeing stellar jazz in small NYC clubs.

 

[mvw356]

i don't know zappa or berlin, but judging by the info available on both of them from the net, they were/are opinionated people. they were bound to clash so i wouldn't put too much importance on the specifics as to why they split.

 

[Baryonyx]

Probably fired him for being just another Jaco impersonator...

I sure hope he doesn't see that statement or miss the mild irony in it...

 

[Barkless Dog]

Zappa Crappa or Uncle Meat?

 

[prattguy]

Interesting, though I never thought Zappa would sink to such thinly veiled cheap shots and jealous pettiness. Though perhaps it's just that he didn't really understand John McLaughlin, being such a fierce, passionate and jazzy player!

Jealous?

ZAPPA???

You make me laugh. You´re young aren´t you?

 

[zombywoof5050]

...and vice versa. You may find this interesting:

It is in the Interview called "One Size Fits All (1977) and is in the Miller Freedman's A Definitive Tribute to Frank Zappa.

Steve Rosen: What about the contemporary heavies, like Jeff Beck or John McLaughlin?

Frank Zappa: I like Jeff, yeah. I've listened to "Wired" [Epic], and there are a couple of solos on there that I like. And I like some of his stuff on "Rough and Ready" [Epic]..

I remember that interview, but there was also another interview (I don't know whether it happened before or after the one you quoted above) where Frank said "Jeff Beck is one of my favorite guitarists on the planet".

Regarding the deal when the band broke up because of all the bashing against Scott Thunes...
I had read that Mike Kenneally was not in on the bashing and that thereafter both Kenneally and Thunes remained on FZ's payroll up until Frank died.

 

[zombywoof5050]

Interesting, though I never thought Zappa would sink to such thinly veiled cheap shots and jealous pettiness. Though perhaps it's just that he didn't really understand John McLaughlin, being such a fierce, passionate and jazzy player!

There was an interview where the guy was asking Frank about a lot of different guitarists, and Frank didn't have much good to say about any of them, except for a very few like Jeff Beck and Johnny Guitar Watson. For instance, when asked what he thought of Jimi Hendrix, Frank simply said "now there's a guitarist that shouldn't do drugs", and he said the same about Eric Clapton too. He was just being Frank.

 

[phxlbrmpf]

For instance, when asked what he thought of Jimi Hendrix, Frank simply said "now there's a guitarist that shouldn't do drugs", and he said the same about Eric Clapton too.

Haha, that's classic, good ol' Frank!

Waitaminute, does that mean, all other guitar players should do drugs?

 

[zombywoof5050]

How on earth did those two bands end up on the same bill? Talk about opposite ends of the spectrum!

Back around 1978 I saw Weather Report open for Johnny Winter!

 

[Blister]

Giving Berlin a raise would surely cause fights with the other members

 

[lambro]

you younger cats that never grew up around a rotary phone need to assess the flow of Franks music in context to the times it was created

imagine hearing a cut off Apostrophe on the radio...when it came out, unreal

the safety of todays media and the underdevelopment of 2 decades of musicians has insured more crap on the way

problem is the younger generations are weened on the uninventive crap and they develop a belief that that form has importance....It dont

SHUUUUUUUNT

 

[J.D.B.]

NOW we're getting somewhere! FZ has always been closely connected to his time. This is not to say that he didn't create a few "timeless" works. Ther was always a very current context around much of the stuff with lyrics. God, I really miss him(warts and all). Threads like this really bring it home to me. There was a lot I agreed with FZ (still do really) since growing up listening to all the FZ there was.
Josh

 

[KrisH]

"Grand Wazoo" was my favorite Zappa album earlier on -- just music. My uncle (who was a jazz drummer) characterized it as "like that experimental stuff Woody Herman was doing . . ."

I got my earful of Zappa live at Carnegie Mellon University gymnasium in Pittsburgh, 1973. "Amazing" Kathy Dalton opened for him, and he took forever between acts getting the sound system set up. After having Dalton records tossed at them from the rafters (a promotion), the crowd began getting testy and rowdy, and Zappa announced, "We can do it right and give you a good show, or doing it half-assed and give you crap."

The show was worth the wait. The things I remember being most impressed by were (1) Ruth Underwood running around her percussion section like a maniac on speed just to keep all her parts coming along, and (2) how FZ directed the band -- such as indicating a swell with an underhanded reverse arm swoop, like catching a fireball. Well, I was young. And there was lots of "recreational stimulant" floating around the venue.

 

[Oric]

Now, is the quote attributed to Zappa about bassists being failed guitarist true? if it is, he's on my ****list.

 

[cowsgomoo]

For instance, when asked what he thought of Jimi Hendrix, Frank simply said "now there's a guitarist that shouldn't do drugs".

let's face it, he had a point... in Jimi's case, doing drugs didn't appear to turn out especially well for him one night in September 1970

having said that, to be fair, Zappa also praised Hendrix's guitar playing on many, many occasions

and from time to time Zappa also proudly played his 'Hendrix Strat' on tour during the 1980's (the one Hendrix burnt at the Miami Pop festival in 1968).. FZ ascribed especially potent tonal/feedback inducing qualities to this particular instrument, and was clearly happy to channel Jimi through it

I'd say Zappa's praise for Hendrix throughout the years was about as far as he'd ever go to praise anyone, being the uber-iconoclast he was

 

[cowsgomoo]

Now, is the quote attributed to Zappa about bassists being failed guitarist true? if it is, he's on my ****list.

no, he never said that.. and would never say anything so stupid... he valued bass players as much as an other musicians... the bass player after all is the guy you most interact with during your 10 minute guitar solo

people attribute all kinds of stupid quotations to Frank Zappa, just like they do to Groucho Marx... often they're not true

anyway, FZ is dead.. putting him on your 'shitlist' won't worry him too much

 

[Baryonyx]

Back around 1978 I saw Weather Report open for Johnny Winter!

I'd go to see that and stroll out after the opener!

 

[Oric]

no, he never said that.. and would never say anything so stupid... he valued bass players as much as an other musicians... the bass player after all is the guy you most interact with during your 10 minute guitar solo

people attribute all kinds of stupid quotations to Frank Zappa, just like they do to Groucho Marx... often they're not true

anyway, FZ is dead.. putting him on your 'shitlist' won't worry him too much

Thanks for clearing that up. I know it wouldn't bother him, he doesn't seem the type to really care what people think, just like Miles Davis. I just admire his audacity and musical genius a lot, and wouldn't want to think lower of him because of that. And the best guitarists are the ones who respect and value the bass player and understand their role.

 

[dcr]

I want a nasty little jewish princess

Or how about a Gobblin' Girl from a Mystery World?



dcr

 

[Barkless Dog]

If anything Zappa was a selfless musician who pushed players and compositions, sometimes sitting out during whole sections or conducting, while people like Steve Via, Adrian Belew, George Duke stood in the spot light.

He frequently let other guitarist handle the guitar spot light, singers have the singing spot light. He was as selfless as a band leader as they come. He made no bones he was the boss, you work for Frank and he pushed you 110%. But he would look at musicians gifts or talents and write music to exploit and show case it- the Black Page Drum solo is example. Adrian Belew could not read music, but Zappa worked around that.

No Frank was not perfect, but I believe Frank was very fair.

http://idiotbastard.com/Interviews/TerryBozzio.htm

IB: Your time with Frank was during the Warner Bros lawsuit. I guess there was lots of rehearsing and experimentation going on – what songs do you particularly remember from that period?

TB: From that period? I remember when Frank went through the lawsuit thing, he said he might not be able to pay us. We all said we we’re willing to hang for a few months as long as the savings held out in the hopes that things would get better. And Frank was really depressed in that time. It was just me and Patrick O’Hearn and Eddie Jobson. And I was gonna be the sort of lead singer, and do the stuff that Napoleon did. It was a very strange time, you know. And then he got Ray White – we auditioned lots of singers. I remember doing ‘Pound For A Brown’, er….oh God, ‘The Torture Never Stops’…

He payed his musicians out of his own pocket.

IB: I’ve got to talk about the ‘Black Page’ – he said that he wrote that because you were such a talented drummer and he knew you would be able to play it. Could you tell me a little about how you learnt it?

TB: Well, basically he walked in and he said, “What do you think about this, Bozzio?” And I said “Wow, Frank. I’m impressed.” He wrote it because we had done this 40-piece orchestra gig together.

IB: The Abnuceals Orchestra?

TB: Yeah. And he was always hearing the studio musicians in LA that he was using on that talking about the fear of going into sessions some morning and being faced with ‘the black page’. So he decided to write his ‘Black Page’. Then he gave it to me, and I could play parts of it right away. But it wasn’t a pressure thing, it just sat on my music stand and for about 15 minutes every day for 2 weeks before we would rehearse I would work on it. And after 2 weeks I had it together and I played it for him. And he said, “Great!” took it home, wrote the melody and the chord changes, brought it back in. And we all started playing it.

IB: There’s a similar piece called ‘Mo’s Vacation’, which you’ve described as ‘Ten Black Pages’. Did you actually play that live?

TB: That was sort of what made ‘The Back Page’ obsolete. You know, it was like ‘The Black Page’, but more of it! I always say with Zappa that the level of difficulty just doesn’t get any worse, it’s just like more of it to memorize and stuff. But ‘Mo’s Vacation’ had some really hard stuff in it as well.

People should not be jumping to conclusions a certainly not forming a Zappa lynch mob.


Zappa was not an egomaniac, he was not abusive, he was not in it for the money. His interest strictly was to explore music and try to eek out a living at it.