Author: Peter Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Ljubljana / CUK Kino Šiška / Slovenia
Concert date: 26.11.2014
Attendance: 200
Ticket price: €18.00
When Frank Zappa left this earthly existence in 1993 and headed off to ‘atheist heaven’, he left behind a magnificent musical legacy, and more than twenty years after his death there’s still no end in sight, especially when it comes to previously unreleased works and rare live recordings. Performing and playing his music ‘live’ has turned into a very special story of its own in that time. The only truly high-quality group (besides The Grande Mothers Re:Invented and the Zappa Plays Zappa project run by his two sons) that has been playing his early classics, with occasional breaks, since the early eighties is The Grandmothers of Invention. They play some of the most distinctive Zappa classics from the late sixties and early seventies, that is, from the era when Frank worked with his backing band The Mothers of Invention.
Their live repertoire features assorted evergreens as well as some lesser-known pieces from early Zappa albums like »Freak Out«, »Absoultely Free«, »We’re Only In It For The Money«, »Crusing With Ruben And The Jets«, »Lumpy Gravy«, »Uncle Meat«, »Hot Rats«, »Burnt Weeny Sandwich«, »Weasels Ripped My Flesh«. »Chunga’s Revenge«, »Waka/Jawaka«, »The Grand Wazoo«, »Over-Nite Sensation«, »Apostrophe«, »Bongo Fury« and »One Size Fits It All«.
You could say The Grandmothers of Invention are the one true successor to Frank’s cult backing band The Mothers Of Invention, which was officially disbanded in 1975. The group was originally made up mostly of original members led by keyboard master Don Preston, who also handles the occasional vocal duty. After a few lineup changes, the band now includes, besides Preston, reed player/vocalist Bunk Gardner, yet another original Mother, bassist Dave Parlato, who worked with Frank in the first half of the seventies, drummer/vocalist Christopher Garcia, who replaced the late Jimmy Carl Black, and the young guitar virtuoso ‘Mad’ Max Kutner.
The latter is a special chapter all on his own and has earned the nickname ‘Mad Max’ fair and square. His supersonic, out-of-this-dimension guitar playing is on par with some of the greatest virtuosos of the instrument, which is only fitting for the instrumental stand-in for the one and only Frank Zappa. The lineup that visited Kino Šiška on the current tour had, besides the two old cats Preston and Gardner, ‘Mad’ Max and Garcia, Eric Klerks on bass in place of the absent Parlato, which had no far-reaching effect on the band’s sound. The sound was incredibly authentic all evening long at Kino Šiška, with remarkable tightness and no major slip-ups, while some of the classics got minimal updates.
From a band like the Grandmothers, you also expect a heaping helping of tomfoolery, political incorrectness and absurdity during the breaks and the banter with the crowd. I have to admit they didn’t disappoint on that front either, and the hall shook with laughter more than once, since all the band members are big jokers, Preston and Gardner especially.
The Grandmothers opened the show with a short, witty address to the crowd, which turned out in bigger numbers than it first looked like it would, and then quickly ‘dispatched’ the vegetarian classic »Call Any Vegetable«, launching straight into the second half of the sixties, which most Zappa devotees still consider the most beloved creative period of the American composer, satirist and guitar grandmaster. Recreating the vibe of the early years of Zappa and The Mothers of Invention is practically mission impossible, especially for anyone who was never a member of the cult lineup, and yet the whole band of The Grandmothers of Invention managed to conjure up a remarkably close approximation of a bygone era, when boundless musical experimentation walked hand in hand with inexhaustible social satire. The old cats Preston and Gardner deserve special credit for that, as they were also the main entertainers on stage.
After a rendition of the brutal satire of American consumerism and plastic food titled »Cruising For Burgers«, Don, who kept wowing everyone with his virtuoso keyboard feats the whole time, suddenly put on a long black wig and a headband, which made him look a bit like his late bandmate Jimmy Carl Black. With that bit of masquerade he announced the first performance from the cult album »We’re Only In It For The Money«, an unforgettable concept satire on the hypocrisy of the hippie movement.
Everything that was wrong with that failed ‘social’ movement lit up in the mocking lyrics of »Who Needs The Peace Corps«, after which the band unexpectedly jumped into the seventies with »I’m The Slime«. The Grandmothers didn’t hold back on some of the more obscure Zappa pieces either, like »The Eric Dolphy Memorial Barbecue« from the album »Weasels Ripped My Flesh«, which they deftly slipped in the middle of »I’m The Slime«. That was followed by a longer string of songs that originally came out separately on the albums »Weasels Ripped My Flesh« and »Burnty Weeny Sandwich«, and which is usually just called the »The Orange County Lumber Truck« medley.
The atmosphere in the hall hit a whole new level with fine renditions of three pieces from the Zappa/Mothers debut »Freak Out«: »How Could I Be Such a Fool«, »More Trouble Every Day« and »Hungry Freaks, Daddy«. The band then took a break of about twenty minutes so that Misters Preston and Gardner, who are celebrating a venerable 82 and 81 years respectively, which is hard to believe given their instrumental chops and stage vitality, could ‘recharge their batteries’.
They kicked off the second part of the show with a series of more or less interesting questions from the audience, with no shortage of absurdity, but also a few touching words, as when Don and Bunk reminisced about working with Frank. Among other things, they didn’t forget to mention his habit of secretly recording conversations between band members and their friends and using them as an integral part of various compositions. Sadly, one of the questions also turned to Roy Estrada, the disgraced founding member of The Mothers of Invention and former Grandmothers bassist/vocalist, who is sitting in a well-deserved prison cell.
During the classic »Absolutly Free«, ‘Mad Max’ put on special psychedelic glasses that made him look like some kind of space creature, which gave his fascinating playing an extra dimension of ‘otherworldliness’. Don, meanwhile, set off salvos of laughter during the psychedelic evergreen »Who Are The Brain Police« by putting on a special futuristic helmet for ‘catching brainwaves and reading minds’. The master of various electronic effects even played around with his iPhone, coaxing some utterly grotesque sounds out of it in true Zappa tradition. The trading of vocal harmonies and lead vocal duties between Preston, Gardner and Garcia was especially effective on »Mother People« and »Go Cry on Somebody Else’s Shoulder«, which have a satirically spiced pop rock component. The rendition of the »Bongo Fury« evergreen »Debra Kadabra«, originally sung by Captain Beefheart, went to drummer Garcia this evening, whose voice sounds quite different from Don Van Vliet’s, and it was definitely among the nicer surprises of the night.
The Grandmothers wrapped up the regular part of the show with a thoroughly stretched-out, improvised version of the legendary »Montana«, where Tina Turner sang backing vocals on the original. That unforgettable parody of all small-town tycoons was a fresh reminder of the sad delusions of Slovenian reality. As expected, the eternal clowns returned to the stage under Don and Bunk’s command and played two more Zappa classics, to the delight of everyone who might have feared the show would end too soon because of the venerable age of the band’s two main men.
The first encore piece, »The Idiot Bastard Son«, a brutal satire of political nepotism, was a somewhat expected pick, since it practically can’t be missing from any honest setlist of Zappa evergreens, while for the big finale they chose »King Kong«, which, alongside »Peaches En Regalia« and »Bobby Brown Goes Down«, may be the best-known and most beloved piece of Frank’s entire career, and they got long but thoroughly deserved ovations from the crowd at the end of the show for it.
The Grandmothers of Invention delivered on the sky-high expectations of fans of unbridled musical experimentation and satire. They put on a truly dreamlike show in the main hall of Kino Šiška, with plenty of laughs along the way, and every lover of the Zappa legacy will treasure it for a long time to come, even though for most of them this wasn’t their first brush with a band like this. Four years ago, their ‘close relatives’ The Grande Mothers Re:Invented, which also featured Mr. Preston, played a summer festival in Trieste. Still, a better approximation of the authentic live experience from the golden years of the cult Mothers of Invention doesn’t exist at the moment, so all the Slovenian music gourmets can count themselves lucky that the Grandmothers included Ljubljana on the current tour and rewarded the crowd with a bagful of eternal Zappa masterpieces. The only criticism, if you can even call it nitpicking, is that they didn’t play a single track from the album »Hot Rats« (1969), which many consider one of the peaks of Frank’s career, but with such a gigantic pool of songs to pick from, you really can’t hold that against them.
Setlist
1. Call Any Vegetable
2. Cruising For Burgers
3. Who Needs the Peace Corps?
4. I’m the Slime
5. The Eric Dolphy Memorial Barbecue
6. I’m the Slime (continue)
7. Let’s Make the Water Turn Black / Harry, You’re a Beast / The Orange County Lumber Truck / Oh No / The Little House I Used to Live In / The Orange County Lumber Truck
8. How Could I Be Such a Fool?
9. More Trouble Every Day
10. Hungry Freaks, Daddy
11. Absolutely Free
12. Who Are The Brain Police
13. Mother People
14. Go Cry on Somebody Else’s Shoulder
15. Debra Kadabra
16. Montana
–encore—
17. The Idiot Bastard Son
18. King Kong
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