Frank Zappa & Elsewhere
Philip Marion writes:
A wonderful cultural archivist, metaphysical snake-oil salesman, antiquarian ne’er-do-well, and star of the end of the VHS version of “Baby Snakes” Gerry Fialka interviewed Bruce Bickford recently after the showing of FZ’s Bickford film at the silent movie theatre in LA.
Part one:
Any fan of The Tubes will seriously enjoy Ultimate Guitar‘s interview with Roger Steen entitled, “The Tubes: Bizarre Is As Tubes Does”. Steen speaks of the band’s beginning in Pheonix, Arizona, their move to San Francisco in the early 1970s, and the band’s unique mixture of sounds and styles:
When we were first starting in the 60’s, my group of friends were not only listening to the radio, but also to original blues and jug-band recordings. We incorporated all these rootsy flavors with Motown, Hendrix, Cream, Zappa. When we all lived together in San Francisco, the influence came heavily from Beefheart, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Return to Forever, Mile’s Bitches Brew.
Click here for the rest of the interview.
A few months back Just a week ago, Andrew Greenaway did an interview with Jimmy Carl Black. Despite health problems, Jimmy’s in good spirits, performing with The Muffin Men and recording with various other artists across Europe. Just one project he’s worked on:
The CD is called The Jimmy Carl Black Story. It is due out anytime. I basically went into the studio one night and told my life story. It took me about one and a half hours to do it. He [Jon Larsen – ed.] then used some blues players from Oslo and also some of the guys from the Strange News CD for the background music.
Jimmy won’t make it to Zappanale this year, but has already set his mind on next year’s edition. Which is cool, since Sharl and I won’t be able to make it there either this year, for reasons that we may well expound upon at a later date. Read the whole article here.
The audition was very simple. He had me play a couple of odd muted things and groove for a while, and then he said ‘OK, you’re it’. That was a really good band. I then just did Frank’s stuff for a few years until I broke my hand in the middle of a tour which was my downfall. We were playing football and I broke this bone right in the middle of the tour in Dayton, Ohio.
A nice, long interview with one of the best bass players ever (from the great site www.afka.net) Recorded in 1996 – it was still new to me.