Tag: Zappanale

Sieg Zappanale!

Remember a certain lawsuit issued by a certain dead rockstar‘s widow against a certain fan-organized tribute festival? As it turns out, said widow just lost the appeal. Robert who mailed in the story, says:

Sorry, currently only available in german. But the message is simple: GZ had appealed against the negative decision from some time ago, this appeal has now been denied, which completes the lawsuit in favor of Zappanale.

From my understanding, the Zappanale festival even retains the right to use FZ’s trademark imperial in its promotional material.

Return Of The Knick Knacks

Ha! There you were thinking this weblog was going down the drain. Silly you.

Tiny Vilnius Tears

With a ZPZ concert imminent in the town of Vilnius, Lithuania, Dweezil, Diva and Gail reckoned it would be a nice opportunity to pay an emo-sho-null tribute to the iconic FZ statue present there. Check out the TV coverage.

‘t Would appear then that not all Zappa statues are created equal…

Via Uni-Muta, where you’ll find more footage from ZPZ’s Vilnius gig.

Zappanale (Then & Now) — Capt. Cheese Beard & The 7 Sisters Of Prevention



I had nearly forgotten about Capt. Cheese Beard & The 7 Sisters Of Prevention after Barry first posted their video of “Black Napkins” here at KUR back in 2007. Frankly, this ten piece band blows me away with their musicianship and their enthusiasm for the material they are playing (just check out the first two clips from their performance at Atelier210 – the aforementioned “Black Napkins” and “More Trouble Every Day”).

Captain Cheese Beard & the 7 Sisters of Prevention are a ten piece fusion band from Brussels, Belgium, formed by Johan De Coninck in May of 2006 after a year of pondering whether the whole project was actually feasible and worth all the trouble of managing a production of its size.

About three years ago, after riding pygmy ponies for many hours at the Pygmy Pony Riding club and smoking a whole pack of Wellfields (these are very dodgy Togolese cigarettes, by the way) Capt. Cheese-Beard went into a trance and had a vision in which he was visited by his long-time idol Frank Zappa who died in 1993. The great man himself told the captain that it was clear that his oeuvre was at risk of being lost, as it was not being exposed to the music listening youth of today. This was of course totally unacceptable. Maybe it was the side-effects of the Wellfields, temporally disabling the captain’s sense of reason, but during that cerebral meltdown he swore as a proud member of the pygmy pony riding club that he would do everything within his power to bring Zappa’s music back to life. Of course this was easier said than done. The media, regulated for many years now by the central scrutinizer, the sort of person who smells of cabbage, hired by so-called friends of the music biz, wasn’t going to be very receptive to the idea of putting the great composer’s “subversive” music back on the air. To make things worse, the central scrutinizer’s roll consists in making sure that the minds of our young consumers are continuously bombarded with tasteless, lukewarm, prefab pop. The captain, who by now had come back to his senses, realized he had to come up with a different, more daring plan. He decided he would find 9 other crazy musicians (preferably with prior pygmy pony experience) who would join him on a quest to go out there and attempt to play Zappa’s music themselves. He scratched his beard, put his fingers up his nose and smelled that it was good.

The Band:

Didier Demeestere – drums
Pascal Hauben – bass
Sara Corsius – keyboard
Johan De Coninck Corsius – guitar & voice
Rojah Lao – vocals (first 2 gigs only)
Abil Khazzaka – vocals
Vanessa Spy 007 – lead vocals
Katja Maes – melodic percussion
Ansje De Groef – flute
Thomas Van Gelder – alto & soprano sax
Kristof Kerremans – sax
Ludovic Jean-Mart – sax

This band certainly does have it’s groove down. From “Sofa #1” and “Sofa #2” (in German) to such Zappa classics as “Cosmic Debris“, “Inca Roads“, “Yo Mama“, “Andy“, “Pygmy Twylyte” and “Peaches En Regalia“.

The following rehearsals of “Cosmic Debris” and “Peaches En Regalia” show the band at work (and having fun):


Capt. Cheese Beard & The 7 Sisters Of Prevention will perform on Zappanale 20’s Main Stage on Friday, 14. August 2009.

Zappanale (Then & Now) — Jazzprojekt Hundehagen


Thomas Brünnich, Thomas Käckenmeister and Michael Käckenmeister had already made music together while attending the conservatoire in Rostock in the mid-1980s, before ever conceiving of forming a band together. In the autumn of 1990, the three musicians again became active, playing in Blues and Rock bands surrounding Doberan. Around approximately 1996, was when the lasting foundation was forged to what would eventually constitute the main character of Jazzprojekt Hundehagen.

Michael Käckenmeister emerged as the group’s musical head. The group’s inspirations were rooted in interaction with his brother Thomas Käckenmeister and the musician companion Thomas Brünnich. Thomas Käckenmeister brought the experienced Guitarist Harald Werner into the group, along with the Quintet’s only woman, Pianist Katrin Werner.

The band took their name from the village they rehearsed in – an interim solution for several gigs at first – but the name stuck and it seemed like nonsense to change it.

Jazzprojekt Hundehagen play successfully in the northern part of Germany. They do standards as well as own compositions and themes of Frank Zappa.

Click here to listen (or download) various mp3’s at Jazzprojekt Hundehagen website, including “Black Napkin” “Zoot Allures”.

Jazzprojekt Hundehagen have performed at the 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th edition of the Zappanale festival. They are scheduled to appear at Zappanale 20.

Note: Many of the webpages are in German. Use Babelfish to translate.

Zappanale (Then & Now) — Sex without Nails bros

Masterminded by the Austrian legend Wickerl Adam, and formed as an offshoot of the Hallucination Company in 1998 (an Austrian rock music theater project also founded by Wickerl in 1977 that operated in a “Frank Zappa-oriented, modern rock music performance theater with political demands”) along with guitarist Conrad Schrenk – Sex without Nails bros performed the first full Musical adaptation of Zappa’s Joe’s Garage on the tenth anniversary of the artist’s death in 2003.

S.W.N.B.’s Joe’s Garage MuZZical performance at Zappanale 14 (July 26th, 2003) performing “Stick it Out”:

S.W.N.B. also performed at Zappanale 18 (August 4th, 2007) as a rock band with Napoleon Murphy Brock on guest vocals. In the following clips they perform “Penguin In Bondage”, “Pygmy Twylyte” and “Yellow Snow Suite”:



Sex without Nails bros bandmembers:

Margit Schoberleitner – Percussion, marimba
Hannes Kerschner – Keyboards
Jil Y Creek – Guitar
Werner Laher – Bass
Sigi Meier – Drums
Angie Reisinger – Vocals
Anzo Morawitz – Vocals
Peter Dürr – Vocals
Conrad Schrenk – Guitar
Wickerl Adam – Vocals, MC

Sex without Nails bros will be performing again on the Zappanale 20 Main Stage.

Sex without Nails bros
Sex without Nails bros

Zappanale (Then & Now) — Bogus Pomp

Bogus Pomp began in August, 1994, when guitarist Jerry Outlaw and keyboardist Rick Olson got together for some informal jamming. It started out as a quartet  (Jerry Outlaw: guitar, vocals – Rick Olson: keyboard – Alex Pasut: bass – Tom Mccowan: drums), but quickly grew to a 10 piece ensemble. The Bogus Pomp Orchestra consists of Bogus Pomp (the 10-piece electric band), plus a 15-piece chamber ensemble. They’re based in Tampa Bay, Florida, USA.

The band has performed concerts with New York Big Band leader Ed Palermo, and in 1998 and 1999 performed with Zappa alumni, Ike Willis. Since October 1999, Napoleon Murphy Brock has been a permanent member.

In the clip above, performing as the “Bogus Pomp Semi-Acoustic Orchestra” feat. Napoleon Murphy Brock at the St. Katharinen church in Hamburg, Germany, on August 13th, 2008 (organized by the Arf Society and opener for Zappanale 2008), the band performs “The Idiot George Bush Son” and “Sleep Dirt”.

Click here to download or listen to German radio broadcast of this Hamburg concert (It’s well worth the listen).

Other Bogus Pomp downloads:

BOGUS POMP with THE FLORIDA ORCHESTRA and IKE WILLIS (New Music Series, Mahaffey Theater, St. Petersburg, Florida, January 16th, 1999)

BOGUS POMP, Live on WMNF 88.5 FM Radio in Tampa Florida, February 7th, 
2008

BOGUS POMP at THE SKIPPER DOME

Bogus Pomp appeared at Zappanale 15 and 19.

Zappanale 20 — Jubilee Edition

Despite all the legal intimidation that’s been going on, German ZapFest Zappanale is ready to roll! Just a couple of the confirmed bands/players for this 20th jubilee are:

Check out the flyer front / back, and the poster for more detailed information.

French FZ-Fans To Boycott ZPZ’s Paris Concert

This just in via Uni-Muta: French FZ fansite Les Fils de l’Invention are calling for a boycott of the upcoming ZPZ Concert in Paris. Translation:

Just after last month’s dismissal of the case of the ZFT against the Arf Society, the ZFT is back with a new complaint against the organisers of the Zappanale Festival. In order to:

  • react against this unreasonable juridical harassment
  • show solidarity with our friends
  • make it clear that we are determined to protect the works realised by organisations, artists and writers, who make sure that the works of Frank Zappa will not be forgotten,

we ask you TO BOYCOT the concert that Dweezil Zappa and his band ZpZ will be doing on the 18th of May at the ‘Olympia’ in Paris.

Wow… Meanwhile, this year’s edition of Zappanale is already starting to take shape.

As The ZFT vs Zappanale Soap Continues

I received Zappanale‘s 19th newsletter yesterday, which talks mainly about the ZFT vs Zappanale trial. Remember that one? Back in August, there was talk of an out-of-court settlement:

The Zappa Family Trust may be willing to compromise. ZFT lawyers now say that the Zappanale can use the Zappa name if they brand the festival as “Zappa music and more.”

Now, my German is as rusty as an early 90s Russian submarine but as I understand it, here’s how things appear to have evolved since then from the ZFT claim’s perspective: if the festival’s organizers wish to keep the festival going, they are to report — at the earliest occasion — name and location of any artists playing, as well as any (FZ) tunes on their playlist.

It would then be GZ’s deity-given, exclusive prerogative to veto any artists she feels “violate the integrity and intentions” of FZ, from playing at Zappanale.

A hostile take-over, if you will.
Nennt man solch eine Forderung vielleicht Zensur? Ist das nicht unheimlich? (Yes Bob Again, I’m way ahead of you!)

The Zappanale guys beg to differ, and so yet another court meeting is scheduled at the Düsseldorf Landgericht where, as Thomas Dippel puts it, “things are in good hands”.

On a completely off-topic note: yes, I’ve been out of the loop lately and yes, there’s a very good reason for this.

— “Oh, do tell Barry!”

Any day now, any day now…