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"The Guitar That Wouldn't Work" / "Mr. Uncle F-ing Remus"
We were DC guys in our early 20's, total misfits who were also among the most intelligent group getting through school. Musicians, athletes, and general party animals. Thus our attraction to Zappa's music, from a standpoint of what he did technically with his bands, his composing style(s), and the unbelievable improv. While most people that age at that time were trying to get tickets to see some glam-band idiots like Motley Crue or Queensryche, we were waiting in the cold to see Frank Zappa. And I am very glad we did. We waited for hours to get seats for the three Warner Theater shows, which were unlike anything I had ever seen. I had seen 80-90 Dead shows by that time, and dozens of other shows by the likes of the Allman Brothers, Little Feat, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Stanley Jordan, Stanley Clarke, Al DiMeola, Clapton, Vaughan, Santana, Jeff Beck, and on and on. The '88 Zappa band was immediately the best musical ensemble I had ever seen. The internal struggles were totally invisible to the audience at this early stage of the tour. Hell even in Europe when the atmosphere was terrible, the '88 band absolutely blew doors. That is the only band I ever saw, and arguably the only band Frank had, that could play absolutely anything. Not just anything in his catalog, I mean anything. Every base was covered - general vocals (only the '84 band compares with Willis, White, and Martin), high vocals, the horns - not just one sax or brass like in '73 or '74 with Underwood and Fowler - this was a full 5-piece horn section. Not even the original Mothers lineups had 5 horns. Since the '88 repertoire covered his whole career, Frank had to write horn arrangements for songs that had never had horns originally. And the solos from the horn section were awesome. And of course Ed Mann. Plus every band member had done at least 3 tours with Zappa with the exception of Keneally.
The DC shows at the Warner were phenomenal. Killer jazz and plenty of scorching FZ solos, especially the second night 2/9/88. That is the best concert I saw by anybody. High energy, tight band, Frank in vintage form in the nation's capitol in a theater 3 blocks from the White House, tons of guitar solos and plenty of improv thrown-in. There was a monster Black Napkins that night and the Pound for a Brown was mind-blowing, this one is well documented. Other memories from that night are a killer One Size Fits All medley with Sofa>Florentine Pogen>Andy>Inca Roads. This was one of only 2 or 3 performances of this full medley on the entire tour. A monster Bamboozeld by Love with Frank wearing a hat given to him from the crowd during the solo - "this is a bad hat, a bad hat..." Then during Crew Slut he brought one of the tour regulars on stage to play with the band - imagine that shit for a second. My roommate David made a very nice sounding master recording that night. He taped the 8th but it was not as good, we were right in the middle on the 9th, and the acoustics in the Warner are phenomenal. (I also saw Hot Tuna, Roy Buchanan, Chet Atkins, and a few other shows there.) On the 8th we caught one of only 2 or 3 US performances of Cosmik Debris. Our tape of the 9th stacks up very well against all the other bootlegs from that tour I have acquired. After the show my buddies met Frank and the band, shot the shit, got autographs, all that good stuff. I was somewhere else, so on the last night 3/10 I wanted to see if I could pull it off, to get the "full effect". There was only one exit at that time onto E street, about 20-30 of us were waiting after the show. About 30-40 minutes after the show a bodyguard came to the door (not Smothers, some blonde guy with a British accent) and said "any pushing and we're going straight to the car". A moment later Dweezil, Moon and Diva walked past us into the limo. Then Frank popped out. He was wearing an overcoat with a black MTV baseball cap, Dweez was working there as a veejay at the time. (I am proud to say I have watched MTV for a total of about 2 hours in my entire lifetime.) It was a very low-key, special scene. FZ stopped for everybody. He signed my tour program while making the comment "the guitar that wouldn't work". At the beginning of the second set that night his guitar went silent not once, but twice when he was ready to solo. No need to describe the glare on his face, I'm sure his guitar tech. got fired that night. Needless to say I will never, ever forget those minutes. I was two feet from greatness, and he spoke to me.
So being totally blown away we bought tickets for the remaining "local" shows - Philly, Pittsburgh, Allentown, Towson. Actually for the Philly (Upper Darby) Tower Theater show 2/13 we found tickets on the sidewalk, me and my late friend Nestor, after a spur of the moment road trip. There were no tickets available that night, it was meant to be. We caught the only Jezebel Boy and an awesome show - Zomby Woof, Advance Romance, Eric Dolphy..., Watermelon in Easter Hay, Heavy Duty Judy to name a few. I still have the ticket for the cancelled Spectrum show (3/24??).
Speaking of Nestor, he had a habit of yelling "encouragement" to the bands we saw. He was a musician, a huge music fan, and an absolute Zappa fanatic. It was never LITTLE FEAT!! It was LITTLE F'-ING FEAT!! So we all drive up to the 3/8 Pittsburgh show, great seats, great theater. Another 3-5,000 seat deal with good acoustics, actually the sound in that place was not as good as the others, which isn't saying much sine these were all beautiful small theaters. Another great show, another hot Stinkfoot, another smoking City of Tiny Lites>Pound for a Brown. They did Montana that nght, Guitar wants to Kill Your Mama, Willie the Pimp and a scorching Sharleena and Crusing for Burgers. They come out for the encores, FZ doing his deal. When he announced that they would perform Uncle Remus, Nestor belts out "UNCLE F'ING REMUS!!". Frank looks at us (1st row stage right) and says "That's Mr. Uncle f-ing Remus to you." Check out the tape some time. A truly, truly special and hilarious moment, and that turned out to be the final performance of that song. Rest in peace brother Nestor. May the spirit of all of our lost friends and FZ last forever.
Attributed to Dan Snyder - dsnyder9@carolina.rr.com, 2005
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