The parts were listed in the program of the Berkeley performance. They are:
- Jake who designs it.
- Somewhere in New Jersey where they make them.
- Illegal aliens on a lunch break.
- At the catering truck.
- Jake eats a molded jello salad.
- Jake's secretary.
- Illegal aliens work slower in the afternoon.
- Jake's secretary reads her magazine.
- Illegal aliens want to go home.
- Jake's secretary eats cottage cheese.
- Ugly shoes on the assembly line.
- What you look like when you're wearing them.
- Sometimes they make you walk funny.
- Other people pretend not to notice.
- Sometimes you have to take them off for a minute.
- Then you put them back on because you think they look so good on you.
- Children can also have ugly shoes.
- The foot doctor says you might need an operation.
- But you're going to wear them anyway.
- Everybody has a pair somewhere.
- A place you can go when you've got them on.
From: Bossk (R)
Newsgroup: alt.fan.frank-zappa
Date: 2000/08/04 SINISTER FOOTWEAR BALLET IN THREE SCENES SCENE ONE: Jake's bedroom, changing to a stylized industrial panorama dancers: Jake Group one (with masonite autos) Group two (illegal aliens) Jake's secretary Catering man major props: ugly shoe painting (with easel, brushes, pallette) bed large surrealistic traffic signal one-dimensional masonite automobiles catering truck (well stocked) ugly shoes coming off assembly line boxes SCENE TWO: black velvet backdrop with fun-house mirrors dancers: Group one (beautiful people with ugly shoes) Group two (who pretend not to notice) Children Chiropodist (can be danced by Jake) major props: masks of "beautiful people" and "contemporary personages" rolling bin containing the masks cardboard people who do not notice SCENE THREE: surreal night club scene dancers: entire company I. [A] JAKE, WHO DESIGNS IT Curtain rises. Jake wakes up and rubs his eyes. Jake stumbles out of bed. Jake walks towards easel. Jake grabs brushes and palette. Jake applies 3 finishing brush strokes to painting. Jake turns easel toward audience revealing a picture of the ugliest shoe you ever saw in your life. Jake's room walls fly up as bed and elevated area with Jake and easel are pulled off to opposite sides of the stage. [B] SOMEPLACE IN NEW JERSEY WHERE THEY MAKE THEM Removal of Jake's set reveals a grotesquely stylized industrial panorama including flaming funnels and smoke-ring-spewing unclassifiable devices. A large surrealistic traffic signal turns green. Dancers move about with one-dimensional masonite autos. Jake appears in their midst, walking to work with the ugly shoe picture under his arm. Dance interaction between Jake and cars. As Jake and cars dance, factory walls gradually move in from opposite sides of the stage. Cars/dancers are gradually replaced by illegal aliens as factory set appears. Set change. Cars change to aliens. Jake dances with the ugly shoe picture. Large sign is lowered into factory set reading "SINISTER FOOTWEAR" Changeover is complete as Jake places ugly shoe picture on easel and dashes around urging the aliens to construct it. Jake points to various details on ugly shoe design while aliens pretend to understand and scramble around as if they were actually building it. [C] ILLEGAL ALIENS ON A LUNCH BREAK Aliens drop their tools and rush around pulling their shop aprons off. Factory walls slide out again to reveal industrial landscape again. (Sinister Footwear sign flies up.) Catering truck drives in. Catering man exists truck and opens flaps as aliens gather. [D] AT THE CATER- ING TRUCK Aliens grab for truck items. Aliens move away with their goods as Jake approaches and makes his selection. Jake pays catering man. [E] JAKE EATS A MOLDED JELLO SALAD Jake makes an elaborate production out of the molded jello salad. Dancing with it as he eats. Aliens respond. Jake eats some more. [F] JAKE'S SECRETARY She is grooming herself ... Filing her nails ... Adjusting her perm ... Factory walls slide back. [G] ILLEGAL ALIENS WORK SLOWER IN THE AFTERNOON Aliens continue industrial behavior at half speed. [H] JAKE'S SECRETARY READS HER MAGAZINE She walks through slow-moving aliens with magazine in front of her face. [I] ILLEGAL ALIENS WANT TO GO HOME They make yearning gestures in the direction of the front door. [J] JAKE'S SECRETARY EATS COTTAGE CHEESE [K] UGLY SHOES ON THE ASSEMBLY LINE As the shoes come off the line, aliens stuff them into boxes. Some aliens carry the boxes away. Other aliens stack the boxes. As stack is completed, aliens exit randomly. Aliens are gone ... Lights dim; curtain down. II. [L] (WHAT YOU THINK YOU LOOK LIKE WHILE YOU'RE WEARING THEM) Curtain rises to reveal a group of dancers wearing Jake's ugly shoes and masks of famous "beautiful people" posing in front of several fun-house mirrors. (Black velvet backdrop) Change ... Pose ... Change ... Pose ... Change ... Pose ... Change ... Pose ... Change ... Pose ... "Beautiful people" engage in social intercourse; ... ... shake hands with each other; admire each other's shoes and costumes. "Beautiful people" appear to agree that they are truly beautiful ... [M] (SOMETIMES THEY MAKE YOU WALK FUNNY) Dancers try to walk in Jake's shoes and experience great difficulty. [N] (OTHER PEOPLE PRETEND NOT TO NOTICE) Fun-house mirrors revolve. The backs of them have cardboard people pretending not to notice. Other dancers walk continuously through the group with ugly shoes on, ignoring the shoes in an obvious manner ... Dance continues with second group revolving mirrors around and through group with ugly shoes Dancers with ugly shoes gradually collapse on floor and begin to remove them. [O] (SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO TAKE THEM OFF FOR A MINUTE) Dancers with shoes off rub their feet. Second group watches and nods knowingly. [P] (THEN YOU PUT THEM BACK ON BECAUSE YOU THINK THEY LOOK SO GOOD ON YOU) Dancers put shoes back on as fast as possible. With shoes back on, dancers now stand ... ... and continue types of movement from other section. Several children with ugly shoes on sneak in from side of stage. [Q] (CHILDREN CAN ALSO HAVE UGLY SHOES) They begin to dance with their "parents" as second group departs. The chiropodist leaps in from the side. All other dancers freeze slowly. [R] (THE FOOT DOCTOR SAYS YOU MIGHT NEED AN OPERATION) Chiropodist examines dancer's feet. He warns them, [S] (BUT YOU'RE GONNA WEAR THEM ANYWAY) but they dance away from him. [T] (VARIOUS NEW POSTURES) Dancing go back to posing in front of mirrors. [U] (EVERYBODY HAS A PAIR SOMEWHERE) Chiropodist produces rolling bin full of masks of contemporary personages and distributes these to dancers. Dancers affix masks and imitate the activity appropriate to the personage whose mask they are wearing. Dancers indicate during the dance in some way how the personage's ugly shoes most affect his or her competence. Hold pose as lights dim and curtain falls. III. A PLACE YOU CAN GO WHEN YOU GOT THEM ON Scene is surreal night club with moving cut-out audience and moving cut-out entertainer on small revolving stage. All dancers, in ugly shoes and evening clothes, conduct various social transactions.
Are there any other versions of the entire piece?
I wish! When I get up the $$$ I'm going to order the score and program it into my sequencer myself. The first time I really listened to it on Apocrypha, I nearly strangled..some of the mistakes are BAD. You can REALLY hear them! There's a couple of parts (I forget where) where I belive a violin and a flute are doubling the same line, and they aren't in unison, and that sort-of thing. It was sloppy.
Now if only there were a studio version of the first movement.
Somewhere in the vault is a Synclavier version of the 1st movement. I know because I spent the better part of a month typing it in part by part from the conductors score into the computer for Frank. He subsequently reorchestrated it with wacky instrumentation but the bulk of the harmony and percussion arrangement was as written with samples. I remember him being pleased at finally getting to hear the polyrhythms played correctly. Scary piece of music. I would hope it found its way onto some multitrack tape. Talk about a black page!
bob rice
--
Bob Rice
Nervous Gerbil Productions
"we're anal about your audio"
1981
Essentially performed as on "Them or Us" with the standard deviation coming in Frank's always incendiary guitar solo. There is one major difference, however. At some point between the 10/31 and 11/17 shows, the guitar solo switches locations in the song. For the first portion of the tour, the solo takes place after the keyboard-only vamp that precedes the solo on the aforementioned release. Hence, the song is performed as normal until the keyboard part, at which point we get a guitar solo. When the solo is finished, the song then jumps to the written portion that normally follows the solo. At some point between the above dates, the second vamp is added, the guitar solo is relocated, and we get the "Sinister Footwear" that we know and love. Whether we get the first or the second version, however, we always receive some very well played and quite sinister sounding solos. Not as tweaked as on the following tour, but noteworthy nonetheless.
1982
Essentially performed as on "Them or Us" with the standard deviation coming in Frank's always incendiary guitar solo. Also, Vai seems to be more active in the pre-guitar solo sections, and the keyboard theme that immediately precedes the solo has some extra layers of keyboards thrown in. One of those songs where an attempt at verbal description is completely pointless. A classic that must be heard to be fully appreciated.
1984 (Jul-Dec)
From EASY MEAT entry: Occasionally, Frank would tease "Sinister Footwear III" to start off his solo, but for the most part, he just soloed. "Variations on Sinister #3" from "Guitar" is an "Easy Meat" extract.
1988
Essentially performed as on MAJNH, with the standard deviation coming in the handful of horn solos scattered throughout the tune.
(Much of the following information was compiled and formatted for html by Bossk (R), reprinted here by permission.)
Bossk (R) said:
On August 25 1999, Craig Jones posted a piece of Zappa music called "C Instruments" to alt.binaries.fz in the form of scans of sheet music (in David Ocker's hand) and a MIDI adaption. You don't get to hear new Zappa music every day, so this was quite sensational for many people, myself included. It's a transcription of a guitar solo that later went into the first movement of the "Sinister Footwear" ballet, but with a lot of changes. (The first movement is unreleased, but there's an orchestral recording of it on the bootlegs Serious Music and Apocrypha.)
(These small pictures are links to the full-size scans. Those are pretty large files, which is why I didn't want to put them directly on this page.)
From Bill Lantz's interview with David Ocker, supplied by Charles Ulrich:
There was a discussion of a piece called "C Instruments". That was a guitar solo that Steve Vai had transcribed and Frank gave it to me to make a copy for people (including myself) to play - so I had to make two versions: one in the key of C (for everyone else) and one in Bb for me. Usually there are three bits of information on the top of a piece of music: a) the intended instruments - in this case "C Instruments" or "Bb" since lots of different instruments would be attempting it, b) the title - there was none so this was blank, and c) the composer - Frank Zappa. When the music got passed around no one knew what to call it - and they mistook "C Instruments" for the title. In effect for a short period of time I had named this piece. Later, reason prevailed, and Frank made it part of Sinister Footwear.
And Art Jarvinen's comments, from the same interview:
I still have my copy. I got it from David, I'm sure. The Antenna Repairmen did a concert at The House in Santa Monica on November 30, 1981, on which we played it. Bob and I did the melody on marimba and vibes, and M.B. Gordy made up a drum set part. I had asked Frank if it was okay that we perform the piece and he said yes, but wanted to know how we were approaching it. At that time everyone was playing "The Black Page", and there were other works of that ilk going around - "Manx Needs Women" was one - but usually only the melody parts. Frank said that "all those polyrhythms don't mean anything unless they're in reference to something". So he suggested we use a drum machine or drum set, to give the melodic line rhythmic meaning. So that's what we did. Melody and drums, no bass line. I do have a copy of the bass part, but we never used it. Maybe I didn't have that at the time. Frank was still working on "Sinister Footwear". It was obvious that the piece was not called "C Instruments", so I asked Frank what we should list as the title. He said "The Melody from Sinister Footwear". It eventually became a big part of the first movement, but with a lot of changes. Mostly, easy stuff became easier - elongated. All the really hard shit (the tuplets over bars of 5 or nine) stayed in. So, The Antenna Repairmen actually premiered part of "Sinister Footwear" in a working version. Frank, of course, was not there. David probably was though.
From: Rolf Maurer
There--does that provide enough clues for someone (Lewis?) to identify
the exact passage in Sinister Footwear that started life as C Instruments?
From: Michael Gula (mikegula[at]MORESPAMerols.com)
I think I have made a positive identification. I was looking for the
easiest items to recognize so (among others) I picked on the elongated 'G'
that extends through measures 46 thru 48 and tried to find both it and the
surrounding notes. You will hear this note at approximately (depending on
how well your copy plays like mine) 5 minutes and 53 seconds into the
recording of the first movement. I checked the pitches for the preceding
undectuplet and they all match what is on the recording. So if you want to
continue playing musical detective (this is too hard for me) you can count
forward or backwards from that spot and maybe pick up the rest of it.
From: Ulrik Volgsten (Ulrik.Volgsten[at]music.su.se)
Dear splat: My name is Ulrik Volgsten and I am working on a doctoral
dissertation partly devoted to Zappa's music, which will be ready by mid
december. I got the link to your site on C-instruments from Johan Wikberg.
I checked the score against the orchestral score of Sinister Footwear and
found the following:
In SF CI, comes in at m64, that is, the event marked Illegal Aliens on a
Lunch Break. The tonal material in mm 2-7 in CI is re-rhythmicized, but
otherwise intact and spread over mm 65-76 in SF. The 32nd notes in m 8
(CI) recurs literally in m 77 (SF). Then there is some new material. m
11-14 (CI) corresponds to m 82-85 (SF). 15-16 (CI) are replaced wwith
new material.m 17-31 (CI) corresponds to 91-106 (SF). Thereafyer SF has
some new material before CIs m 32 returns as m 117 (SF). From here on CI
is almost exactly identical to SF.
From: Jon Naurin (naurin[at]mbox300.swopnet.se)
I used to think that C Instruments, as described in the David Ocker
interview was the precursor to Sinister Footwear, the 3rd mvt. Ocker said
that it was a transcribed guitar solo, which we know the 3rd mvt is. Now
suddently, all available evidence point in the direction that it was the
1st mvt that came out of CI. First, the Art Jarvinen interview, and then
the score. Mike Gula found some similarities, and what Swedish
musicologist Ulrik Volgsten came up with, after comparing scores.
(see last message) Without a doubt, "our" C Instruments is what became
Sinister Footwear, 1st mvt. So if David Ocker's recollection is correct,
the 1st mvt also origins from a guitar solo. Or was the name C Instruments
used for more than one piece of music?
Bossk (R) also said:
On June 16, Jon Naurin had posted the precursor [of "C-Instruments"], "Pre-C Instruments", which was a drum set composition (both of these pieces were used for auditioning musicians). This sheet music was put on the web, and someone made a MIDI file which was also put on the web. When "C Instruments" was posted, I wanted to contact the people who put "Pre-C Instruments" on the web and ask them to put "C Instruments" there as well, but there were no e-mail adresses to be found.
JON NAURIN: I've gotten my hands on a photocopy of a sheet of drum notes, written by Frank Zappa. It's for a piece of music called "Pre-C Instruments", and Frank handed it to a guy who was auditioning for the band in 1981.
CHARLES PATER: Don't know where I got this info from but it's in my base and it used to be an audition piece for Kerry McCoy (1981/1982 band).
MICHAEL GULA: I would like to suggest the possiblity that it was strictly an audition piece - a sight-reading test and a device for weeding out the less-than-worthy, and not a composition intended for performance.
JON NAURIN: ... and those who passed it got to do the ultimate test: "C Instruments". "Pre-C Instruments" has lots of tuplets but no meter changes, but "C Instruments" apparently has both, so it seems like a reasonable order. And it would explain the title.
Date: Thu, 14 Oct 1999 From: Marc Ziegenhagen To: Patrick Neve Subject: Pre-C Instruments Hiya! I just found your web page and the "C Instruments" link in "unreleased projects". After looking at the sheet music, I can tell you that "Pre C-instruments" comes from the 2nd Movement of Sinister Footwear, the Ballet, specifically the section titled "But You're Gonna Wear Them Anyway." I know this to be true for a couple of reasons but mainly because I have a copy of the drum chart for Sinister Footwear (Ballet), as well as the piano reduction and I did a MIDI sequence of these pieces together, so these peices are firmly entrenched in my brain. Although I sent out tapes of the sequence to various people over the years, I don't think I actually ever sent anyone the MIDI file. Therefore, none of the MIDI sequences that you have of this piece can be attributable to me (not that they ever were), but I thought I'd clairify that and so I have. Incidentally, the single page jpg on your page of "Pre C-instruments" is not complete in reguards to what ended up in the 2nd Mvmt. of SF. There's more to it, but essentially what it does is it repeats and is doubled with melodic instruments, then has a Coda (or a 2nd ending, if you like). The first time it is played, its pretty much a drum feature. Then the 2nd time, it has melody along with it (not at all unlike "The Black Page #1"). I hope this information is helpful to someone out there! I admit this is some pretty esoteric shit and I hope this info is 'complete' enough to post on your web page, though I'm sure I could be more specific with reguards to measure numbers, etc. Marc Z.
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