You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore Vol. 3

 

Release History

CD-R on demand (Amazon.com/Zappa Records, January 25, 2010)

Amazon.com

CD-R Note: This product is manufactured on demand when ordered from Amazon.com. [...]

Audio CD (January 25, 2010)
Original Release Date: November 1989
Number of Discs: 2
Format: Live
Label: Zappa Records
ASIN: B0000009TP

[...]

Disc: 1

1. Sharleena
2. Bamboozled by Love/Owner of a Lonely Heart
3. Lucille Has Messed My Mind Up
4. Advance Romance [1984]
5. Bobby Brown Goes Down
6. Keep It Greasey
7. Honey, Don't You Want a Man Like Me?
8. In France
9. Drowning Witch
10. Ride My Face to Chicago
11. Carol, You Fool
12. Chana in de Bushwop
13. Joe's Garage
14. Why Does It Hurt When I Pee?

Disc: 2

1. Dickie's Such an Asshole
2. Hands With a Hammer
3. Zoot Allures
4. Society Pages
5. I'm a Beautiful Guy
6. Beauty Knows No Pain
7. Charlie's Enormous Mouth
8. Cocaine Decisions
9. Nig Biz
10. King Kong
11. Cosmik Debris

 

disc 1

1. Sharleena

Tom Wheeler, "Zappa & Son Onstage Together For The First Time," Guitar Player, January, 1987

TW: How much time did you and Dweezil rehearse before performing "Sharleena" on stage?

FZ: None. It was the last concert of the 1984 tour. I'd been on the road for six mouths and had just gotten back to town. Dweezil had been rehearsing away, and since we were working at the Universal Amphitheater, I knew that he wanted to go onstage. He had played a solo on the album version, so he already knew the song. It was just a matter of him coming down to the soundcheck in the afternoon and getting his equipment set up. That was the first and only time that he and I had ever played together live.

TW: Was it mainly his idea? Did he come to you and say, "How about if I sit in tonight?"

FZ: Yeah.

TW: What sort of guidelines did you have? Did you talk it over ahead of time?

FZ: No, but it wasn't the first time Dweezil had appeared with the band. He made his debut onstage with the group in Europe when he was 12 years old in 1982. He played with us at the Hammersmith Odeon in London, on two of the three days we were there, and also in Munich, Vienna, and I think one other city [Zurich]. But I was conducting on those, and the Los Angeles performance was the first time that he and I played lead guitar together. When two lead guitar players perform together, I think it usually turns out like noise. It's not one of my favorite things on this planet to listen to or participate in.

TW: What made this duet work so well?

FZ: At least I had the good sense to stay out of his way [laughs]. My goal was to make a piece of music there, not to play competitively or to dump your bag of tricks on the stage. Usually that is what happens when jam sessions occur. Usually jam sessions are exercises of egomania. [...]

TW: When mixing the two lead guitars, did you intentionally avoid a hard left and right separation?

FZ: Yes, because Dweezil starts off first, and if he were to be off to one side it would have been kind of obnoxious. I'm not sure if that kind of separation really obviates what the musical activity is, but I think it makes an obnoxious-sounding record anyway. When it's placed hard to one side, it's a mono signal—it sticks out, especially when you're wearing earphones. How many tracks was it recorded on? The original was a 24-track digital recording, and the remote was my truck, the UMRK mobile. The mix was done here in the UMRK. The live recording engineers were Mark Pinske and Tom Ehle, and the room mix engineer was Bob Stone.

TW: What was your guitar equipment?

FZ: A blonde Stratocaster, a Marshall amp, and two small Acoustic amps. [...]

TW: You had no guidelines for Los Angeles performance?

DZ: Right, it was all just improv. [...] I was so nervous that I didn't know what I was playing until about two or tree minutes into the solo, and then I could kind of get comfortable. It's like a five-minute solo, and I just had fun with it. We also did "Whipping Post" later on that night, which was real good, too. That turned up on a CD [Does humor Belong In Music?, available in the U.S. only as an import].

TW: What equipment did you use for the recording?

DZ: I was using this guitar that had body by Performance. It had a Kramer guitar neck, a Floyd Rose, and two preamps in it that are stacked and just mondo overdrive. I played through this Acoustic amplifier—I don't know what model—and just turned it all the way up and turned on the preamps and just went for it. I didn't really have hardly any equipment at the time. I just recently bought my own amplifier.

TAN Mitsugu, April 6, 2013

I found some edits:

0:00 12/23 Universal City
0:24 About 24 seconds (crowd noise and sound check) are edited out
4:37 About 65 seconds (20 measures) of DZ's solo are edited out
8:38 11/23 Chicago (Late)

Battlestar: Galactica?

TTrocc7007, quoted on Arf: Notes & Comments

The performance was taped at the Universal Amphitheater, which is located at Universal Studios. The theme park at the time was featuring a Battlestar attraction which was heavily advertised at the time.

 

2. Bamboozled By Love / Owner Of A Lonely Heart

Scott Thunes, "My Life With Chris Squire," geoscott.com, July 1, 2015

I stopped listening to Yes once I started listening to DEVO, but I always went back to Yessongs for some much-needed nostalgia and generation-of-those-feelings. I even got to BE Chris for a few minutes most nights with Frank as he decided that "Owner of a Lonely Heart" was a great groove to solo over after the 1984 tour, so even though I didn't really enjoy playing "Bamboozled by Love", I enjoyed thoroughly the OoaLH line and made it 'mine', as I generally do to most lines handed to me by the greats.

Francesco Gentile, quoted on Arf: Notes & Comments

Guitar solo is shortened.

 

4. Advance Romance

Francesco Gentile, quoted on Arf: Notes & Comments

Accordingly to Black Page zine:

  • 00:00 Chicago '84
  • 01:03 Vancouver, Queen Elizabeth Theatre (December 18 1984, 2nd show)
  • 02:31 Chicago '84

Front part of guitar solo is missing.

 

5. Bobby Brown Goes Down

(I wonder wonder, Hi-Yo, Silver!)
So I went out 'n bought me a leisure mask
[...]
An' none of the jocks can even think about Tonto

Liner notes by FZ, 1989

I can't remember how all this "Hi-ho Silver" stuff got started, but however it did, Ike had me laughing so much I could hardly perform that night. Just a little more proof that touring can make you crazy.

FZ, interviewed by Dan Oullette, Pulse!, August, 1993

We had a lot of laughs. For example, one night in Seattle, in the middle of the show (guitarist) Ike Willis started to do an imitation of the Lone Ranger, blurting out, 'Hi, ho, Silver!" I still don't know why it happened, but I cracked up every time he did it. It must have been road fatigue. He'd keep yelling in the most inappropriate places. The whole show was riddled with bad Lone Ranger jokes and me not being able to sing the right words. I enjoyed that night.

Ike Willis, interviewed by AJ Abrams, Jam Bands, March, 2000

Well, we certainly got a lot of mileage out that one. I think I started doing that in Vancouver, but I can't remember where exactly. It just popped out one night and that's all she wrote. Frank started cranking up. Often times we would try to crack each other up and it was became a game. It was one of the most fun parts of a show, but we didn't really plan to do it a lot. It was very spontaneous. We'd try to make each other laugh when the other one was singing. Or it could come during a high stress point in the middle of a difficult song.

 

6. Keep It Greasey

Francesco Gentile, quoted on Arf: Notes & Comments

Accordingly to Black Page zine:

  • 00:00 Seattle, Paramount Theatre (December 17, 1984, 2nd show)
  • 01:21 NYC, The Pier (August 26, 1984)
  • 01:48 Seattle
  • 03:23 NYC.

 

7. Honey, Don't You Want A Man Like Me?

Francesco Gentile, quoted on Arf: Notes & Comments

Accordingly to Black Page zine:

  • 00:00 NYC (August 26, 1984)
  • 00:56 NYC (August 25, 1984)

 

8. In France

Francesco Gentile, quoted on Arf: Notes & Comments

[Black Page zine]: guitar solo is missing, harmonica solo is shortened.

You'll smell like Godzilla

 

9. Drowning Witch

Liner notes by FZ, 1989

This is a hard song to play. How hard? The 1984 band never played it correctly during its 6-month tour, and the 1982 band only managed to get close on one occasion. This edit collates the best efforts of both groups.

Ike Willis, interviewed by AJ Abrams, Jam Bands, March, 2000

I never played on that tune. I had it easy. I just sang it. There were always a couple of small mistakes. One person or another had problems with it, but that's not out of the ordinary. There were so many difficult and intricate songs.

Francesco Gentile, quoted on Arf: Notes & Comments

Here is the true, complex story of this version according to Black Page zine:

  • 00:00 Bolzano, Campo Comunale (July 3, 1982)
  • 00:35 unknown 1984
  • 01:57 Seattle '84 (2nd show)
  • 02:28 Chicago '84 (1st show)
  • 02:40 Bolzano '82
  • 03:42 Chicago '84 (1st show)

 

10. Ride My Face To Chicago

Liner notes by FZ, 1989

The title of this tune derives from an ancient bit of grafitti scribbled on the wall of the men's room in the Whisky A-Go-Go, circa 1965.

 

11. Carol, You Fool

Mark Pinske, interviewed by Andrew Greenaway, August 24, 2018

Carole Mellon—Carrie, she liked to be called—was a girl that I met in Pittsburgh. We were staying at the Hyatt Hotel and Frank called my room asking me to come down to the bar and sit with him. He never really drank, usually just had coffee. Anyway he was with the girl who managed the hotel and he had asked her if she had a girlfriend that she could get to hook up with me so we could go to some clubs and such. So she called Carrie and told her that she and Frank Zappa—along with his sound engineer—were going to come and pick her up at her house. And that is what we did, and she was sitting on the steps outside of her house when we drove up in the limo. We went out and during the night we ended up at her friend's apartment—the Hyatt manager's place. We made love on the floor of the living room while Frank was back in the bedroom, and Carrie decided that she fell in love with me. She came to other shows and then Frank wrote a song about it: "You'll meet another engineer . . . " Someday, ha-ha!

 

12. Chana In De Bushwop

Liner notes by FZ, 1989

"CHANA" was written for my daughter, Diva, based on a story she told me when she was 4 or 5.

(Hey! Nice volcano!)

Liner notes by FZ, 1989

In the middle of this version there is some sort of pseudo-musical interlude with people laughing in the background. Explanation: in the music chapter of "THE REAL FRANK ZAPPA BOOK", I devote some space to keyboard virtuoso Alan Zavod and his notorious 'Volcano Solos'. During this performance, I surprised Alan (and a few people in the audience) by leaping onto his keyboard riser, pushing him away and improvising my own stupid little "amateur volcano solo".

 

13. Joe's Garage

"THAR SHE BLOWS!"

JWB, October 25, 1998

"Thar she blows" is a quote from [Herman Melville's] "Moby Dick", and is usually used to refer to a very fat girl.

 

14. Why Does It Hurt When I Pee?

Francesco Gentile, quoted on Arf: Notes & Comments

[Black Pages]:

  • 00:00 Seattle, Paramount Theatre (December 17, 1984, 1st show)
  • 01:50 Chicago '84 (1st show)
  • 02:37 unknown 1884

This is dedicated to the two guys in the crew who went to see the doctor today.
[...]
I don't want the doctor
To stick that UTAH in me
[...]
I probably got the
SALT LAKE CITY GON-O-KHACKUS!

Liner notes by FZ, 1989

About the references to the 'Girl From Salt Lake City': the afternoon before the [December 15, 1984] Salt Lake City concert, our road manager got a call from a local doctor, urging him to warn everyone about a girl with dark hair, riddled with disease, who had caused severe discomfort to 24 members of the touring ensemble that had played in town just before us. Unfortunately, a few of our guys got the message too late.

 

disc 2

1. Dickie's Such An Asshole

Liner notes by FZ, 1989

date: December 12, 1973 location: THE ROXY, HOLLYWOOD, CA original recording medium: 16 track analog recording engineer: KERRY McNAB remote facility: RECORD PLANT REMOTE

FZ, Roxy & Elsewhere (1974) liner notes

The Roxy remote recording was done by Wally Heider (16-track 30-ips), engineered by Kerry McNab

Liner notes by FZ, 1989

The spoken [outro] is taken from the "BABY SNAKES" motion picture dialog track.

I've had a hard tour, I mean, Jesus, we had the, the, the fucking roadmanager committed suicide.

Phil Kaufman, Road Mangler Deluxe, 1993 (quoted by Fred H. Banta on Arf: Notes & Comments)

I had just finished a tour with Emmylou [Harris] when I got a call from a friend of Eddie Tickner who had something to do with the Zappa management firm. Zappa's road manager, Ron Nihota, had committed suicide.

The story is that Ron had spent $10,000 of the tour money on drugs and gambling during the first night of a tour. He had done a lot of coke which was a no-no in Zappa's band . . . Anyway, Ron had cut his armpits, the souls of his feet, and his crotch. He was bleeding badly, Zappa had a fellow named Pancho who was a bag-man—not the Vegas-type bagman, but he went out and did the luggage . . . He had come around and heard someone moaning inside the room. John Smothers was standing with him . . . John was a big, big, black guy with a bald head. He was very intimidating. (He owned a limousine company in Baltimore). Pancho and John knocked on the door but couldn't get any response, so they got a maid to open the door. There was a stream of blood from the bathroom all the way to the door. Ron was lying there moaning, and John said, "Say there, Pancho, you better get some mouth-to-mouth resuscitation there." Pancho replied, "Man he don't need air, he needs blood."

So I got a call from Zappa's manager, Bennett Glotzer, in June of 1977, asking if I could come that night to Arizona to take over the tour. I said I could make it the next day. They flew me to Baton Rouge where I met Frank. I was handed a briefcase with blood-stained accounts and road gear in it, all of which I had to sort through to get the tour on the road.

Sources & Edits

You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore Vol. 3. (1989)  
2. 1. Dickie's Such An Asshole  
00:00-01:19 December 10, 1973, late show
01:19-01:54 December 10, 1973, early show
01:54-02:03 December 10, 1973, late show
02:03-09:01 December 10, 1973, early show
09:01-10:08 October 31, 1977, backstage

 

2. Hands With A Hammer

Liner notes by FZ, 1989

dates: OCTOBER 31, 1977 & 1975 (month unknown) locations: (1977) THE PALLADIUM DRESSING ROOM, NYC (1975) Unknown concert hall TOKYO, JAPAN original recording mediums: mono & 4 track analog recording engineers: unknown remote facilities: (1977) NAGRA sync recorder (1975) SCULLY 4tk (at mix console) 15ips remix engineer: BOB STONE remix facility: UTILITY MUFFIN RESEARCH KITCHEN

musician: TERRY BOZZIO (drum solo)

[...] This drum solo is one of Terry's more dramatic efforts. With all the freeze-dried drum sounds heard on records today, this ambient 4-track recording of real drums, well tuned, played with real skill serves as a historic document. There is a whole generation of listeners out there who have never heard what real drums are supposed to sound like.

 

8. Cocaine Decisions

Liner notes by FZ, 1989

The front part of this song starts out with an extract from the 1984 Thanksgiving show and edits to the begining of the riot in Palermo, Sicily, 1982. You can hear a loud 'crack' as the first tear gas grenade is launched, causing all of us to fumble in confusion momentarily. We couldn't see what was going on out in the middle of the soccer field. The Army and the local Police (who didn't like each other, and who were completely uncoordinated) began a random process of blasting these little presents into the crowd. We could see fires in the distant bleachers. Tear gas seeped onto the stage. We continued the show in spite of this. (Video coverage of part of this event is included in "THE DUB ROOM SPECIAL" available through BARFKO-SWILL.)

Francesco Gentile, quoted on Arf: Notes & Comments

[Black Page zine]:

00:00 unknown 1984 00:0? into Chicago '84 (1st show) 00:49 Palermo, Stadio Comunale (July 14, 1982).

Chris Federico, Zappology: The Man From Utopia

In late May of 1982, the month Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch was released, a show in Kiel, Germany ended just as it was getting started after the crowd bombarded the band with various objects. Saarbrucken, Offenburg and other German shows were duly cancelled in light of the country's fresh tendency for uprisings. Another halt was called due to hurled objects in Geneva, Switzerland at the end of June, and a few people were killed during a police-instigated riot in Palermo, Sicily; that show ended after half an hour. Frank chalked the incidents up to "emotional freight that is attendant to European attitudes toward American foreign policy."

Don Menn, "Marque Coy," Zappa!, 1992, p. 89

Riots in Europe seemed to be in vogue during the early 1980s. Coy survived minor scuffles and trash throwing in Kiel, Geneva, and Barcelona. However, a more major assault occurred in Palermo, on the last show of the '82 tour. "The kids starting fighting with the police," he recalls. "The bleachers were getting tom apart, and huge bonfires were being set. For a while we kept playing, but we couldn't sing, because tear gas started floating all about. Finally, when chunks of concrete started flying, we just cleared out." The cover of The Man from Utopia gives you the idea.

FZ, interviewed by Joseph Laux, Modern Recording & Music, August, 1984

What happened in Palermo was . . . we were working in a soccer stadium, it was the last concert on the tour, and I had been looking forward to playing in Sicily because my father was born there. And that afternoon I had taken a drive over to his hometown, this horrible little village called Bartenicco. So I checked that out, you know, getting into the Sicilian vibe of it all. There's this Italian schmaltz connected with Sicily for all people of Italian extraction.

So anyway, I was in a pretty good mood after exploring these old haunts. I get to this gig, had a great sound check, I had written a song that afternoon and taught it to the guys in the band . . . everything looked like it was going to be fine. We start the show and within 10 minutes of the beginning of the show there's this weird something going on, but you can't see the audience. It's totally black out there. They're a million miles away cause we're out in the middle of this soccer field. And I hear some disturbances. Suddenly, they got the army there and the police department and they're all fucking armed to the teeth. The next thing I know, the tear gas starts going off and guys are kneeling down with rifles, like mortars, shooting this tear gas into the stands. Bricks start flying. It turned into chaos. And we kept on playing through this. But it got so bad that we had to put wet rags on our faces to keep the tear gas out of our eyes. And we kept playing on and on.

Finally, the lights start going on and we see that the place is being emptied out. They're firing tear gas all over the place and they're clearing these people out of the stadium. We played for about an hour and a half during this thing. And we found out later that some kids had brought guns to this concert and the cops had guns and they were shooting at each other like cowboys and Indians. Meanwhile, we're trapped in the stadium downstairs, some gangs had broken into the tour bus, there's rocks flying all over the place and it's like a little war going on. And what the fuck for?! We go there to play some music and it turns into a situation where people are injured.

"Frank Zappa a Palermo: cosa accadde veramente," Revolutionine, May 21, 2011 (compiled and translated by Galeans, Zappateers, August 11, 2014)

Andrea Pisciotta: They set the stage on the halfway line and the public in the northern curve. Too far away to see anything, even in the giant screens, giant for the time. I was sitting on the last large step down and bass was pumping so hard that my ass was shaking. Someone climbed over the fence and went to sit in front of the door. Immediately the police in riot gear (helmet and shield) arranged in front of the stage. Zappa kept saying "Easy, easy." After the first five, six people walked to the network, another group of ten or fifteen people followed.

In a moment the policemen jumped and the tear gas began to flow. One, two, three grenades landed in the middle of all the people in the stands. In a moment, the audience moved to reach to the exit. Even people in the field tried to go back, but there was the fence! The fastest of them literally threw themselves on the other side, but those who couldn't got beaten a lot. A lot! When I heard the screams, I started to scream as wells. "Bastards!" screamed the curve, but it was a moment: tear gas grenades kept raining and between shoving and screams of panic I managed to get down the stairs. And there, there was the big surprise: the doors were closed and a dozen cops were waiting. When they opened the doors, the flow somehow swept them away, but they did not stop to drop beatings. I saw the girl in front of me keeping her hand on her head, she was bleeding. "The next one is for me" I thought. When I found myself in front of the cop, I heard him scream like a madman. He took a step to run in front of me, his nightstick up on the helmet. I took a step and a double step, just like I had learned by playing rugby and ran at his side just in time to hear the baton sinking air behind me. "Son of a bitch," I shouted at him, as I ran away. As I passed by the enormous buses of Zappa's crew, I kept myself off from the points where there were beatings and when I saw a space between the buses destroyed by the police, I immediately ran there.

I stopped only when I got in front of my house. Only then I realized that my eyes were flooded with tears. Tears of anger. I had waited months for this concert and Zappa had played for only about twenty minutes. I was eighteen and I had a nice collection of Frank Zappa and The Mothers records, in addition to the belief that nor grass nor jobs will never grow in Palermo.

Roberto Beccàli: Thanks, Andrea! You really sent me back in tears (not those caused by the fucking tear gas). Twenty minutes of fantastic music ruined by the stupidity of the Commissioner of Police in duty.

Nicola: Thank you, Andrea. Your description is flawless, but I'd like to add that in front of the stage there were works in progress with several open holes. During the rush, I saw a girl falling inside one of those. I still remember the controversy in the newspapers during the following days. You could tell the management responsible for security at the stadium that night had been inadequate.

Andrea Migliaccio: I was there as well, with some friends: I was 18 and we were placed in the north corner, very high. When we began to understand that something was wrong, we found ourselves in the middle of the tear gas without understanding what was going on. We ran toward the exits and once we were out, we were loaded by police with batons raised. In front of the stadium, in Viale Del Fante, there were works in progress, and in general stampede someone fell in the trenches of the excavation, while others gathered stones of the yard and throw them with anger at the cops. We and many others ran away desperately until we found ourselves inside the hospital CTO, on the ground floor under the beds of patients. The police looked for us there as well, but couldn't find us. I still don't know what happened during the concert. There was talk about someone who jumped over the fence, but the police's reaction was completely exaggerated: they used strong-arm tactics with everyone instead of isolating the culprits. I was extremely angry that night: the police managed to ruin what could have been a beautiful page in the history of music in Palermo without any apparent reason. During that summer of 1982, a week earlier or later, I can't remember (note: a week later), Talking Heads played in the same venue and everything went on smoothly. What a summer that was!

Bernardo Eremita: It was a big trap artfully orchestrated by the prefect of the time. After the band played Verdi's Aida our cheers were covered by the hiss of tear gas and by the screams of blood-thirsty police. Sicily COULD NOT tolerate those rowdy rockers who might have disturbed the quiet of the right-minded and obtuse middle class . . .

Sebastiano Gulisano, "14 luglio 1982: la notte brava dei poliziotti palermitani," Facebook, June 2, 2012 (edited and translated by Galeans, Zappateers, August 11, 2014)

Quote:

Sebastiano Gulisano: 14th July 1982. I was 24 and I had never been in Palermo before. To tell the truth I went there during a school trip when I was in fifth class. I can't remember a single thing about that trip. 14th July 1982 I remember everything. And not because it's more recent, but because I was never so fucking scared again in my life, and I've seen quite a lot.

We were a small group of friends, six or seven. We took the train from the village in which lived in order to go see our hero. None of us knew Palermo. I was the oldest, the younger of us was 15 and his mother "delivered" him to me, I was his "tutor". We arrived late in the morning and we went immediately into the stadium; the concert was going to be there, at La Favorita. I never went there again. Inside the stadium, not in Palermo. I even lived in Palermo, and I may even come back, who knows . . .

It was extremely hot, the sun melted us like icicles. It would be an euphemism saying that we were sweating. While we were waiting for the ticket office to open, we went into a grove near the stadium in order to have some relief, completely relaxed, only wearing pants. Shit, we were so happy! Ticket offices opened approximately at 5 pm. There wasn't a lot of people, even though ten thousand of us would end up there. We had our tickets in hand after a couple of minutes, then we lined at the entrance. We were already looking forward to sit on the lawn, just in front of the stage but no, lawn was closed, we had to go in the tribune. Fuck it! "If we get lost during the show, we will meet again in the grove".

We sat on the left side of the stage, near the center of the stadium and the tribunes soon fill. [...] Someone got near the fence, worked a little bit until they opened a hole, then went back in the tribune. When, at least, Uncle Frank started his show, a window was opened on the fence, and a dozen of his fans (the same that got near the fence earlier), walked in front of the stage and sat on the lawn. On the opposite side, a "cloud" of policemen ran, lift them and after hitting them with the nightstick and shoving them a bit, brought them back on the tribune. Fans started to yell at them and someone threw a tin can who landed against a policeman. The policeman took off his jacket, passed through the hole in the fence, made his way through the crowd and punched the guy that, according to him, had pulled the can. We were a few meters away. A few seconds later, that huge dickhead found himself buried by the friends of the guy he had beaten. His colleagues had to rush in order to save him from being lynched. Then the retaliation started, worse than the Nazis.

A platoon of police take sides in midfield. First the roar of thunder, then the flash of the lightning melted together in a tear gas canister that was fired on our left, right in front of the people in the front row. A cloud of smoke surrounded us and a portion of the tribune. Stampede. My eyes burn. Keeping them opened is painful. The wave of mob hits us. It forces us to get up. My eyes burn. I close them. I can't see a fucking thing. People push. I open my eyes. They hurt. Someone from the stage, while Zappa and his band keep playing, invites us to stay calm, don't panic. People keep panicking. They push. They want to move away from the tear gas. Zappa tells us to calm down, "sit down, stay calm". People stop pushing. The music continues. My eyes burn. We stop. Bang! Bang! Tear gas literally rains. Panic. Screaming. People shoving. Wave. Move. Open your eyes! Do not close them! They burn! Fuck! They are watery. Keep them opened. Watch where you put your feet. Do not get carried away. We are united. Bang! Tear gas rake the grandstands just like the army in the mountains at the time of the robbery. Like the Nazis during the Resistance. We pour towards the exit. Bang! Bang! They keep shooting. The air is unbreathable. The crowd indescribable. My eyes are horribly in pain. I can't close them. I can't stop. I'd be overwhelmed. Trampled. Calm down. Walk. Run. Follow the wave. Be the wave. Bang . . . Bang! Those bastards won't stop. Calm down. Walk. Run. Follow the wave. Be the wave. A sea of people pour toward the exit. Tens of thousands of people in a panic and despair towards a hole through which you pass one at a time, like at the entrance. They haven't opened the gates. Motherfuckers. Many bypass. Bang! Bang! They won't stop shooting. Criminals. They won't stop shooting. Follow the wave. Be the wave. I am the wave. We are near the exit. Keep your eyes open. Hold on. Do not close them. I can't see a fucking thing. I am the wave. Look. Look. Bang! Bang! Calm down. You are there. Sirens. Many sirens. One last effort. I conquer the passage. I'm out!

On the left, an army of police in riot gear prevents the passage to the grove in which we wanted to go if we got lost during the show. I stop. I look for the others. Are we all here? Is someone missing? Toni and Saro are not there. The youngest of us, 15 and 17 years old. Goddamnit. The road is broken. There is a construction site. Lots of stones. People throwing rocks at the cops. Bang! Tear gas. Bang! Rubber bullet. At eye level. Bastardi! Figghibuttana! Bang! Tears. What the fuck do we do now? Let's run away from here, then we'll decide. What about Toni? Saro? One of us picks up a stone. "What the fuck are you doing?" I scream "Let's get the hell out of here". We move away while the police charge people. Run. Run away" The road turns to U. We follow it. The air is filled with tear gas. My eyes hurt real bad. Sirens. Shooting. Smoke. Crowd going mad. Screaming. People running. "Bastardi! Figghibuttana!"

None of us knows Palermo. We hear police cars with sirens. We hid behind some parked cars. Then we keep escaping. Sirens everywhere. Here the air is breathable. The eyes keep hurting real bad, but I can't close them. I want to scream, but I can't. I have to be calm, I am the oldest. Calm down. What the fuck do we do now? Rosalba's (note: a friend of the author) boyfriend is excited. He wants to go back and throw stones at the police. "Fuck off, you Catanese dickhead!" (note: Catania is another town in Sicily). I think this, but I don't say it. Where are the others? Did something happened to them? Fuck! Sirens. Screams. Shoot. We run. We move away. Where are we? Who knows! What about Saro? Toni? Goddamnit! We run. A steering wheel. We hide. Fear. I am scared shitless. Let's run away from here. Where?! I don't know! Silence. Almost. Gunshots and sirens are far away. Far away . . . Sirens. Flashing lights. Manhunt. Parked cars. We hide there. Like when I was a kid after misbehaving I ran to hide behind daddy's car. And when he found me I could race there around the car, but then he always ended up catching me. And then he would beat me. God, he would beat me.

The lights of a bakery bring me back to reality. I'm going inside. "Which way is the station?" "The station? Far away from here" "Yeah, ok, but where?" "Over there" "Thank you, goodnight". So, after asking people to people and hiding at every howl of a siren, we arrived at the station very late at night. We got out the sleeping bags and we lied among the flowerbeds in front of the station. There's a lot of people. Even bums. And drunks. Crash! Broken bottle. I'm scared. Where are Toni and Saro? Fuck! Let's hope anything has happened to them. I'm dead tired. But I can't close my eyes. Saro and Toni showed up around six in the morning, unharmed. They had passed the barrier of cops on the sidewalk and went to the grove, as agreed. There, they saw the police beating up people, managing to not end up there. And when the riots calmed down and beatings stopped, they headed towards the station. And we got together.

The wild night of the police in Palermo ended without a single official stationary and with a lot of beatings. And it's just a matter of luck that there were no deaths (or worse, a massacre) during this: they wanted to get us killed. Motherfuckers. A week later Talking Heads played in the same venue. I didn't feel like going. In fact, for quite a few years the concerts I only listened to concerts in albums. They are less dangerous.

Toni: I have memories of that night in bursts and I'm not as good at writing as Sebastiano so I'm will not even try to describe them. I can't remember where I was exactly when things started to go for the worse and actually I had lost contact with the others and with my clothes: I had removed them because there was too much head. Confused, hounded and in pants, I continued to walk around the mess. I vividly remember the open yard, however, because I spotted a series of concrete pipes stacked one on the other, probably for the sewer pipes judging from their size. In short, as soon as I could I climbed up on the pile, I hid in the higher tube. And there, finally safe and several meters above what was going on, I "enjoyed" an unreal show, similar to what Lance must have enjoyed when he landed during a Vietcong attack in "Apocalypse Now". I was exhausted, so I ended up falling asleep and I didn't wake up until dawn. The best moment was finding everybody unharmed on a lawn in front of the station.

 

9. Nig Biz

Liner notes by FZ, 1989

Ray White (lead vocal and first guitar solo on this cut) was choking on tear gas while performing this. (There exists a piece of video showing John Smothers wiping Ray's eyes with a wet rag just as he begins his guitar solo.) This was the last show the 1982 ever played.

Francesco Gentile, quoted on Arf: Notes & Comments

[Black Page zine]: opening part is shortened.

 

10. King Kong

Liner notes by FZ

dates: JUNE 1982 & DECEMBER 10, 1971 1982 locations: PARC DES EXPOSITIONS, METZ, FRANCE/ODEON HAMMERSMITH, LONDON, ENGLAND/UNKNOWN VENUE, DIJON, FRANCE 1971 location: RAINBOW THEATER, LONDON, ENGLAND original recording mediums: (1982) 24 TRACK ANALOG (1971) 8 TRACK ANALOG 1982 recording engineer: BOB STONE 1971 recording engineer: unknown 1982 remote facility: UMRK MOBILE 1971 remote facility: EMI MOBILE remix engineer: BOB STONE remix facility: UTILITY MUFFIN RESEARCH KITCHEN

Sources:

Special thanks to Francesco Gentile, Patrick Buzby & Charles Ulrich.

YCDTOSA Sampler (1988) YCDTOSA Vol. 3 (1989) Date & Location
0:00-1:55 00:00-01:56 Parc Des Expositions, Metz, France
June 22, 1982
  01:56-03:18
1:55-3:11 03-18-04:34
  04:34-05:02
  05:01-12:13 Rainbow Theatre, London, UK
December 10, 1971
  12:13-14:34 Hammersmith Odeon, London, UK
June 19, 1982
  14:34-14:35 Hammersmith Odeon, London, UK
February 17-19, 1979
  14:35-18:02 Parc Des Expositions, Metz, France
June 22, 1982
  18:02-23:30 Palais des Sports, Dijon, France
June 3, 1982
  23:30-24:31 1982

Rainbow Theatre, London

Liner notes by FZ, 1989

The 1971 Rainbow Theater Show was a disaster. The week before, all of our touring gear was destroyed in a fire which occured in the middle of Don Preston's King Kong mini-moog solo in Montreux, Switzerland. As a result, everybody in the band had new equipment at the Rainbow, and half of it didn't work. The guitar I was playing (a stock Fender Telecaster with chubby strings) had a reasonable tone but was a nightmare to play. This was the last solo I played in 1971—a few moments later some guy knocked me off the stage into the orchestra pit and I wound up in the hospital. (The tape ran out before my crash-landing, otherwise I would have included it here.)

wingedeelfingerling, Zappateers, November 17, 2014

I was there [in the 3rd row] and I remember Frank standing up after putting his guitar in a case and the the guy running on and pushing him backwards into the pit/...

(I WANT A NUN
I WANT A NUN
I WANT A BURRO IN THE FROSTY LIGHT)

 

11. Cosmik Debris

Francesco Gentile, quoted on Arf: Notes & Comments
  • 00:00 unknown '84
  • 00:30 Seattle '84 (2nd show)
  • 01:36 Portland, Arlene Schnitzer Theatre (December 20, 1984)
  • 03:12 Seattle '84 (2nd show)
  • 03:25 Portland '84
  • 04:04 Seattle '84 (2nd show)
  • 04:19 unknown 1984

With the oil of Hi-Yo, Silver
An' the dust of the Grand Wazoo
He said:
"You might not believe this, Tonto
But it'll fix up that war-paint for ya too!"

An' I said . . .
Look here brother,
(Thank you, Masked Man, thank you!)
Who you jivin' with that Cosmik Debris?
(Ah! Masked Man's a fag!)

Extract from "Thank You, Mask Man" by Lenny Bruce (from Selected Bits from Bruce's Monologues Cited in the Cafe Au Go Go Obscenity Prosecution of Comedian Lenny Bruce)

Redneck: Thank you, Mask Man.
Lone Ranger: What's that?
Redneck: Thank you, Mask Man.
Lone Ranger: Thank you, Masked man? Goddamn it, I like that! Let's hear it once again, son.
Redneck: Thank you, Mask Man.
[...]
Redneck: Now look, I'm here to see you accept a present, just one present. [...]
Lone Ranger: I tell you what . . . Anything? Give me that Indian over there.
Redneck: Who's that . . . Tanto?
Lone Ranger: Yes, Tanta . . . I want Tanta the Indian.
Redneck: What you talking about? You can't have Tanto.
Lone Ranger: Bullshit . . . You make the deal. That's what I want. I want Tanta the Indian.
Redneck: You gonna get you a Tanta buddy. His name ain't Tanta it's Tant-o. What the hell you want Tanto for?
Lone Ranger: To perform an unnatural act.
Redneck: What?
Lone Ranger: To perform an unnatural act.
Redneck: Oh . . . Mask Man is a fag. Ah . . . ah . . . fag man. A dirty fag, you dang queer you. The Mask fag man, ain't that a kick in the ass. Bet you got mascara under that damn mask ain't you? A dang queer, I never knew you a fag Mask Man.

 

 

Research, compilation and maintenance by Román García Albertos
http://globalia.net/donlope/fz/
Original provocation by Vladimir Sovetov
This page updated: 2019-05-28