(Simmons/Sanctuary, June 8, 2004)
Gene Simmons—bass & lead vocals
Dweezil Zappa—lead guitar, vocals
FZ—guitar & voice
Gail Zappa—vocals
Moon Zappa—vocals
Ahmet Zappa—vocals
FZ:Wop wop.
FZ: Alright, kids, here is a real rock & roll song.
[...]
FZ: Listen, you guys don't give a shit what we're playing, just wanna make noise.
[...]
FZ: Take notice what these weirdos are saying, what they are doing. You never know, they might know something you don't know, huh?
Simmons says he also plans to build a song around an unused Zappa riff titled, appropriately, "Black Tongue." "The plan is for [Zappa's children] Dweezil, Ahmet, and everybody to play on it, and to take Frank's voice and create a brand new song. It's very dark, very sort of King Crimson, 'In the Court of the Crimson King'-kind of sound, with 7/8 time."
Frank Zappa and GENE share co-writing credit on "Black Tongue" and the Zappa Family, Dweezil, Ahmet, Moon, Gail and Frank Zappa himself sing and play guitar on the song. [...] One of the album's most memorable tracks, "Black Tongue" deftly reconfigures a previously unreleased Frank Zappa guitar riff and transforms it into a gargantuan aural beast. It's a trippy psychedelic freakout that would make the late rock icon proud. SIMMONS explained, "I've always admired Frank Zappa. He invited me over to his house right before he unfortunately passed away. We had a real heart to heart. He said some very kind things to me and showed me his library of tapes, things that had never been released. After his death it struck me that a lot of material wasn't going to see the light of day. So I called up his wife, Gayle Zappa. I told her about my album and said, "Are there any bits of songs that Frank never finished. I would be honored to write a brand new song around a theme of some kind. His son, Dweezil, got involved early on and he played me about ten different pieces. I was immediately struck by this piece, it's a sample of Frank talking ("Alright kids, here's a real rock and roll song") and then the descending riff is the basis of the song, which was ironically called 'Black Tongue.' Almost the entire Zappa family, Gayle, Dweezil, Ahmet and Moon and I sang the background vocals on the chorus. Dweezil found some guitar solo bits that his father had done and was able to extract that. So the song actually has some lead guitar playing by Frank as well as talking in the song." [...]
"I played bass, and sang lead, Dweezil Zappa played lead guitar. The Zappa family sang the choruses with me and Frank Zappa spoke and played some lead guitar licks on the original piece of music. Dweezil included the guitar bits into the song. I wrote the lyric in the studio."
If you listen to Gene Simmons Black Tongue intro, you'll may hear that is a pitched down sequence of the 5/8 riff that Mothers used to play (sort of like in Didja Get Any Onja).
I believe it also includes a sample from "Underground Freak-Out Music"—in the fast 6/8 opening after the slow 5/8 riff. It is the same tempo and pitch, and you can even hear the woodblock or cross-stick on the eights.