And there was cake

Zappadan Zappajam went really well last Friday. Each band did a short set on their own then there was general mixing and matching including a dozen guest players with an audience of around 50. It all ended with a mass rendition of Muffin Man with almost everyone playing, singing and dancing. Overall a fantastic night. It almost felt like the Acton Zappa Collective had come into being.

Busy preparing for Zappadan Zappajam this Friday

by Jo Jo Gabor

Rehearsed with Acton Zappa on Saturday. Tonight I'm going to Jazz Mondays rehearsal and tomorrow Tuesday Blue. Then rehearsing some guests on Wednesday. Thursday I'm going to the launch of All City Queens, a book featuring the work of female graff writers and then it's all go for the party on Friday! Guest performers now total a dozen including Jo Jo Gabor, the Burns brothers from Gumbo Variations and Andrew the Idiot Bastard himself threatening to murder a bass guitar. My wonderful wife Lynne is slaving away on decor for the party. This is going to be a wonderful Zappa event - don't miss it.

Zappadan Zappajam preparations going well

In addition to the three bands there are 6 surprise guest players going to join the fun. Some travelling considerable distances.

See us at Zappadan Zappajam on Friday 11th December

Rehearsals continuing to go well and as promised, back in August, here's some details and a flyer for our gig next month. We are hosting a party to celebrate the 75th anniversary of Frank Zappa's birth. There will be 3 bands: As well as Acton Zappa playing Zappa exclusively, there will be Tuesday Blue mixing Zappa with blues and soul and Jazz Mondays bringing their big-band sound to some Zappa tunes. There will also be some surprise guests bringing their own take on Zappa. The party starts early and goes on till late. Hope to see you there.

Now we are 4 (again)

After a longish summer break we were back in the studio on Saturday and very pleased to be joined by trombone player Ollie Hill.

Summer break and future plans

We've taken a break for August. We were to be playing a gig at Oxjam Chiswick in September but sadly the whole event has been cancelled. Maybe next year. Been working on new numbers to add to the rep including Peaches en Regalia and Son of Mr Green Genes both from Hot Rats and looking forward to playing them as a band at the first September rehearsal. Also very much looking forward to Ollie a trombone player sitting in with us. Plans are afoot for an event in December for Acton Zappa to celibrate the 75th anniversery of Frank's birth. It will be on Friday 11th December. Watch this space for further details.

Acton Zappa to be on CD

Acton Zappa are proud to announce that we will be on the new Idiot Bastard and Cordelia Records CD "Sons of Mr Green Genes"

This will be a compilation by various bands playing many versions of Zappa's "Son of Mr Green Genes" - the instrumental track from his popular "Hot Rats" album. The CD is no. 6 in the series put together by the very wonderful Idiot Bastard and Cordelia Records.

And this is how it Sounded and Looked

Chunga's Revenge

Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance

Great gig yesterday

It was a great gig yesterday afternoon despite the poor weather and clashing wimbledon final keeping some of the potential audience away. Those that were there enjoyed it and there were lots of nice compliments after we played. Thanks to John and Tomas for their fantastic playing, as always, and thanks also to the support of guest players Graham and Gilly who joined in on saxophones for the last three numbers. Here's the set list:

Zoot Allures
Oh No
Orange County Lumber Truck
Echidna's Arf
Why Does It Hurt When I Pee?

Magic Fingers

Blessed Relief
Chunga's Revenge
Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance

Here's the poster for Hampton Music Festival.

If you look closely you can see Acton Zappa listed as one of the bands playing on Sunday 12th July. We'll be on stage from around 4.20pm.

Acton Zappa Next Gig - 12th July

Our next gig will be part of "Our Big Gig" an event taking place over a week-end and organised by Superact. It's a free outdoor event with many bands. Acton Zappa will be playing in Hampton Square, London, TW12 on Sunday 12th July. We will play a 45min set starting at 4pm or so. If you live in the area we hope to see you there.

Acton Zappa @ The Rocket

We had a very enjoyable gig at The Rocket last Saturday. Thanks to the enthusiastic audience and to Gilly and Graham our guest players.

The rejected mexican pope leaves the stage

Well not quite but sorry to report that, due to too many other commitments, Helen Tate has decided to quit the band. I'm sorry she's gone but respect her decision. This means that for the time being we return to being a trio. I'm not totally pissed off about this because the more people in the band the greater the hassle for me in organising rehearsals and so on.

Fans of Helen can continue to see her performing with Spanner Jazz Punks and Spanner Tate and, as I have issued an open invitation to her, she may sometimes appear as a guest with Acton Zappa.

Talking of guests there will be one and possibly two saxophones joining us for a few numbers next Saturday, 9th May, at the Rocket.

A Video from MOO-AH Festival

I am very grateful to my friend Luuk for posting this video on youtube of the band playing at the MOO-AH Festival last month. I couldn't figure out how to link to the picture so please click on the words.

                     Acton Zappa - Oh No/Orange County Lumber Truck at Moo-Ah 2015-03-20

Acton Zappa's birthday

It was a year ago yesterday, 28th March 2014, that Acton Zappa met for the very first time. That original jam had Mike Fox on guitar and vocals, Tomáš Indyján Nejedlý on bass and one-time only member, Eldred on guitar and multi effects box. Eldred, by his own admission, knew no Zappa material and Tomas was very relieved when I told him Eldred would not be at future sessions. Tomas on the other hand knew lots of Zappa including bits of the frighteningly-hard-to-play Echida's Arf and thus was started a musical partnership that has endured. With the addition of John Parkinson on drums and recently Helen Tate on violin Acton Zappa have matured into the gigging combo you can see today.

For nostagia's sake here's a recording from that very first jam sessions. I hope it doesn't give you nightmares Tomas.

why-does-it-hurt-when-i-pee on soundcloud

There are no pics from that very first jam session. Here's one taken a month or two later of Mike and Tomas.

MOO-AH was fantastic

Here we are on stage at MOO-AH opening the festival. Sorry we can't see John at the back but nice view of MOO-AH logo on front of bass drum behind Helen.

Here we are (minus Helen who had gone home early) on Saturday, around 1 a.m., after it was all over, trying to persuade Ike Willis to join the band. Only kidding. He had been playing with Zappatika. That's half of Zap Mcinnes' head you can see on the right.

Now we are 4 and it's MOO-AH! tomorrow

Helen Tate of Spanner Jazz Punks tried out with us last Saturday. It went brilliantly and she is now in the band. On Saturday eveing we played a great set with Helen at Hanwell Hop and although there were some technical problems everybody played really well. I feel so lucky finding these great players who are as nuts about Zappa as I am. Possibly the high spot of the night was when I invited Jazz Mondays back to join Acton Zappa on the stage to form a band of around 14 players to perform Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance and Chunga's Revenge. There were violin, guitar, saxophone and keyboard solos all backed up by bass and two drummers.

We are all very exited to be playing at Festival MOO-AH in Corby tomorrow night and sharing the stage with Inventionis Mater and the Zappatistas. We are on first and fully intend to give our best performance to an audience of Zappa aficionados. Then we will just stay on and enjoy the rest of the festival.

Possible New Member and Local Gig on Saturday 14th March

At this coming Saturday rehearsal we're trying out a potential new band member. Then in the evening we're playing a local gig at Hanwell Hop and this new person might join us for a few numbers. What is certain is that at the end of our set we will be joining forces with Jazz Mondays (a band I sometimes play bass with) to play two Zappa tunes with a very large band including 2 drummers, 2 guitarists, keyboards and at least six saxophones.
Jazz Mondays are on at 7pm and Acton Zappa at 8pm. The evening continues with Hats off to Led Zeppelin at 9.30pm.

Acton Zappa Expansion?

Although it's great fun playing as a trio it seems to me that an audience might be better entertained with a few more players so I've advertised for a sax and a keyboard player. No keyboard responses yet but I've arrange to audition a sax player this Thursday. Fingers crossed.
It's almost certainly too late to expand the band before the two coming March gigs but I'm hoping we might be a larger outfit post MOO-AH.

We were on German Radio yesterday

The German internet radio station Rockradio.de had a programme last night that featured all the bands to be playing at the upcoming Festiva MOO-AH in Corby. So a track of Acton Zappa's was played in the very good company of Ike Willis, Denny Walley, Zappatistas, Zappatika, The Muffin Men, Inventionis Mater Evil Dick and the Banned Members and String Thrash
The next chance to here us on the radio will be on Tuesday 17 February on Andrew Greenaway's AAAFNRA show on Thurrock Radio

Today's rehearsal

Today's rehearsal included a play through of a different set to last time.
A possible first set for our upcoming pub gig.
acton-zappa-rehearsal-2015-01-31-set

Rehearsal of a complete set.

Last Saturday we rehearsed a complete 45min set (actually closer to 50min).
Here it is.
Acton Zappa at Survival 2015-01-17 Set

A chance to see us play live coming up on Saturday 9th May

Back in the Studio and we will soon be on the Radio.

Last Saturday was the first rehearsal of the year at Survival Studios in Acton (where else). I thought it went pretty well. We mostly worked on the harder numbers and finally played, for the first time, the whole of Echidna; the last section still needs plenty of work. Lynne turned up about 30mins before we finished and took some pics and video but the camera ran out of memory so I've now ordered a new bigger memory card for it.

I recorded everything, except our warm-up Chunga's Revenge on my Zoom and IMHO the best sounding tracks are "Oh No" and "Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance" so when I had a request from Andrew Greenaway for a couple of tracks to play on his radio show, to help promote Festival MOO-AH, these were the two tracks I sent him.

As to the festival, on Friday 20th March, we need to drive up to Corby in the morning for a soundcheck in the afternoon and we'll go on stage around 8pm or possibly a little earlier. We will be the first band to play and Ian has requested that we start playing something to pull the audience into the hall and then he will make a brief announcement about the festival. I was thinking of Chunga for this but am now thinking Oh No might be better. Our set will be around 45mins and John and Tom have requested a set list so I need to put a provisional list together soon, certainly before our rehearsal this coming Saturday - watch this space.