[TheDudeAbides]

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Thanks for that -- very cool. Also, Zappa's cover of the Allman Brothers' 'Whipping Post" is worth seeking out...

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there's a decent story about that one.

zappa was playing live in helsinki when a guy yelled out "WHIPPING POST!"

"say that again please...whipping post? ok just a second... oh sorry, we don't know that one, anything else? hum me a few bars of it, please. just show me how it goes, please...just sing me 'whipping post', and maybe we'll play it with you."

he wasn't kidding about trying it out for the first time on stage, zappa's bands have phenom musicians/singers. but the guy only yelled back 2 random notes. they moved onto the song they were planning on performing, "montana". he adapted the lyrics in the song to talk about whipping posts. sometime after the show he looked the song up, and it became a regular cover on subsequent zappa tours. the whole event was recorded, i just transcribed it from the zappa live cd "you can't do that on stage anymore volume 2".

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That's awesome. FZ was probably the best when it came to audience participation/interaction. The guy they bring up on stage to do his "Kindergarten" poem on YCDTSA Vol. 1 is a prime example.

But I call BS on Frank's part though. I think he was just playing off the crowd. No way were they going to even attempt it. He was notorious for being a perfectionist, going as far as to practice 10 hours a day before a tour to make sure everything was just right. He demanded that his musicians get everything exactly to his liking (but that could have a lot to do with the utter complexity of his works - see Black Page #2 for an example).