Zappa’s been workin’ on de railroad...

Zappa smirks at his not so meager triumph of convincing Grand Funk that singing through an ashtray will add exotic tonal effects to the band's vocal tracks while Mel works up nerve to ask Frank permission to go to the bathroom.

"The thing that's really great about producing this band was I got to be good friends with all the guys... these guys fart on each other; shoot slingshots, the kind of people I can identify with. — Frank Zappa"

“You gotta admit that the combination of Grand Funk and Frank Zappa is, by image, really weird.”

Right Don, that’s why I’m here at LA’s Record Plant at 2:30 in the morning, trying to dig beneath the surface of what seems to be one of the most unlikely artist/producer team-ups in recent rock history.

Don Brewer and Frank Zappa have been here all night, attending to the final mixdown of Funk’s Good Singin’, Good Playin'. I got here at 1:00 and have been listening to the painstaking process of adding a piano track to a largely instrumental piece that’ll probably be called “Out To Gitcha.” Zappa’s behind the console, pushing levers, hitting the buttons as the tape machines whirr on into the night. The piano has to be faded up to the foreground for a few transitional bars, then backed down just a bit so the guitar can drive the song to its close. After dozens of runthroughs, levels are agreed upon. The tom-toms are brought up a little; a touch of echo is added to a guitar part. Don pushes the buttons to bring the vocals in at the right time. Eventually, the track is complete.

But that guitar. I mean, I know Mark Farner has improved a lot over the years, but this lead really sustains itself over a pretty long space . . .

Yeah, it turns out to be Frank, but it’s both rockier and more fluid than what is heard on most Mothers albums.

“I wasn’t even gonna be playing on it,” Frank nods his head, “until we had a little emergency tonight and we needed to fill up some space in that song. It’s a little difficult to overdub a guitar solo on something cold and still try to make it fit with the track. I don’t know if it really succeeds.”

Nothing like a little modesty. It’s easily one of Frank’s finest rock solos. Don agrees: “It kicks ass.”

So does the album as a whole. Granted, my perspective may be shaped somewhat by the fact that the music is coming out of huge speakers just a few feet away, but it seems to pack a physical punch of its own as well as project a very clear sound.

The title Good Singin’, Good Playin’ sums it up pretty well. It would have been tempting for this very American band to come up with some sort of Bicentennial concept trip but aside from “’76” and “Don’t Let 'Em Take Your Gun,” the music is just, well, you know, rock and roll. Farner wrote or co-wrote every song but two and his guitar is much more dominant than it was on Born To Die.

“The basic tracks were done live in their studio in Parshallville,” Frank tells me. “They set up just about everything that they normally use onstage, all the normal heavy amplification. I just mixed it up and recorded what they sounded like. I had a couple of mikes open in the room just to get the sound of the whole thing.

“All the vocals are overdubbed and there’s three songs that have guitar leads overdubbed. Most of the rest of the leads and all of the rest of the instrumental parts are live tracks.

“There’s zilch in the way of effects on it; about the weirdest thing on the record is a little echo. Maybe for the first time on record, people will get to hear what Grand Funk really sounds like.

They will play their butts off and it sounds, like group music.

“The only thing that I did to their stuff was in places where it was requested, I cut things out. The sides are long; they’re 23-minute sides and I’m trying to keep’em to that so that the record will have a decent level. I tried to get out of the way as much as possible, trying to keep it the group’s thing.”

Aside from the guitar solo mentioned earlier, the only thing that Frank takes credit for is one lyric line in “Miss My Baby.” Guess which one—it should be pretty obvious. And the effects are kept to a minimum, although I could do with a little less echo on some of the vocals.

But if things were kept so simple, why does this album sound so different than On Time or Closer To Home? Weren’t they done simply too?

“We just went into Cleveland Recorders, which was an 8-track studio, with our manager/producer Terry Knight,” Don fills me in, “and in a matter of four days did everything, mistakes and all. We put a lot of echo on it in places and that was it. We did hardly any overdubs.

“But recording has come a long way since then and since we got a recording studio, everybody in the group understands a little bit more about the actual recording of a record. I mean none of us are engineers or producers or any of that kind of stuff ...”

“But they’re on their way,” breaks in Frank. “Everybody in this band can operate a recording console. Can you think of any other group in rock ‘n’ roll where all the members can operate a recording console? They’ve only got one in their studio but they can all turn it on and off and know how it works. When you start talking to them about whether or not they want compression or some other technical stuff, they know what you’re talking about. So it’s real easy to work with ’em.”

All of which may seem strange to anybody who still conceives of Grand Funk as the Flintstones of rock but the thing is, that image is obsolete, even as it remains in the minds of millions of people. Zappa’s old image likewise works against him; I just ran into a kid the other day who still believes the story of Frank eating shit onstage. He’s no longer the inexplicable dirty old man (if he ever was) and GFR are no longer the 10,000 watt transistor radio they were once described as. Which is not to say that Mothers music and Grand Funk music are the same, however. So how did they get together?

"To approach Frank Zappa to us was like a super bizarre idea. We weren't sure that was where we were at and where Grand Funk people were at... — Don Brewer"

'Basically,” Don says, “we had a talk to call Frank to do production for us two years ago and it never came about. To approach Frank Zappa to us was like a super bizarre idea. We weren’t sure that was where we were at and where Grand Funk people were at . . .

“They didn’t know whether or not they wanted to have that kind of a name on their record,” grins Frank.

“No, that’s bullshit,” Don retorts, before he too cracks up. “So we finally just decided, that’s all.”

“I’d just finished a six month tour of the world,” Frank explains, “and I was ready to stay home for awhile, but they had been trying to get in touch with me since before that tour started. So I just came out and met the guys; I’d never heard any of their records, I didn’t know anything about ’em except the kind of sleaze you print in your magazine.

“So I just went out to their studio in Parshallville and met ’em. They were really nice people. They played great; they sang good. They gave me a bunch of records; I took ’em home and listened to ’em and thought about it for awhile.

“The second time we got together, they were ready to record. I was gonna stay just for two days to listen to their demos and I stayed for about a week and we just cut the tracks at their studio. Then we took a week off and came out here and did the vocals for about four or five days and then we mixed it in about four days.”

“Frank Zappa has an ear for rock ‘n’ roll and the way we play it,” broke in Don. “And the way we play it is real different, I think. We don’t lay out songs like anybody else; we don’t do anything by the. standards that anybody else does ’em. We just hang out in the middle of nowhere and when we feel like getting together, we do and start throwing some jams together. Whoever brings up an idea, it’s his song. It just kinda comes together. Frank is really aware of all that kinda stuff.”

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CONTINUED FROM PAGE 37.

“When Andy Cavaliere, their manager, was first talking to me about doing the album,” adds Frank, “I asked him what did he want me to do on it. The main thing he was interested in—this is a quote from Andy—he said, ‘I want you to make sure that the album has a lot of spontan uity to it.’ And I said, ‘Okay, I’ll try to maintain the spontan uity.’

“The thing that’s really great about producing this band was I got to be friends with all the guys and I can’t make that statement about any of the other people I work with. They all come over to the house arid hang out and they all have a good sense of humor.

“I just found it refreshing to rrieet somebody from rock ‘n’ roll that was actually nice. Most of the people that I’ve had occasion to bump into are a bunch of pricks. They take themselves too seriously and I wouldn’t spend any time with ’em socially because they are just not interesting people. They’re not growing; they’re all stardom struck and fucked up.

“But these guys fart on each other,, shoot slingshots; the kind of people I can identify with. And another thing that I definitely have in common with them is that I think there’s been as many shitty things written about them as there have been written about me so I’m on their side.”

So the bond between Frank Zappa and Grand Funk Railroad involves a shared sense of humor and being a target for those unable to comprehend. Also, the feeling that rock ‘n’ roll is supposed to be direct, dirty, and unpretentious is there (remember Ruben & The Jets?). Not to mention that all important spontan u/ty.