I was in high school at the time, playing guitar in a classic rock cover band. I was so into it that I tried looking as sixties as possible, except for the…(choke)…mullet. Nonetheless, I felt that I was pretty sophisticated musically, having trained my ear on Zeppelin, Hendrix, and countless other classic rock bands. Zappa was one guy that had eluded my ears, until Charlie brought the Mothers into work one day. He had come into work one day with about seven Zappa albums, from the Mothers of Invention stuff all they way to Overnite Sensation. My interest was piqued, because I was a guitar freak, and I had heard that Zappa was quite the guitar player. I read off the names of the albums: ‘Weasels Ripped my Flesh’? ‘Apostrophe’? ‘200 Motels’. I thought, “This guy’s weird. He’s gotta be on drugs.” I ended up being wrong about the drugs, but very right about the weirdness.

From the moment he hit play on the CD, all my expectations of what Frank Zappa might have sounded like went out the window. I had him pegged for sixties blues-rock. Nope. The song was called ‘Plastic People’ and it lasted a couple of minutes before my co-workers and I started complaining. 58 minutes later marked the end of the torture that had later been declared, “The time Charlie brought in that crappy music…” I decided that I didn’t like Zappa or the Mothers. No way. That was music? I thought, what the hell was Deep Purple thinking, immortalizing him in ‘Smoke on the Water’? Little did I know, a seed had been planted.

A few years ago, when Napster was helping big e-commerce sites lose precious bandwidth, was when I accidentally revisited planet Zappa. I had been an in-house graphic designer at an Internet startup. Everybody who worked there had a T1 connection and the Napster client. It was a huge downloading party that lasted until the suits pulled the plug, about a year later. It was plenty of time to refamiliarize myself with music I disliked. So here’s how it happened. I had been sifting through a user’s Shared folder, looking for something good, when I came across a file called ‘Montana-FZappa’. I clicked ‘Download’ and never looked back. 15 discs and three years later, I’m writing this story.

I love the guy’s music, what can I say? My friends think I’m crazy. I think they’re crazy, listening to that Drum and Bass stuff. I listen to music (sniff!). I can say a million great things about it, but you’d have to listen to know what I’m talking about, so I’ll move on to another subject – the fact that Frank spent some years in San Diego as a kid. Whether or not he was fond of the city is beyond me, but I do know that his earliest musical epiphany—his discovery of Edgard Varese—happened while living in El Cajon. I’d also read that he once attended Mission Bay High School and shopped for blues singles at a record store on the ground floor of the Maryland Hotel in downtown. This last factoid stuck with me, because I vaguely remembered visiting a record store there once. It was probably not the same one, but I decided to make a trip downtown and check it out anyway.

The Maryland is/was kind of a flophouse, an old San Diego hotel with white antique mosaic floors. I played shows with a ska band on the bottom floor coffeehouse once. The Gashaus, as it was called, was accessible through the hotel, and the bands had to keep their gear in the basement until it was their turn to play. The basement area could have been a set for The Shining. It was horror movie creepy, where your footfalls echoed loudly and one felt that they were being watched! Next door was the record store, which at the time had great old vinyl. I think I bought a Queen album there once.

I had returned, only to find the place emptied out. They’re refurbishing the hotel, upgrading it to fit in with downtown redevelopment. There had been low-income senior citizens living there, all evicted when the new ownership took over. There was nothing to indicate that either Gashaus or the record store had ever been there. What had I expected to find? Nothing. I just thought I’d retrace young Zappa’s steps while there was still a chance. I kicked around a bit and then took off.

Sometime later, I made it downtown to see Mike Keneally play at a jazz club called Dizzy’s. Mike was a local San Diegan who became the guitarist during Zappa’s 1988 tour, and remained a good friend of Frank’s well afterwards. He has also become a legend in his own right. I was able to chat briefly with Mike after the show. I think I said something witty, like, “I love your music…” Oh, brother. I’m not really good at talking to my hero’s. I did, however, avoid questions about Frank. I didn’t want to pester him with stuff people probably ask all the time. We kind of looked at each other knowingly, and then briefly talked guitar. Afterwards, I was contented with a parting handshake.

Walking back to the car, I thought about seeing Mike, being in downtown San Diego, and just the whole six degrees of separation. It’s funny how small the world is sometimes. I was pretty darn happy to be a Zappa fan that night. It’s like being in a secret club (of lunatics, you may think).

“Moving to Montana soon, gonna be a dental floss tycoon….Aaaaaarf!”