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  1. Oh, no. That’s sad. I interviewed him many years ago for the Zappa fanzine Society Pages and he was a proper gentleman.

    Here he is onstage with Frank in 1984 That’s Allan in the white singlet.

      • There’s a story behind that. Back around 1973 during a Zappa concert in Helsinki a fan called out for Whipping Post. Frank jokingly played along with the idea, but was secretly pissed off that his band didn’t know the song and vowed to learn it one day.

        When Bobby Martin joined the band in the 80s he had the perfect voice for Whipping Post, so it went in the set.

        Here’s the incident from 1973

  3. It was Alan Zavod that was mocked during his tenure with Zappa’s band about his “volcano” keyboard solos.

    A quote from “The Real Frank Zappa Book” by Frank Zappa with Peter Occhiogrosso:-

    «…Alan Zavod, our 1984 keyboard player… …would end his solo with this thing that everybody called “The Volcano.” He held the sustain pedal down and churned and smashed away to get a big blur going, and then topped it off at the end with a big flourish. It worked every time, but it got to be a band joke. In fact, Alan really is a great pianist (and film composer). It’s just that maybe – because he was working in a rock and roll band – he thought that type of solo was the appropriate vehicle to project his aura.»


    (Let’s Move To Cleveland)

    • FZ actually singled him out as the guy shooting off in his solo as code for looking for the blowjob (or something). Read that somewhere. Johnny?

      RIP Alan.

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