Frank Zappa Festival Moo-Ah! 31/3-1/4/2017

Festival Moo-Ah! 31/3-1/4/2017
Every two years, two intrepid Frank Zappa fans brave the waters of cultural indifference to create a two day festival honouring Frank Zappa. In Corby. The Raven Hall, to be precise: a 1930s dance hall with sprung floor, arched roof and chandeliers. Plus real ale on the bar.
It’s a labour of love, operating at a loss every time, but with attendees from all over Europe and at least one band from the States every time. This was my first visit, and my first indoor festival for ten years, since the closure of Gosport & Fareham Easter Festival.
Train up to Corby, then a 2 mile walk to the hotel, passing the venue at the mid-way point. I spent a lot of the weekend walking – there being nowt else to do during the day. The hotel conveniently has a Wetherspoons next door, which was a good place to revive having checked in, and fill the time before doors opened at the hall.
Charlie’s Gorilla – scored highly on being young, and going for the more amusing material, and starting with Eat That Question – one of my favourite Zappa melodies.
Span'nər-Tāte were great fun. A duo of guitar and trombone/violin weirdness. One of only two acts with a woman through the weekend (there ain’t many women listening to Zappa, let alone playing his music), they approached the gig as theatre. Helen Tate did most of the singing, in amongst the violin work, taking the persona of a 60s hippy chick – lots of expression, flower-power dancing and weirdness. This was the ‘eyebrows’ I mentioned in a previous post. They even did a bit about living in a piano – extrapolated from ‘Lumpy Gravy’. I’d bring ‘em to TwickFolk if I could get away with it…
After some quite lousy food, Orange Claw Hammer took us into Captain Beefheart territory, just for variety. They played some mean blues, with the full angularity you expect of Beefheart rhythms. Plus, the bass player was using a Rickenbacker bass – ala Lemmy, giving the rhythm an incredible punch.
The final Friday act was The Wrong Object, who I found baffling. I’m not sure if their sound was bad, the guitarist had technical problems, or there was a 20 minutes section of self-indulgent noodley prog-jazz-fusion rubbish half way through their set. Good version of Eat That Question, though.
Saturday kicked off with Acton Zappa who I’d seen last year and not enjoyed. They’ve got better. The young lad playing trombone has a great singing voice and just needs to relax a bit. The band is let down by their leader, who SHOUTS into the microphone and can’t carry a tune. His guitar work was okay though. Also, the other band with a woman – this time playing keyboard and keeping a low profile.
MagNiFZnt were another duo – from Sweden, playing acoustic guitars. Incredibly good players and singers, their set was basically a singalong, which brightened up the evening no end.
More bad, cold food, and then The Muffin Men! These guys were going before Zappa passed away in the 90s, so they know their stuff. Plus, they had old Zappa band member Denny Walley guesting on guitar. Brilliant from start to finish – incredible playing, great set list (even if they skipped Eat That Question).
Then The Goodges. Quite why we needed an obscenely loud, dodgy pub-rock duo who knew no Zappa or Beefheart songs is beyond me. The entire audience bolted outside, but you could still hear them.
Finally we had the Zappa Early Renaissance Orchestra. Lost me again. Dodgy sound once more, which didn’t help. You couldn’t hear the ukulele, but everything else was too loud. The band is led by the bass player, who managed to get half the stage, while three other guys were squeezed into the other side. Craig ‘Twister’ Steward a harmonica player of note came up a couple of times to jam, but they generally seemed ill at ease. By now it was way past midnight, and I ambled off into the night, yawning…
All in all, an enjoyable weekend – incredibly varied given that most acts were all working from the same compositional catalogue. I’ll probably go back in 2019 because there just aren’t many places you can hear ‘Eat That Question’ these days…