Juan Rodriguez on Zappa’s concerts at The New Penelope
Image: The Mothers of Invention in Montreal, January 1967. Excerpt from article, The Georgian newspaper, vol. 30, no 27 (January 13, 1967)
Credit: ARCMTL collection. Interview was conducted in Montreal on April 13, 2016 with Juan Rodriguez by Louis Rastelli, Director of ARCMTL and Alex Taylor, Researcher at ARCMTL, for the Montreal Underground Origins research project.
Duration: 2:06 min
Excerpt of an interview with Juan Rodriguez, rock journalist of the 1960s and publisher of the music magazine called Pop-See-Cul. He recounts anecdotes about the time Frank Zappa spent in Montreal in 1967.
Transcription:
Juan Rodriguez: When Zappa came to Montreal for a two-week stand in January of 1967 […] and it was… freezing!
Alex Taylor: Worse time to come here, right! Cold as hell winter…
Juan Rodriguez: Yeah. And all these people from L.A…. He wore this big raccoon coat, which of course was one of Zappa’s sort of props, in a way, you know. There’s tons of pictures of him…–
Alex Taylor: Very theatrical!
Juan Rodriguez: … in that raccoon coat. (Laughs.) But he really had to use it to keep warm. Now, across from the New Penelope, there was a Banque Nationale, which is still there, and Zappa would ask ME to come with him so that he could cash his checks.
Alex Taylor: To vouch for him or?
Juan Rodriguez: Yeah, like to vouch for him.
Alex Taylor: (Laughs.)
Juan Rodriguez: That he was the real deal, like this and that and the other. And then they would retire to the Swiss Hut – him, Don Preston, Bunk Gardner and Jimmy Carl Black. They would go to the Swiss Hut and have breakfast or brunch. And I’d be able to sit in there, and, I mean, Zappa WAS my hero, and still is…
Louis Rastelli: Were you 18 or so at the time?
Juan Rodriguez: Yes, exactly. And he was my hero then, and he’s my hero now… I think there was just nobody like him, like a great composer of all kinds of music, and also one of the great social satirists of the century. There’s no question about it.