Frank Zappa teaches Steve Allen to play The Bicycle (1963)

from Hollywood it's the Steve Allen Show from The Steve Allen playhouse on H Street in the heart of Hollywood we bring you 90 minutes of Madness and Melody with guest stars M doret Jenny Smith songwriter Samy F log roller Diane Ellison musical bicyclist Frank Zappa better in his orchestra Yours Truly Johnny J John Steve we not only have the prettiest girls in the audience here at the Steve Allen Show but also you'll have to admit some of the strangest musical instruments and this gentleman plays perhaps the strangest of the mall he plays the bicycle and

his name is Frank Zappa thank you you actually play a bicycle yeah are you in the Musicians Union uh no do you play any other musical instrument anything more conventional perhaps guitar Vibes Bas and drums Guitar Vibes Bas drums and bicycle as bicycle will travel from his base to his rums to his guitar uh how did you happen to pick up your first bicycle I I was discussing this before with uh some of the people backstage I believe that a lot of the people have actually played bicycles from time to time when they're young they

take a piece of cardboard and a clothes pin attach it to the rear wheel and when it goes around it makes that noise and you're playing a bicycle then oh I see you mean when they pretend they have a little motor make it sound like a motorbike yes we've all done that well is that what you do you make a motorbike noise I see a couple of bikes over here perhaps we'd better go over and demonstrate and show them what you do Frank Zappa zaap P paa huh well here we are friend stereo bikes and

you have a what are these tools in your hands uh these uh pair of Louis bson style drumsticks and a base bow that I borrowed from your baseman in the back Louie bson style drumsticks does Louis know what you're doing with them I don't think you'd approve very how long have you been playing bike Frank about two weeks he probably was selling insurance or something you thought what's something real jerky that'll get me on the Steve Allen Show playing bicycle what could be sillier than that and he did it and here we are that's probably

how it happened you really only been playing two weeks yes what do you do ordinarily besides this I'm a composer ah might we be familiar with any of your songs as yet uh well you'll be you will be familiar with some of my songs as of next week but I did the score for the world's greatest Center the and who might that be Tommy Manville or who tell us about that that's the name of the film it's the world's worst movie and I did the music for it the world's greatest Center yes it's a Tim

KY production frenzy Productions frenzy Productions it's an it's an independent company they all are these days the way things are going but uh they shot at n so list and they shot my agent melon you know that could happen to anybody uh who was in it uh Tim Cary and a cast of a thousand people that he found down on Main Street some place the world's greatest Center does Tim play the title role uh yes and you you wrote the score for that what instrumentation did you use three harmonicas and a bicycle or what well

uh we had a 55 piece Orchestra and we had a very unusual read section we had they couldn't read we had contrabas clarinet uh two bassoons no four bassoons uh two obos English horn four flutes and Piccolo uh four trumpets four horns and four trombones and a tuba and uh I forget there's a bunch a partridge in a pair of tree well it sounds like very interesting uh inventory we recorded it we recorded it in the chaffy high school chaffy college Little Theater in altaloma California course it was a runaway production then wasn't it right

down the line for 12 hours we well we'll look forward to that now as for the job of the moment um you want to play the new departure blues or exactly what are you going to uh play on us here I'll just let you show us what happens the first thing that I should do is demonstrate to you the different types of sounds that you can get from a bicycle because it actually does make some very interesting uh sounds and of course that's what we're all interested in there new sounds yes like that that's one

of the sounds that you can yes oh you have a microphone down there I see well I I'll need this microphone to pick up the next sound it's a you have to hold it right there all right hello hello I'm sorry you'll have to leave a message he's not here right now that's pretty good oh there's a hole in these things isn't there did did you were you just whistling through there happen if you tried blow air you just blow air and did it whistle can I blow air and little whistle blow real easy blow

real easy oh you blow easy yeah man all right Co it one more time that concludes my arrangement up on a bicycle for to when you get home tonight friends try this on your own bicycle when you don't have a lot of wise Acres around what else well the next thing that I'd like to demonstrate is some of the other noises possible and then I'm like to have uh you participate with me uh in a small improvisation for two bicycles uh pre-recorded tape and instrumental Ensemble crazy okay now here's what else you can do you

can pluck the spokes like a heart sounds like the Koto of Japan I can play uh my nose really do that again I mean that other thing and then as I was demonstrating before you can run the sticks over the spokes in Rapid motion this produces the that spoke stick it's similar to the effect of the uh cardboard and the clothes pin like the uh steel drums of Jamaica and Trinidad Trinidad you can also bang on the frame and if you're lucky enough to have a bicycle that has a squeaking seat you can squeak the

seat up exploding handlebar you can explode The Handlebar that premise is granted there's no limit to what you can do well would you uh help me with this please I'll be glad to accompany you looks rather uncomfortable to sit on I must say there's a different technique for the upside down bicycle first thing you do is you put the kickstand down glad to hear that you can turn the wheels around you know and then yeah need to put the brakes on yeah and where it says for bar wrist you just give it a little of

that I'll uh have you put the bow on here see go like that if you take this please and that's like fingernails on the Blackboard is now uh this this may be a little bit new to you but I think that it doesn't come up in the ordinary conversation well I should suggest that you alternate between Boe and plucking an arrow jet those are two airplants here in the neighbor you should bow it and pluck it and uh if you can scratch across the uh bow it and pluck it the basket yeah now the whole

idea that we're going to uh do here in this improvised Concerto for Two bicycles a pre-recorded tap and the musicians in the back is that you're supposed to express yourself freely without any kind of uh you have to let your front down and you have to you have to uh just feel your way through it because it's you're completely released you're a composer yourself and you know that the standard method of notation is very difficult you know I ignore it yeah well this will help now uh you write the music on a road map for

this thing that's how Route 66 was written you think I'm kidding I am kidding but not too successfully and go ahead I got to to tell the man in the control Booth who is ready to run the tape if you just give me a quick blast of the tape so we can get started all right now the tape is pre-recorded electric noises that uh I stuck together uh I gave my wife a clarinet and told her to play it and uh she she doesn't play corette and then even to have a wife how do you

like and then I did some electric things to it and it's very interesting you'll hear a woman singing in there someplace and I I record that off the radio I stuck it in but now the the way we work this is when the man in the control Booth feels moved to add his electronic part to our work here he will throw a little switch which just lets some of this noise through and then I request of the the uh musicians that if they feel so moved make any noise possible on your instrument no try and

refrain from musical tones in fact they won't have any trouble with that AR if it would be possible for you a regular way fellas I'm sorry if it would be possible for you to put some sort of objects on the strings of the piano you'll get that's good I prefer you to play it that way all season long Don right no we'll start are we on he Mary had a little lamb it's place oh this part of it was white as snow and everywhere that no this is part of it he told me to recite

a poem while this was voice on The Burning de Ruth rode on my cycle car on a seat in back of me I took a bump at 95 and rode on ruthlessly that's the end that's 32 bars we we're playing like we went to 32 bars tonight you know well Mr Zappa I must say that I'm always in favor of enlarging the Horizons at least in peering anxiously beyond the horizons of any field of human endeavor or interest and therefore I uh congratulate you on your uh farsightedness and as for your music don't ever do

it around here again no seriously it was a very amusing and entertaining and stimulating experiment is there anything you'd like to say in closing yes I would next week his record is being released called How's your bird really yes I brought a dub of it over here I don't think you've heard it yet and it's uh going and buy it it's wonderful got everything but a bicycle in all right thank you very much Mr zapa thank you you know that music sounds a little bit like the music that a very gifted thought I sat on

the pie there for a minute woo that was a close one folks you could have had me that time I wasn't looking for you you did no the uh Alin Nikolai is his name a very gifted choreographer I'll go to that mic very gifted choreographer uh we used to use him on the show when we were on Sunday evenings and uh he does his own music I guess music is the best word they can find for it and it sounds very much like that he you know plays tin cans backwards and Records them at strange

tape speeds and then to this strange conglomeration of sounds he um creates dances choreography and he's really a genius in his particular field I guess we must have to let somebody around the country talk right now uh another Sammy Fain song will be performed for you in just a moment great song Secret Love Will Be Sung by Jenny Smith and then after that we'll be getting Sammy out and we have a few other surprises I guess even to me hurry right back