About thirty-five years ago I played the Moers Music Festival in Germany. The band was one of Eugene Chadbourne\u2019s wild inventions. Ashwin Batish, Jonathan Segal, Brian Ritchie, and, most importantly, Jimmy Carl Black, the Indian of the group. Yes, that Jimmy Carl Black from The Mothers of Invention. I could hardly believe I was breathing the same air. If you\u2019ve ever listened to We\u2019re Only In It for the Money, you\u2019ve heard his display of odd time signatures while the rest of the world stays in four-four then his voice pops up like a ghost between the cuts, declaring in kindergarten tone: Hi boys and girls I’m Jimmy Carl Black, the Indian of the group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I thought I\u2019d entered a sacred place, a fusion temple with better beer. Today I watched old footage of Jimmy with two other Mothers explaining how Zappa fired them after a great tour. They were making $250 a week in the 1960s, which wasn\u2019t bad, until Zappa told them they now owed the company twenty thousand dollars. No accounting, no explanation. Zappa said they could keep their amps, as if that squared the moral books. Jimmy looks into the camera and says he doesn\u2019t understand how you can be in the best band in the world, headlining every night, and still lose money. It\u2019s a good question. Ian Underwood says it felt like being married to someone you loved and then she just left – no note, no goodbye.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Moers, playing beside Jimmy, I saw that the glory had worn off. He lived in Texas, painted houses, and his hands were tired. The drumming wasn\u2019t brilliant, but it didn\u2019t matter. He\u2019d already fought his wars, musical and otherwise. I owed him, for the courage, for the honesty, for surviving the absurd marriage of art and business, and for still showing up to play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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