Bassist Pete Griffin has decided to leave his dream gig playing alongside Dweezil Zappa and Frank Zappa (virtually) as a a member of Zappa Plays Zappa. Griffin announced his departure through a post on his blog. In his heart-felt missive, Griffin explains that when he started to focus on the negatives within his performance instead of the positives, it was time to go.
[Griffin Performs w/ Dweezil]
Griffin will be replaced on Zappa Plays Zappa’s upcoming February tour of the West Coast by FZ’s bassist from 1981 – 1988 – Scott Thunes. Thunes was Frank’s hand-picked band leader for the ill-fated 1988 tour. According to a new book called Zappa The Hard Way, which hits stores today, Thunes “was apparently abrasive, blunt and rude to the other members” leading to a mutiny that derailed the tour and led to the cancellation of three months worth of dates. Let’s hope he gets on better with the current members of ZPZ, which returns to the road on February 10 in San Luis Obispo, Calif.
We’d like to take this opportunity to wish Frank a very happy birthday.
3 Responses
I’m sure Scott will get along just fine. Hope he’s only taking a break from Mother Hips… the extremely underrated band from Norcal. He’s been on fire w/ the Hips for past year or so.
Judging from what Mike Keneally (stunt guitar for that same 1988 tour,and the only band member who voted against kicking Scott Thunes out of the band) Scott was just doing what FZ himself would have done at band rehersal. He’s a grest addition to the ZPZ band,methinks
The Mother Hips & Scott Thunes will be playing at the Zappanale Festival in August 2012. more infos: http://www.zappanale.de