A SHORT CHAT WITH PASCAL GRÜNENFELDER

Fido Plays Zappa will be performing on Zappanale, so here's a short chat with Pascal Grünenfelder (bass & arrangements).

UniMuta : Hello Pascal, are you getting ready for Zappanale? I imagine that playing at Zappanale is the ultimate goal for a band like Fido Plays Zappa?

Pascal Grünenfelder : Once all 10 musicians are available for a rehearsal (which is not that easy, as you can imagine, cos I don't have the budegt/the authority of the big Z..) we always enjoy playing his masters music. We have some new tunes for Zappanale, eg a very nice version of a long-time favorite Evelyn, with some weird poly-rythmic &balcanic influences..And of course its fantastic to play Zappanale & to meet some hardcore fans/bands/musicians. Ultimate goal though is to rule the world!!

UniMuta : I know that Stef played at Zappanale with ARF a number of years ago. Have any of the other bandmembers been at the festival before?

Pascal Grünenfelder : No

UniMuta : There's ten members in the band, which probably does not make it easy to schedule a trip to Bad Doberan. Will the entire band be there? And have you convinced other Swiss Zappa fans to come along?

Pascal Grünenfelder : Of the maybe 50 concerts we played till today, we had a horn-sub only once, which I think is quite surprising with all the busy musicians. Zappanale is full band & even our sponsor/tec Regine is gonna be there. It's rumoured we gonna have some ex-zappa-vips on stage too..

UniMuta : On your latest album, FPZ presented beautifully arranged acoustic versions of FZ compositions. Is this something that we should expect at Zappanale?

Pascal Grünenfelder : Thanks for the flattery, but Bad Doberan has to be rocked!

UniMuta : And there's one thing that I've always wanted to know. You guys regularly play on a boat?!? What's the story behind it? What's it like? What's the difference with playing in a club?

Pascal Grünenfelder : The "Kulturfloss" as its called, is a platform/raft on the river rhine in the middle of the city, where on 2 weeks every summer various bands are playin to the audience on the bank. It's been existing for some years now and has gotten kind of an "institution" in Basel. Its a very nice place to play music, as you find yourself in the middle of streaming water in a very special ambiance, and theres tons of people when the weather is nice (the gigs are free/Kollekte).
It can be hard sometimes though for a band to reach the crowd, as the "Floss" is some 30 meters or so away from the bank.
Heres their website: - www.imfluss.ch

UniMuta : Excellent. Thanks for your time & see you at Zappanale. Looking forward to the concert.

Fido Plays Zappa will be playing at Zappanale on Saturday, August 20, 2011.