I started out playing a tenor guitar in college back in '56, doing Kingston Trio and Four Freshmen stuff in a quartet that included Terry Kirkman, who wrote most all the songs for The Association. That summer, I got to play in a "front room" jam session with Terry and Frank Zappa. We were all in college at the same time.
The Meeting Place in Claremont was my home club and we were fortunate enough to have some good acts come through to augment our local talent. Terry Kirkman later of the Association was MC and Frank Zappa would show up on Hoot Night and try to play folk music.
Terry states that he "played with Frank Zappa long before the Mothers of Invention was formed. We were partners. Frank and I created things together... ethnic folk, Afro-Cuban, blues, sparse (duo)jazz, adaptations of Bach and other classics, etc."
I should probably document the Rent A Beatnik story Terry Kirkman told me some time.
After a month-long sea journey back to California in 1963, Terry got a job managing a new coffeehouse in Claremont. A familiar environment, coffeehouses were where Terry had performed with high school pal Frank Zappa a few years prior. “One day after class in high school, I walked around the corner, took a look at him and said, ‘Who—or what—the hell is that?’” remembers Terry. “Back in 1961, Frank and I had a duo. He was really into Alan Watts, the ethnic folk thing, and blues. We would tease people with bongo drums and make up music on the spot. I was playing clarinet, singing and playing bongos. We didn’t really have a ‘repertoire,’ per se. Club people would call us up and essentially want us to make noise or read some poetry. We also had a very short-lived six-piece band for about three months and we got a gig at the Pomona YMCA.”
Additional informant: Tan Mitsugu
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