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Secret German gigs and the mystery of Zappa's "bent, reamed and wasted"
World traveller Mike Keneally has already had a very busy 2026
Photo by Martin Mann, courtesy Mike Keneally
One-time Frank Zappa band guitarist Mike Keneally is back from spending most of June in Geneva, Switzerland, where he was involved with the Swiss operatic debut of Zappa's 200 Motels at the Grand Théâtre de Genève. "This staging of 200 Motels was a hugely ambitious theatrical endeavor," he notes, "with multiple stage sets, multiple projection screens, and some of the most outrageous costuming I've ever witnessed in a stage production. The director Daniel Kramer took Frank Zappa's work as a jumping-off point for a multi-layered commentary on modern American life, and the budgeting from the Swiss opera company allowed for the sort of over-the-top realization which an American staging would likely have never achieved. Not to mention a much more cutting view of the current American political environment - there's no way this production could have gotten off the ground in the U.S. nowadays at this sort of scale."
A two-minute trailer and a five-minute excerpt have been posted on YouTube. "Musically, it was breathtaking. Frank wrote incredibly detailed and layered percussion parts, and there was a brilliant seven-piece percussion ensemble bringing these parts to life. The way the musicians were physically situated for the performances was interesting. The 'rock' parts of the score were handled by me and a long-standing Swiss jazz-rock trio called Steamboat Switzerland, and in order to keep us loud, boisterous jazz-rock guys at a safe remove from the orchestra, we were positioned in the mezzanine above and behind the main stage, while the orchestra were in a concealed pit in front of the stage. The percussion ensemble were up in the mezzanine with us, and we all had video monitors to watch the conductor, who was also in the orchestra pit. The conductor was a brilliant guy named Titus Engel - hard to imagine a conductor more well-suited to bringing Frank's score to life. He has a deep understanding of all the different strains of musical genres which Frank wove through this score."
Keneally spent around three weeks of rehearsals for the six nights of performances, which were well-attended and critically well-received. "I'd be really happy to take part in it if it ever gets re-staged. All the set-pieces and costumes are being carefully held in storage in hopes of such a re-staging. But, even if it doesn't, I'll always be intensely grateful to have taken part in the premiere. It was, like, wow."
While he was in Europe, Keneally decided to take advantage of the geographical happenstance that united some of his own bandmembers. "I shot off to Freiburg, Germany for a secret gig with my European trio The Mike Keneally Report - the drummer lives in Freiburg, and the bassist lives in Tampere, Finland. We're doing a tour of the UK and the Netherlands at the end of 2026, so we got together to rehearse for that and to do this little club gig, which was packed to the rafters and really, really good. It's got me very jazzed for our upcoming tour."
Next up was a workshop at the Montreux Jazz Festival called The Guitar Universe of Frank Zappa, conceived and moderated by Xavier Oberson. "He's a huge Zappa fan who also happens to be the vice-president of the Montreux Festival, as well as being on the board of the Geneva Opera company. He played a role in my being hired to do the 200 Motels opera, and he also threw a pretty lavish party that I played at, in Geneva on a night off during the 200 Motels run, that party was a blast. Xavier is a guitarist as well, and we jammed on Santana tunes together at the party. Xavier's questions at the workshop were really well-chosen, and I had a great time gabbing with him, and also playing. I played guitar and keyboard along with recordings of Frank's 'The Black Page' and a couple of other pieces, but mostly I just answered Xavier's questions. We only had an hour for the workshop, and it's hard for me to stop talking about Frank and his music once I get started."
Indeed, Keneally never seems to tire of the association with his late bandmate, nor does he resent the constant attention on that short period of his professional career. "If it weren't for the Zappa association, very few of these other endeavors would ever have happened. I would have found some other path, and done something, but there's no question that Frank is the start of the path which eventually led me through Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Dethklok, Devin Townsend, all of it. Frank's acceptance of me in his band led directly to pretty much everything that's happened in my career since. I'm not tired of that, only eternally grateful. I don't think it distracts from my other stuff, I think it probably helps the other things gain more attention if anything."
Keneally tells the Reader that his first exposure to 200 Motels was when he was nine years old and saw Frank Zappa and The Mothers on the Dick Cavett Show, which was also the first time he ever heard any of Zappa's music. "During that appearance, they showed a scene from the 200 Motels movie, with Ringo Starr as Larry the Dwarf dressed up as Frank Zappa, which was instantly fascinating to me...up to this point, Frank only existed to me as an image on a poster at Soundsville record shop, right next to Grant's on Balboa, and I was actually scared by that poster, so I expected The Mothers' music to be really ugly and scary. But on Dick Cavett, they played a waltz called 'Sofa,' which was actually really melodic and beautiful - that was an important lesson to me, of the not-judging-a-book-by-its-
It turns out that Keneally once actually talked to Zappa directly about 200 Motels, discovering a lyrical secret previously unrevealed in the liner notes - nearly two full years before he joined Zappa's band! "In 1985, he spent an afternoon at his business office fielding phone calls from fans, and I managed to be the last call that he took, actually a couple of minutes after the prescribed time window ended. I refused to give up and just kept dialing until I didn't get a busy signal, and was very lucky that Frank picked up. I told him that I'd always dreamed of being in his band, to which he replied 'Well, I'm never going to tour again, so keep dreaming.' Boy, was I happy when he changed his mind about that two years later! And then I asked him what lyrics were being sung at the end of the final song on 200 Motels, 'Strictly Genteel,' as they weren't printed in the package and I'd never been able to decode that lyric. He informed me that the words were 'bent, reamed and wasted.' I thanked him and the call was over."
"Two years later, I was playing 'Strictly Genteel' in his band. The instrumental version, though, so those lyrics did not come into play."
Keneally and his band Beer For Dolphins will appear at the Bornemann in San Marcos on September 19.
Here's something you might be interested in.
Secret German gigs and the mystery of Zappa's "bent, reamed and wasted"
World traveller Mike Keneally has already had a very busy 2026
Secret German gigs and the mystery of Zappa's "bent, reamed and wasted"
World traveller Mike Keneally has already had a very busy 2026
Photo by Martin Mann, courtesy Mike Keneally
One-time Frank Zappa band guitarist Mike Keneally is back from spending most of June in Geneva, Switzerland, where he was involved with the Swiss operatic debut of Zappa's 200 Motels at the Grand Théâtre de Genève. "This staging of 200 Motels was a hugely ambitious theatrical endeavor," he notes, "with multiple stage sets, multiple projection screens, and some of the most outrageous costuming I've ever witnessed in a stage production. The director Daniel Kramer took Frank Zappa's work as a jumping-off point for a multi-layered commentary on modern American life, and the budgeting from the Swiss opera company allowed for the sort of over-the-top realization which an American staging would likely have never achieved. Not to mention a much more cutting view of the current American political environment - there's no way this production could have gotten off the ground in the U.S. nowadays at this sort of scale."
A two-minute trailer and a five-minute excerpt have been posted on YouTube. "Musically, it was breathtaking. Frank wrote incredibly detailed and layered percussion parts, and there was a brilliant seven-piece percussion ensemble bringing these parts to life. The way the musicians were physically situated for the performances was interesting. The 'rock' parts of the score were handled by me and a long-standing Swiss jazz-rock trio called Steamboat Switzerland, and in order to keep us loud, boisterous jazz-rock guys at a safe remove from the orchestra, we were positioned in the mezzanine above and behind the main stage, while the orchestra were in a concealed pit in front of the stage. The percussion ensemble were up in the mezzanine with us, and we all had video monitors to watch the conductor, who was also in the orchestra pit. The conductor was a brilliant guy named Titus Engel - hard to imagine a conductor more well-suited to bringing Frank's score to life. He has a deep understanding of all the different strains of musical genres which Frank wove through this score."
Keneally spent around three weeks of rehearsals for the six nights of performances, which were well-attended and critically well-received. "I'd be really happy to take part in it if it ever gets re-staged. All the set-pieces and costumes are being carefully held in storage in hopes of such a re-staging. But, even if it doesn't, I'll always be intensely grateful to have taken part in the premiere. It was, like, wow."
While he was in Europe, Keneally decided to take advantage of the geographical happenstance that united some of his own bandmembers. "I shot off to Freiburg, Germany for a secret gig with my European trio The Mike Keneally Report - the drummer lives in Freiburg, and the bassist lives in Tampere, Finland. We're doing a tour of the UK and the Netherlands at the end of 2026, so we got together to rehearse for that and to do this little club gig, which was packed to the rafters and really, really good. It's got me very jazzed for our upcoming tour."
Next up was a workshop at the Montreux Jazz Festival called The Guitar Universe of Frank Zappa, conceived and moderated by Xavier Oberson. "He's a huge Zappa fan who also happens to be the vice-president of the Montreux Festival, as well as being on the board of the Geneva Opera company. He played a role in my being hired to do the 200 Motels opera, and he also threw a pretty lavish party that I played at, in Geneva on a night off during the 200 Motels run, that party was a blast. Xavier is a guitarist as well, and we jammed on Santana tunes together at the party. Xavier's questions at the workshop were really well-chosen, and I had a great time gabbing with him, and also playing. I played guitar and keyboard along with recordings of Frank's 'The Black Page' and a couple of other pieces, but mostly I just answered Xavier's questions. We only had an hour for the workshop, and it's hard for me to stop talking about Frank and his music once I get started."
Indeed, Keneally never seems to tire of the association with his late bandmate, nor does he resent the constant attention on that short period of his professional career. "If it weren't for the Zappa association, very few of these other endeavors would ever have happened. I would have found some other path, and done something, but there's no question that Frank is the start of the path which eventually led me through Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Dethklok, Devin Townsend, all of it. Frank's acceptance of me in his band led directly to pretty much everything that's happened in my career since. I'm not tired of that, only eternally grateful. I don't think it distracts from my other stuff, I think it probably helps the other things gain more attention if anything."
Keneally tells the Reader that his first exposure to 200 Motels was when he was nine years old and saw Frank Zappa and The Mothers on the Dick Cavett Show, which was also the first time he ever heard any of Zappa's music. "During that appearance, they showed a scene from the 200 Motels movie, with Ringo Starr as Larry the Dwarf dressed up as Frank Zappa, which was instantly fascinating to me...up to this point, Frank only existed to me as an image on a poster at Soundsville record shop, right next to Grant's on Balboa, and I was actually scared by that poster, so I expected The Mothers' music to be really ugly and scary. But on Dick Cavett, they played a waltz called 'Sofa,' which was actually really melodic and beautiful - that was an important lesson to me, of the not-judging-a-book-by-its-
It turns out that Keneally once actually talked to Zappa directly about 200 Motels, discovering a lyrical secret previously unrevealed in the liner notes - nearly two full years before he joined Zappa's band! "In 1985, he spent an afternoon at his business office fielding phone calls from fans, and I managed to be the last call that he took, actually a couple of minutes after the prescribed time window ended. I refused to give up and just kept dialing until I didn't get a busy signal, and was very lucky that Frank picked up. I told him that I'd always dreamed of being in his band, to which he replied 'Well, I'm never going to tour again, so keep dreaming.' Boy, was I happy when he changed his mind about that two years later! And then I asked him what lyrics were being sung at the end of the final song on 200 Motels, 'Strictly Genteel,' as they weren't printed in the package and I'd never been able to decode that lyric. He informed me that the words were 'bent, reamed and wasted.' I thanked him and the call was over."
"Two years later, I was playing 'Strictly Genteel' in his band. The instrumental version, though, so those lyrics did not come into play."
Keneally and his band Beer For Dolphins will appear at the Bornemann in San Marcos on September 19.
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