Frank Zappa Memorial Pancake Breakfast, founded in 2004, celebrates their 10th anniversary with a five-concert tour before and after Christmas. The nine-piece that pays homage to the inimitable Frank Zappa will play at Tampere Student House, Poppari in Jyväskylä, Kerubi in Joensuu and Morton in Rautalampi in December. The last gig will take place the day before Epiphany at Tavastia, Helsinki, where the band is joined by a number of special guests.
Frank Zappa Memorial Pancake Breakfast was born in 2003 when a Nurmijärvi-based restaurant manager approached Joni Leino with an idea: he suggested that Leino found a group that would play something different. It seemed to Leino that Zappa’s music met the condition more than well and he begun to assemble a group. To be true to Zappa, the instrumentation would be spiced up with the marimba and a bunch of horns. The nine-piece played their first gigs in spring 2004 at restaurant Duetto, Nurmijärvi, and Arabia-sali, Helsinki, but were soon followed by a four-year break. In 2008, however, they were invited to perform at the Zappanale festival in Germany, where they featured as the closing act of the festival and were joined by Zappa’s original sidemen Napoleon Murphy Brock and Denny Welley and his nephew Stanley Jason Zappa.
After this Frank Zappa Memorial Pancake Breakfast’s live shows have been far between, albeit regular in the Helsinki metropolitan area. Perhaps the most notable of these have been in Helsinki at Kapsäkki in December 2010 with guests Tommi Lindell and Olli Haavisto to a full house and at Tavastia in January 2012 with Timo Kämäräinen, Veli Kujala and Riku Niemi. In addition to club concerts they have appeared as the main act of the Faces Festival 2009, at Tampere Biennale in April 2012 and at Kellokosken Kesäsoitto in July 2012. The biggest show so far has been at Keitelejazz 2011 where the group played in the same concert as Fairport Convention and Jethro Tull. In December 2012 the group gave a five-concert tour, which comprised the venues Klubi in Turku, Lutakko in Jyväskylä and Tavastia in Helsinki, being joined at the latter by Eero Raittinen, Varre Vartianen and Mikko-Ville Luolajan-Mikkola. Their live show at Juttutupa in 2011 has been aired on Yle Radio 1. The talent of the group has not gone unnoticed by the Zappa heirs either; the singer Antti Koivula’s performance had apparently been spotted on Youtube and he was requested to join Dweezil Zappa’s Zappa Plays Zappa world tour as a soloist. Unfortunately Koivula had to turn down the dream offer due to family reasons.
Frank Zappa Memorial Pancake Breakfast 10th Anniversary Tour
The soloist Antti Koivula is known from groups My First Band and Mr. Sushi and from playing in the house band of the Independece Day Reception of 2007. Other members belong to a range of key groups such as Jätkäjätkät, Vesterinen yhtyeineen, Asa & Band, Puppa J & Ituhipit, Dumari & Spuget and Blosarit, Hidria Spacefolk, Yölintu, Yona & liikkuvat pilvet, Tanguedia Quintet, Riku Niemi Orchestra and UMO.
Ke 17.12.2014 YO-talo, Tampere
To 18.12.2014 Poppari, Jyväskylä
Pe 19.12.2014 Morton, Rautalampi
La 20.12.2014 Kerubi, Joensuu
Ma 5.1.2015 Tavastia, Helsinki
Frank Zappa Memorial Pancake Breakfast: Antti Koivula (vocals), Janne Toivonen (trumpet), Joonas Outakoski (saxophone), Antti Hermaja (trombone), Olli Kari (marimba, vibes), Iikka Kotaja (keys, vocals), Mikko Enqvist (guitar), Antti Kivimäki (bass, vocals), Joni Leino (drums).