Frank Zappa's Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week

It was the first week of December 1971. Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention were on tour in Europe. December 4th saw  them in Montreux, Switzerland. They were playing at the Casino, one of the regular venues on the European circuit. Deep Purple were in town to record their next album [Machine Head] with the Rolling Stones mobile studio. FZ’s show was to be the last show at the Casino before it closed for the season. Once they cleared out, Deep Purple would load in and record Machine Head. But it didn’t quite work out that way.

While Don Preston was performing his synthesizer solo during King Kong, somebody in the audience fired a flare gun. The flare got lodged in the trunking in the ceiling, and before too long, the entire place was an inferno. FZ and the Mothers lost all of their equipment in the fire. Deep Purple lost their venue for recording Machine Head. Amazingly, nobody was killed. This incident inspired Deep Purple’s song Smoke on the Water. If you want the details, they’re all there in the lyrics.

Fast forward six days to December 10th. FZ’s tour continued on to the Rainbow Theatre in London. As fate would have it, FZ and the Mothers were playing King Kong when a crazed fan went on-stage and pushed FZ into the orchestra pit. The fall was about ten-fifteen feet onto a concrete floor. FZ suffered severe injuries. He had a crushed larynx, head trauma and multiple fractures. The crushed larynx left him with a lower voice, and the fractures [including a broken leg, broken rib, broken pelvis] left him with a limp and a bad back for the rest of his life. FZ was wheelchair bound for several months, during which time he made the albums The Grand Wazoo and Waka Jawaka.

According to FZ:
“My head was over on my shoulder, and my neck was bent like it was broken. I had a gash in my chin, a hole in the back of my head, a broken rib, and a fractured leg. One arm was paralyzed… I was taken to a public hospital. I remember being in the emergency room which, like the rest of London at that time of year, was freezing cold. They were clearly understaffed - a guy two beds down from me had his balls smashed in a brawl someplace, and was howling, unattended… They couldn't give me any anesthetic because I had a head injury, so after a while I just passed out, and woke up later in a bad-smelling room with beds all around, in a circle, with curtains hung between them. I remember the curtains parting in front of me and a black nurse coming in and seeing my face; like she had just seen a monster. I was pretty mashed up… I was later transferred to the Harley Street Clinic where I stayed for a month. I had a twenty-four-hour bodyguard because the asshole who had hit me was out on bail, and we didn't know how insane he was.”

The guy who nearly killed Frank Zappa is named Trevor Howell. He was wacked out on weed and LSD. He thought he saw FZ making sexual gestures toward his girlfriend, freaked out and pushed FZ into the pit. He did only a year in prison for "assault with malicious intent to commit bodily harm.”