Herb Cohen

Herb Cohen Frank Zappa Tom Wilson

Herbert Cohen (December 30, 1932 – March 16, 2010) was the manager of Frank Zappa and The Mothers from 1965 to 1976 having been introduced to them by their erstwhile manager Mark Cheka. Cohen persuaded record producer Tom Wilson to see them perform thus securing their first record deal. He was the joint owner of the Straight, Bizarre, and DiscReet record labels with Zappa.

Cohen was the nephew of LA gangster Mickey Cohen and was himself seen as an abrasive character:

“Herbie was a lot scarier than people would think. They'd think he was a kind of pudgy Jewish guy, but he was absolutely terrifying in conflict. I mean, he had a box of hand grenades in the trunk of his car."

Cohen's relationship with Zappa imploded in 1976, when Zappa claimed that Cohen and his lawyer brother Martin were skimming off his earnings and helping themselves to holidays with the profits which inspired the piece Mo 'n Herb's Vacation. Zappa then sued Cohen and the distributor Warner Bros for $10m. Cohen countersued, claiming that Zappa had bypassed their new label, DiscReet, and taken his album Zoot Allures straight to Warners.

Born in New York Cohen, after a brief spell in the military, moved to Los Angeles in the mid-1950s. In 1955 he ,with Victor Maymudes, opened The Unicorn on Sunset Strip, next to where the Whisky a Go-Go would appear later. It was the first coffee bar in LA and presented live music and poetry readings.

"Herbie Cohen had booked Lenny Bruce in the Unicorn, which was this big coffeehouse up on the Sunset Strip. It was next door to where the Whiskey is now. It was pretty big and it was painted black inside. It was supposed to be really hip, like it had pictures of nude women, but upside down. Sailors used to come in there on weekends and start fights and stuff. But he booked Lenny Bruce in there. And Lenny Bruce's audience was the hippest, meanest audience that I think was of all time in show business. And Herbie also at that time had the hippest waitresses. They were mean as snakes, these women were. And they had all been married at one time to one famous jazz musician or another who had fallen from grace in one way or another. So they were extremely hip. These waitresses would go by you and give you these terrible chilling looks with little eyes of stone."

In 1957 Maymudes and Cohen opened the Cosmo Alley. By the early 1960s the Cosmo Alley and Herb Cohen ran into money troubles and Cohen left Los Angeles for a couple of years to avoid his debtors. Upon his return people felt he was even more aggressive:

"He just kind of arrived back one day and he was a wild man. Mutt (brother Martin Cohen) by contrast was very gentle and soft spoken in comparison. He said he'd talk to Herbie, and Herbie did calm down a little."

during the late 1950's and early 1960's. He managed a number of folk acts but is best known as the manager of Frank Zappa and the Mothers Of Invention, as well as Screamin' Jay Hawkins, George Duke, Alice Cooper, Tim Buckley, Lenny Bruce, & Theodore Bikel.

Cohen is attributed the quote "What the h--- you gonna do with all those drums at 1:00 in the morning?"on the cover of "Freak Out!" under the heading "More Relevant Quotes".

He co-owned the Bizarre/Straight & DiscReet record labels with Zappa.

He provided "cash register noises" for Absolutely Free.

He was married with his wife Dee and had a daughter, Lisa Cohen, who appeared on the cover of We're Only In It For The Money.

Herb on the cover of We're Only In It For The Money

Conceptual Continuity:

• Uncle Meat Film Excerpt Part I ("Herbie wouldn't give us an advance?")
• Does This Kind Of Life Look Interesting To You? ("Night after night, dinners with Herb Cohen")
• The Be-Bop Tango (Of The Old Jazzmen's Church) ("Herb Cohen, ladies and gentlemen!")
• Dupree's Paradise ("And it won't do you any good to call Herb, either")
• Carolina Hard-Core Ecstasy ("It might seem strange to Herb and Dee")
• The constellation "Herbycon" on the back cover of One Size Fits All is an obvious pun.
• Mo 'n Herb's Vacation