The Speakeasy Club, UK

The Speakeasy Club, Margaret Street, London W1, was a popular UK night-life venue for musicians and members of the recording industry, providing a bar, restaurant and performance stage. It was host to many of the popular UK rock acts, along with the nearby venue The Marquee Club.

FZ introduced "Cream" at The Speakeasy on August 17th, 1967. Advance recordings of We're Only In It For The Money were played. In the same month drummer Aynsley Dunbar quit the Jeff Beck Group after their appearance at the Windsor Jazz & Blues Festival.

The Mothers Of Invention played the The Speakeasy Club in October 1967.

Prior to FZ's appearance at The Royal Albert Hall, some FZ events that revolved around The Speakeasy appear in the book "Mother! The Frank Zappa Story" by Michael Gray, as partially recounted by Pamela Zarubica, and after FZ's marriage to Gail;

When they flew into London Airport, they were met by reporters who asked: "Miss Creamcheese, are you and Mr. Zappa married or something?" Frank answered, "We're or something". They went from the airport to the Royal Garden Hotel, checked in, and then went straight to Piccadilly Circus (one country's Mr. Cool is just another country's tourist). That night they went to the Marquee, and saw The Crazy World of Arthur Brown.

Zappa was delighted to find that in England he was regarded as a bona fide rock star. His presence was noticed as soon as he arrived; a buzz went round. Pete Townsend came up, introduced himself, and later they went to the Speakeasy. There they bumped into Noel Redding and Zappa was picked up by Jimi Hendrix's girlfriend Kathy Etchingham.

Within 24 hours, Zappa had succeeded in becoming the center of attention among the London equivalent of his old LA freak crowd. Pam remembers that the rest of The Mothers stayed in their cheaper, separate hotel while Zappa and she found their room at the Royal Garden filled with Beautiful People. "A room full of groupies, a photographer who was supposed to be making a movie of this whole thing but whose main interest is taking shots up girls' dresses... Hendrix was there too."

Later that evening, it was back to the Speakeasy where Frank stood at the bar drinking scotch with Jeff Beck. Zappa also spent a fair amount of time working on publicity for himself. He had posed for Melody Maker's photographer in a flowery dress and with his hair in pigtails. That truly did look revolting - revolting enough to make a good front cover photo, which is exactly how the MM used it. MM reported... "Have you seen your Mother, baby? Or is it Suzy Creamcheese? In fact it's boss Mother Frank Zappa, leader of America's own Mothers of Invention, who'll be in England sending up the nation in their own freaky way in September. Negotiations are going ahead for ten members of the London Philharmonic Orchestra to join The Mothers in their only British concert which will take place at London's Royal Albert Hall on 23 September."

Apart from rehearsing [with] The Mothers and the ten members of the London Philharmonic, Zappa was also anxious to meet a band called Tomorrow - who were, in Pamela Zarubica's phrase, "tight friends with Hendrix", so a meeting was easily arranged. Zappa, Pam, Jimi Hendrix and Jeff Beck went round to the flat where Tomorrow lived. "All I remember for sure" Pam reports, "is that... everyone was getting high, except us, and for once Frank didn't seem to mind. When we left the place Frank's first comment was, 'I never met such a nice little group of junkies before.' Not that they were [junkies], it's just that Frank is so totally unfamiliar with the drug scene that I doubt if he could tell the difference between hash and heroin."

• Despite having met Tomorrow in 1967, FZ commented positively on Steve Howe's guitar playing in 1975 (Faves, Raves And Composers In Their Graves), unaware of his name, and subsequently played a Tomorrow track on the BBC in 1980.

• See also The Speakeasy, Boston