1963: A Bike Oddity – Frank Zappa plays a bicycle on The Steve Allen Show

One of the oddest videos I’ve seen, and it’s bike-related. A young Frank Zappa was a guest on The Steve Allen Show in 1963. He spoke briefly about composing the score for “the worst movie ever made” (“The World’s Greatest Sinner”), then demonstrated how he “played” music on two bicycles set up in the studio. Modern composers like John Cage had already experimented with random music, prepared instruments and electronic music. But Zappa had a unique take on music over his lengthy career.

You can’t hear that much on the video, because Steve Allen cracks a lot of jokes and the audience laughs and applauds throughout. But you can get a sense of the strangeness that was Frank Zappa. (He also played more conventional 1950s-style rock, jazz-rock and jazz fusion, comic rock, avant-garde classical music and political rock, among other genres. Some of the lyrics on his subsequent works were not exactly family-friendly. Sometimes he had a point, like his protests against censorship. At other times, he was just plain bizarre and crude. But he was also very technically proficient, and his bands became known for very precise and technically accomplished performances.)

Most of that isn’t found on this video. He demonstrates how to make some sounds using bicycle spokes, handlebars and tires by using drum sticks, a bassist’s bow and microphones. He combines it with pre-recorded electronic sounds, random sounds from the brass studio jazz band, spoken words from the studio announcer (at the request of Zappa), and Steve Allen playing the 2nd bicycle with the bow. This had to have been one of the earliest performances of music using a bicycle shown on television. It might be the only performance using a bicycle shown on network television.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MewcnFl_6Y

NOTES: Steve Allen was the first host of The Tonight Show, which started off as a local NYC production before moving to the national broadcast market. In addition to being a comedian and talk show host, Allen was also a prolific music composer and actor.