Andrew Hickey

speaker

2,253 appearances 4 recordings 1 series first heard Jul 2026 last heard 3 Sep

Andrew Hickey’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 4 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 3.

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A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs · Song 185: “Peaches En Regalia” by Frank Zappa · 21 Jul 2026 podcast

For a while, they were joined by the singer-songwriter Esra Mohawk, who was then known as Sandy Hurwitz.

She changed her surname when she got married, and chose to go by Esra as a more unusual abbreviation of her given name, Sandra, who became a full member of the band under the stage name Uncle Meat, a name which would later be given to one of the band's albums, and as well as playing Zapper's music, would perform her own songs like Archgodliness of Purpleful Magic.

She was soon out of the band though.

Depending on which version of the narrative you believe, she either decided she didn't want to be called Uncle Meat anymore and quit, or she and Zappa had been having an affair and it ended badly.

According to some versions of the story, Zappa got his girlfriend Gail pregnant and chose to do the right thing and marry her, and Mohawk didn't want to be sleeping with a married man.

Another new member who joined in the middle of the New York run was a much more permanent fixture in the band.

Ian Underwood was a Berkeley graduate with a master's degree in music, who played keyboards and woodwinds.

He had attended several shows and loved what he saw, and had approached Jimmy Carl Black, and then a few days later had turned up to the studio.

Zapper had asked him, what can you do that's fantastic?

And he'd displayed his proficiency on alto, sax and piano.

Another musician who turned up for as many shows as she could, and was devastated when the Garrick residency ended, Ruth Komanoff, would not join right then, but she would contribute percussion to some tracks they recorded towards the end of 1967, which ended up on the Uncle Meat album.

and after marrying Underwood and taking his surname, she would play with various lineups of the Mothers from 1969 through 1976.

Living in New York for an extended period rather than touring, and playing two shows a day plus rehearsals, gave the newly expanded version of the Mothers, who at this point consisted of Zapper, Estrada, Preston, Collins, Black, Mundy, Gardner, Underwood and Motorhead Sherwood, the latter on baritone sax.

the chance to work up a lot of new music, and much of the material on the next few Mothers albums would be material that had been premiered during the Garrick run.

During that run, the group also started work on what would generally be considered the best album by the original Mothers of Invention.

We're only in it for the money.

Song for Song, we're only in it for the money, is not the group's strongest work, and certainly not its most musically adventurous.

But what it does have is a satirical bite and coherence, and a genuine pointed anger, which is missing from most of Zapper's other songwriting.

Generally, when Zappa was writing lyrics, there would either be mocking his own audience, or people who were less hip, or more hip, or not the precise right amount of hip, than him.

Or there would be sexual jokes, or jokes about the music industry.

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