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The Bangor Music Festival kicks off tomorrow and has set aside a whole day to commemorate the music of late American rocker, campaigner, iconoclast and composer Frank Zappa.

There'll be live performances, plays and films in honour of the "zany, irreverent genius" and fans will even be able to chat to his widow Gail live by video link from the US.

But it got us wondering how rock history might have turned out very differently had Frank actually come from Wales in the first place.

7. He would have been a great Mayor of Aberystwyth

Don't laugh, it's not so improbable - Zappa was a fan of '60s Scots prog-folkies The Incredible String Band and let them shoot a couple of their album covers in his garden.

Furthermore , the band's singer and bassist Rose Simpson ended up Lady Mayoress of the Ceredigion town in 1994, as a result of being the partner of Lib Dem councillor Bob Griffin.

If only Frank had hooked up with her and gone into regional Welsh politics instead, who knows what the outcome could've been.

6. Despite famously never having taken drugs, he'd have got on really well with Howard Marks

Indeed, the notorious hashish smuggler-turned-best selling author from Bridgend was a huge fan of Zappa, especially his 1968 doo-wop album Cruising With Ruben & The Jets.

"When I get stoned one of the things that appears to happen to me is time slows down - the only explanation I can give for which is that I start thinking quicker and begin noticing things I previously didn't," said Marks.

"Well, this is one album which does that to me without me having to get stoned - both the complexity and simplicity of the music is incredible."

5. He knew his Valleys rock and roll

In fact, so versed was Zappa with the Welsh music scene that he described late Merthyr Tydfil guitarist Micky Jones- who founded the rock group Man - as "one of the 10 best guitarist in the world."

And anyone who knows the rigidly high standards Zappa demanded of his band members - and, indeed his own virtuoso levels of playing - will realise that's quite a compliment.

4. He'd never have eaten the yellow snow

So well loved is Zappa's '74 song about eskimos mistakenly eating the same snow their huskies have widdled on that, during the recent spate of wintery weather across Wales, yellow snow warnings from the Met Office were retweeted en masse with the knowing hashtag whatwouldZappado?

3. He secretly loved Dylan Thomas

Listen very carefully to the 1988 live album You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore Vol 1 and you'll hear Zappa quoting the passage from Under Milk Wood where Mr Pugh plans to poison his wife.

"He prepares the compound for Mrs Pugh a venomous porridge unknown to toxicologists which will scald and viper through her 'til her ears fall off like figs, her toes grow big an black like balloons and steam come screaming out of her navel."

We don't know why it happens, the LP was certainly strange enough without the words of the sozzled Swansea bard suddenly appearing out of the blue like that.

2. He wrote Valley Girl

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He had a definite appreciation for the ladies of South Wales, as the title of his 1992 hit Valley Girl would attest.

Okay, okay, so we realise that he's actually referring to teenagers from the San Fernando Valley in California and their inane way of talking, but we doubt it would've worked as well had it been about Cynon Valley and contained with colloquial lyrics like, "Oh my God, mun, I'm tamping," and "Oi butt, those daps are gopping."

1. He liked to hire Welsh musicians

Just like this violinist from Ponty who played on the classic Zappa track King Kong. Eh? Oh, sorry - turns out he's French and his name's Jean-Luc Ponty.

Whoops.

For more information and tickets visit www.bangormusicfestival.org.uk

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