Arthur Barrow - Professional Career

Professional Career

In 1975 he moved to Los Angeles to pursue a professional music career, with one of his main goals being to play in Frank Zappa's band. He took whatever kind of musical work he could get - night clubs, weddings, high school dances, a few sessions. He met Robby Krieger in 1976 and recorded synthesizer with The Doors on an album called American Prayer. He formed a jazz group with Bruce Fowler and Don Preston called Loose Connection in the latter 1970s. They made some recordings in Echo Park and performed a few times in Los Angeles. They did some recordings in Hollywood with Vinnie Colaiuta in December 1978.

In the summer of 1978, he passed the audition and began playing bass in Frank Zappa's band. In 1979, he also took on the duties of being the "clonemeister", or band rehearsal director. The band rehearsed for 8 to 10 hours a day, 5 days a week. He would run the rehearsals for the first half of the day, then Zappa would take over when he arrived. He did 5 tours with Zappa and can be heard playing bass, guitar and keyboards on about a dozen recorded albums.

In the early 1980s he co-wrote music, recorded and toured the U.S. with Robby Krieger. They had a live band then for a short time called Red Shift that did only a few recordings and gigs in the LA area. By this time, having a 1/2" 8 track tape recorder, an electric piano and some synthesizer gear, he focused a lot of attention to writing and recording music at home.

He began working with Giorgio Moroder in the mid-1980s on albums and film sound tracks, including Scarface and Top Gun. He did keyboards, programming, bass, and arranging for a wide range of artists including Joe Cocker, Diana Ross, Billy Idol, Berlin, The Motels, and others.

He opened his own Lotek recording studio in the Mar Vista district of Los Angeles in 1985. Through the latter 1980s and into the 1990s he has produced albums and composed sound tracks for films and television at his studio. He has composed and produced three solo CDs and he is currently working on a fourth CD as well as other projects, like the Strange News From Mars - feat. Tommy Mars and Jon Larsen, and The Mar Vista Philharmonic, featuring Tommy Mars, Bruce Fowler, Vinnie Colaiuta, and other Frank Zappa alumni, on the Zonic Entertainment label.