FTP Sites
Masahiko Nagamiya
I was wondering if there were and ftp sites where I can get zappa
stuff, such as gif or jpg files.
Or does anyone out there have any good graphic files they wouldn't
mind sending to me?
Thanks in advance,
Masa
st20...@brownvm.brown.edu
> I was wondering if there were and ftp sites where I can get zappa
> stuff, such as gif or jpg files.
>
-Josh
Menard Isabelle
From <men...@ere.umontreal.ca>
available at cs.uwp.edu in
/pub/music/artists/z/zappa.frank/mail.list
COLLECT.TXT 6098 1983 article about Collecting
Video's and Film of FZ.
HOTWACKS.TXT 28504 Bootlegs of FZ (up to 1983).
LIFE.TXT 25904 1968 article writen by FZ in LIFE
magazine on rock of the '50 & '60's.
MUDSHARK.TXT 32023 Bootlegs of FZ on the MUD SHARK
label.
PARADE-1.TXT 10393 1968 article writen by FZ in HIT
PARADER on the creation of the
Mothers.
PARADE-2.TXT 5357 1970 article writen by FZ in HIT
PARADER on the break up of the
Mothers.
Menard Isabelle
6 files of interest
From <men...@ere.umontreal.ca>
available at cs.uwp.edu in
B
/pub/music/artists/z/zappa.frank/mail.list
B
B
Menard Isabelle
BY DAN OUELLETTE
SOURCE: PULSE, AUGUST 1993
20th-century popular music's philosopher-king (or its Harvey Kurtzman) has inspired independence movements in Eastern Europe and lampooned stupidity in the west. Now he faces his most serious challenge.
It's April, and Los Angeles is nervously awaiting the outcome of the second Rodney King beating trial. A car heads toward Frank Zappa's Laurel Canyon home blaring the song "Trouble Every Day" from the first Mothers of Invention album, _Freak Out!_ Written by Zappa in '65, while the Watts riots were escalating out of control, the song is eerily appropriate nearly 30 years later, when the city is once again bracing for the worst. With wailing harmonica and turmoiled bass in the background, the lyrics ominous
ly and prophetically tumble out,
"It's the same across the nation
Black and white discrimination
...and all that mass stupidity
that seems to grow more every day
each time you hear some nitwit say
He wants to go and do you in
'Cause the color of your skin
Just don't appeal to him
No matter if it's black or white
Because he's out for blood tonight."
Why is the song still so poignantly relevant? The irascible and iconoclastic 52-year-old Frank Zappa, who has outdistanced most of his peers in the business by his unflagging commitment to both social critique and adventurous music, fields the question with aplomb. "Nothing has changed. We have the same racial hatred, the same unwillingness to face the causes of racial unrest. We've had years to examine the causes of the Watts riots, but no one has done anything about it. There were studies and reports and
conclusions then, just like there were studies and reports and conclusions reached after last year's riots. There's a certain type of American adolescent behavior that hasn't gotten any better since the 60's. Scientists believe that the universe is made of hydrogen because they claim it's the most plentiful ingredient. I claim that the most plentiful ingredient is stupidity."
So opens a 90-minute conversation on politics and music in the legendary and controversial rock/doo-wop/jazz/pop/ avant garde/contemporary classical artist's dark, but comfortable video-viewing room with a television screen and rows and rows of video tapes lining an entire wall. Zappa, casually dressed in blue sweats, turquoise T-shirt and a loose-fitting grey sweater, is animated, fervently enjoying the conversation as he effortlessly interweaves musical matters with politics. During the rest of the after
noon, there are times when Zappa, his dark hair streaked with gray and tied in a tight ponytail, seems absolutely exhausted, a consequence of his ongoing and widely publicized bout with prostate cancer. But then the conversation takes off into another area of music and/or politics where he has strong opinions, and he is rejuvenated.
"I never had any intention of writing rock music," says Zappa. "I always wanted to compose more serious music and have it be performed in concert halls, but I knew no one would play it. So I figured that if anyone was ever going to hear anything I composed, I'd have to get a band together and play rock music. That's how I got started."
If ever a long-term plan paid off, it has to have been Zappa's--his list of official accolades and honors seems limitless: Renowned conductor Kent Nagano calls him a genius. Zappa won a Grammy in 1987 for his Synclavier-driven _Jazz From Hell_ album, and he was chosen to play John Cage's controversial and perhaps most famous piece 4'33" for the upcoming various-artists Cage tribute album, _A Chance Operation. His works have been performed by a number of esteemed 20th century ensembles; Pierre Boulez commis
sioned him to score a symphonic work which resulted in _The Perfect Stranger: Boulez Conducts Zappa_ album; the European contemporary music group Ensemble Modern commissioned him to put together a concert's worth of his orchestral works for the Frankfurt Festival last year; and in February, the prestigious Lincoln Center in New York City presented an evening of Zappa's serious music in its Great Performers series. Even _The Simpsons_' creator Matt Groening is on record as saying, "Frank is my Elvis."
Not bad for a guy who began his musical career as a drummer in a San Diego r&b group called the Ramblers in 1956 ("I played one or two gigs with them, but I wasn't very good so they fired me"), recorded parody and instrumental doo-wop tunes in Cucamonga, California and leased them to record companies like Original Sound in Los Angeles in the early '60s, and led the charge into the experimental and distinctly weird rock music of the late '60s with his seminal band of renegades and freaks, the inimitable Mot
hers of Invention. His formative years as a musician came during his high-school days at Antelope Valley High in Lancaster, a remote Mohave Desert town in California that he refers to as a cultural wasteland. A fan of r&b singles and composer Edgar Varese's innovative and dissonant early-20th-century classical music, Zappa was a drummer in the school band where he was even allowed to do a bit of composing and conducting. But that's also where he began to suspect that he was destined to live a life deviatin
g from the norms of Americana. "I had no outlet in music then to express my discontent. So my aggravation with the way things were festered throughout my high-school years. The only reason I got training as a musician was because the school needed a marching band at its football games. It was just another tool to support the sports program. I never did enjoy sports. So I looked at all that and thought that there certainly must be more worthwhile educational investments besides new helmets. That really got
me thinking--how can you take any of this seriously?"
Fortunately for Zappa, his tenure with the band didn't last long. "I was thrown out for smoking in uniform," he says while taking a drag from one of many Marlboros he would smoke that afternoon. "We had to sit in the freezing cold and wear these dorky maroon-and-grey uniforms and play every time our team scored a touchdown. So, during a break, I went under the bleachers for a smoke. I got caught and I was out of there. Not just for smoking, but for smoking in uniform."
When did Zappa realize the potential for satire in his music? He recalls, "Even before I had this wonderful band called the Mothers [original MOI member] Ray Collins and I used to piddle around in Pomona doing gigs where the two of us would do parodies of folk songs. We sang 'Puff the Magic Dragon' as 'Joe the Puny Greaser,' and we played a perverted version of 'The Streets of Laredo' called 'The Streets of Fontana.' We weren't setting out to make any kind of impact on people. We were just doing it for a l
augh, to have fun. If it amused someone else, good. If it didn't, who gives a fuck. Nothing I've ever written has been motivated by trying to impact or influence anybody."Little did Zappa realize how influential his music
would become in shaping opinions both at home and abroad. Case in point: the first two Mothers of Invention albums, _Freak Out!_ and _Absolutely Free_. The former, the first rock double-album and the collection which purportedly inspired Paul McCartney to begin work on _Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band_, helped spawn an American subculture of long-haired, irreverent, authority questioning freaks. Behind the Iron Curtain, _Absolutely Free_ proved to effect an even deeper and more profound response. The
lead-off number of the album, "Plastic People," became an underground hit and potent rallying cry for freedom in the now-divided republic of Czechoslovakia.
Zappa is still surprised by it all. "I had no idea that song made the impact it did there. The album was smuggled into the country within a year of its 1967 release. I found out 10 years later how powerful the song had become. We were touring heavily in Europe at the time, and a few Czechs had come across the Austrian border to hear our concert in Vienna. I talked with them after the show, and they told me that 'Plastic People' was responsible for a whole movement of dissidents within Czechoslovakia. It ca
me as a shock to me to find out that there was a group called the Plastic People there and that a cult of followers had grown up around them. [That song's] especially relevant today in the United States," he says, in reference to a poster on the wall portraying a Hitler-like Ronald Reagan with the words, "He has the right to do anything they want" written underneath. Zappa then recites a few lines from the song:
"Take a day and walk around
Watch the Nazis run your town
Then go home and check yourself
You think we're singing 'bout someone else?
He pauses to let the effect take hold, shakes his head slowly in disgust, then comments, "There's been an incredible rise in racist and fascist attitudes here, most of them being helped along by the Republican Party. That Republican National Party Convention last summer was just unbelievable. Even the set decor looked like a Nuremberg rally. Hatemongers like Pat Buchanan and Pat Robertson and the rest of the featured speakers were convinced they were going to win again.
"Even if Clinton and his people just stood still for the next four years it would be better than what we had the four previous years under President Nero, which is what Dennis Miller calls Bush". But Zappa goes on to express an early dissatisfaction with the new President. "What's upset me the most since Clinton has taken office is this banning of smoking in the White House. What kind of symbolism is this? It's a social-engineering program by the Health Nazis in the White House against people who like toba
cco. I with people would get off this I'm-gonna-live-forever kick and dispel the myth perpetrated by Reagan's evil Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, who said that second-hand smoke is the most dangerous thing Americans confront in their everyday lives. This is from the same guy who told us that green monkeys gave us AIDS.
"I was pleased to note recently that for the first time in the last dozen years, the number of smokers did not decrease last year. It's remained constant. Now if we can just proselytize people to get them to enjoy tobacco more. I like tobacco. I've always loved it. There is a place for tobacco in the human dining experience. It's like wine. It's an appropriate adjunct to food."
Zappa's daughter Diva, in her early teens, bounces down the stairs, pokes her head into the viewing room where we're talking and announces herself with a bright, "Hi, Daddy." She's the youngest of Frank and his wife Gail's four children. (Eldest daughter Moon Unit collaborated with dad on the 1982 novelty tune "Valley Girl" from Zappa's _Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch_; eldest son Dweezil has released a couple of solo records and currently plays with brother Ahmet in the band, Z-a debut is
slated for August.)
"How's little Squeech?" inquires papa Zappa."Squeech is fine, but I don't think that's the name of it. But you can nickname it whatever you want."Diva bounds back up the stairs while Zappa explains their exchange. "We have a new kitten. It's the runt of the litter. It's adorable. I've been calling it Squeech because that's the noise it makes. Diva wanted to call it Toaster, but I guess she's changed her mind."
Squeech. Toaster. Names that could pop right out of one of Zappa's zanier songs that celebrate such quirky characters as Suzy Creamcheese, Billy the Mountain, Big Leg Emma and the Duke of Prunes.
So what is the creative process of Zappa the punster, the satirist, the humorist? He hearkens back to the old days when he was doing a lot of lyric writing: "I'd write lyrics when I was travelling. I was on a flight back from Germany when I came up with the idea for the song 'Dumb All Over'. I scrawled out three pages' worth of ideas on the plane. I couldn't wait to get into the studio to record it. The reverse of that happened with 'Inca Roads.' I came up with the melody first. I took it as a challenge to
find words to go with it. A lot of songs may start with one or two words. You hear a funny expression and away you go. Some lyrics were based on folklore from the band when we were touring. 'Punky's Whips' is an example of an absurd situation that happened to be a true story. All I had to do was find some musical way to dramatize it."Zappa's career catapulted in the mid '60s as a result of his wildly experimental and unpredictable band the Mothers of Invention. On Mother's Day, 1964, the name "the Mothers
" was coined. The group had evolved from a bar band called the Soul Giants that had recruited Zappa as a substitute guitarist after their regular guitarist got into a fistfight with another band member. Soon after, Zappa pushed for playing original material, and the rest was outlandishly weird music history. Early Mothers-inspired "freak outs" in Los Angeles made the local authorities nervous, so Zappa and crew headed to New York in 1967. There they worked the Garrick Theater on Bleeker Street as an improv
house band, performing experimental music with satirical and impromptu slapstick for several months with special sit-in guests, including Jimi Hendrix on one occasion.
Returning to Los Angeles the following year, Zappa and the Mothers formed the nucleus of a musical community that Pamela Des Barres of the Zappa-discovered GTO's (Girls Together Outrageously) recalled in the liner notes to Rhino's promotional Bizarre/Straight sampler, _Zapped_: "Somehow in some mysterious and mystical way, a little crack formed in the Americana prefab facade that allow true, far-fetched inspiration to peek, sneak, leak through for an infinitesimal period of time; a drop in the bucket that
made a might splash. I am proud and honored to have been a part of the streaming baptism of lunacy that attempted to shake, rattle and roll the fictitious foundation of normalcy." Zappa gathered as many bizarre acts as he could find and formed his own record companies (Bizarre, Straight) with the help of his then-manager Herb Cohen. Among the Zappa proteges were Tim Buckley, Tom Waits, The GTO's (Jeff Beck and Rod Stewart performed without credit on their Zappa-produced debut), Alice Cooper (Zappa is said
to have encouraged Cooper to dress in women's clothes) and Zappa's high school friend, Don Van Vliet, aka the great Captain Beefheart. Beefheart, who Zappa remembers in the early days as carrying his worldly possessions--his art, poetry books and a soprano sax--around in a shopping bag, recorded his dada-esque masterpiece Trout Mask Replica for Straight in 1969. Produced by Zappa as an anthropological field recording in Beefheart's house, the album was deemed the year's "most unusual and challenging musica
l experience" by rock writer Lester Bangs. After a few days of using a portable taping system that recorded the different instruments in various room sin the house, Zappa compiled with Van Vliet's paranoid demands that the rest of the sessions take place in a real studio, where all his vocals were captured.In addition to Beefheart, Zappa has worked with a wildly diverse crew of artists, ranging from L. Shankar and John Lennon and Yoko Ono.
Of all the collaborations and bizarre tours he went on, which performances from his huge catalog is he most proud of? "I enjoy listening to some recordings more than I do others," he says. "I can't stand to hear some of my classic albums because I remember the horrible conditions under which they were recorded. It hurts to listen to them. But what I like the best doesn't depend so much on the quality of the composition as it does on the memories of how much fun they were to record. I'm especially thinking
of some of the live shows with the 1984 band that were recorded in the _You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore_ series. We had a lot of laughs. For example, one night in Seattle, in the middle of the show (guitarist) Ike Willis started to do an imitation of the Lone Ranger, blurting out, 'Hi, ho, Silver!" I still don't know why it happened, but I cracked up every time he did it. It must have been road fatigue. He'd keep yelling in the most inappropriate places. The whole show was riddled with bad Lone Ranger
jokes and me not being able to sing the right words. I enjoyed that night.
"Zappa continued touring until 1988, when his road band self-destructed before the tour reached most of the planned U.S. dates. The tour, captured on the excellent _The Best Band You Never Heard in Your Life_ double CD, could have been the last time Zappa played guitar in concert. Nowadays, Zappa hardly plays his guitars (he cites lack of motivation), which is surprising given his prowess on the instrument and the fact that he released several impressive guitar albums, including the twin-CD _Shut Up 'N Pla
y Yer Guitar_. A guitar her who rarely if ever recorded a cliched riff, he learned to play as a kid by swiping blues licks from r&b greats like Guitar Slim, Johnny "Guitar" Watson (who worked with Zappa in the mid '70s) and Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown.
But Zappa--who has been fascinated with and influenced by such classical composers as Igor Stravinsky, Varese, Boulez and John Cage, in addition to having his bands perform arrangements of pieces by Bartok, Ravel, Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky--hastens to note that these days he mostly writes orchestral compositions on his Synclavier 9600, the high-tech digital keyboard and sampling computer that's plugged into his home studio, the Utility Muffin Research Kitchen. That's where Zappa's newest soon-to-be-releas
ed gem of an album of his dissonant, whimsical and haunting orchestral works, _The Yellow Shark_, was conceived.Performed in concert by the 25-member European contemporary classical music group Ensemble Modern, _The Yellow Shark_ is a suite-like collection of new arrangements of such classic Zappa pieces as "Dog Breath Variations" and "Be-Bop Tango" and such new works commissioned for the project as "Get Whitey" and "None of the Above." EM and its conductor Peter Rundel spent two weeks in 1991 in Los Angel
es at Zappa's Joe's Garage studio rehearsing the difficult pieces and then spent another two weeks supervised by the perfectionist composer last summer in preparation for the series of eight concerts in Frankfurt, Berlin and Vienna. The album represents the best performances of each piece from the different concert venues.
Zappa, who conducted the whirlwind "G-Spot Tornado" on opening night, is pleased with the results, but notes, "I was only able to attend the first and third performances in Frankfurt. I got sick and had to fly home. If I hadn't been sick, the experience would have been exhilarating. Unfortunately, I felt so excruciatingly shitty that it was hard to walk, to just get up onto the stage, to sit, to stand up. You can't enjoy yourself when you're sick, no matter how enthusiastic the audience."
The public response to and concern about the composer's health problems have been overwhelming. Even PMRC head Tipper Gore, who was at the helm of the late-'80s warning-sticker movement that Zappa so vehemently opposed, contacted him when she hear he had cancer. Zappa says, "The media likes to give the illusion that Tipper Gore and I are mortal enemies. That's not a fact. She sent me a sweet letter when she heard I was sick, and I appreciate that."
When asked what he thinks of a recent article that quoted a friend of his saying, "[Frank's] just not going to be bothered by something as stupid as cancer," he pauses, then soberly responds, "Well that's pretty fucking optimistic. Let me tell you. Cancer can bother you. It can just bother you to death. I'm fighting for my life. So far I'm winning." He laughs, then continues, "I've already beaten the odds. When the cancer was first diagnosed, the doctors didn't give me too long to go. But I've surprised
everybody by sticking around this long."
Zappa's prostate cancer was detected in 1990, some eight to 10 years after it had first developed. Since it was in an advanced stage, it was considered inoperable. He's been forced to undergo a bladder operation as well as radiation therapy. He's reticent to talk more about his illness beyond that he's "doing a whole bunch of other stuff" for therapy. Is working on his music a form of therapy? "I do it because that's what I've always done. What's your alternative? Stay in bed or work. If you have a studi
o and a good staff like I have, and you still have musical ideas, then you go to work and you work until you can't work anymore. (Later, Zappa oversees and, with an acute ear, monitors two of his trusted studio workers, mix engineer Spencer Chrislu and Synclavier operator Todd Yvega, while they painstakingly sample all the notes on Zappa's 97-key Bosendorfer Grand Imperial piano.) I used to be a night owl, but now I'm usually in bed by six or seven in the evening. It's hard for me to work a real long day a
nymore. I'm up at 6:30 in the morning. If I can do a 12-hour shift, then I feel I'm really doing something. The staff arrives at around 9:30, so that gives me a little time to work by myself before I sit in the studio all day with them."
Zappa's illness also aborted his short-lived, but very serious presidential campaign, as well as curtailed his plans to develop his Why Not? Inc., an international licensing, consulting and social engineering enterprise set up to forge ties between Eastern Bloc and Western businesses. "Until the Soviet Union folded, we spent 50 years of Cold War cash convincing American that we needed to fight against the Evil Empire. Hey, I traveled to Russia five times right when it was on the cusp of glasnost. The place
was a fucking disaster area. These people couldn't even deliver milk. The CIA knew that, but why didn't they say the Cold War was for shit and Russia wasn't a threat to us? If we had been working with the Russians to develop what they knew, we all would have been better off. The Russians may not have the money, but they have the brains. My idea with Why Not? was to work with the co-ops of inventors, helping them to license their inventions of industrial processes and equipment design in the West. When I g
ot sick, I had to shut down my plans. It's difficult enough for me to travel, but it's no vacation going to Russia. The conditions are grim there. It's hard to find something to eat, the transportation is a nightmare and since there's no Russian phone book, it's nearly impossible to get in touch with people unless they've given you their telephone number beforehand."
But according to Zappa, his international endeavors have not always been appreciated by his own government. "I have a large and devoted audience overseas, but a lot of people in this country don't know that I still exist. I think that might have something to do with the Republicans, who have never been too thrilled about my existence. I get the feeling that I've been blacklisted in this country," Zappa says. "My music doesn't get played on the radio here. And the only time I'm on TV is when someone wants t
o get a funny comment out of me for the news."
When Czech playwright/former president Vaclav Havel wanted to make Zappa Czechoslovakia's special ambassador to the West on trade, culture and tourism, the composer reluctantly yielded to Bush administration pressure to ditch the idea.
"Although I resent government," Zappa says, "I can't imagine an effectively functioning society without some machinery to make it work, even if it's incompetent machinery--because the species hasn't evolved to the point where it can take care of itself. So I'm what I call a practical conservative, which means smaller government and lower taxes. What do you call a system that seeks a bigger government and more taxes? Insanity."In many ways Zappa could be a model figure for the rugged individualist of Americ
an myth. "...It's not completely true," says Zappa. "I have lots of people helping me to call the shots." Yet in his pre-Mothers' days, he owned his own recording studio, Studio Z, which was where the surf hit "Wipe Out" was recorded. In 1989, his biography, authorized to be written by Peter Occhiogrosso, was transformed into the compelling and hilarious autobiography _The Real Frank Zappa Book_ after the subject found Occhiogrosso's style flat and lacking Zappaesque flair. Today, Zappa, who has released w
ell over 50 albums, maintains his own publishing rights, records on his own Barking Pumpkin label, runs a mail order and merchandising company called Barfko-Swill and operates the Honker Home Video arm of the Zappa empire. He has a CD re-release deal with Rykodisc, as well as the six-volume series _You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore_ (double CDs) for Ryko, and has thwarted the efforts of bootleggers by authorizing Rhino Records to release two series of Zappa-approved bootlegs. he maintains his own hotline
message, 818-PUMPKIN, to keep his fans up to date.
Zappa also exercises strict control over performances of his orchestral material. "You'd be surprised at how many orchestras and chamber groups all over the world play my music every year. I get requests for scores all the time. But I won't granter permission if I feel there's not enough money budgeted for proper rehearsal time. I'd rather not have the music played that have it performed in a sloppy way." Any unusual requests? Zappa laughs and says it happens all the time. "The most recent was from the Pre
sident's own US. Marine Corps Band in Fairfax, Virginia. They want to play 'Dog Breath Variations.' It seems a couple of gunnery sergeants in the ensemble are fans. So we sent them the music. Then there's one from a young filmmaker in upstate New York who wants to use "Elvis Has Just Left the Building" from the _Broadway the Hard Way_ album to conclude a mock documentary he's making of current Elvis sightings.
As for future projects, Zappa's slate is full. He continues to dig into his audio archives to issue old material. Just released as the _Ahead of Their Time_ CD of a 1968 Mothers concert in London, where 14 members of the BBC Symphony joined the group to provide the Zappa-composed musical accompaniment to a play the band members acted out. Next year Zappa promises another CD of unreleased studio cuts called _Lost Episodes_. Then there's a CD of music for modern dance called _Dance Me This_ that he's working
on.But what Zappa is most excited about are a couple of projects Andreas Molich-Zebhauser, business manager for Ensemble Modern, talked about during a visit just a couple of days earlier. "Andreas told me about an interview Edgar Varese gave once where he envisioned a film to accompany his piece 'Desert.' I had never heard of that before. Varese said that the images didn't need to relate to the music. Well, the Ensemble is booked for a concert in Cologne, Germany on May 27, 1994. Andreas thought of the ex
tensive data bank of video images I've collected and got the idea to commission me to do a 22-minute film. The other project we discussed was for May 1995 when the Ensemble would perform an evening dedicated to my theatrical works like "Billy the Mountain" and "Brown Shoes Don't Make It" arranged for classical ensemble. I think it will make for an entertaining evening and an entertaining CD."After talking for 90 minutes, Zappa answers a final question: Given that his music over the span of nearly 30 years
has remained fresh, relevant, challenging and on-the-fringe, to what does he owe his career longevity? Opinionated on so many other subjects, Zappa displays a rare moment of humility. "I don't know how it's happened. How have I survived? I guess by word of mouth, but I don't know. I got lucky."
Menard Isabelle
BY FRANK ZAPPA
SOURCE: HIT PARADER, APRIL 1970, PAGES 23-24
TRANSCRIPTION: ROGER MAURICE WITHOUT PERMISSION
The Mothers of Invention, the infamous & repulsive rocking teen combo, is not doing concerts any more. Jimmy Carl Black (the Indian of the group) has formed another ensemble which he calls Geronimo Black (named after his youngest child). Don (Dom De Wild) Preston is collaborating with avant garde dancer Meredith Monk in performances of electronic music. Ian Robertson Underwood is preparing material for a solo album. Roy Estrada, Bunk Gardner, Buzz Gardner & Art Tripp are doing studio work in Hollywood. Mot
orhead (James Euclid) Sherwood is working on his bike & preparing for a featured role in a film with Captain Beefheart. Frank Zappa is producing various artists for his record companies, Bizarre and Straight (which he co-owns with Herb Cohen), working on film & television projects & is currently writing arrangements for a new album by French jazz violinist Jean Luc Ponty. This Ponty album, to be released on World Pacific, will mark the first attempt by any other artist to record a whole album's worth of Za
ppa's writing, exclusive of The Mothers of Invention interpretations.
It is possible that, at a later date, when audiences have properly assimilated the recorded work of the group, a re-formation might take place. The following is a brief summary of The Mothers' first five years of musical experimentation & development.
In 1965 a group was formed called The Mothers. In 1966 they made a record which began a musical revolution. The Mothers invented Underground Music. They also invented the double fold rock album & the concept of making a rock album a total piece of music. The Mothers showed the way to dozens of other groups (including The Beatles & Stones) with their researches & experimentation in a wide range of musical styles & mediums.
The Mothers set new standards for performance. In terms of pure musicianship, theatrical presentation, formal concept & sheer absurdity, this one ugly band demonstrated to the music industry that it was indeed possible to make the performance of electric music a valid artistic expression.
In 1967 (April through August), The Garrick Theater on Bleecker Street in New York was devastated by cherry bombs, mouldering vegetables, whipped cream, stuffed giraffes & depraved plastic frogs... the whole range of expressive Americana... all of it neatly organized into what people today would probably call a "Love Rock Long-Hair Tribal Musical". The Mothers called it "Pigs & Repugnant: Absolutely Free" (an off-Broadway musical)... it was in its third month when "Hair" first opened.
The Mothers was the first big electric band. They pioneered the use of amplified and/or electronically modified woodwind instruments... everything from piccolo to bassoon. They were the first to use the wah wah pedal on guitar as well as horns and electric keyboard instruments. They laid some of the theoretical groundwork which influenced the design of many commercially manufactured electro-musical devices.
The Mothers managed to perform in alien time signatures & bizarre harmonic climates with a subtle ease that led many to believe it was all happening in 4/4 with a teen-age back beat. Through their use of procedures normally associated with contemporary "serious music" (unusual percussion techniques, electronic music, the use of sound in blocks, strands, sheets and vapors), The Mothers were able to direct the attention of a large number of young people to the work of many contemporary composers.
In 1968, Ruben Sano lifted his immense white-gloved hand, made his fingers go "snat!" and instantly Neo-Greaser Rock was born. A single was released from Ruben's boss album (remember "Cruisin' With Ruben & The Jets"?) called "Deseri". It was played on many AM stations (actually rising to #39 on the Top Forty at KIOA in Des Moines, Iowa) until programmers discovered Ruben & The Jets was really The Mothers under a disguise.
Meanwhile, the so called Underground FM stations could boast (because they were so cool and far out) that they actually went so far as to play The Mothers of Invention albums on their stations. Yes. Boldly they'd whip a few cuts from "Freak Out" on their listeners between the steady stream of important blues numbers.
And then of course, there was "Uncle Meat", recorded back to back with "Ruben & The Jets" (a somewhat unusual production procedure). In spite of the musical merit of the album, the only thing that drew any attention was the fact that several words, in common usage, were included in candid dialogue sections.
Awaiting release is a collection of 12 complete albums of Mothers' music, a retrospective exhibition of the group's most interesting work, covering a span from two years prior to the actual formation of the ensemble, through August 1969. Included in the collection is documentary material from first rehearsals, tracing the development of the group through to its most recent live performances in the U.S. and Europe, some of which have become almost legendary. To those people who cared at all about The Mother
s' musical explorations (and also those who didn't care & who wish to be merely entertained), this collection will prove of great interest.
Frank Zappa
Menard Isabelle
BY: FRANK ZAPPA
SOURCE: HIT PARADER, No. 48, JUNE 1968, PAGES 27, 38-39.
TRANSCRIPTION: ROGER MAURICE WITHOUT PERMISSION
Although the Mothers have been in existence for about three years, the project was carefully planned about four and a half years ago. I had been looking for the right people for a long time. I was in advertising before I got into...ha... show business. I'd done a little motivational research. One of the laws of economics is that if there is a demand, somebody ought to supply that demand and they'll get rich. I composed a composite, gap-filling product that fills most of the gaps between so called serious m
usic and the so-called popular music. Next, I needed my own group to present this music to the public. The group that was to become the Mothers was working in the Broadside, a little bar in Pomona, California.
Jim Black, the drummer, had just come to California from Kansas. He got together with Roy Estrada, the bass player. They'de been working terrible jobs in Orange County, which is a bad place to live unless you belong to the John Birch Society. They got a band together with Ray Hunt on guitar, Dave Coronado on sax and Ray Collins as lead vocalist. They called themselves the Soul Giants and they were doing straight commercial rhythm and blues- "Gloria," "Louie, Louie," you got it. Then Ray Hunt decided he did
n't like Ray Collins and started playing the wrong changes behind him when he was singing. A fight ensued, Ray Hunt decided to quit, the band needed a guitar player, so they called me up. I started working with them at the Broadside, I thought they sounded pretty good. I said, "Okay, you guys, I've got this plan. We're going to get rich. You probably won't beleive this now, but if you just bear with me we'll go out and do it." Davie Coronado said, "No. I don't want to do it. We'd never be able to get any w
ork if we played that kind of music. I've got a job in a bowling alley in La Puene, and I think I'm gonna split." So he did. I think he's got a band now called Davie Coronado and his Sagebrush Ramblers or something like that. There were four original Mothers - Ray Collins, Jim Black, Roy Estrada and myself. We starved for about ten months because we were playing a type of music that was grossly unpopular in that area. They couldn't identify with it. So we got into the habit of insulting the audience. We ma
de a big reputation that way. Nobody came to hear us play, they came in to see how much abuse they could take. They were very masochistic. They loved it. We managed to get jobs on that basis but it didn't last very long because we'd eventually wind up abusing the owner of the club. Then we decided we were going to the big city - Los Angeles - which was about thirty miles away. We had added a girl to the group, Alice Stuart. She played guitar very well and sang well. 1 had an idea for combining certain moda
l influences into our basically country blues sound. We were playing a lot of Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf-type stuff. Alice played good finger-style guitar, but she-couldn't play "Louie, Louie," so I fired her. Then we got Henry Vestine who is one of the most outstanding blues guitarists on any coast. He's really a monster. He was part of the group for quite some time. But our music kept getting progressively stranger and he couldn't identify with what we were doing and he wanted his freedom, so we said, 'G
oodbye, Henry' and he split. He's in Canned Heat now.
Then Ray, the lead vocalist, quit and there were three Mothers. We hired Jim Guercio, who now manages Chad & Jeremy and produces records for the Buckinghams. He was part of our group for a while. Also, somewhere along the line, we had hired Steve Mann, who is also one of the top blues guitarists on the West Coast. He wanted to play in the group but he couldn't make the changes and we got rid of him. Then we hired Elliot Ingber and Ray came back in the band and there were five Mothers. We cut our first albu
m with those five- Rag, Roy, Jim, Elliot and myself. Tom Wilson, who was producing records for MGM at the time, came to the Whiskey Au Go Go while we were a five-piece group, while Henry Vestine was still with us. He heard us sing "The Watts Riot Song (Trouble Every Day)." He stayed for five minutes, said "Yeah, yeah, yeah," slapped me on the back, shook my hand and said, "Wonderful. We're gonna make a record of you. Goodbye." I didn't see him again for four months. He thought we were a rhythm and blues ba
nd. He probably went back to New York and said, "I signed me another rhythm and blues band from the Coast. They got this song about the riot. It's a protest song. They'll do a couple of singles and maybe they'll die out".
He came back to town just before we were going to do our first recording session. We had a little chat in his room and that was when he first discovered that that wasn't all that we played. Things started changing. We decided not to make a single, we'd make an album instead. He wouldn't give me an idea of what the budget would be for the album, but the average rock and roll album costs about $5,000. The start-to-finish coast of FREAK OUT was somewhere around $21,000. The first tune we cut was "Any Way The
Wind Blows." Unfortunately, it's a bad mix, but the track is really good. Then we did "Who Are The Brain Police?" When Wilson heard those he was so impressed he got on the phone and called New York, and as a result I got a more or less unlimited budget to do this monstrosity. The next day I had whipped up the arrangements for a twenty-two piece orchestra. It wasn't just a straight orchestra accompanying the singers. It was the Mothers five-piece band plus seventeen pieces. We all worked together. The editi
ng took a long time, which ran the cost up.
Meanwhile, Wilson was sticking his neck out. He laid his job on the line by producing the album. MGM felt that they had spent too much money on the album and they were about to let it die, but it started selling all over the place. Like, they'd sell forty copies in some little town the size of a pumpkin in Wyoming. We sold five thousand albums all over the country with no extra-hype or anything. Finally the company started pushing the album and sales went even higher. We went to Hawaii right after the albu
m was completed and we worked over there. Then we came back and worked with Andy Warhol at the Trip. It was the show that closed the Trip, as they say. Then we went to San Francisco and played around there and finally...uh...Elliot had to be fired and there were five. Just before we fired Elliot we had a six-piece band because we had hired Billy Mundi and we had two drummers. Then we hired Don Preston, who plays keyboard instruments - electric piano, electric clavichord, etc. We also hired Bunk Gardner who
plays several various horns, and Jim Fielder on bass. I had known Don Preston and Bunk Gardner several years before I met the other guys. We used to play experimental music a long time ago. We got together in garages and went through some very abstract charts and just entertained ourselves. Anyway, we finally had a very workable ensemble. The second album was recorded with those eight guys. We just added a trumpet, string quartet and contrabass clarinet on one song.
The instrumentation of the ideal Mothers rock and roll band is two piccolos, two flutes, two bass flutes, two oboes, English horn, three bassoons, a contrabassoon, four clarinets (with the fourth player doubling on alto clarinet), bass clarinet, contrabass clarinet, soprano, alto, tenor, baritone and bass saxophones, four trumpets, four French horns, three trombones, one bass trombone, one tuba, one contrabass tuba, two harps, two keyboard men playing piano, electric piano, electric harpsichord, electric c
lavichord, Hammond organ, celeste, and piano bass, ten first violins, ten second violins, eight violas, six cellos, four string bass, four percussionists playing twelve timpani, chimes, gongs, field drums, bass drums, snare drums, woodblocks lion's roar, vibes, xylophone and marimba three electric guitars, one electric 12-string guitar, electric bass and electric bass guitar and two drummers at sets, plus vocalists who play tambourines. And I won't be happy until I have it. I think people are entitled to h
ear that kind of music live. Kids would go to concerts if they could hear music that knocked them out. If the concert halls would change to a more modern programming, they would find the place crawling with kids. Something like this won't happen overnight and I know it. But I've studied my audiences carefully enough to see that we're making some headway in that direction. Many people sit and listen to us because they pretend they can't dance to our music. That's total bull. I'm nearly an epileptic and I ca
n make it. Those people don't sit because they enjoy the music. They're just waiting to find out if they like the music. It doesn't sound like what they've been used to hearing. They want to get their ears accustomed to it. It's not "psychedelic." I asked a nightclub owner what psychedelic music was. "It's loud out-of-tune crazy music," he told me, "You can't understand it." Our music is fairly logical.
Our spontaneous outbursts are planned. They have to be. If you take an 8-piece band and not direct them, you'll have "psychedelic" music. We rehearse an average of twelve hours on each song. We learn them in sections. There's the front part, then interlude A, interlude B, and so forth, and the band has to remember certain cues for each section. Each set that we do is conceived of as one continuous piece of music, like an opera. Even the dialogue between numbers is part of it. Some of our sets run an hour a
nd a half, when we get carried away. That's about opera length. A better description of what we're doing might be a theatrical presentation with music. This summer I'd like to present a show on Broadway. It's a musical, science fiction horror story based on the Lenny Bruce trials. He was a friend of mine, and of our manager. Lenny was a saint. What the Big Machine of America did to Lenny Bruce was pretty disgusting. It ranks with civil rights as one of the big pimples on the face of American culture. But n
obody will ever really find out about it, I guess.
don & frank
(Latest album/We're Only In It For The Money - Verve)
Menard Isabelle
BY: R. C.
SOURCE: HOT WACKS QUARTERLY, VOLUMES 12, PAGE 11 AND 13, PAGES 23-27
The Mud Shark label came into existence in October of 1979 with its first release appearing in December of 1979. The label ceased all operations in mid-May, 1981, on orders from 'the goon squad'. During that time the label put out eight Frank Zappa projects that included 21 albums full of great music and history. In the following pages we will detail each of those LPs, track by track. side by side. knowing that many listeners were deprived of a chance to get their share of all this music on vinyl and that
many who did could use more background on what they have been listening to.
The following is the complete list of all the underground records released on the Mud Shark label:
MZ3601 Necessity Is... (released Dec/79) 2500 pressed
MZ3601 Rustic Protrusion (released June/80) 2000 pressed: 1500 on black vinyl; 400 on blue vinyl; 100 on red vinyl
MZ3602 Easy Meat (released March/80) 2800 pressed
MZ3603 Conceptual Continuity (released July/80) 3200 pressed
MZ3604 Project/Object (released July/80) 3200 pressed
MZ3605 Could This Be...Joe's Garage, Acts IV & V (released Oct/80) 2000 pressed
MZ3606 Fred Zappelin (released Dec/80) 2000 pressed
MZ3607 A Token Of His Extreme (released Jan/81) 2500 pressed: 2000 on black vinyl; 500 on green vinyl
MZ4801-4812 20 Years Of Frank Zappa (released April/81) 1000 pressed
Necessity Is.../Rustic Protrusion
This album should be noted as the most significant of any Zappa undergrounds made--followed closely by Metal Man Has Hornet's Wings. The material is historic Frank Zappa/Mothers Of Invention. This was an album that was, in its original form, produced and edited by FZ himself. It was probably to be released in one of the multi-record sets that Frank had planned but never got around to putting out. Rumor has it that it was from a tape of an album that was supposed to have been released on Columbia Records ne
gotiated for between Verve and Warner Brothers. The link to that theory is that the tape is from a Columbia test pressing and that's all. Rival companies frequently do test pressings for each other. The only added track is Hey Nelda which didn't belong to the original project. It was spliced so closely to the material on the tape from which Necessity Is... was made that it was left on. The tape itself was several generations from the test pressing.
The perfect album for any new label to start out with, MZ360 1, had its share of problems and changes. The first 600 copies of this LP bore a DRP 10017/18 matrix number. This was done against the producer's wishes and following that original company going out of business the LP was totally remastered with a new company that then became the benefactor of all the Mud Shark releases. Both pressings sound the same, although it is said that the DRP discs are somewhat boomy (too much low end).
Of the original 600 discs the first 300 didn't have any titles on the paper insert. The second 300 had a white piece of xeroxed paper taped on over the shrink wrap that listed the titles. All the remaining copies of Necessity Is.. had the titles right on the pale blue paper insert.
After the demand for Necessity Is... increased, the producer decided to come up with a new, larger, fancier cover and a new title--Rustic Protrusion. This title was taken from a list of titles that FZ had announced would be in his multi-record set (some of these titles were also later used in the 12 LP set 20 Years Of Frank Zappa although none of the titles matched FZ's original projects. Necessity Is.../ Rustic Protrusion included). Both LPs are exactly the same records. The last run of 500 copies of Rust
ic Protrusion had bogus labels. All others had blank white or blue labels.
Though there were many different quantity runs of these LPs each run (from 300 to 1000) was made from a new set of stampers, thus never hurting the quality by overrunning the stampers. Trying to make too many records from a set of stampers will result in the records being off center and noisy (pops & clicks). This is the gripe of the American record buyer who goes to the store and buys a new album only to find it's full of surface noise when he takes it home and plays it. The legit record companies are gui
lty of doing this and are being 'punished' by getting back a lot of returns. This is one reason why the demand for quality Japanese pressings is so great, because they will only make a limited number of pressings from a set of stampers (in addition to other quality control). A final note on this is that many bootlegs were pressed until the stampers gave out, At the Olympic/200 Motels for example.
To get to the core of Necessity Is.../Rustic Protrusion, the LP was nicknamed 'The Unreleased Album ' and subtitled ' Previously unreleased tracks and studio alternates, 1963-69'. The dates, as you will see, are wrong. A fraction of the personnel used in these recordings is printed on the covers. The photo used for Necessity Is... is from Guitar Player magazine; the photo for Rustic Protrusion comes from the David Walley book. The color of ink used on the later cover corresponds with the color of the vinyl
inside.
Side 1 begins with Shop Talk (Intros) which is one of the best free form rap sessions done by the MOI. They all, upon FZ's orders, get into the act. Mouth effects. babies. abstract characters, Mexicans, enemas, an intro to each member and their instrumentation leads into the next track -- Sounds Like This (a made-up title)--which is a jam with a nice pre-Hot Rats solo by FZ. This goes right into what is titled Gas Mask Variations (another made-up title) and its only similarity to the original piece is the
vocal moanings conducted by FZ. Part of this piece can be observed in a different orchestrated format on the Run Home Slow soundtrack. The entire piece is conducted and choreographed live by FZ administering elaborate hand signals to the MOI. Classical influences via Varese give way to Igor's Boogie which also appears in a longer form on the Burnt Weeny Sandwich LP. This piece romps thru about every style of music imaginable but stays in 6/4 for most of the length of this piece. ending side one with some s
norks and bizarre laughter only cut down by a few seconds.
Side 2 begins with one of the oldest known recorded FZ efforts which also features Frank's brother and Capt. Beefheart in 1958. Titled Lost In This Whirlpool (a made-up title), this song is about someone getting flushed down the toilet. Obviously a home recording. Next we find Ray Collins (or Bunk) rapping about early 60's west coast doo-wop bands as Do It In C comes into play. Do It (a made-up title) is probably the Captain. Booger Freaks Of America features some of the MOI roadies in interview form telli
ng of their unique habits and what they do with what they pick from their noses. Anyway Tho Wind Blows is the original version from the Dot demos thusly named after their rejection from that company. This is followed by another Ray Collins' vocal on Fountain Of Love. This track differs from the one released on Ruben & the Jets in that it has a fuz bass. Opus 5 is from Mt. St. Mary's College where it was recorded in 1963. Frank had just released The Big Suffer for Capitol Records at that time. Where it says
at the end of the piece that the next piece would be Collage lIa quick cut takes the record into the instrumental version of Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance, again from the Dot demos. This laid back, cocktail music version, similar to the piece on Lumpy Gravy, in a way parodied one of Dot's biggest stars Billy Vaughn. Only Billy never had that much spunk. The album ends with the added track Hey Nelda. the Baby Ray & the Ferns classic which parodied the hit single Hey Paula by Paul & Paula ( 1962). Mu
sically and Iyrically superior to Hey Paula. Hey Nelda came out in 1963.
Easy Meat
Made from a third generation tape, Easy Meat is far from the worst underground made, but it is the least respected, even in the producer's opinion, of all the Mud Shark titles. At the time of its release 60% of the material was unreleased and the remainder, except for Cosmik Debris. hadn't been issued since the 60's, and even then not live.
Side 1 begins with the Deathless Horsie, then into Dead Girls Of London, I Ain't Got No Heart, Brown Shoes Don't Make It and Cosmik Debris. It then goes to a section later in the concert and cuts into Easy Meat Part 1.
The second part of Easy Meat opens side two. This song divided, not only for time reasons, but also because it seemed to almost always fall at the end of the first side of a cassette. The next song is Jumbo, followed by The Meek Shall Inherit Nothing, For The Young Sophisticate, Wet T-Shirt Nite and Why Does It Hurt When I Pee. The latter two songs are valuable to the live collectors. The concert used is from Gothenberg, Sweden, March 6, 1979.
Conceptual Continuity
This album. made from a second generation tape, has frequency response that is more than adequate for this type of recording -- Patrick O'Hearns bass really shines thru.
Stinkfoot opens side one in a lengthy extended version. The one surprise comes as it is approaching its last regular verse. Frank is distracted and says. "Hey listen buddy! If you're going to sell t-shirts don t do it in the middle of the concert. take 'em outside someplace! Anybody else who's walking around with t-shirts. get the fuck out of here! That pisses me off! I didn't know such things existed! A guy walking in front of the stage with a fucking t-shirt to sell to somebody! Well. you live and learn.
' Frank goes on to substitute the words "t-shirt" and "commercialism" into the repeated verse. The link between Stinkfoot and Dirty Love is a lengthy rap about man, woman and the poodle. This rap, never released commercially, somewhat visual and well choreographed, Ieads into Dirty Love (Bianca had been singing this song but she left the tour before this show). Wind Up Working In A Gas Station ends side one. The only track missing from this uninterrupted first 43 minutes of the show is Trying To Grow Me A
Chin. Some other material from this concert can be heard on the 12 LP bootleg set.
Side two opens with The Torture Never Stops followed by city Of Tiny Lights sung by Ray White. This LP is from an audience recording made at Cobo Hall, Detroit. Mich.. on November 19, 1976.
Project Object
The source for this record is a third generation soundboard tape from Poughkeepsie. New-York-the date is purposely obscured. Many thought this was one of the New York City Palladium shows but Ike didn't play at the Palladium shows.
The album begins with a somewhat shaking. vibrating song titled Prelude To Bobby Brown (a made-up title) which consists of keyboard solos by Peter Wolf and Tommy Mars. Bobby Brown. the big hit in Europe. follows Then into Conehead and Moe's Vacation which resembles the opening on the studio version of Wet T-Shirt Night. This cut fades out, omitting the drum solo, to leave enough time for I Have Been In You complete with two raps. The opening rap brings out a reference to Peter Frampton's song I'm In You. T
he second rap follows the guitar solo and puns Jimi Hendrix, the Eagles, Abba and Petey's visit to the home of a young teenage girl. This is a classic live performance. The side fades out on the opening notes of Flakes.
Side 2 opens with a punched-in Little House I Used To Live In which features Tommy Mars on vocals and keyboards. The next tune features a bellowing Denny Whally on Tell Me You Love Me and concludes with a sparkling version of Yo Mama. There is a quick, somewhat distracting, splice in the middle of Yo Mama but you get over it just as quick.
Could This Be...Joe's Garage, Acts IV & V. . . Live?
Before we get into this LP, MZ3605, an explanation of how the title came about -- it was rumored that FZ was going to continue the Joe's Garage saga and take it into additional acts (probably something that somebody read in Rolling Stone) thus the producer got to thinking; there are 17 unreleased songs in a row done that way every other show and it seems to tell a story. Joe s Garage, Acts IV & V was the first double album made on the Mud Shark label. The first run of 1000 copies had the labels reversed on
sides one and two. The recording was made from a first or second generation audience tape from the Fox Theater, Atlanta, Georgia, April 20, 1980 (two songs are from different sources noted later on in this review).
Side 1 opens with Watermelon In Easter Hay already in progress where the band is introduced, then into Teenage Wind. The song Harder Than Your Husband (country & western) is followed by Bamboozeled By Love (introduced in the 1978 tour). A slow version. which many fans like better than the commercial release, of Pick Me I'm Clean ends side one.
Side 2 opens with Society Pages followed by I'm A Beautiful Guy. Next is Beauty Knows No Pain, Charlie's Enormous Mouth, Any Downers and Conehead. You Are What You Is ends a long 24 1/2 minute side. This song is a bit slow, much slower than the commercially released version. This was also the first performance of the song from the Boston concert of 5/3/80. The words in this early version are different than other takes done later.
Side 3 begins with Easy Meat taken from the point after the instrumental followed by Mudd Club, The Meek Shall Inherit Nothing and Heavenly Bank Account.
Side 4 starts with Suicide Chump, into Jumbo, If Only She Woulda, Drafted Again and closes with the reprise of Joe's Garage which was taken from a mediocre tape from Eugene, Oregon recorded on March 27, 1980.
Fred Zappelin
MZ3606 was slightly redundant in following Joe's Garage Acts IV & V as five of the same songs are used. The reason for this was the availability of the soundboard tape from Cologne, West Germany from which most of the first two sides were taken. Rumor has it that the soundboard tape became available when it was stolen from Carlos Santana's luggage at a hotel in the States. There are seven other shows from which the material comes from. The album covers the second and third of three 1980 tours. The title of
the album was arrived at through the many name changes that FZ's new LP was going through. It was supposed to be Fred Zeppelin and then (guessing) as Zeppelin's drummer ODed it would have been in bad taste. The producer of this LP thought to keep the Fred, but to change the Z-E-P to Z-A-P, thus Fred Zappelin-- not a mistake, intentionally done that way.
Side 1 opens with A Pound For A Brown On The Bus from the Cologne 6/7/80 tape which is faded out. Pick Me I'm Clean continues. It is done faster on the Euro tour and is followed by Society Pages, I'm A Beautiful Guy and Beauty Knows No Pain.
Side 2 (still Cologne) takes up with Charlie's Enormous Mouth which is abruptly cut off at the end where it would have gone into Cosmik Debris. Arthur ' s bass is real nice and plunky on these recordings. Next is Dancin' Fool, Bobby Brown and Ms. Pinky ending the soundboard tape. The next piece Truck Driver Divorce; You're a Dork (two separate cuts) consists of poem-like romps exhaled by FZ at the Phoenix, Arizona 10/13/80 shows random vocal samplings, poorly recorded, but preserved for historic purposes.
Side two ends with the spectacular Ike Willis vocal, done best at this show, of Outside Now taken from the Palladium, N.Y. 11/1/80 first show, nice solo by FZ too.
Side 3 opens with two more free form chants by FZ, Tinseltown Rebellion and The Dangerous Kitchen, both captured at the Hartford, Ct., show on 10/24/80. Then back to the Palladium (10/30/80) for The Blue Light. Next is Dumb All Over (N.Y. 10/31/80). The side finishes with Shall We Take Ourselves Seriously (made-up title) from the first 11/1/80 N.Y. show.
Side 4 begins with the tail end of Black Napkins, into Doreen and Goblin Girl, all from the second 11/1/80 N.Y. show. These songs showed a powerful, but somewhat shaky performance. The album's finale is from Providence, R.l. 11/8/80. An excellent tape provides the sound quality for Broken Hearts, I'm So Cute and Andy.
A Token Of His Extreme
MZ3607, the last single LP on the Mud Shark label, was called its Swedish/US record. Both the tape and the cover art used came from Sweden via a couple of fans with ties to Stoned Records. The irony of it all was that somewhere else in Europe this TV show was also being put to vinyl and both records came out at the same time. Indiscreet Picture Show sported a more professional cover and was a few minutes longer than Token, but then making albums longer means less fidelity as was the case. But Token isn't f
lawless, side one is a bit slow, side 2 was corrected in the studio.
Side 1 begins with Dog Breath; Uncle Meat, into Florentine Pogen, Oh No; Son Of Orange County and concludes with Pygmy Twylyte.
Side 2 opens with More Trouble Every Day, Stinkfoot and Inca Roads. The track Honey Honey (made-up title), a short 55-second piece, probably improvised by Napoleon Murphy Black and still commercially unreleased, is followed by a short Pygmy Twylyte and the outro A Token Of My Extreme.
20 Years Of Frank Zappa
Many sources and styles and hundreds of musicians complement this 12-record package -the most ambitious and the last of The Mud Shark series. Twelve albums, each with its own number, title and personality were packaged in a one-inch box with a 16-page guide booklet (except 25, the 'Silver Edition', but more on that later). This package is the largest underground multi-record set made to date.
The initial pressing was 1000 copies. but as most of you may already know, over half of them (565) were confiscated in Mud Shark's bust. The limited, numbered Silver Edition had each LP packaged individually in its own silver jacket. Rumor has it that the special packages were to be presented to dealers who sold large quantities of the box. They disappeared without trace although sources indicate they were not confiscated. just lost or tucked away in the depths of the packaging plant. Perhaps they will sur
face one day.
The Basic Primer (MZ4801)
This LP and the 12th album are the 'border' LPs in that they surround the set's inner material -- the material that goes in sequence. The pattern on this record was to go from the newer material to the older material.
Side 1 opens with a ripping version of Yo Mama originally slated for release in the 3-LP set of 1979 (see Warts And All) and was recorded at the Hammersmith Odeon. Keep It Greasy and Village Of The Sun which follow came from an excellent soundboard tape (see Project/Object), the smooth Ike Willis' vocal on the latter combined with the funky fills and a superb sound on FZ's guitar segues into a short fill off the Uncle Meat demo which flows into a short piece from the Innerview Show (1976).
Side 2 starts off with Titties & Beer, with the extra verse, and What Kind Of Group Do You Think We Are (a made-up title) both from Detroit 1976. On the former you can hear Patrick's fretless precision jump out at you and on the latter some special guest appearances by Flo & Eddie and Ralph Armstrong but this track is cut off abruptly. Next is All The Way Down To The Tonsils (another made-up title) from the Uncle Meat demo LP, Rollo and St. Alphonzo's from the New Year's Eve 1972 show in D.C. A short piece
of tape from the 1963 Mt;. St.' Mary's show concludes side 2.
The Soundtracks (MZ4802)
The title of this LP explains all-the LP concentrates on the musical portions of the two older soundtracks. Side one is mostly Run Home Slow from a tape of a TV broadcast. The music is good, well-written early pieces which later transformed into some wellknown classics. most recognizable is The Duke Of Prunes. This movie's score is surrounded by two short audience recordings from the Baby Snakes film. These are unbearable to listen to.
Side two features The World's Greatest Sinner (1961) from a rare dub that came directly from the film. This music is inserted between two musical and dialogue selections from 200 Motels.
The Cucamonga Era (MZ4803)
This LP contains most of the known FZ pre-Mothers releases of which many were recorded in Cucamonga in a studio, Studio Z, once owned by Paul Buff and later sold to Zappa. Break Time, reeorded by the Masters, Frank ' s first record, leads off side one and is followed by How's Your Bird and World's Greatest Sinner by Baby Ray & the Ferns. Hey Nelda and Surf Along by Ned & Nelda follow next, then the Heartbreaker's reeord Everytime I See You. The side concludes with Dear Jeepers and Letters From Jeepers by B
ob Guy, written by FZ, and The Big Suffer by Brian Lord & the Midnighters.
Side two features eight sides of the Original Sound label and two flip sides, beginning with the cowritten Memories Of El Monte by the Penguins. This is followed by Grunion Run and Tijuana Surf (Hollywood Persuaders), Mr. Clean and Jessie Lee (Mr. Clean), Heavies (Rotation), Drums-A-GoGo and Hot Water (Hollywood Persuaders) and two flip sides on whieh FZ's involvement is doubtful -- Not Another One (Midnighters) and Sixteen Tons (Masters).
Gas Mask (MZ4804)
This is the first full entry of the Mothers of Invention. What happened to 1965 to 1968? 1 would guess a lack of good quality tapes from this era, so the order begins here. A substandard dub of the Appleton, Wiseonsin, 1969 show was used. Side one opens with The Eye Of Amagato, followed by the first live performance of My Guitar Wants To Kill Your Mama and concludes with something loosely titled Clap & Vomit. There are some untitled seleetions on this side.
Side two begins with The Eric Dolphy Memorial Barbecue and goes into Hungry Freaks Daddy followed by The Return Of The Son Of The Hunchback Duke. The set concludes with The Story Of A Pound For A Brown On The Bus, whieh is actually from the Royal Albert Hall 1969 concert but is not noted that way in the set.
Hotel Dixie (MZ4805)
The fifth LP in the set is from a down-the-line soundboard tape of the 11/14/70 Fillmore East shows. Side one begins with Sharlena. followed by The Air, You Didn't Try To Call Me, Mother People (no mention of this title on the covers), a very short King Kong and ends with Concentration Moon; Mom & Dad.
Side two features a 20-minute version of The Duke (again). This version is different from the 1969 version. The tune has turned into a full-blown major piece of the times, but in years to come each small piece within the song would be a monster all on its own. Included in this extravaganza are: Little House I Used To Live In, The Mud Shark (with early Penis Dimension), Holiday In Berlin (with text not included in Burnt Weeny Sandwich or 200 Motels version), then into a slow building up of twochord pattern
used in Inca Roads, a nice solo by FZ, further into chords of Easy Meat which builds up to Cruisin' For Burgers whereupon this side and the fifth LP in the set come to a close.
Grand Wazoo Orchestra (MZ4806)
The sixth LP in the set is the first performance of the Grand Wazoo Orchestra. It has a non-stop structure (the audience response to each selection has been edited out) which makes each side sound like one long piece. Only about half of the actual concert is on this record--the producer had intended to finish the concert on a record within the next scheduled set or on its own single LP. Side one includes The New Brown Clouds, Big Swifty and For Calvin.
Side two consists of Think It Over and approximate. Some of the long horn solos have been cut down a bit. Made from a fairly clear third generation audience recording.
Show And Tell (MZ4807)
The first track Redunzel features a nice solo by Jean Luc Ponty. It is taken from 8/21/73 at a cold outdoor concert in Sweden and is from a TV tape as are the next two songs Cucamonga and Cucamonga Again. The next piece Cover-ups is from an Arkansas radio interview. Its sloppy editing and use of speeding up and slowing the tape give this 1974 post-Nixon rap some real belly laughs -- each time Ford or Nixon is mentioned the tape slows down. The next track Chester's Gorilla is from the Felt Forum 10/30/74 an
d is a guitar solo by FZ, is followed by That's Right Let's Boogie (a made-up title), also from the Forum, featuring some pre-Zoot Allures electricity -- another session with FZ on guitar. The side ends with the stage being cleaned up from a routine that has just taken place--FZ brings out Detroit saxophonist for A Few Minutes With Norma Bell (another made-up title) from the 10/31/75 Felt Forum concert.
All of side two is from the latter concert. The tracks are How Could I Be Such A Fool. I Ain't Got No Heart and I'm Not Satisfied. These 60's updates are followed by probably the most sensitive and moving of any piece in the entire set -- Packgard Goose: Black Napkins--where FZ sets out to rid himself of ''his own personal demon". In a serious voice, often moving and dramatic, FZ narrates over the top of Black Napkins. Some of the text. includes, "....The only way we are going to make it through life witho
ut going completely crazy is to find someone or something that you can say FUCK YOU to!'' The audience goes completely crazy.
The Night Of The Iron Sausage (MZ4808)
The eighth album again uses the Halloween 1975 show and opens with a very good Napi Brock vocal on Lonely Little Girl which leads into Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance which features the superfast funky keys of Andre Lewis. This is followed by What's The Ugliest Part Of Your Body?. The side concludes with some fine sax solos by Nappy Brock and Norma Bell on Chunga's Revenge -really smokes! Some hot Norma Bell vocalizing.
Side two takes the band to Hartford, Ct. (10/31/77). Opening is Envelopes which features Hartford's own Tommy Mars "who has changed his name because all Italians like to change their name". The next piece, seldom heard live, is Disco Boy. Following is I Promise Not To Cum In Your Mouth which contains a serious tape drop-out that is quickly remedied. The side concludes with a nice version of Wild Love.
Warts And All I (MZ4809)
This LP packed most of the punch (as did part II) for the entire package when it was first made available. Since then several of the tunes within have been released on the Tinseltown and Shut Up albums. Still others have not been released and probably never will be. This LP gets its title from the three-album set that FZ had ready to go in 1979 but shelved for the release of the rapidly flowing studio takes and concepts of Joe's Garage. The tapes for this LP are in mono as they came from a reel-to-reel tha
t wasn't supposed to get out--it did. but unfortunately, put onto a TDK-AD and the heads of one of the machines between the second and third generation dubs were badly out of line. Still this was not enough to bury the possibility of including these fourth generation dubs into the set.
Side 1 begins with a live version of Dead Girls Of London, followed by Suicide Chump (alternate take) and Streets And Roads which went to the Shut Up box. The side concludes with 13 which features L. Shankar on violin (unreleased).
Side two begins with Magic Fingers which is followed by the unreleased Rubber Girl, a variation on the Ms. Pinky theme. The side concludes with Peaches which is the same track as Peaches 3 on the Tinseltown LP. The sources for this LP are the Palladium, N.Y., 10/31/78 and Hammersmith Odeon, London 2/79.
Warts and All 11 (MZ4810)
Side one begins with For The Young Sophisticate (same track as Tinseltown LP) into More Streets And Roads (later titled Shut Up 'N Play Yer Guitar Some More in the Shut Up box). These instrumentals are updated takeoffs on the Inca Roads solos. Cyborg, in stereo, is the only track on the Warts LPs that is not from that set. This track is from the 10/28/78 show at the Palladium.
Side two opens with The Dance Contest which shows up on Tinseltown in a much shortened form. This is followed by Duck Duck Goose; Down In De Dew still unreleased. The Drive Shaft, a section of Little House I Used To Live In, features a rare Patrick O'Hearn vocal, in a tune about gay hangouts around the Times Square section of New York, and is still unreleased. The LP concludes with The Deathless Horsie which went into the Shut Up set.
Soup And Old Clothes (MZ4811)
This LP is a collection of songs, guest appearances and tracks that couldn't fit anywhere else in the set. The quality of the tapes used range from very good to poor in no special placement. Side one opens with a cover version of the old Tony Allen classic Nite Owl from Nassau, N.Y., 5/9/80. Next is more from 200 Motels, mostly dialogue (with Keith Moon), but featuring an opening on Penis Dimension not used in the soundtrack. It is a continuation of the track used on MZ4802, side 2. This is followed by a b
arely salvageable outtake from We're Only In It For The Money called In Memorium: Hieronymus Bosch--the Mothers doing to music what Bosch did to art, an even comparison. The sound is from a Swedish TV broadcast. Even after much labor, there is hardly anything there to listen to but it can be done. The next track is called The Twelve Inches and is a story (with a punchline) narrated by Tom Waits and put to music by the Mothers, from a Boston '74 show. The side ends with an excellent audience recording from
Copenhagen 3/5/79 of Florentine Pogen.
Side two starts out with a contribution from Captain Beefheart as the producer didn't want to leave him out. The cut is taken from Boston 4/27/75. Next up is a cover version of the Cadets classic of Stranded In The Jungle with Ray White and Bianca doing it up with FZ at the Felt Forum 10/30/76. The next piece is Hard Cheese; The Tolkien Tapes (a made-up title)-- madness in the radio station as Flo & Eddie, FZ, Dick Barber and Aynsley give interviewer Dave Dixon a fewgray hairs. The LP concludes with a trib
ute to George Duke from Boston 4/27/75 called Do The Funky Room Service (another made-up title).
Advanced Study: World Pop Domination (MZ4812)
The first track Coltage One is from Mt. St. Mary's 1963. This was from a tape that Frank may have played on the radio in the early 70's thus better copies must exist then the noisy one used here. Then why hasn t some independent producer or Frank himself made it available on wax? The next track The Bust is from the Uncle Meat demo LP . It takes place at a studio where a police officer comes to stop the noise and he is candidly being taped while he pleads with the band to cool it so he doesn't have to bust
them. It's no wonder it was never used -- not without getting the cop's OK -- so it finds a home here. Next FZ pulls the string on a toy, talking police car that precedes the Hartford 10/17/77 performances of Dinah Mo Humm and Camarillo Brillo. No set could ever be complete without these two clean, funky recordings. The next track is Get A Little II (a madeup title) which is basically tape effects from the Uncle Meat demo. Following that is You Didn't Try To Call Me from Rotterdam 5/24/80 (radio broadcast)
. Frank, Ike and Ray blend well in this super clean recording. The last piece on side one is another made-up title Laid Back, an incredibly smooth narration by FZ, while Zoot Allures plays in the background. The narrative is about people who are laid back and how to become that way.
Side two begins with two cuts from the Rotterdam broadcast mentioned above--Love Of My Life and You Are What You Is. This is followed by Catholic Girls from Munieh 3/31/80. The next cut Fine Girl is the same as the cut on the Tinseltown LP. It was taken from the Crush All Boxes LP as aired on the radio and used because it sounded so good and hadn't been done live before. The last song is the instrumental Treacherous Cretins from Copenhagen 3/5/79. The solos and sound are both excellent and are a perfect en
ding for over 506 minutes of listening pleasure.
Menard Isabelle
BY: FRANK ZAPPA
SOURCE: LIFE, JUNE 28 1968, PAGES 82-91
TRANSCRIPTION: ROGER MAURICE WITHOUT PERMISSION
(Note of the editors)
---Frank Zappa is the leader-composer for the Mothers of Invention and an oracle-philosopher of the rock scene. An iconoclast and a satirist, Zappa specializes in deliberately outrageous statements to expose what he sees as society's hangups.---
"To deny rock was to deny sexuality"-- FZ
"Parents saw a danger in that lewd black music"-- FZ
"The big beat matches the body's rhythms"-- FZ
THE NEW ROCK
Rock music is a necessary element of contemporary society. It is functional. It is healthy and valid artistically. It is also Educational (how to ask a girl for a date, what love is like). It has all the answers to what your mother and father won't tell you. It is also a big business. This is a brief history of rock and its relationship to our society.
LO: PFF PFF. A nifty questionnaire to get you interested so you'll read the rest of the article:
Part One: The 50s
1. Who remembers beer? White port and lemon juice? For 10 points, what was the name of the guy in your school who used to buy your juice for parties...
2. Who remembers making out and getting hot? For 10 points, how old were you when it happened...
3. Who remembers duck tails, peggers, leather jackets, bunny shoes, brogans, tight sweaters, teardrops, full skirts with a million starchy petticoats, Sir Guy shirts and khakis? For 10 points, how much did you pay for your St. Christopher medallion...
4. Who remembers gang fights, tire chains, boys with razor blades in the toes of their wedgies, girls with razor blades in their hair, blood and sickening crunch? For 10 points, tell why the cops were afraid of your gang...
Part Two: The 60s
5. Who remembers speed? Smoke? Acid? Transcendental meditation? For 10 points, name your connection or guru...
6. Who remembers getting stoned and having an orgy? For 10 points, how old were you when you learned you were incapable of relating to others in a tender, personal way and finally discovered you had become asexual...
7. Who remembers electric hair, bell bottoms, plastic jackets, sandals, high boots, bulky knit sweaters, Guccis, miniskirts, De Voss shirts and velvet pants? For 10 points, look around the house, find your beads and bells, and recite Hare Krishna without laughing...
8. Who remembers demonstrations, truncheons, Mace, police dogs, the Pentagon, Century City, blood and sickening crunch? For 10 points, tell why you were afraid to cut your hair, infiltrate the establishment, and do it the easy way...
Our present state of sociosexual enlightenment is, to a certain extent, attributable to the evolution of rock and vice versa. Our story begins back in... the good old days, at the recreation centers, no Levis or capris please. "School functions" and "teen hops" were real swell and keen and acceptable to Mom and Dad. They were also dull unless you liked to dance a foxtrot as the high school swing band fumbled through an evening of Combo Orks and reprocessed Glenn Miller. The kids would be holding on to each
other desperately and sweating. The chaperon would come along and say, "Seven inches apart please," and hold a sawed-off ruler between you and the girl.
Society was very repressed, sexually, and dancing was a desperate attempt to get a little physical contact with the opposite sex. Free love, groupies, the Plaster Casters of Chicago and such bizarre variants as the G.T.O.'s of Laurel Canyon in L.A. didn't exist then. Preoccupation with sexual matters accounted for a disproportionate amount of the daily conscious thought process and diverted a lot of energy from school work.
This, and the low quality of teaching in many schools, caused kids to seek education in the streets. Youth gangs with marvelous names and frightening reputations cruised the streets at night, searching for ways to compensate for the lack of sexually approachable girls. Vandalism and assorted manglings became acceptable substitutes for "teen sex." Young men would compete, like cowboy gunfighters, to be "the baddest cat." This dubious honor would generally entitle its bearer to bust the gang and in some inst
ances, preferential treatment from those few daring girls who would go "all the way."
Parents, unfortunately, have a tendency to misunderstand, misinterpret, and, worst of all, ridicule patterns of behavior which seem foreign to them. When they noticed a growing interest among teenagers in matters pertaining to the pleasure-giving functions of the body, they felt threatened. Mom and Dad were sexually uninformed and inhibited (a lot of things wrong with society today are directly attributable to the fact that the people who make the laws are sexually maladjusted) and they saw no reason why t
heir kids should be raised differently. (Why should those dirty teen-agers have all the fun?) Sex is for making babies and it makes your body misshapen and ugly afterward and let's not talk about it shall we?
The Big Note: Digression I
In the Abnuceals Emuukha Electric Symphony Orchestra album Lumpy Gravy there is a section on side two where several unidentified characters discuss the origins of the universe. One of the characters explains the concept of the Big Note: everything in the universe is composed basically of vibrations--light is a vibration, sound is a vibration, atoms are composed of vibrations---and all these vibrations just might be harmonics of some incomprehensible fundamental cosmic tone.
How important is sound? I participated in a conversation recently with Herbie Cohen (our manager) about rumors of a government research project. The project, it seems, has been going on for several years. What does sound do to plants? According to Herbie, a field of corn increased its yield--the individual ears even got bigger--because the research team set up loudspeakers in the field and pumped in some music. According to Herbie, the next step is to find out what kind of music the vegetables like the bes
t.
The ways in which sound affects the human organism are myriad and subtle. Why does the sound of Eric Clapton's guitar give one girl a sensation which she describes as "Bone Conduction"? Would she still experience Bone Conduction if Eric, using the same extremely loud thick tone, played nothing but Hawaiian music? Which is more important: the timbre (color-texture) of a sound, the succession of intervals which make up the melody, the harmonic support (chords) which tells your ear "what the melody means" (Is
it major or minor or neutral or what), the volume at which the sound is heard, the volume at which the sound is produced, the distance from source to ear, the density of the sound, the number of sounds per second or fraction thereof... and so on? Which of these would be the most important element in an audial experience which gave you a pleasurable sensation? An erotic sensation? Look at kids in school, tapping their feet, beating with their fingers. People try, unconsciously, to be in tune with their env
ironment. In a variety of ways, even the most "unconcerned" people make attempts to "tune up" with their God. Hal Zeiger (one of the first big promoters of rock entertainment during the 50s) says, "I knew that there was a big thing here that was basic, that was big, that had to get bigger. I realized that this music got through to the youngsters because the big beat matched the great rhythms of the human body. I understood that. I knew it and I knew there was nothing that anyone could do to knock that out
of them. And I further knew that they would carry this with them the rest of their lives."
Rock around the Clock
In my days of flaming youth I was extremely suspect of any rock music played by white people. The sincerity and emotional intensity of their performances, when they sang about boy friends and girl friends and breaking up, etc., was nowhere when I compared it to my high school Negro R&B heroes like Johnny Otis, Howlin' Wolf and Willie Mae Thornton.
But then I remember going to see Blackboard jungle. When the titles flashed up there on the screen Bill Haley and his Comets started blurching "One Two Three O'Clock, Four O'Clock Rock..." It was the loudest rock sound kids had ever heard at that time. I remember being inspired with awe. In cruddy little teen-age rooms across America, kids had been huddling around old radios and cheap record players listening to the "dirty music" of their life style. ("Go in your room if you wanna listen to that crap... an
d turn the volume all the way down.") But in the theater, watching Blackboard Jungle, they couldn't tell you to turn it down. I didn't care if Bill Haley was white or sincere... he was playing the Teen-Age National Anthem and it was so LOUD I was jumping up and down. Blackboard Jungle, not even considering the story line (which had the old people winning in the end) represented a strange sort of "endorsement" of the teen-age cause: "They have made a movie about us, therefore, we exist..."
Responding like dogs, some of the kids began to go for the throat. Open rebellion. The early public dances and shows which featured rock were frowned upon by the respectable parents of the community They did everything they could do to make it impossible for these events to take place. They did everything they could to shield their impressionable young ones from the ravages of this vulgar new craze. (Hal Zeiger: "They did everything they could to make sure their children were not moved erotically by Negroe
s.")
From the very beginning, the real reason Mr. & Mrs. Clean White America objected to this music was the fact that it was performed by black people. There was always the danger that one night-maybe in the middle of the summer, in a little pink party dress-Janey or Suzy might be overwhelmed by the lewd, pulsating jungle rhythms and do something to make their parents ashamed.
Parents, in trying to protect their offspring from whatever danger they imagined to be lurking within the secret compartments of this new musical vehicle, actually helped to shove them in front of it whereupon they were immediately run over. The attitude of parents helped to create a climate wherein the usage of rock music (as a pacifier or perhaps anesthetic experience) became very necessary. Parents offered nothing to their children that could match the appeal of rock. It was obvious to the kids that any
one who did not like (or at least attempt to Understand) rock music, had a warped sense of values. To deny rock music its place in the society was to deny sexuality. Any parent who tried to keep his child from listening to or participating in this musical ritual was, in the eyes of the child, trying to castrate him.
There was much resistance on the part of the music industry itself. (Hal Zeiger: "I remember a conversation with M--D--, a very famous song-writer, who has written many of our all-time favorites, wherein he chided me for being involved with this kind of music and entertainment and I said to him, 'M--, you are just upset because it has been discovered and revealed that a song written by some young colored child in a slum area can capture the fancy of the American public more effectively than a song written
by you, who lives in a Beverly Hills mansion.")
Every year you could hear people saying, "I know it's only a phase... it'll poop out pretty soon. The big bands will come back." Year after year, the death of rock was predicted... a few times, as I recall, it was even officially announced: "Rock 'n' roll is dead, calypso is all the rage...
Oh, Those Great Rhythms: Digression II
The function of the drums in a rock music ensemble is to keep the beat. ("It has a good beat... I give it 10 points, Dick.") On early R&B records, the drum part was usually executed with brushes. All the arrangements required, generally, was a dull thud on the second and fourth pulse of the bar. There were very few "breaks" or "fills." When the drum fill (a short percussion outburst, usually at a cadence or resting point of a musical phrase) became popular in rock arrangements, it most often took the form
of groups of triplets (three-note rhythmic figures, squeezed into the space of two beats... sounding like: ya-da-da ya-da-da ya-da-da ya-da-da- whomp). For a while, during the mid-50s, it seemed like every record produced had one or more fills of this nature in it. Eventually, with the improvements in studios and recording techniques, the drummers began to use sticks on the sessions and the cadence fills became more elaborate but, before and after the fill, the drummer's job was still to keep the beat... t
hat same old crappy beat... the beat that made the kids hop around and scream and yell and buy records. A long process of rhythmic evolution has taken place since the early 50s. It is laughable now to think of that dull thud on the second and fourth as lewd and pulsating.
Green Visors
Hal Zeiger: "The problem at the time was basically this: trying to make the music acceptable, or, to try to get the right to expose it, and that took some doing. I knew the kids were listening to the radio stations... it was just a matter of how to merchandise this to get their dollars, too I told Bill Graham (founder of the Fillmore and former manager of the Jefferson Airplane), 'You've got to understand when these things are underground, that's one thing. But the minute it goes over ground, the minute, y
ou see, it looks like money, everyone wants in'
So to make R&B acceptable, the big shots of the record industry hired a bunch of little men with cigars and green visors, to synthesize and imitate the work of the Negroes. The visor men cranked out phony white rock Highly skilled couriers then delivered the goods to American Bandstand along with a lot of presents (tokens of their esteem) to Dick Clark for all his marvelous assistance in the crusade to jam these products down the kids' throats Pat Boone was notable, too, for his humanistic activities (blea
ching Little Richard and making him safe for teenage consumption).
One of my favorite Negro R&B groups during the 50s was Hank Ballard and the Midnighters. Their work was some of the most important sociosexual true-to-life commentary of that era, for instance: Stingy Little Thing (a song in protest about girls who wouldn't "put out"), Work with Me Annie, and Annie Had a Baby. Songs like these got played on the air every once in a while--the kids would hear Annie Had a Baby and say, "Hey, here's a song about a girl getting pregnant," and rush to tune it in--but an official
of the station (with teen-age children of his own to protect) would "lay a pink memo on it," and the song would sort of "disappear."
The visor men, meanwhile, were magically purifying all this stuff. Work with Me Annie ("Please don't cheat/Give me all my meat") through the wisdom of their craft became Dance with Me, Henry ("If you want romancin'/You better learn some dancin' ").
Vaseline
White rock, overproduced and shiny, nearly slickened itself to death. (Remember Fats Domino with Strings?) The music industry was slumping a bit. Was this to be the end of rock? Were we doomed to a new era of country & western tunes smothered in Vaseline? Then, just in the nick of time, Beatlemania New hope. There they were: cute, safe, white. The kids took to them immediately. Their music had real energy; it was sympathetic to their life style. It was music made for young people by other young people. No
green visors. It seemed to radiate a secret message: "You can be free. You can get away with it. Look, we're doing it!"
I'm sure the kids never really believed all the Beatles wanted to do was hold your hand. And the girls were provided with "kissable closeups" (enlarged views of their idols' lips, teeth and gums) which they could kiss, touch, rub and/or hang on the bedroom wall. Girls forgot Elvis Presley. He was too greasy, too heavy business: sullen pouting and all that stuff The Beatles were huggable & cute & mop & tops & happy & positive. Beatlemania was fun to be involved in.
The record companies were at a loss to compete with the British threat. Zeiger relates another droll incident: "I remember Mike Maitland who was then vice president and sales manager of Capitol Records. He was decrying the fact that they couldn't get any hit singles, and I said to him, 'Well, Mike, tho reason is because you have the wrong people working for you.' 'Well, what do you want me to do? Get some of these fellows with the tight pants to produce these records?' I said, 'Exactly. Two button records
can't be produced by guys with three button suits. It's all a matter of buttons.' Look at Mike Maitland now. He's president of Warner Brothers Records and look at the kind of thing they're putting out... fellows with tight pants... or no pants... are producing the records."
72 Tracks and Itchykoo Park: Digression III
It might be interesting at this point to discuss the evolution of recording-studio techniques. In the very oldenest of days, the recording engineer's main function was to stand behind the singer holding him by the shoulders, and either push him forward or pull him away from a large funnel-shaped object attached to a bent pin or something that used to function as a primitive microphone to gather sounds to be transcribed on a wax cylinder.
During the early stages of R&B, most recording was done on very large acetate discs. Then came tape. Monaural recordings gave way to stereo... then to threetrack... then fourtrack. Fourtrack recording was the "standard of the industry" for a while until some of those tight pants, no pants producers Zeiger mentioned put pressure on companies and manufacturers to obtain eight-track machines which would allow more creative freedom to the young musicians who were playing this wonderful new money-making form of
music. Today, eight-track recording is common and the adventurous new breed of "pop experimenters" are hustling to get 12-track machines, 16-track machines, 24-track machines (the Beatles, I hear, are setting up a nifty studio with 72 tracks).
Audience Education
There seems to be a trend in today's music toward eclecticism. The people who make this music are examining a wide range of possible musical and nonmusical elements to incorporate into their bags. Through rock music, the audience is being exposed to an assortment of advanced musical and electronic techniques that five years ago might have sent them screaming into the street. Amazing breakthroughs have been made in the field of "audience education." These improvements have been made almost against the will
of the mass media. Suppression for racial and sexual reasons doesn't go on as much but radio stations still do not program progressive rock in proportion to the market which exists for it. Specific songs which seem most threatening to the established order don't get on radio and TV. Example: Society's Child by Janis Ian about interracial dating. (Mass media does more to keep Americans stupid than even the whole U.S. school system, that vast industry which cranks out trained consumers and technician-pawns f
or the benefit of other vast industries.) It is something of a paradox that companies which manufacture and distribute this art form (strictly for profit) might one day be changed or controlled by young people who were motivated to action by the products these companies sell.
The level of involvement with today's music is quite amazing. One example: Groupies. These girls, who devote their lives to pop music, feel they owe something personal to it, so they make the ultimate gesture of worship, human sacrifice. They offer their bodies to the music or its nearest personal representative, the pop musician. These girls are everywhere. It is one of the most amazingly beautiful products of the sexual revolution.
The Jimi Hendrix Phenomenon
Hendrix is one of the most revolutionary figures in today's pop culture, musically and sociologically. His success is a curious paradox in view of the historical prejudices outlined earlier.
Hendrix is 24 years old. He dropped out of a Seattle high school in the 11th grade. He was raised strictly by his parents: "They taught me to have manners." He is reasonably sincere and humble: "We are lucky to be listened to." He is apparently very happy with his commercial success. Partly because it allows him to act out some of his childhood fantasies (in his clothing, for instance): "I always wanted to be a cowboy or a hadji baba or the Prisoner of Zenda..."
His strongest appeal is to the white female audience ranging in age from about 13 to 30, with the highest concentration of victims between 19 and 22. "I just carry advantages with me in my back pocket when I go off at a gig." His charisma also extends to a white male audience, 15 to 25.
He is realistic about his market appeal: "The black people probably talk about us like dogs... until we play." "When I see some of them in the street, they say, 'I see you got those two white boys with you.'... I try to explain to them about all this new music. I play them some records. First I play Cream and when they say, 'Hey that's great, who is that playing the guitar?', I tell them it's Eric Clapton and he's an Englishman. Then I might play them some of what we do. Sometimes they still think we're cr
azy."
Hendrix's music is very interesting. The sound of his music is extremely symbolic: orgasmic grunts, tortured squeals, lascivious moans, electric disasters and innumerable other audial curiosities are delivered to the sense mechanisms of the audience at an extremely high decibel level. In a live performance environment, it is impossible to merely listen to what the Hendrix group does... it eats you alive (He is concerned about his live performance image: "I don't want everybody to solely think of us in a bi
g flash of weaving and bobbing and groping and maiming and attacking and...")
In spite of his maiming and groping, etc., the female audience thinks of Hendrix as being beautiful (maybe just a little scary), but mainly very sexy. The male audience thinks of him as a phenomenal guitarist and singer Boys will bring girls backstage for autographs. While signing their scraps of paper, shoulder blades, handbags and pants, Hendrix will frequently be asked: "Do you think of any particular girl while you're playing, or do you just think of sex itself?" Meanwhile, the boys will ask, "What kin
d of equipment do you use? Do you get high before you go on stage?"
The boys seem to enjoy the fact that their girl friends are turned on to Hendrix sexually; very few resent his appeal and show envy. They seem to give up and say: "He's got it, I ain't got it, I don't know if I'll ever get it... but if I do, I wanna be just like him, because he's really got it." They settle for vicarious participation and/or buy a Fender Stratocaster, an Arbiter Fuzz Face, a Vox Wah-Wah Pedal, and four Marshall amplifiers.
The Gas Co., The Electric Co. & The Music Co.: Digression IV
The loud sounds and bright lights of today are tremendous indoctrination tools. Is it possible to modify the human chemical structure with the right combination of frequencies? (Frequencies you can't hear are manifested as frequencies you can see in a light show.) Can prolonged exposure to mixed media produce mutations? If the right kind of beat makes you tap your foot, what kind of beat makes you curl your fist and strike? Do you cry if the violin is playing the melody molto vibrato?
Manifestations of response to music will vary according to the character of the music and the audience. Swooning to Kay Kyser is roughly equivalent to squealing for the Monkees or drooling over Jimi Hendrix. In each case the swoonee, squealee, or droolee is responding to the music in a manner which he feels is reasonably acceptable by current social standards in his peer group.
If you were drunk, and it was the middle of summer, Saturday night about 11:30, and you had your comfortable clothes on, and you were in a small beer joint dancing, and it's crowded (temperature about 82°), and the local Rock & Roll combo (Ruben and The Jets) is playing Green Onions (or something that sounds just like it... all full of parallel fifths moving monotonously through a root progression I, IIb, IV, IIIb... or something like that, over & over again), and the guitar player goes to take a solo and
stomps his fuzztone into action and turns his amplifier all the way up so his guitar squeals and screams and sounds absolutely vicious, and he bends and mangles the strings & starts to really get it on, gyrating and going totally berserk and playing his ass off and everythin'... if you were drunk, and all this was going on, and you were out there dancing and sweating and really feeling the music (every muscle & fiber of your being, etc., etc.) and the music suddenly got louder and more vicious... louder an
d viciouser than you could ever imagine (and you danced harder and got sweaty & feverish) and got your unsuspecting self worked up into a total frenzy, bordering on electric Buddha nirvana total acid freak cosmic integration (one with the universe), and you were drunk & hot & not really in control of your body or your senses (you are possessed by the music), and all of a sudden the music gets EVEN LOUDER... and not only that: IT GETS FASTER & YOU CAN'T BREATHE (But you can't stop either; it's impossible to
stop) and you know you can't black out because it feels too good... I ask you now, if you were drunk and all this stuff is happening all over the place and somebody (with all the best intentions in the world) MADE YOU STOP so he could ask you this question: "Is a force this powerful to be overlooked by a society that needs all the friends it can get?" Would you listen?
Menard Isabelle
SOURCE: HOT WACKS BOOK IX, 1982; HOT WACKS QUARTERLY VOL. 12 & 13
TRANSCRIPTION: ROGER MAURICE WITHOUT PERMISSION
ANNOUNCING TO ALL DISC JOCKEYS THE ALL NEW DYNAMIC DUO
US LTD VC5236
Side One: Boy Wonder I Love You/Orange Colored Sky
Side Two: Dear Jeepers/Letter From Jeepers
Recording: Excellent mono
Source: Studio
Comments: Side 1 features Burt "Boy Wonder" Ward; side 2 features Bob Guy. Green pic sleeve;song separation.
ANYWAY THE WIND BLOWS
FP 101/2
Side One: Watermelon In Easter Hay/Dead Girls Of London/Ain't Got No Heart/Brown Shoes Don't Make It/Cosmic Debris
Side Two: Trying To Grow A Chin/City Of Tiny Lights/Dancin' Fool/Easy Meat Side Three: Jumbo Go Away/Andy/Inca Roads/ Florentine Pogen Side Four: Honey Don't You Want A Man Like Me/Keep It Greasy/The Meek Shall Inherit Nothing/ Another Cheap Aroma/Wet T-Shirt Night/Why Does It Hurt When I Pee?/Titties and Beer
Recording: Excellent stereo
Source: Paris 1979
Comments: Deluxe color cover; European bootleg; pressed on colored vinyl. Advance copies came with paper insert and were titled "Zapp...A...Paris".
ANYWAY THE WIND BLOWS
Comments: Rereleased with black front and red back cover; black vinyl
THE ARK JULY 1968
BIZARRE FYDO-768
Side One: Big Leg Emma/Some Ballet Music/Status Back Baby/Valarie/My Guitar (25:47)
Side Two: Uncle Meat; King Kong (Medley) (24:18)
Recording: Excellent stereo
Source: Boston 1968
Comments: Deluxe color cover: song separation
AT THE CIRCUS
A-6606
Side One: Intro (2:35)/Baby Snakes(1:50)/Dancing Fool(3:15)/Easy Meat(4:45)/ Honey Don't You Want A Man Like Me(4:35)/ Other People (2:45)
Side Two: Wino Man (5:45)/ Why Does It Hurt When I Pee? (2:25)/ ...Fusions(3:20)/ Bobby Brown (2:55)/ I'm On Duty (2:05)/ Conehead (5:20)
Recording: Excellent stereo
Source: Live Circus Krone, Munich July 1/80
Comments: European bootleg with deluxe b&w cover; song separation
AT THE OLYMPIC
TMOQ 71059
Side One: Sharleena (I Would Be So Delighted)/ Twinkle Tits/ Directly From My Heart To You
Side Two: The Clap
Recording: Very good mono
Source: Olympic Auditorium, L.A. Mar. 7/70
Comments: First concert performance of Hot Rats with Sugarcane Harris, Ian Underwood and Aynsley Dunbar
AT THE OLYMPIC/ 200 MOTELS
TMOQ 7506
Comments: Double budget of the two single albums
AUTOGRAPH 82
PLC RECORDS
Side One: Intro/Bamboozled By Love/So Long & Down/Tinseltown Rebel I ion/Whore
Side Two: Drowning Witch/Black Page 111/Tell Me You Love Me/Debra Cadabra/Sofa
Recording: Excellent mono
Source: July/82 Italy
Comments: European bootleg with deluxe b&w cover; 1000 numbered copies
BACK ON THE STRAIGHT AND NARROW
ZX 3660
Side One: How How Could I Be Such A Fool?/ Ain' t Got No Heart/ I'm Not Satisfied/ Black Napkins/ Honey Don't You Want A Man Like Me? (22:43)
Side Two: Illinois Enema Bandit/Let Me See You Thumb/ The Torture Never Stops (24:12)
recording: Excellent mono
Source: Apollo Stadium Adelaide, Australia January 24, 1976
CHRONICLE
Tin Can RECORDS TCR2003
Side One. Ardous Journey/ Who Are The Brain Police (ex. mono); Geef My Wat Vloerbideking (mono) (media performances)
Side Two: Potential For Poetry/ Peon/ Alice In Blunderland/ Willie The Pimp
Side Three: 200 Years/ Somebodies Walking (ex. mono)/ Leave Me Alone (ex. mono)/ A Pound For A Brown On A Bus
Side Four: Somebodies Walking/ Call On Me (ex. mono)M Sure 'Nuff (ex. mono)/ Yellow Brick Road (ex. mono)/ Plastic Factory (ex. mono)/Willie The Pimp (ex. mono)
Recording: Very good mono ex. stereo unless otherwise noted
Source: Live New Jersey 1975&1964-77
Comments: Deluxe color cover
CLOWNZ ON VELVET/ TOXIC SHOCIC PT.3
Side One:While I Tune My Guitar/ Zoot Allures/Clownz On Velvet
Side Two: Strictly Genteel/ This Is My Story/ Tied To The Whippin' Post/Watermelon in Easter Hay
Source Ritz 11/17/87
CONCEPTUAL CONTINUITY
MUD SHARK MZ 3603
Side One: Stinkfoot/Dirty Love/Wind Up Workin' In A Gas Station (17:58)
Side Two: The Torture Never Stops/City Of Tiny Lights (21:09)
Recording: Excellent stereo
Source: Detroit Nov. 19/76
DROWNING WITCH/ TOXIC SHOCK PT.1
MAGPIE RECORDS MGP 3001
Side One: Bamboozled By Love/ Stevie's Spanking/Cocaine Decisions/ Nigger Biznis
Source: Palladium 10/31/81
Side Two: The Drowning Witch (Ritz 11/17/81)
Recording: Excellent mono
DUPREE'S PARADISE
IMPOSSIBLE RECORDWORKS 2-24
Side One: Redunzl/Dog Breath/Fifty Fifty
Side Two: Lumpy Gravy For One/Warts And Mice/Improvisation
Side Three: Montana/Dupree's Paradise/I'm The Slime
Side Four: The Nancy And Mary/Music/Cosmik Debris
Recording: Excellent stereo
Source: Duke University, N.C. 1974
Comments: Deluxe b & w cover
DUPREE'S PARADISE
TOASTED ReCS. 2S902
Comments: A rerelease of "Dupree's Paradise" (Impossible Recordworks 2-24) with a deluxe color cover.
EASY MEAT
MUD SHARK MZ 3602
Side One: The Deathless Horsie/ Dead Girls Of London/ I Ain't Got No Heart/ Brown Shoes Don't Make IV Cosmik Debris/ Easy Meat Pt. 1
Side Two: Easy Meat Pt. 2/ Jumbo/ The Meek Shall Inherit Nothing/ Dear Heart/ Wet T-Shirt Nite/ Why Does It Hurt When I Pee?
Recording: Excellent mono
Source: Gothenburg, Sweden Mar.6/79
EIN MONSTER IN DER MUSIKHALLE
ZX 3653
Side One: Intro/ The Hook/ My Little Augustine/Dixie/ Duprees Paradise
Side Two: I'm The Slime/ Pygmy Pony
Recording: Excellent mono
Source: Vienna, Austria September 11, 1974
40TH BIRTHDAY
Side One: Montana; 50-50 (Melbourne June 29/73)/ I'm The Slime (Vienna Sept.11/74)
Side Two: Camarillo Brillo; Muffin Man (Boston Oct. 23/75)/ Pygmy Twylyte; The Idiot Bastard Son; Cheapnis (San Carlos July 19/74)
Side Three: How Could I Be Such A Fool; Ain't Got No Heart; I'm Not Satisfied; Black Napkins; Honey Don't You Want A Man Like Me (Adelaide Jan. 24/76)
Side Four: Wind Up Working In A Gas Station; Trying To Grow A Chin; The Torture Never Stops (Adelaide Jan. 24/76)/ You Can Swallow My Pride (Boston Oct. 23/75)
Side Five: The Hook; Dupree's Paradise (Vienna Sept. 11/74)
Side Six: Pygmy Twylyte (Vienna Sept. 11/74)
FRANK ZAPPA
Side One: Instrumental/Brown Shoes Don't Make It/Jumbo Go Away
Side Two: Swedish Boutique Girlll Have Been In You/Flakes/Broken Hearts Are For Assholes
Recording: Excellent stereo
Source: Live Comments: European b&w pic disc; 1,000 made.
FRANK ZAPPA VS. THE TOOTH FAIRY
ZX 3655
Side One: Gloria/ Inca Road
Side Two: Pygmy Twylyte/ Idiot Bastard Son/Cheepnis/ Clear Version Of Cheepnis
Recording: Excellent stereo
Source: Circle Star Theatre, San Carlos, Calif., July 1974
FRANKIE BOY
Side One: Collage One/Catholic Girls/Disco Boy/Debra Cadabra/Stranded In The Jungle
Side Two: Do The Funky Room Service/Nite Owl/Redunzl/Chester's Gorilla/That's Right Let's Boogie
Recording: Superb stereo
Comments: European bootleg with song separation
FREAKS & MOTHERFUCKERS
TSP 017
Happy Together/ Whino Man/ America Drinks/ Call Any Vegetable/ Sharleena/ The Duke/ The Mud Shark/ Little House I Used To Live In/ Do You Like My New Car
Recording: Excellent mono
Source: Fillmore East 1970
Comments: European bootleg with deluxe b&w cover
FRED ZAPPELIN
MUD SHARK MZ 3606
Side One: A Pound For A Brown On The Bus/ Pick Me I'm Clean/ Society Pages/ I'm A Beautiful Guy/ Beauty Knows No Pain (24:15)
Side Two: Charlie's Enormous Mouth/ Dancin' Fool/ Bobby Brown/ Mrs. Pinky/ Truck Driver Diveroce; You're A Dork (Phoenix 10/13/80)/ Outside Now (Palladium 11/1/80 first show) (23:54)
Side Three: Tinsel Town Rebellion; The Dangerous Kitchen (Hartford, Ct. 10/24/80)/ Your Ethos (NYC 10/30/80)/ Dumb All Over (NYC 10/31/80)/ Shall We Take Ourselves Seriously (NYC 11/1/80 first show) (22:18)
Side Four: Black Napkins; Doreen; Goblin Girl (NYC 11/1/80 2nd show)/ Broken Hearts; I'm So Cute; Andy (Providence, R.1 11/8/80) (21:40) Recording: Excellent stereo
Source: Cologne 6/7/80
THE HISTORY AND C0LLECTED IMPROVISATIONS OF FRANK ZAPPA AND THE MOTHERS OF INVENTION
ZX 3651-3660
Comments: This is a 10-record box set with a 30page booklet. The records are: -Ultra Modern Stringbean" (ZX 3651); 'Nifty" (ZX 3652); ' Ein Monster In Der Musikhalle" (ZX 3653); If You Get A Headache" (ZX 3654); Frank Zappa vs The Tooth Fairy" (ZX 3655); A Token Of My Extreme" (zx 3656); I Was A Teenage Maltshop" (ZX 3657); Petrouska" (ZX 3658); 'Zurkon Music" (ZX 3659); Back On The Straight And Narrow" (ZX 3660)
THE HISTORY AND COLLECTED IMPROVISATIONS OF FRANK ZAPPA AND THE MOTHERS OF INVENTION
ZX 3651-3660
Comments: One of several repressings consisted of 500 copies pressed on colored vinyl with EP, poster, button and sticker.
IF YOU GET A HEADACHE
ZX 3654
Side One: Apostrophe/ Stink Foot/ I'm Not Satisfied/ Carolina Hard Core Ecstasy Recording: Very good mono
Side Two: You Can Swallow My Pride/ Any Downers?/ The Mothers Go Cosmic/ Love Is Where It's At/ Camerillo Brillo/ Muffin Man
Recording: Excellent stereo
Source: Boston, Oct. 23/75
INCOGNITO
SAFE RECORDS LTD
Source: Albert Hall 1969 & Fillmore West 1971
INDISCREET PICTURE SHOW
62517
Side One: Intro/ Trouble Every Day/Montana/Untitled/Florentine Pogen Pt. 1
Side Two: Florentine Pogen Pt. 2/lnstrumental/Oh No/Son Of Orange County/Pygmy Twylyte/Stink foot/ Inca Roads
Recording: Excellent mono
Comments: European bootleg with deluxe b&w cover.
IN EUROPE
World White Recs. WWA 13
Side One: Peaches En Regalia/ Tears Begin To Fall/ She Painted Up Her Face/ Shove It Right In
Side Two: Geff My Wat Vloer Pedekking Ander Deze Vette Zweyende Sofa
I WAS A TEENAGE MALTSHOP
ZX3657
Side One: I Was A Teenage Maltshop/ Status Back Baby/ Ned The Mumber/ Ned Has A Brainstorm/ Charma/ Plastic People/ Gotta find My Roogalator/How s Your Bird?/ The World's Greates Sinner/Memories Of El Monte (21 :48)
Recording: Excellent mono
Side Two: Camerillo Brillo/ Let's Make The Water Tum Black/ Willie the Pimp (22:05)
Recording: Excellent stereo
Source: Boston April 27/ 75
JOES GARAGE ACTS IV AND V LIVE?
Mud Shark MZ3605
Side One: Watermelon In Easter Hay/ Teenage Wind/ Harder Than Your Husband/ Bamboozeled By Love/ Pick Me I'm Clean (21:05)
Side Two: Society Pages, I'm A Beautiful Guy/ Beauty Knows No Pain/ Charlie's Enormous Mouth/ Any Downers/ Conehead/ You Are What You Is (24:33)
Side Three: Easy Meat/ Mud Club/ The Meek Shall Inherit Nothing/ Heavenly Bank Account (19:48)
Side Four: Suicide'Chump/ Jumbo/ You Just got Drafted/ I Don't Wanna Get Drafted/ Joe's Garages (22:32)
Recording: Excellent stereo
Source: Fox Theatre. Atlanta 4/20/80 Eugene, Oregon 3/27/80 Boston, Mass, 5/3/80
LEATHERETTE
LUNAR TOONES 2S-5
Side One: Dead Girls Of London (5:16) (original version with Van Morrison! Green Rosetta (1:02) (original studio version)/Nuns In Frozen Heaven (1:57)/Corks And Safetys (5:57, Another Cheap Aroma (3:13)
Side Two: Trying To Grow A Chin (2:58)/Broken Hearts Are For Assholes (4:47) (live New York 1977)/Black Page No. 1 (2:12)/Punkys Whips (10:48)
Side Three: Titties And Beer (5:32) (unedited version)/The Ocean is The Ultimate Solution (8:35) (live New York 1977)/Flambay (1:53) (original studio version)
Side Four: Conversations With Frank Zappa: 1972 with Martin Perlich (23:20)/1978 with Jerry Kay (4:30)
Recording: Excellent stereo
Comments: Deluxe color cover
METAL MAN HAS HORNETS WINGS
DRAGONFLY RECS.
Comments: Reissue of "Wasp Man Has Metal Wings" from original plates.
NECESSITY IS
MUD SHARK MZ3601
Side One: Shop Talk (intros.)/ Sounds Like This/Gas Mask Variationsi Igor's Boogie
Side Two: Last In This Whirlpool/ Do It In 'C'/Booger Freaks Of America/ Anyway The Wind Blows/ Fountain Of Love/ Opus 5/ Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance/ Hey Nelda
Recording: Excellent Mono (cover says stereo)
Source: Unreleased tracks and studio alternates 1963-9
NIFTY
ZX 3652
Side One: Pygmy Twylyte/ Duprees Paradise/ Dog Breath Source: New Jersey 1973
Side Two: Farther Oblivion/ Don't Eat The Yellow Snow/ Nanook Rubs IV St. Alphonzo's Pancake Breakfast/ Penguin In Bondage/ Don't You Ever Wash That Think? Source: Sydney, Australia July 8/73
Recording:Excellent mono:
NO COMMERCIAL POTENTIAL
SODD 003
Comments: Reissue of "Poot Face Boogie" and "Safe Muffins"
PAPPA ZAPPA
THE BUBBLE CO. 3311
Side One: Prolog/Stink Foot/The Essence Of The Poodle/Dirty Love/Filthy Habits
Side Two: How Can I Be Such A Fool/I Ain't Got No Heart To Give Away/I'm Not Satisfied/Black Napkins
Side Three. Advance Romance/Honey Don't You Want A Man Like-Me/The Illinois Enema Bandit
Side Four The Illinois Enema Bandit (cont.)/Wind Up Working In A Gas Station/Trying To Grow A Chin/The Torture Never Stops/Chunga's Revenge
Recording: Excellent mono
Source: Ludwigshafen, West Germany Feb. 15/76
Comments: Deluxe b&w cover; pressed on orange vinyl and yellow vinyl
PA'S NOSE FELL OFF AT BREAKFAST. IT FELL RIGHT INTO MA'S COFFEE AND DISPLACED IT.
CHEESE RECORDS FUK-1982
Side One: Smell it (:55)/ Tryin' To Grow A Chin (2:52)/ Broken Hearts Are For Assholes (5:03)/ Punky's Whips (10:40)
Side Two: Spit It Out (:30)/ Honey Don't You Want A Man Like Me (4:10)/ You Don't Think So Huh (:46)/ Titties 'N Beer (5 20)/ A Little Green Rosetta (1 03)/ Duck Duck Goose (2:39)/ What You Gonna Do When The Well Runs Dry? (2:12)/ Down In De Dew (2:57)/ For The Young Sophisticate (3:14)
Recording: Excellent stereo
Source: Studio outtakes Comments: Deluxe color fold-out cover with song separation.
PERSONALITY
PRINCE RECS. 1413
Side One: Chunga's Revenge/Keep It Greasy/Outside Now/City Of Tiny Lites/Bamboozled By Love
Side Two: Pick Me I Am Clean/Society Pages/I Am A Beautiful Kid/Beauty Knows No Pain/Charley's Enormous Mouth/Cosmik Debris/You Didn't Try To Call Me
Side Three: Love Of My Life/You Didn't Try To Call Me/Call Any Vegetable/You Are What You Is/Easy Meat/ Joe's Garage/Why Does It Hurt When I Pee?
Side Four: Bobby Brown/Ms. Pinky/I Don't Wanna Get Drafted/The Illinois Bandit/ Dancing Fool
Recording: Excellent mono
Source: Rotterdam May 24/80
Comments: European bootleg with deluxe b&w cover.
PETROUSKA
ZX 3658
Side One: You Didn't Try To Call Mel Petrouska/Bristol Stomp/ Big Leg Emma/ King Kong/ It Can't Happen Here (17:58)
Side Two: Pygmy Pony (18:34)
Source: Long Beach Dec. 31/74
Recording: Excellent mono
POOT FACE BOOGIE
TAKRL 1909
Side One: Medley: Peaches En Eaegalia; Tears Began To Fall; Half A Dozen Provocative Squats; Shove It Right In (12:13)/ Who Are The Brain Police (6:34)/ My Guitar Wants To Kill Your Mamma (3:03)/ Dog Breath (in the year of the plague (4:51)
Side Two: Geff My Wat Vloer Pedekking Ander Deze Vette Zweyende Sofa (Dutch: Give Me Some Floor Covering Under This Fat Floating Sofa)(21:04)/ Lightnin' Bad Man (2:51)
Recording: Very good stereo (live) side 1 cuts 1&2 and side 2 cut 1, other 3 are very good mono (sudio 1968-9)
Source: Amsterdam
PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED
L 1-6
Side One: Moving To Montana/ 50-50/ Slime (ex. mono)
Side Two: Camarillo Brillo/ Muffin Man/ Pygmy Twilight/ The Idiot Bastard (stereo)
Side Three: Trouble Every Day (v.g. mono)/ Black Napkins (ex. mono)/ Don't Ya Wanna? (v.g. mono)
Side Four: Wind Up Working In A Gas Station (v.g. mono)/ I Wanna Be Dead (mono)/ The Torture Never Stops (ex. mono)/ Swallow My Pride
Side Five: Funk Jam (ex. mono)/ Instrumental (ex. mono)
Side Six: Pygmy Twilight (v.g. mono)/ Room Service (v.g. mono)
Recording: Very good stereo
Comments: European bootleg comes in black jacket with one postcard outside and two inside; live
PROJECT OBJECT
MUD Shark MZ 3604
Side One: Prelude to Bobby Brown/Bobby Brown/Conehead/Moe's Vacation/I Have Been In You (21 :23)
Side Two: The Little House I Used To Live In/Tell Me You Love Me/ Yo Mama (20:52)
Recording: Excellent stereo
Source: New York 1978
PLEASE GIVE ME HOME
MOXIE RECORDS 1001
Side One: Hey Nelda (2:05)/ Surt Along (2:03)
Side Two: How's Your Bird (2:10)/ World's Greatest Sinner (2:25)
Recording: Excellent mono
Comments: Song separation
PYGMY PONY
FLAT8228
Side One: Redunzel/ Dog Breath/ 50-50/ Son Of The Clap/ The Nancy and Mary Music Parts 1, 2, & 3/ Montana
records: Excellent stereo, live 1974
REMINGTON ELECTRIC RAZOR
ML001/L6150
Side One: Freak Me Out Frank/Jumbo Go Away/ Moe's Vacation/Don't Work (15:53)
Side Two: Tricky Dicky/Nite Olw/My Name Is Fritz?Interview (from "200 Moltels" not used)/I Can't Get Me No Satisfaction/Remington Electric Razor (with Linda Ronstadt) (15:59)
Recording: Excellent stereo
Source: Live
REMINGTON ELECTRIC RAZOR
ML00 1
Recording: Excellent stereo
Comments: Same as "Remington Electric Razor" (ML001/L6510); European bootleg
ROTTERDAM 1980
FZ 1413
Comments Rerehase of Personality"(Prince Recs. 1413) with a deluxe green and blue cover.
STANDING ROOM ONLY/ TOXIC SHOCK PT. 2
Side One: Easy Meat/ Mudd Club/ The Meek Shall Inherit Nothing/ Dumb All Over
Side Two: Dumb All Over (cont.)/ Heavenly Bank Account/ Suicide Chump/ Jumbo Go Away/ Sorry Al/ Maybe Next Time
Source: Ritz 11/17/81
THINGS WAYNE NEWTON NEVER TOLD YOU
FOOLISH RECORDS P-3002
Side One: Chunga's Revenge/ Mud Club/ The Meek/ Joe's Garage/ Cosmik Debris/ Keep It Greased
Side Two: You Didn't Try To Call Me/ I Ain't Got No Heart/ Love Of My Life/ Illinois Enema Bandit
Source: Munich, Germany 1980
TINY NIGHTMARES
BEACON ISLAND RECORDS 2S726
Sides 1 &2: A copy of "Ultra Modern Stringbean" (ZX3651)
Recording: Excellent mono
Sides 3 & 4: A copy of "Zurkon Music" (ZX 3659)
recording: Excellent stereo
Comments: Deluxe color cover
TINY NIGHTMARES
IMP 1-13
Comments: A copy of "Zurkon Music" (ZX 3659); deluxe b&w cover.
TITTIES AND BEER
177
Side One: The Illinois Enema Bandit/ My Guitar/ Tryin' T' Grow Me A Chin/ You're An Asshole/ Titties And Beer
Side Two: Le Serviette Noir
Recording: Excellent stereo
Source: Live In Paris Comments: European bootleg with deluxe b&w cover and song separation
RUBBER SLICES
LUNAR TOONES 2S 8
Side One: Rubber Slices (9:03)/Dancin' Fool (3:48)/Easy Meat (5:11)/Honey Don't You Want A Man Like Me? (4:25)
Side Two: Keep It Greasey (4:45)/Village Of The Sun (7:52)/Poor Suckers (4:13)/Tiny Lights (8:07)
Side Three: Pound For A Brown On The Bus (6:45)/Bobby Brown (3:02)/Conehead (5:20)/Morons (2:25)/Flakes(2:45)
Side Four Magic Fingers (2:42)/Don't Eat The Yellow Snow (4:25)/Nanook Rubs It (2:11)/St. Alphonzo's Pancake Breakfast (3:15)/Father O'Blivion (3:20)/Bamboozled By Love (6:27)
Recording: Excellent mono
Source: Knebworth Hall, England Sept. 9178
Comments: Deluxe color cover.
RUSTIC PROTRUSION
MUD SHARK MZ3601
Comments: Also available as "Necessity Is..." (Mud Shark MZ 3601 )
SAFE MUFFINZ
TAKRL 1929
Side One: Call Any Vegetable (9:12)/ The Air-Dog Breath; Mother People/ You Didn't Try to Call Me (12:02)/ Would You Go All The Way For The USA?
(2:55)/ Rudy Wants To Yez A Drink (2:45)
Side Two: Road Ladies/ What Will This Morning Bring Me This Evening?/ Bwana Dk Deluxe/ Latex/ Solar Beef/ Daddy Daddy Daddy/ Do You Like My New Car?/ Happy Together/ What Will This Evening Bring Me This Morning? (26:30)
recording: Good stereo
Source: Side 1 El Monte Legion Stadium 1971, side 2 "Being On The Road" suite from 200 Motels"
THINGS WAYNE NEWTON NEVER TOLD YOU
FOOLISH RECORDS P-3002
Side One: Chunga's Revenge/Mudd Club/The Meek Shall Inherit Nothing/Joe's Garage/Cosmik Debris/Keep It Greasey
Side Two: You Didn't Try To Call Me/I Ain't Got No Heart/Love Of My Life/Illinois Enema Bandit
Recording: Excellent stereo
Source: Munich, Germany 1980
A TOKEN OF HIS EXTREME
MUD SHARK MZ3607
Side One: Dog Breath; Uncle Meat (3:57)/ Florentine Pogen (10:15)/ Oh No; Son Of Orange County (4:02)/ Pygmy Twylyte (5:29)
Side Two: More Trouble Every Day (3:27)/ Stinkfoot (4:09)/ Inca Roads (10:03)/ Honey Honey (:55)/ Pygmy Twylyte (1:15)/ Outra-A Token Of My Extreme (1:25)
Source: Live KCET TV. LA 1974
A TOKEN OF MY EXTREME
ZX3656
Side One: A Token Of My Extreme/ Stink Foot/ Sleeping In A Jar/ Poofters Froth Wyoming Plans Ahead (20:01)
Side Two: Abra Kadabra/ Chester' s Gorilla/ Why Doesn't Somebody Get Him A Pepsi? (26:22)
Recording: Excellent mono, hiss
Source: Bridges Auditorium Claremont College, Calif. April 11 1975, evening show
TWENTY YEARS OF FRANK ZAPPA
MUD SHARK MZ4801-4812
Side One: Return Of Your Mama (inst.) (Live Feb/79)/ Keep It Greasy; Village Of The Sun (Poughkeepsie Sept. 21/78)/ I Do A Bunch Of Other Things (Innerview 1976) (20:20)
Side Two: Titties and Beer; What Kind Of Group Do You Think We Are (Detroit Nov. 19/76)/ All The Way Down The Tonsils (Uncle Meat session)/ Rollo; St. Alfonzo's Pancake Breakfast (live Dec. 31/72)/ Zappa's Lecture (Mt St. Mary's College 1963) (23:06)
Side Three: The Way The Air Smells (Baby Snakes outtake 1979)/ Run Home Slow (highlights 1959)/ Your Eyes (Baby Snakes 1979) (20:18)
Side Four: Rance Muhammitz In A Steaming Briefcase (200 Motels 1971)/ World's Greatest Sinner (highlights 1961)/ This Won't Take Long; What Will This Morning Bnng Me This Evening; People Think That Groupies Are Such Dirty Girls (200 Motels) (20:22)
Side Five: Memories Of El Monte (the Penguins)/ Grunion Run: Tijuana Surf (the Hollywood Persuaders)/ Mr. Clean; Jessie Lee (Mr. Clean)/ Heavies (Rotation)/ Drums-a-go-go; Hot Water (the Hol Iywood Persuaders)/ Not Another One (Brian Lord & The Midnighters)/ Sixteen Tons (the Masters) (21:43)
Side Six: Breaktime (the Masters)/ How's Your Bird; World's Greatest Sinner (Baby Ray and the Ferns)/ Hey Nelda; Surf Along (Ned and Nelda/ Everytime I See You (Heartbreakers)/ Dear Jeepers; Letter From Jeepers (Bob Guy)/ The Big Surfer (Brian Lord & the Midnighters) (22:24)
Side Seven: Eye Of Agamoto/ My Guitar Wants To Kill You Mama/ Clap and Vomit (20:20) Side Eight: The Eric Dolphy Memorial Barbecue/ Hungry Freaks Daddy/ The Return Of The Son Of The Hunchback Duke/ The Story Of A Pound For A Brown On The Bus (21:32)
Source: (sides 7&8: Apppleton, Wisc. 1969 & Royal Albert Hall 'June/69
Side Nine: Sharleena/ The Air/ Dog Breath/ You Didn't Try To Call Mei King Kong/ Concentration Moon/ Mom & Dad (20:23)
Side Ten: The Duke: Would You Like A Snack; Inca Roads (segment): Cruising For Burgers (20:00)
Source (sides 9&10): Fillmore East Nov. 14/70
Side Eleven: The New Brown Clouds/ Big Swifty/ For Calvin (19:56)
Side Twelve: Think It Over/ Approximate (21:43)
Source: (sides 11 & 12): Hollywood Bowl Oct. 9/72
Side Thirteen: Redunzel; Cucamongo (Stockholm Aug. 21/73)/ Zappa Reads The News (KOAZ radio '74)/ Chester's Gorilla: That's Right Let's Boogie (inst.); A Few Minutes With Norma Bell (inst.) (Felt Forum Oct. 30/74) (20:54)
Side Fourteen: How Could I Be Such A Fool; I Ain't Got No Heart: I m Not Satisfied; Packgard Goose; Black Napkins (Felt Forum Oct. 31/75) (20:34)
Side Fifteen: Lonely Little Girl; Take Your Clothes When You Dance: What's The Ugliest Part Of Your Body; Chungas Revenge (Felt Forum Oct. 31/75) (20:05)
Side Sixteen: Envelopes; Disco Boy; I Promise Not To Come In Your Mouth; Wild Love (Hartford, Ct. Oct. 17/77) (21:29)
Side Seventeen: Dead Girls Of London (Hammersmith Odeon Feb/79)/ Suicide Chump (Palladium Oct. 27 & 31/78)/ Streets & Roads (Shut Up & Play Your Guitar LP) (19:12)
Side Eighteen: 13(Palladium OCt. 27/78)/ Magic Fingers (Palladium Oct. 27/78)/ Rubber Girl (Palladium Oct. 31/78)/ Peaches En Regalia (Tinsel Town Rebellion) (21:57)
Side Nineteen: Ms X (Palladium Oct. 31/78)/ For The Young Sophisticate (Tinsel Town Rebellion)/ More Streets & Roads (Shut Up 'N Play Yer Guitar Some More LP)/ Cyborg (Palladium Oct. 28/78) (20:22)
Side Twenty: Dance Contest (Tinsel Town Rebellion)/ Persona No Grata (Palladium Oct. 28/78)/ The Drive Shaft; Deathless Horsie (Shut Up 'N Play Yer Guitar Some More LP) (23:52)
Side Twenty-One: Nite Own (Nassau Coliseum May 9/80)/ Penis Dimension (200 Motels)/ In Memorium: Hieronymus Bosch (We're Only In It For The Money session)/ The 12 Inches (Boston Oct. 29/74)/ Florentine Pogen (Copenhagen Mar. 5/79) (21:44)
Side Twenty-Two: Debra Kadabra (Boston Apr. 27/75)/ Stranded In The Jungle (NY Oct. 30/76)/ Hard Cheese; The Tolkien Tapes (WABX radio, Detroit May 25/71)/ Do The Funky Room Service (inst.) (Boston Apr. 27/75) (22:40)
Side Twenty-Three: Zappa's Lecture (St. Mary's College '63)/ The Bust (Uncle Meat session)/ Dinah Moe Humm; Camarillo Brillo (Hartford Oct. 17/77)/ Get A Little II (Uncle Meat session)/ You Didn't Try To Call Me (Rotterdam May 24/80)/ Laid Back (22:02)
Side Twenty-Four: Love Of My Life; You Are What You Is (Rotterdam May 24/80)/ Catholic Girls (Munich Mar. 31/79)/ Fine Girl (Tinsel Town)/ Treacherous Cretins (Copenhagen Mar. 5/79) (23:48)
Comments: Box set with 16-page booklet; 1000 pressed; 565 seized in one raid; other legal problems netted a further 100 copies; 25 sets with 11.5" X 11.5" b&w covers front and back.
200 MOTELS
TMOQ 71010
Comments: This album is different from the motion picture soundtrack of the same name. Source: Live May 15/70 at UCLA. Calif., with the Mothers Of Invention, Zubin Hetha and the LA Philharmonic Recording: Excellent stereo
200 MOTELS/ AT THE OLYMPIC
TMOQ 7506
Comments: Budget double of the two single albums
200 MOTELS/ AT THE OLYMPIC
K&S RECORDS 020
Comments: 150 pressed on green & orange discs from TMOQ plates. "200 Motels' excellent mono, "At The Olympic" very good mono.
ULTRA MODERN STRINGBEAN
ZX 3651
Side One: Exercise Fourt Dog Breath/ Dog Breath Variations/ Uncle Meat/ Montana
Side Two: Mudshark/Farhter Oblivion
Recording: Excellent mono
Source: Festival Hall, Melbourne, Australia June
29/ 73
UNMITIGATED AUDACITY
D-549
Side One: Untitled Inst./It Can't Happen Here/ Hungry Freaks Daddy/You're Probably Wondering Why l m Here/How Could I Be Such A Fool?/Ain't Got No Heart/I'm Not Satisfied/Wowie Zowie/Let's Make The Water Turn Black/Harry You're A Beast (23:53)
Side Two: Oh No I Don't Believe It/More Trouble Coming Every Day/Louie Louie/Camarillo Brillo (23:16)
recording: Excellent mono
Source: Notre Dame University May 12/74
VITAMIN DEFICIENCY
PHOENIX 44786
Side One & Two: Rerelease of "Poot Face Boogie" (TAKRL 1909)
Side Three 8 Four: Rerelease of "Safe Muffinz' (TAKRL 1929)
comments: Deluxe color cover
VOLARE
FZ22
Side One: Volare (Milan 7/7/82, ex. mono)/Zoot Allures/Sofa/Fine Girl/Easy Meat (Pt. 1)
Side Two: Easy Meat (Pt. 2)/ I Ain't Got No Heart/ Shall We Take Ourselves Seriously/Instrumental
Recordings: Excellent stereo
Source: Cologne, West Germany 2/15/82
Comments: European bootleg with deluxe color cover
WASP MAN HAS METAL WINGS
WRMB 365
Side One: Metal Man Has Hornets Wings ('63 or '64 by the Scots; Capt. Beefheart vocals, Zappa lead guitar)/ Dupree's Paradise(live L.A. Shrine Auditorium 74; Zappa lead guitar)/ Instrumental (Zappa, early '64)/ Story of Hectricity (Beefheart Unconditionally Guaranteed (live Capt. Beefheart and His Magic Band 74)/ Gone Behind the Sun; Mundo Hollywood (Mothers, live in Hollywood, 2 of the earliest recordings )/ Lightning Rod Man (studio credited to Mrs. Zappa)/ I Think My Guitar Wants To Kill Your Mama (stud
io B side)
Side Two: Rock Around The Clock; Sandwich Song (early test tapes original Mothers '64)/ How Could I Be Such A tool (original track left off "Freak-out" LP '65)/ Boogie for Berkeley (rare Mothers' track from 68 featuring the 10 piece band)/ Neon Meat Dream Of An Octafish (studio outake from Capt. Beefheart's "Trout Mask" LP 69)/ King Kong (first version with the 10 piece band, recorded in London 68)
Recording: Excellent stereo
Comments: Pressed on colored vinyl
WAX FLAGS
FZ500
Side One: Envelopes/ I Have Been In You/ Tom Snyder Vs. The Red Spiders From NBC/ Broken Hears Are for Assholes/ Stinky Finger/ Fancy Stinky Part 1
Side Two: fancy Stinky Part 2/ Punky's Whips Side Three: Stinkfoot Finale/ Black Page Number 2/ Deadly Jaws/ Disco Boy/ Dinah Moe Humm/ Bobby Brown
Side four Conehead/ Camarillo Brillo/ Muffin Man/ San Ber'dino/ Black Napkins/ Auld Lang Syne
Recording: Excellent stereo
Source: UCLA Pauley Pavillion Dec. 31/77
WAX FLAGS
FZ500
recording: Excellent stereo
Comments: A copy of "Wax Flags (FZ500) with a deluxe tan & white cover.
WINO MAN
BM1020
Side One: Wino Man/ Mother People/ Call Any Vegetable/ King Kong (27:00)
Source: Holland 1970
Side Two: Future Blues (B. Hite)/ Shake (Steve Miller)/ High flyin' Bird/ Ramblin' Gamblin' Willie (Bob Dylan)/ I'll Be Your Baby Tonight (Bob Dylan)
ZURKON MUSIC
ZX3659
Side One: Intro/ San Ber'dino/ I Wana Be Dead/ Tiny Lights/ Big Leg Emma (23:25)
Side Two: Audience Participation Time/ Black P. No. 2/ Camarillo Brillo/ Black Napkins (24:17)
Recording: Excellent stereo
Source: Live Oct 31 oct 77
Menard Isabelle
BY ROBERT BOYER
SOURCE: HOT WACKS QUARTERLY, VOLUME 12, PAGES 32-33, 1983
TRANSCRIPTION: ROGER MAURICE WITHOUT PERMISSION
In the world of rock music, no one is more prolific than Frank Zappa. The man is a self proclaimed workaholic who is best known for his guitar playing and humorous song stylings. There are many, however who didn't know that Zappa is also an accomplished director, cartoonist, and script writer.
Zappa made his film debut by scoring the music for the 1959 film, Run Home Slow. He did this at the young age of 18! Zappa's next film venture was the scoring of a 1961 film called, The World's Greatest Sinner. Both movies went straight to the bottom and may be found on your tv screen at 3:00 am.
After the formation of the Mothers of Invention in 1965, Zappa and the band toured constantly (often opening for the Vanilla Fudge), and released many excellent Lp's which, for the most part, are now out of print collectors items. As busy as Zappa and the MOI were, he managed to write a script loosely based on the groups lp Uncle Meat. The film, also entitled Uncle Meat, never surfaced (due to lack of financial backing). Ironically, the lp was released with an accompanying booklet with photos of the film a
nd the following comments by FZ., ''This is an album of music from a movie you will probably never get to see." To this day the film is probably still stashed down in Zappa's basement.
By 1970, Zappa's Mothers had gone through many personnel changes. The group were once again touring throughout the world. In 1971 Zappa released his best known full length feature film, 200 Motels. The film was the story of the life of a typical rock & roll band out on the road. The film, which featured the likes of Ringo Starr, Theodore Bickel, and Keith Moon, received mixed reviews and is still shown occasionally at midnight performances. 200 Motels, interestingly was the first film shot on video tape. S
trangely enough, prior to shooting, the Mother's old bass player left the group leaving Zappa pressed for time to locate a replacement. His replacement...Wilfred Brambell. Mr. Brambell, if you remember, played Paul's grandfather in the Beatles film A Hard Days Night. Unfortunately, Brambell got cold feet and declined to play a young bass player. He was then replaced by Martin Lickert, Ringo's chauffeur! Too bad Wilfred didn't stick around to play the part. It would have been quite enjoyable to watch the 70
+ year old play a rock star! As for the video collector, 200 Motels is in circulation among private collectors, copies are fairly easy to find.
Zappa's next film endeavor was a tv special entitled, A Token of My Extreme. The film was shot on video tape at the KCET TV studio in Los Angeles, Ca., in 1974. A Token featured live in the studio performances of Zappa and his latest incarnation of the Mothers, as well as state-of-theart clay animation comparable to the Gumby character of the late 50's. Once again the special got very little exposure. It was shown in the LA area and in Europe exclusively. No one was willing to help finance the piece, so it
too fell victim of non-distribution. Prints of A Token are presently in circulation, probably coming from a European telecast.
Baby Snakes, Zappa's last film (1979) was a bit reminiscent of A Token in that it consisted of a live performance (Halloween show 1977) and also featured elaborate clay animation. Since its release in December 1979, the showing of Baby Snakes has been sparce to say the least. It was shown in Paris and New York City, but never got any kind of a major distribution deal. The collector would be very lucky to find a copy of Baby Snakes in circulation.
Zappa's first television appearance was on the Steve Allen Show in 1962. Even in 1962 Zappa was outrageously unpredictable. He performed a piece called the Bicycle Concerto--that's right... on a bicycle! In Zappa's words; ''You play a bicycle by plucking the spokes and blowing through the handle bars." (It makes you wonder what he had in mind).
His first prime time appearance was a guest spot on The Monkees in 1967. The producer had Zappa made up to resemble Monkee Mike Nesmith and Nesmith dressed as Zappa. On a later Monkee's episode, they had Zappa sledge-hammer an automobile. The network (NBC) must have had a large viewer response, because the Monkees gave Zappa a cameo appearance in their 1967 lunatic fringe film, Head. Both film and tv episodes are readily available to the collector since both are still in circulation .
Over the past 15 years, Frank Zappa has made countless appearances on both American and European television. Some of the more memorable appearances are:
> Saturday Night Live ( 1976 & 1978): FZ performs with the band, dates Connie Conehead, gets murdered by a Christmas tree, and goes to "freak mountain''.
> Midnight Special (1976): MS pays tribute to FZ wherein Zappa candidly admits to "loathing" the show.
> Dick Cavett Show (ABC 1971 /PBS 1980): The '71 appearance included live music and the '80 appearance was strictly a 30 minute interview .
> Cadillac Extravaganza (Austrian tv 1978): Crazed interview and live music.
> Paris Concert (1980): Live in Paris, France. French TV.
> MTV Concert: Zappa's Annual Halloween concert, NYC 10/31/81. Excellent concert footage.
> Tomorrow Show (1980 & 1981): Once w/ Tom Snyder, once w/ Dr. Demento.
With the recent success of Frank and daughter Moon's Valley Girl, we've been seeing much more of Frank, as well as daughter Moon, and his guitar playing son, Dweezel on the tube. The Zappas have been on the David Lettermen Show, the Today Show, Entertainment Tonight, and several other locally syndicated magazine format programs. Moon has even done some guest shots on such shows as Solid Gold, Merv Griffin, and was scheduled to debate former Nixon aid, G. Gordon Liddy on the state of world affairs (seriousl
y!).
As we head towards the mid-80's the Zappa fan will surely be seeing more of FZ & family on the tube and hopefully in the movies. The man loves his work and his fans love the results.
From sw...@skat.usc.edu Mon Jan 24 22:16:01 1994
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Date: Mon, 24 Jan 94 19:18:03 PST
From: Rob Sweet <sw...@skat.usc.edu>
To: men...@ERE.UMontreal.CA (Menard Isabelle)
In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 24 Jan 94 21:12:23 -0500
Message-Id: <CMM.0.90.2.75...@skat.usc.edu>
> Hi rob,
>
>
> As a BIG FZ fans i have reed the FAQ III file with great interest.
> I have just notice that at the end of your FAQ
> there is a list of BOOTLEGS not caracterized by date and/or time of recording.
> It is in the section: "MORE BOOTLEG ALBUMS". Do you need more info on them??
>
> I would be glad to supply it to you since I have 12 out of the 21 listed there.
>
> Just write me and I would send it to you (inbfo on date, places etc.)
>
>
> Bye.
>
>
> Isabelle at (men...@ere.umontreal.ca)
>
>
>
Sure. Send me any info you have. Thanks.
Rob
\ | /
/ Rob Sweet |"Architecture in general is frozen music." \
\ sw...@skat.usc.edu | - FRIEDRICH VON SCHELLING /
/ | \
\ | /
Menard Isabelle
From JJAN...@kub.nl Mon Jul 19 08:06:59 1993
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Mon, 19 Jul 1993 14:07 +0100
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1993 14:07 +0100
From: JEROENTJE <JJAN...@kub.nl>
Subject: Reply to your article on affz
To: men...@ERE.UMontreal.CA
Message-Id: <01H0Q9LTD...@KUB.NL>
X-Envelope-To: men...@ere.umontreal.ca
X-Vms-To: IN%"men...@ere.umontreal.ca"
Comments: This message was sent with PMDF 4.0
Hello,
In reply to your article on affz, I can send you a list of bootlegs I have,
as a contribution to the Hotwacks-file you mentioned.
Just got it by ftp. This is exactly what I was looking for quite a while;
didn't know it existed (should have a look at cs.uwp.edu a bit more often).
Hope this may help,
Jeroen
jjan...@kub.nl
---
FZ BOOTLEG LIST
================================================================================
I. On vinyl & cd:
================================================================================
# In Europe lp World White
---------
1971
Live in Europe with Flo & Eddie. Side 2, with the 'Dutch Sofa', was recorded
in Rotterdam (I'm not sure about side 1). Another interesting track is an
early version of 'Stick it Out'.
Also appeared as 'Live in Amsterdam' (wrong title; none of the material was
recorded there as far as I know).
1. Peaches en Regalia
Tears Began to Fall
She Painted Up her Face/Provocative Squats/Shove It Right In
Who are the Brain Police?
2. Once Upon a Time
Sofa No.2 : Geef mij wat vloerbedekking onder deze vette zwevende sofa
('Dutch version')
Stick It Out
Divan
---
# Vitamin Deficiency 2lp Phoenix Rec.
------------------
1971
All of the material from 'Zappa in Europe' can be found on this one, on side
1/2, but side 1 & 2 from this record have some extra material (studio and
spoken).
This is a good bootleg if you like the 'Flo & Eddie-period'.
Issued (or parts of it issued) under different titles like 'Poot Face Boogie'
and 'No Commercial Potential'.
1. Peaches en Regalia
Tears Began to Fall
She Painted Up her Face/Provocative Squats/Shove It Right In
Who are the Brain Police?
My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama
(studio, like YCDTOSA #5)
spoken part
Dog Breath, in the Year of the Plague
(studio, but not from `Uncle Meat')
2. Once Upon a Time
Sofa No.2 : Geef mij wat vloerbedekking onder deze vette zwevende sofa
(`Dutch version'. At the beginning of `Lumpy Gravy Theme' on
`Jazz Noise', FZ says `And you'll never hear vloerbedekking again'.
It refers to this performance. Vloerbedekking = Fussbodenbelag.)
Stick It Out
Divan
spoken part
Lighting Rod Man (studio)
3. Call Any Vegetable
The Air
Dog Breath, in the Year of the Plague
Mother People
You Didn't Try to Call Me
Would You Go All the Way?
Rudy Wants to Buy Yez a Drink
4. Road Ladies
What Will This Morning Bring Me This Evening?
What Kind of Girl do You Think We Are?
Bwana Dik/Latex Solar Beef
Daddy, Daddy, Daddy
Do You Like my New Car?/Happy Together
What Will This Evening Bring Me This Morning?
---
# Tiny Nightmares 2lp Beacon Island Rec, Australia
---------------
1973 & 1977
Side 1/2 from Melbourne 1973, with The Little Wazoo Band (with J.L. Ponty).
Side 3/4 from N.Y.C. 31-10-1977.
1977-band: Belew, O'Hearn, Mars, Wolf, Mann, Bozzio.
The 1973 and 1977 material were issued separately on other bootlegs.
1. Uncle Meat/Dog Breath Variations
Montana
Fifty-Fifty (instrumental version, not listed on the cover)
2. The Mudshark
Father O'Blivion
(instrumental version, sort of 'Be-Bop Tango', like on 'Piquantique')
3. San Ber'dino
Tryin' to Grow a Chin
City of Tiny Lites
The Squirm (guitar solo)
Big Leg Emma
4. Invocations/Dance Contest
Black Page #2
Jones Crusher
Camarillo Brillo
Black Napkins
---
# Miami Matinee Vol.1 lp KAX Rec.
-------------------
1976
---
# Miami Matinee Vol.2 lp KAX Rec.
-------------------
1976
Vol.1 is from Miami, vol.2 also has two tracks from N.Y.C.
Bianca Odin (see YCDTOSA #6) performs on the Miami stuff (vocals & kb).
Other band members: Ray White, Terry Bozzio, Patrick O'Hearn, Eddie Jobson.
Sound quality is not very good, but I define it as 'acceptable' (slightly
better on vol.1 than on vol.2)
Both records have very silly covers with wrong (that is, not from 1976)
photos on the back.
Songs on vol.1:
1. Intro
Stinkfoot (followed by a 'poodle chat' like on 'YCDTOSA' #6)
Dirty Love
Wind Up Workin' in a Gas Station
Tryin' to Grow a Chin
2. Rudy Wants to Buy Yez a Drink
Would You Go All the Way?
Daddy, Daddy, Daddy
What Kind of Girl Do you Think We are?
Dinah-Moe Humm
Songs on vol.2:
1. You Didn't Try to Call Me (Different version, over 6 mins. Highlight
of vol.2.)
Advance Romance
Stranded in a Jungle (New York)
2. Black Napkins (extended version: over 16 min.)
Muffin Man (New York - poor sound quality)
---
# The Black Page 2lp BZ Rec.
--------------
1977
Amsterdam, feb. 1977. Band: Ray White, Patrick O'Hearn, Terry Bozzio,
Eddie Jobson. Very good one; one of my favorite Zappa-bootlegs.
1. Introductions
Peaches en Regalia
The Torture Never Stops (one of the best versions I've heard)
Big Leg Emma
2. City of Tiny Lites
(About the earliest version of this song that I know; recorded only
2 months after `Live in NY'. With very O'Hearnish bass.)
Pound for a Brown (Incorrectly listed as 'The Black Page'; with a good
solo.)
Jones Crusher
3. Blues (little guitar solo)
My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama
Tryin' to Grow a Chin
Broken Hearts are for Assholes
Dong Work for Yuda (a capella version)
4. Manx Needs Women (not listed)
Titties and Beer
Black Napkins (extended version - violin solo by Eddie Jobson)
---
# Titties and Beer-Zoot Allures Live in Paris lp
-------------------------------------------
1977
Same band as on 'Black Page' but recorded in Paris.
The songs on this one are nearly the same as side 3 & 4 from 'Black Page'.
As you might expect from the title, this record features 'Titties and Beer'
(so does 'Black Page'). This song leaves room for improvisation, so there
are many different versions from various performances. I prefer this 'French
one'. Another nice track is a short, a capella version of 'Dong work for Yuda'
(not listed on the cover - whole listing is quite incorrect).
1. The Illinois Enema Bandit (last part)
My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama
Tryin' to Grow a Chin
Broken Hearts are for Assholes
Dong Work for Yuda
2. Manx Needs Women (not listed)
Titties and Beer
Le Serviette Noir (Yes, another extended version of 'The Black Page')
---
# Steaming Jukebox 2lp
----------------
1978
Germany, febr. 1978. Sound quality is not excellent (crackling noises and
audience chat during some of the songs), but not too bad either.
It is great stuff for 'Sheik Yerbouti-fans'. Many tracks from 'Sheik',
as they sounded before they were overdubbed. Yes, I think it's quite a good
bootleg.
Band: Belew, O'Hearn, Mars, Wolf, Mann, Bozzio.
1. Introductions
Dancin' Fool
Peaches en Regalia
The Torture Never Stops
(version as on 'YCDTOSA' #1, but it sounds horrible here)
Tryin' to Grow a Chin
2. Tryin' to Grow a Chin (continued)
City of Tiny Lites
Baby Snakes
A Pound for A Brown (best part of the bootleg is from this tune to the end)
3. Instrumental (solo's from 'Pound for a Brown' I think)
I Have Been in You (with long intro; total time > 11 min.)
Flakes
4. Flakes (the remaining 45 sec.)
Broken Hearts Are for Assholes
King Kong
(with very good solos, unfortunately part of it has been cut out)
Wild Love
---
# The Best Slidin' is Horse Ridin' lp Black & White/Revival Rec.
--------------------------------
1978
Vienna, march 1978. All tracks on this one are on 'Steaming Jukebox' too.
Sound quality is worse, unfortunately. For diehards only.
Different versions of 'Pound for a Brown' and 'I Have Been in You'; these 2
tracks are most worthwile. Most other tracks are not very interesting;
just another version of 'Tryin' to grow a chin' etc.
1. Introductions
Dancin' Fool
Peaches en Regalia
The Torture Never Stops
(sounds even worse than the one from 'Steaming Jukebox')
Tryin' to Grow a Chin (the umptieth bootleg-version)
City of Tiny Lites
2. City of Tiny Lites (continued)
Baby Snakes
A Pound for a Brown on the Bus (this version is quite good)
I Have Been in You + introduction
Flakes (very first and very last parts only; forget this one)
---
# Project-Object cd Archivio
--------------
1978
New York (Poughkeepsie?), fall 1978. Sound quality is VERY good; maybe from
radio broadcast?
Btw: I consider the sound on the BTB-series as `normal bootleg quality'.
This one here is certainly better. Total playing time 41:55.
Songs:
Prelude to Bobby (piano/kb-solo)
Bobby Brown
Conehead
Moe's Vacation
(short weird instrumental, like 'Approximate-Manx needs the Black Page')
I Have Been in You (with nice explanation about this song)
Little House I Used to Live in
(Instrumental; probably part of another song. It certainly doesn't sound
like 'Little House'. Maybe part of `Pound for a Brown'?)
Tell Me You Love Me
Yo Mama
---
# Brest 2lp Shogun
-----
1979
France (Brest, that's right) 1979. The very most of it is also available on
'Anyway the Wind Blows' (part of BTB; recorded in Paris).
In fact, it's mainly the same, but 'Frank in Paris' contains a little extra.
Sound quality of this one is somewhat disappointing; you'd expect better
when looking at the cover. Since the BTB-release, bootlegs like this one
have become less valuable. `Anyway the Wind Blows' is better.
Songs on this one:
1. He Used to Cut the Grass (Imaginary Guitar Solo)
Boutique (?? It's introduction time after the solo)
Dead Girls of London
(interrupted because people are throwing beercans on the stage)
Ain't Got No Heart (not listed)
Brown Shoes Don't Make It
2. Cosmik Debris
Tryin' to Grow a Chin (yes, once again)
City of Tiny Lites
Dancin' Fool
Easy Meat (+/- 1 min.)
3. Easy Meat (rest of the song)
Jumbo Go Away
Andy (track listing on cover is somewhat different, and incorrect)
Inca Roads
4. Inca Roads
Florentine Pogen
Honey, Don't You Want a Man Like Me?
Peaches en Regalia
Montana (last part missing)
---
# Songs Einstein Jr. Never Heard cd
------------------------------
1980
No information on the cover about where and when it's recorded. But the
year must be 1980, and the location is probably Munich (but I'm not sure
about that). Very good sound quality to be a bootleg. Radio broadcast?
Possible; the Rotterdam 1980 show has also been on the radio (entire show -
see tape section).
Isn't there a bootleg called 'Things Wayne Newton never told you'? I think
that one's also from 1980, and has the same tracks.
Total playing time 49:27.
Songs (the disc has got 3 tracks):
- Chunga's Revenge
Mudd Club
The Meek Shall Inherit Nothing
Joe's Garage
Golden Arches (little guitar solo)
- Cosmik Debris
Keep It Greasey
Pick Me I'm Clean
The Illinois Enema Bandit
- You Didn't Try to Call Me
Ain't Got No Heart
Love of My Life
City of Tiny Lites
---
# Halloween lp KEF Rec, Switzerland
---------
1981
Part of the famous 1981-Halloween performance in NYC. (Other parts are
on 'As An Am'.)
Broadcasted in many countries, and many bootlegs of this show are available.
This one has a playing time of 1 hour and features 'You Are What You Is'-
songs mainly. 3 of them are on 'YCDTOSA' #1.
Songs (no tracks listed on the record):
1. You Are What You Is
Mudd Club
The Meek Shall Inherit Nothing
Dumb All Over
(including a boring guitar solo - left out on YCDTOSA #1)
Heavenly Bank Account
Suicide Chump
(on YCDTOSA #1 the solo's are included, but they're cut out here.)
Jumbo Go Away
We're Turning Again
2. We're Turning Again
Alien Orifice
(FZ edited out the boring parts of the solo on YCDTOSA #6; here it
has full length)
Teenage Prostitute
Flakes
Broken Hears Are for Assholes
Montana
Whipping Post
See also 'Heavenly Bank Account'
---
# Heavenly Bank Account 2lp Pilot/PRC Inc.
---------------------
1981 (and 1982?)
Gothenburg, Sweden, dec. 1978, the cover says. This is wrong.
Side 2-4 are the same as 'Halloween' (2 sides on 'Halloween'; 3 sides on
this one): 31-10-1981 in N.Y.C.
Side 1 is from 1981 or 1982 (there's a band introduction). Maybe this is
recorded somewhere in Europe, maybe even Gothenburg. But side 2-4 are NOT;
and none of the recordings are from 1978.
1. Strictly Genteel
Introductions
No No Cherry
Man from Utopia
In France
Rest of the bootleg is the same as `Halloween'
2. You Are What You Is
Mudd Club
The Meek Shall Inherit Nothing
Dumb All Over
Heavenly Bank Account
3. Suicide Chump
Jumbo Go Away
We're Turning Again
Alien Orifice
4. Teenage Prostitute
Flakes
Broken Hears Are for Assholes
Montana
Whipping Post
'Halloween' is a better bootleg for the NYC-1981 stuff. And I won't
recommend this one for side 1 only.
---
# Lectures lp
--------
+/- 1979-1982 (? a guess by looking at the band members and the songs)
Soundchecks and alternate studio takes (it sounds like that).
Mainly instrumental stuff, with different bands.
Musicians are Mars, Thunes, Martin, Wackerman, Mann, Vai, White, Willis,
Walley, Barrow, Colaiuta, FZ.
Good sound quality.
1. Shut Up 'n Play Yer Guitar Again (Outside Now; see 'Demo's')
Zoot Allures II
Dancin' Fool
2. Catholic Meat (Easy Meat ending with a 'Catholic Girls' riff)
The Man from Utopia Meets Mary Lou
Alien Orifice
---
# Pink Elephants Never Cry (but they sure screw like hell) 2lp Panic Rec.
--------------------------------------------------------
1982
Recorded 15-5-1982 in Rotterdam. This was a good performance with
an excellent band. Good songs on the bootleg too, but the sound quality is
*horrible* Too bad :-( Not recommended.
There seems to be another bootleg from 'Rotterdam 1982'. Never heard it,
but I'd like to; maybe it has a better sound-quality?
1. Zoot Allures
Introductions
Sofa No.1
Redunzel (RDNZL)
2. Advance Romance
We're Turning Again
Alien Orifice
Harder Than Your Husband
3. Bamboozled by Love
Young and Monde (`Kreegah Bandolo', known as `Cleveland' since `Humor')
Tinseltown Rebellion
(interrupted because people are throwing stuff on the stage)
Approximate
Cosmik Debris
4. Cosmik Debris
Sinister Footwear II (listed as 'Wild Love Improvisations')
Stevie's Spanking
---
# Demo's 2lp
------
1974-1984
Various live & studio from different periods, but mainly from 1979-1984.
I think most of the material is available on other bootlegs.
Side 1 is live 1981 with Lisa Popeil.
On side 4 are the versions of some `Sleep Dirt' songs as originally intended
by FZ: with vocals. (The cd version of SD has the vocals. I prefer the
instrumental versions by the way, but that's only my opinion.)
Pretty good sound quality.
1. (Live Santa Monica 11-12-1981)
Teenage Prostitute (with Lisa Popeil)
Pound for a Brown (with an old man named Nicolas Slawimsky on piano)
Lisa's Story of her Life (YCDTOSA #6)
Broken Hearts Are for Assholes
(with interruption because someone throws food on the stage; FZ wants
him to lick it up.)
2. Doreen (From 'Crush All Boxes, 1980)
Easy Meat (idem.)
Stick It Out (Live Hollywood 22-7-1984)
Truck Driver Divorce (idem, with George Duke; interesting version)
3. (Munich 31-3-1979)
The Deathless Horsie
Outside Now
(same as the track `Shut Up 'n Play Yer Guitar again' on `Lectures')
4. Flambay/Spider of Destiny (Vocals by Thana Harris.)
Planet of my Dreams
Time is Money (with vocals)
(These songs were recorded around 1974.)
Truck Driver Divorce (1981)
Frogs with Dirty Little Lips (1981)
In France (good version- live 1984 ??)
---
# Fits Your 34B, No Matter Which 43B You Are cd
------------------------------------------
1984
Recorded 14-9-1984, somewhere in northern Europe. Where?
In the musical chapter of `The Real Frank Zappa Book' there's a reference
somewhere to a concert from 1984 in Oslo, Norway. The secret word that
night was `spoo'. That's what you hear on this bootleg. FZ also says
`Fornebu' (name of Oslo's airport) somewhere, so it's probably Norway.
Anyway, it has some tracks that were never released in a 1984-version.
Total time is 79:22 (only 1 disc). Sound quality is decent (about `normal
bootleg quality').
Songs:
Heavy Duty Judy
Introductions
City of Tiny Lites
You Are What You Is
Mudd Club
The Meek Shall Inherit Nothing
Ride my Face to Chicago
Sharleena
Joe's Garage
Why Does It Hurt when I Pee?
He's so Gay
Bobby Brown
Kreegah Brandolo (titled `Cleveland' on `Humor')
Dinah-Moe Humm
Penguin in Bondage
Hot Plate Heaven at the Green Hotel
Whippin' Post
---
# Zapped Again! 2lp Sound Board Inc.
-------------
1984
The entire concert from Rotterdam 1984 (16 sept.).
The performance there was not as good as the one from 1982, but this bootleg
is much better than 'Pink Elephants', because of the better sound quality
(compared to `Pink Elephants'), and the fact that the ENTIRE show is captured
(100 minutes).
Not surprisingly, much of the songs on this boot were released on 'Does Humor
Belong..?' and on YCDTOSA #3.
Sound quality is decent (not excellent).
Anyway, I sure like this one because this was the first time I actually saw
FZ on stage.
No tracks are listed on the record. Here they are:
1. Chunga's Revenge + introductions
Teenage Wind
Truck Driver Divorce
Trouble every Day
Penguin in Bondage
Hot-Plate Heaven at the Green Hotel
2. Cocaine Decisions
Nig Biz
Sharleena
He's so Gay
Bobby Brown
Keep it Greasey
Honey, Don't You Want a Man Like Me?
3. Carol, You Fool
Chana in de Bushwop
Kreegah Bandolo (`Cleveland' on `Humor', but I find this a better version.)
4. The Closer You Are/Johnny Darling
No No Cherry
Cosmik Debris
Dinah-Moe Humm
Whipping Post
---
# Frankie's Greatest Hits-Live '88 lp Showtime Rec, USA
--------------------------------
1988
Track listing on cover (wrong):
1. Stinkfoot, Montana, Bobby Brown, Joe's Garage, Why Does It Hurt When i Pee?
2. Dancin'Fool, Cosmik Debris, Whipping Post, Illinois Enema Bandit
Track listing on label (correct):
1. I'm the Slime (sound check)
Dupree's Paradise (Good version, it has a second solo instead of the stupid
sounds on `Jazz Noise'; this is the -only- interesting
track of the bootleg.)
Ring of Fire
Rhymin' Man
Make a Sex Noise (recorded in Norway - see tape section, Oslo '88)
Elvis Has Just Left the Building
Star Wars (just a guitar solo)
2. Your Ethos/Strictly Genteel/Magic Fingers/Call any Vegetable/Dog Breath/
Wonderful Wino/Ms. Pinky/Mom and Dad/Small and Jewish
Side 1 is o.k. but I wouldn't recommend this record for side 1 only.
Forget side 2: demo-like jamming, bad sound quality. Don't know how, where
and when it's recorded, but it's horrible anyway. Just sh*t.
The most (only) interesting track of the bootleg is `Dupree's Paradise'.
---
# The Untouchables cd Raven
----------------
1988
Recorded in the USA during the 1988-tour. New songs from 'Broadway',
and old ones. Sound quality is about `normal'. I think this is the best-known
bootleg from the 1988-tour, and it's quite good, but it doesn't add much
extra to the official 1988-releases.
Total playing time 65:03.
Songs:
When the Lie's so Big
Planet of the Baritone Women
Any Kind of Pain
Jesus Thinks You're a Jerk
The Untouchables
Promiscuous
Why Don't you Like Me?
Who Needs the Peace Corps?
Filthy Habits
Cruisin' for Burgers
Mr. Green Genes
Zomby Woof
Jezebel Boy
Florentine Pogen
---
================================================================================
II. On tape:
================================================================================
# Arlington, Texas, 11-3-1973 - 90 mins
Band: Ponty, B. & T. Fowler, I. & R. Underwood, Duke, Humphrey
Good sound quality; recommended.
Songs:
A: RDNZL
Exercise #4/Dog Breath/Uncle Meat
Fifty-fifty
Audience participation jam/Imaginary diseases of the future
B: Inca Roads
Montana
G. Duke solo/instrumental jam
Mr. Green Genes
King Kong
---
# "Hofstra & Elsewhere", late 1973 - 90 mins
The title is just mine. In fact, this is a recommendation;
`Roxy & Elsewhere' is my favorite Zappa-album.
Songs:
A: Preamble/Cosmik Debris
Preamble/Montana
Dupree's Paradise with Breast Lecture by a young genius
FZ says something like `Live at Hofstra College' when the guy is
introduced on stage.
B: Preamble/Inca Roads
Pygmy Twylyte/Cheepnis
Preamble/Be Bop Tango
There's a tape interruption during this tune; the last part is probably
from a different performance. FZ says something about Waterloo, Canada.
Hence my title.
+ filler:
Carolina Hardcore Ecstasy (place & date unknown)
---
# Nifty/Ein Monster in der Musikhalle - 90 mins
Recommended, especially `Nifty'.
A: Nifty
Side 1 recorded N.Jersey late 1973
R. Underwood, Duke, B. & T. Fowler, Humphrey, Thompson, N.M. Brock
Songs:
Pygmy Twylyte (`fast' version, with sort of `Dummy Up' thing)
Dupree's Paradise/Be Bop Tango theme
Dog Breath
Uncle Meat.
Side 2 recorded Sydney, july 8 1973
I. & R. Underwood, Ponty, Duke, B. & T. Fowler, Humphrey, Sal Marquez
Songs:
Father O'Blivion (YCDTOSA #6)
Yellow Snow
Nanook rubs it
St.Alfonso's Pancake Breakfast
Penguin in Bondage
T'Mershi Duween (also on Piquantique)
B: Ein Monster in der Musikhalle
Vienna, Austria, sept 11 1974 (band as on Helsinki Concert)
Songs:
Token of my Extreme
Dupree's Paradise
Pygmy Twylyte
Room Service (Vienna version)
Note: I'm the Slime is not on this tape.
---
# Serious Music (complete) plus other (H/PP) stuff - 90 mins
H: from `If you get a Headache' (Boston, oct. 23 1975)
PP: from `Pygmy Pony' (which, in turn, is taken from the `Dupree's
Paradise' bootleg - Durham, N.C. feb. 22 1973)
Sound quality of `Serious Music' is excellent.
A: Sinister Footwear - 26 min orchestra piece by the Berkeley Symph. Orch.
Swallow my Pride (H)
Any Downers/Packard Goose (H) - Not quite as they became to sound later
RDNZL - Excellent studio recording from around 1972
B: The World's Greatest Sinner (+/- 1961)
Revenge of the Knick Knack People - ballet for piano, percussion & tape
effect +/- 1978
Inca Roads - Excellent studio recording from around 1972
The Nancy & Mary Music (PP)
Fifty-Fifty (PP)
---
# Boston, Mass. 27-4-1975 - 90 mins
Title of the bootleg might be `No Bacon for Breakfast' (2 lp's)
There's also a 1 lp bootleg from Boston april '75 called `I was a
Teenage Maltshop'.
Band as on Bongo Fury (with Beefheart), but sound quality and
performance are not-so-good here. Let's give it a 6, no more.
Songs:
A: Instrumental (solo)
Camarillo Brillo/Muffin Mam solo
Let's make the Water turn Black (not the instrumental medley)
Penguin in Bondage
Debra Kadabra
Poofter's Froth WPA (with band introduction)
George Duke whips it out (solo).
B: Torture never stops (1975 version, but not so good as on YCDTOSA #4)
??
Montana
Florentine Pogen
Willie the Pimp
---
# Rotterdam, may 1980 - 90 mins
Very good sound quality; from radio-broadcast.
Band: Willis, Mars, Logeman, Barrow, White
Songs:
A: Chunga's Revenge, Keep it Greasy, Outside Now, City of Tiny Lites,
Teenage Wind, Bamboozled by Love, Pick me I'm Clean, Society Pages,
I'm a Beautiful Guy, Beauty knows no Pain, Charlie's Mouth.
B: Cosmik Debris, You didn't try to Call me, Love of my Life,
You are what you is, Easy Meat, Joe's Garage, Why does it hurt?,
Dancin' Fool, Bobby Brown, Ms. Pinky, Drafted, Illinois Enema Bandit.
Note: Tape ends during guitar solo of last track.
---
# Sunrise, Fla, 18-4-1980, 1st show - 90 mins
Songs:
A: Watermelon, Teenage Wind, Harder than your Husband, Bamboozled by Love,
Pick me I'm clean, Society Pages, I'm a beautiful guy, Beauty knows no
pain, Charlie's Mouth, Any Downers, Conehead.
B: Easy Meat, Mudd Club, The Meek, Heavenly Bank Account, Suicide Chump,
Jumbo go away, If only she woulda, Drafted, Joe's Garage, Why does it
hurt when I pee?
---
# Paris?, 1980 - 45 mins
Songs:
You didn't try to call me, Ain't got no Heart, Love of my Life, You are
what you is, Easy Meat, Mudd Club, The Meek, Heavenly Bank Account,
Suicide Chump, Jumbo go away.
---
# Oslo, Norway. Skedsmohallen 27-4-1988 - 2 x 90 min (I & II)
Good sound quality, excellent show. The secret word that night was
`sausage'. `Fornebu' is the name of Oslo's airport btw.
Songs:
I (90 mins)
A: Stinkfoot
Ain't got no Heart
Love of my Life
Packard Goose (with Stravinsky/Bartok classical piece)
Alien Orifice
Sharleena
Let's make the Water medley
Oh No/Lumpy Gravy Theme.
B: Advance Romance
Bobby Brown
Keep it Greasy
Torture part 1 (sausage version)/Bonanza
Cowboy Burt
Torture part 2 (with solo by Walt Fowler)
Texas Motel Medley (Sausage Motel).
---
II (90 mins)
A: City of Tiny Lites
Pound for a Brown
Make a Sex Noise
Stairway (to sausage)
Bolero
Rhymin' Man (world premiere).
B: Sofa No.1 (Ich bin hier und du bist mein Sausage)
Andy
Inca Roads
Strictly Genteel.
+ filler from Troy, NY, 6-11-1976:
Wind up working in a gas station
Tryin' to grow a chin
Torture never stops.
---
# Chicago, Auditorium Theatre, 3-3-1988 - 90 min (I) + 45 min (II)
Sunrise, Fla, 18-4-1980 - 45 min
Sound quality of the Chicago '88 show is not as good as Oslo '88,
but it's certainly worth having this one.
Songs:
I (90 mins)
A: The Black Page
We're turning again/Alien Orifice
Any Kind of Pain,
Why don't you like me? (exactly the same as on `Broadway')
Texas Motel Medley
When the Lie's so big
Jesus Thinks you're a Jerk (part missing).
B: Sofa No.1 - end of first part
Stolen Moments/Murder by Numbers (yes, the remarkable Sting-appearance)
Ain't got no Heart
Love of my Life
City of Tiny Lites
Pound for a Brown
Stairway to Heaven.
---
II (90 mins)
A: Stairway (again, from the beginning)
Whippin' Post
I am the Walrus
Catholic Girls
Crew Slut
Strictly Genteel.
B: Sunrise, Fla. 18-4-1980, 2nd show, 2nd part:
You didn't try to call me
Ain't got no Heart
Lucille
Outside Now
Easy Meat
Mudd Club
The Meek
Heavenly Bank Account
Dancin' Fool
Bobby Brown.
---
================================================================================
Menard Isabelle
John Scialli
Its site is ftp://netcom10.netcom.com/pub/mrm/zappa/zappa.html
She's got GIF's available. There's a fella on CompuServe w/ a
l:
internet"7361...@compuserve.com" and I can easily bring up my data base with
his name and location.
"The present day compost refuses to diet on worms."
The late francesco.
Marianne Mueller
related files at http://netcom10.netcom.com/pub/mrm/zappa/index.html
And to everyone who complained about the large .gif files: you're
completely right, they shouldn't be part of the page by default! I replaced
them with thumbnail inlined images so the WWW transfer rate shouldn't
be too painful anymore.