Frank Zappa

[Д.Д.]

Ainsley Dunbar's presence makes it worth a couple of listens once it's on Spotify. 

[sambrasa]

I like most Zappa from the beginning until "Zappa In New York" but those Flo and Eddie sides elude me. What's the deal here? Those guys can't sing, nor they are funny. The crazed fan who injured FZ in 1971 and forced him to change direction did world a great favour, in hindsight.

[felser]

3 hours ago, sambrasa said:

I like most Zappa from the beginning until "Zappa In New York" but those Flo and Eddie sides elude me. What's the deal here? Those guys can't sing, nor they are funny. The crazed fan who injured FZ in 1971 and forced him to change direction did world a great favour, in hindsight.

They cretainly could sing, just chose not to on those albums.  I don't disagree with the sentiment that the change in direction did musical good ("Waka/Jawaka" and "The Grand Wazoo" are favorites), though sorry for Zappa's injury on many levels.

 

[Rooster_Ties]

4 hours ago, sambrasa said:

...those Flo and Eddie sides elude me.

Me too. I’m good with about 70% of Zappa’s output (and 40-50% I’m really quite fond of). But the Flo & Eddie years never really grabbed me.

[JSngry]

Can't help anybody with "liking" it, that's for you to decide, but "getting" it is not really difficult, imo - it's profane (quite) comedic (subjective) pop opera.

Have we all seen 200 Motels, I mean, seen it? That's it right there.

connect the dots backwards (w/o too much difficulty) to something like this:

and/or this in a bit of a way:

then retool it for a traveling rockbandshow. THIS is what you get:

and oh yeah - The Turtles...if all you know are the hits...don't kid yourself. Those cats had (or at least developed) a conceptual streak several miles wide, and not at all incompatable with Zappa's.

None of this shit happened in a vacuum, that's all I'm saying.

[Д.Д.]

9 hours ago, JSngry said:

then retool it for a traveling rockbandshow. THIS is what you get:

 

Well, I guess you could make a point comparing bad Zappa to bad Stockhausen. Perhaps you might want to illustrate it with a superior version of "Billy the Mountain" (with excellent Don Preston solo at 22:30):

One thing that Zappa liked in Kaylan and Volman was that they were good sight readers, and he gave them some tough ones to sing. According to Kaylan, Zappa was even willing to tolerate their getting high (permanently) because this did not affect their performance. 

Good Zappa, on the other hand...:

 

  

Edited May 12, 2020 by Д.Д.

[Jim Duckworth]

On 5/12/2020 at 7:05 PM, Д.Д. said:

Well, I guess you could make a point comparing bad Zappa to bad Stockhausen. Perhaps you might want to illustrate it with a superior version of "Billy the Mountain" (with excellent Don Preston solo at 22:30):

One thing that Zappa liked in Kaylan and Volman was that they were good sight readers, and he gave them some tough ones to sing. According to Kaylan, Zappa was even willing to tolerate their getting high (permanently) because this did not affect their performance. 

Good Zappa, on the other hand...:

 

  

Thank you for posting the Dog Breath Variations and Uncle Meat.  Not only did I enjoy this clip immensely, but I found the entire Yellow Shark performance from Frankfurt on Youtube.  

[sgcim]

On 5/12/2020 at 8:05 PM, Д.Д. said:

Well, I guess you could make a point comparing bad Zappa to bad Stockhausen. Perhaps you might want to illustrate it with a superior version of "Billy the Mountain" (with excellent Don Preston solo at 22:30):

One thing that Zappa liked in Kaylan and Volman was that they were good sight readers, and he gave them some tough ones to sing. According to Kaylan, Zappa was even willing to tolerate their getting high (permanently) because this did not affect their performance. 

Good Zappa, on the other hand...:

 

  

Sorry, but that's not Don Preston playing that excellent solo on "Billy The Mountain", that was Bob Harris(1), who replaced Don Preston in the Mothers in 1971 for the tour that included the "Live at the Fillmore East" album. Harris was the son of "Tonight Show" trumpet player Maurice Harris, and was an unusual presence in the MOI, because he was a hard bop playing, lifetime junkie. I don't know if Zappa knew that he was a user.

Harris played his Wurlitzer on that BTM solo, the favorite instrument of Ray Charles, his idol, who he jokingly called, 'that genius n-word'. Harris spent a few years on the road with the Ray Charles Band when Marcus Belgrave was in the band. Harris was also the husband of singer/songwriter Judee Sill, and did some of the arrangements on Sill's self-titled first album. I have the "Playground Psychotics" CD, and Harris' solo is my fave part of the album.

[Д.Д.]

14 hours ago, sgcim said:

Sorry, but that's not Don Preston playing that excellent solo on "Billy The Mountain", that was Bob Harris(1), who replaced Don Preston in the Mothers in 1971 for the tour that included the "Live at the Fillmore East" album. Harris was the son of "Tonight Show" trumpet player Maurice Harris, and was an unusual presence in the MOI, because he was a hard bop playing, lifetime junkie. I don't know if Zappa knew that he was a user.

Harris played his Wurlitzer on that BTM solo, the favorite instrument of Ray Charles, his idol, who he jokingly called, 'that genius n-word'. Harris spent a few years on the road with the Ray Charles Band when Marcus Belgrave was in the band. Harris was also the husband of singer/songwriter Judee Sill, and did some of the arrangements on Sill's self-titled first album. I have the "Playground Psychotics" CD, and Harris' solo is my fave part of the album.

Oh, thanks for the correction, my bad. 

[Д.Д.]

 

Edited May 15, 2020 by Д.Д.

[Rooster_Ties]

Nifty live video I stumbled on quite by accident just now.  I'm not sure I remember hearing a "Dupree's Paradise" specifically with Jean Luc Ponty before, come to think of it - was there ever a version with JLP released before?  My memory of my own Zappa collection is fading, I'm afraid (most of it in one of the boxes under the bed - having run out of shelf space here).  This is from 1973 (should this YouTube upload ever go belly-up), and clocks in at 16 minutes.

EDIT:  This is DAMN nice.  I've just spun it twice, and I would GLADLY pay for a CD release of something with this track in a heartbeat.  Been ages since I've heard it, but I'm liking this 1973 version quite a bit better than the JLP-less version of "Dupree's Paradise" from "You Can't Do This On Stage Vol. 2 - The Helsinki Concert" (1974).  That Ponty solo is a corker!

More details...

August 21, 1973 @ Solliden, Skansen, Stockholm, Sweden

• The Mothers Of Invention: FZ—guitar, vocals
• Tom Fowler—bass
• Bruce Fowler—trombone
• Jean-Luc Ponty—violin
• Ian Underwood—woodwinds, synthesizer
• George Duke—keyboards
• Ruth Underwood—percussion
• Ralph Humphrey—drums

Edited July 1, 2020 by Rooster_Ties

[mjzee]

I saw that line-up at the Nassau Coliseum in May of 1973, with the addition of Sal Marquez on trumpet.  Not only did they do Dupree's Paradise, it was the first time I heard Montana, Inca Roads, Cosmik Debris, and the Yellow Snow suite.  Pretty good concert: Zappa headlined, with the Mahavishnu Orchestra and Leo Kottke as opening acts.  The Nassau Coliseum had bad, boomy acoustics, though.

[Д.Д.]

7 hours ago, Rooster_Ties said:

Nifty live video I stumbled on quite by accident just now.  I'm not sure I remember hearing a "Dupree's Paradise" specifically with Jean Luc Ponty before, come to think of it - was there ever a version with JLP released before?  My memory of my own Zappa collection is fading, I'm afraid (most of it in one of the boxes under the bed - having run out of shelf space here).  This is from 1973 (should this YouTube upload ever go belly-up), and clocks in at 16 minutes.

EDIT:  This is DAMN nice.  I've just spun it twice, and I would GLADLY pay for a CD release of something with this track in a heartbeat.  Been ages since I've heard it, but I'm liking this 1973 version quite a bit better than the JLP-less version of "Dupree's Paradise" from "You Can't Do This On Stage Vol. 2 - The Helsinki Concert" (1974).  That Ponty solo is a corker!

There is an officially released CD by this band, Road Tapes, Venue #2, recorded in Finland just a couple of days after the Swedish show you posted. "Dupree's Paradise" is there, and rest assured that Ponty's solo - as all Ponty's solos inevitably are - is nearly exactly the same there.  

https://www.discogs.com/Frank-Zappa-Road-Tapes-Venue-2/release/5120271 

[gvopedz]

Frank Zappa did release the Piquantique CD and, according to its notes, the recording has at least part of the 21 August 1973 Stockholm concert (including at least part of “Dupree’s Paradise”).  Zappa experts can probably provide more details about Piquantique.  The CD was part of Zappa's “Beat the Boots” effort:

"Beat the Boots is a collection of bootleg recordings of performances by Frank Zappa which were originally distributed illegally but were released officially by Rhino Entertainment in 1991 as part of Zappa's campaign to dissuade his fans from buying illegal recordings of his concerts. The recordings were available as individual CDs and as an CDs, LPs or cassette box set."

 

Some details are here:

https://www.discogs.com/Frank-Zappa-Mothers-Piquantique-Stockholm-1973/release/1180047

[mjzee]

Release date June 18:

[Chuck Nessa]

Don't care.

edit to say I  really, really don't give a shit.

Edited April 27, 2021 by Chuck Nessa

[Д.Д.]

3 hours ago, Chuck Nessa said:

 I  really, really don't give a shit.

That's a Zappa song, right?

[Rabshakeh]

5 hours ago, rostasi said:

He did.

I had that photo on my wall as a young youth. 

[Deadman]

The 5 songs I would recommend...

WPLJ

Dog Breath In The Year Of The Plague

Mystery Roach

San Ber'dino

The Gumbo Variations

[AaronG]

19 hours ago, mjzee said:

Release date June 18:

I’m very interested in this. Zappa is some of the only rock music that holds any interest for me.

[Д.Д.]

It's a shame this band imploded before the scheduled end of the tour. Zappa's guitar playing was getting better and better (it was sort of hesitant at the beginning of the tour but his last '88 concert in Genoa had him playing beautifully - see "Outside Now" from "Broadway the Hard Way" or "After Dinner Smoker" from "Trance-Fusion") and the band was getting increasingly loose with improvisations. But well, as the man said, touring can make you crazy.       

[Ken Dryden]

I saw Zappa 3 or 4 times in concert between 1974 and 1984, I would have attended the 1988 Atlanta concert if the band hadn't self-destructed in Europe. I can't think of any rock musician who got so much out of his instrumentalists and the ability to switch gears mid-concert into different arrangements on the fly was unusual. 

[Jason Bivins]

I saw FZ in Cleveland on this tour and I'm pretty sure he didn't play a note of guitar all night. Was an amazing gig though.

[GregK]

On 4/27/2021 at 10:35 PM, Chuck Nessa said:

Don't care.

edit to say I  really, really don't give a shit.

then why comment? or even click on the thread? 

[Chuck Nessa]

34 minutes ago, GregK said:

then why comment? or even click on the thread? 

Because he was spectacularly nasty to me, Roscoe Mitchell and Lester Bowie when we met with him in the late '60s. My blood starts to boil when I see his name.