REVIEWS
Albums
THE MUFFIN MEN: POWDERED WATER (European Tour April 2011, CD and DVD) (limited
edition, promo only, not for re-sale, tour memoir)
CD track list: Zoot-Yellow-Napkins
medley/Crew Slut/Dead Girls Of London/City Of Tiny Lights/Jones Crusher/Suction
Prints/Suicide Chump/San Berdino/In France/My Guitar/Grow Me A Chin/Winter Gale
In The Garden Of Edam (Cheesy Version). Hidden Track: Muffin Man outro.
DVD: Tour Report
& Extras.
A limited edition, promo only, not for re-sale, tour memoir. Great shame
that this isn’t readily available to all and sundry as it’s an absolute joy to
behold. The DVD is effectively Muffin
Moovies Vol. 5 (Live At Zappanale 14
being Vol. 4), with lots of on the road shenanigans from last April – though
only up to the point where they’re about to return to Blighty from Calais, so
sadly (or maybe happily…no, I didn’t get that out of it, so definitely sadly)
no footage from the Cavern. It includes Danny Welley’s various
inventions and much mirth ensues. While it also contains snippets of tunes
(from both rehearsals and actual gigs), the real musical meat is in the live
CD. Dweezil may have no interest in hearing cover bands (with special guest
alums) taking liberties with his father’s compositions – not playing them
note-for-note in the same timbre, petecetera-etcetera-etcetera, but boy is he
missing out on something. New boy Hearn Phil plays a blinder, with some Shankar-like
keys during Napkins, and Martianesque
noodling in Chin. The songs chosen
for this tour with Denny are not only right up Mr Walley's (Mattie-told) alley, but
Roddie, Rhino and Jumpy’s too. It’s a given that the Zappa tunes are performed
with humour and the utmost respect and affection for their composer, and so the
two tracks that really blow this Idiot’s socks off are Beefheart’s Suction Prints and the band’s own Cold Winter Gale: the former executed
with great aplomb, and the latter in absolute gay abandon verging on total
madness (with it’s “I want a garden”/In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida
references). Also of note is the way Mr Jump fluidly slips in all sorts of
references to Montana, Zeppelin and
Jimi during his always wondrous guitar solos. Denny also shows his great chops
throughout. Beg, steal or borrow one today.
Perfect Partner: Just Another Band From L4 by The Muffin Men (2011)
DWEEZIL ZAPPA: LIVE – ‘IN THE MOMENT’ (Fantom Records, FR1 112011)
Disc One: Flim
Flam/Guitarlos Mantana/That's Heavy/Curly Toed Shoes/You Can't Get There From
Here/That's Right/Stink Patrol/The Stink Eye/They're Attracted To The Light
Mama/Neapolitan Sunset/First Day With The New Brain/Follow Me/Your Slime Is On
Fire.
Disc Two: Just A
Trim/Phase McNugget/Southern Gravy/Canadian Jazzercise/Scratch/Hair Club For
Ponies (Greasey)/Where Everyone Still Looks The Same/I Promise Not To Mess Up
Your Hair/A Chick Walks On To The Stage.../Bat Sandwich/What Did You Mean By
That?/A Night Out In Tel Aviv/Midrange Exploitation/Is
This Safe?/What Kind Of Muffin Is This?/Deathless Horsie Rides Again.
A Shut Up ’N Play Yer Guitar-style compilation of soli from ZPZ
performances around the globe during the past four years. Sporting spiffy Cal
Schenkel artwork, a special guest appearance by Chick Corea, no credit for
Aaron Arntz (who appears on just one track, admittedly, but after the Carnegie furore, you’d think they’d
tread a little more carefully), with a number of tracks rightly credited to
both DZ & FZ (see if you can suss out which ones from the titles above),
this is a very enjoyable listen which saw me dusting off my air axe. The
stand-out track for me, on first (and subsequent) play(s), is They're Attracted To The
Light Mama, which just so happens to be the longest piece and is naturally
akin to Frank’s Solo From Heidelberg.
Follow Me shows Dweezil’s influences,
rather than FZ’s, with him urging his magic band to chase his very metal
riffing. Not sure why they couldn’t fit 75 minutes of music onto one CD, but
that’s a minor quibble – this shows how much Dweezil has progressed as a
guitarist in recent years and, as he himself says, it would be very interesting
to hear what he would now come up with if he were to go into the studio and record
an album of original material. Meantime, Fantom are
planning more live ZPZ FOH releases and downloads. Bring ‘em on, I say.
DOUG LUNN: DOUG LUNN PROJECT (Future Primative Music, 2011)
Track list: Lovebirds/Orcas/Lhasa/Good
Question/Dyslexia Mango Nixon/Oceana/Air Raid (Action in Eluvia).
For the past few months, I’ve been living on a steady
diet of Bakin’ @ The
Potato, Beller’s Wednesday Night Live
and the Aristocrats’ wondrous debut CD, so I thought this here instrumental
album might be a similar muscular affair. But, no - not
quite. Although musically superb, the arrangements are a bit more, er,
subtle. Of course, Vinnie Colaiuta (who is on every single track) is as
explosive as ever, but it’s a little like watching a mallard: all that action
underwater, while on the surface Doug’s playing big block chords on keyboards
and accompanying them beautifully with his lilting bass lines…ha = Duck Lunn!
There are moments of Frippish Soundscapeisms scattered hither and thither, and
it’s not until Dyslexia Mango Nixon,
with Keneally’s guitar upfront, that you’re jolted from the mellow vibe set up
by the first four tracks. Orcas has a
melody akin to the Outside Now coda,
while Lhasa is naggingly familiar -
it took me a while to suss and, even now, the closest I can come is that it’s a
cross between a 1970s doorbell chime and Mussorgsky’s Promenade! It’s a good one - well, truth be told, there’s not a bad
one to be had here at all. And the first half of the final track – just Doug’s
bass duking it out with Vinnie’s powerhouse drumming -
is worth the price of admission alone.
Perfect Partner: Legs
Eleven by Chad Wackerman (2004)
ANT-BEE: ELECTRONIC CHURCH MUZIK (Barking Moondog Records)
Track list: Birth/Living/The
Language Of The Body/Eye Of Agomoto/The Guff (Hall Of Souls)/Mallard Flies
Towards Heaven/ANT-BEE's Sunday Supper/Flutter-Bye, Butter-Fllye/Endless
Journey/The Light/Mannah/Psalm 23/Hallelujah/The Wrath - Part One (The
Flood)/Secrets Of The Dead/Pennies From Heaven/The Wrath - Part Two (Baptism
Through Fire)/Angels/Don't You Ever Learn?/Re-Birth/Final Benediction - Lord We
Thank You.
This album has been a long time coming, so it’s no
surprise that there is much to take in. Featuring special guest appearances by
Michael Bruce (Alice Cooper), Daevid Allen & Gilli Smyth (Gong), Peter
Banks (Yes/Flash), Jan Akkerman (Focus), Bunk Gardner, Don Preston, Buzz
Gardner & Jimmy Carl Black (Mothers of Invention), Zoot Horn Rollo and
Rockette Morton (Captain Beefheart's Magic Band), Napoleon Murphy Brock
(Zappa/George Duke) and Moogy Klingman (Utopia), there remains a common feel
throughout thanks to Billy the musical magpie’s steady hand. The artwork and
graphics are by Cal Schenkel, but it’s what’s inside needs looking at.
Obviously, the Napi sung Don't You Ever Learn? - with
it’s Uncle Meat mid-section by Don
& Bunk – is a masterstroke, but there are many more interesting diversions
during this cosmic journey. Check it out.
Perfect Partner: Todd
by Todd Rundgren (Bearsville, 1974)
TODD
GRUBBS: RETURN OF THE WORM (Grubworm Music)
Track list: 5
After 4 In the Mourning/I Am Not A Commentator/The
Message/Number Station/6.9.03/You Can Do It/Skinny Elephant/Prepare To
Dive/Bartok/Frogs/Space Walk.
As Todd himself says, this is a bit different from his
usual output (the occasional blues album aside!), though the start of I Am Not A
Commentator is pretty much the definitive Todd Grubbs Group sound: tight
drums, bubbly bass, funky rhythm (guitar and keys) and Todd’s masterly lead
lines. But generally it is a much more nuanced, experimental approach with even
the afore-mentioned track having a wonderful ad-libbed mid-section breakdown
that could form the basis of a whole new other song – or piece of rocking
Frippertronics. The Message features
many tempo changes/stops and starts, plus a very fine rubbery ‘phoned-in’ solo
from Mike Keneally. Some tracks here are built around field recordings (Number Station, Bartok and Frogs), which
provide the only vocals on an otherwise all instrumental album (though those
from Bo Smith on Frogs are
essentially a Western Vacation-style narration). Other great guitar
performances come from Dweezil and Vai’s mate, Blues Saraceno (You Can Do It), Bogus Pomp mainman Jerry Outlaw (Skinny Elephant) and Porcupine Tree’s
John Wesley (Space Walk). But these
stellar guests in no way overshadow the star of the show, Mr Grubbs. Highly recommended for those partial to a bit of
rock-fusion/shredding.
Perfect Partner: Deep
Green Blues by 3 Green Windows (Chrome Dreams, 2011)
THE MUFFIN MEN: JUST ANOTHER BAND FROM L4 (Muff 2011)
Track list: Doobie
Stopping/Cold Winter Gale/Cheeky Fella/I'm Not Drinkin' Anymore/More Cheek From
The Boy/The Twilight Zone/A Message From The Ordinary Man In The Street/Jimmy
Oh Jimmy/Mexican Surprise/Cold Winter Gale (Live)/Intergalactic F**kblast
Diodem/Whipping Post.
This features all of those original compositions that
head Muffin Roddie has very kindly let me post on my website these past few
months, including the lovely heartfelt tribute to the former Indian of the
group (Jimmy Oh Jimmy), who had
always encouraged the band to put out an album of their own songs (which they
kinda did ten years ago with Kamikazi!,
though that was purely a collection of improvisations, solos & events that
happened while performing the music of Uncle Frank live). This album is not
surprisingly dedicated to Jimmy, and sports a cover that reminds me of Dexy’s Searching For the
Young Soul Rebels. Opening with a Superstition-like
drum intro, Doobie Stopping’s big Pimp-my riff bones are fleshed out with
Roddie singing some funny Lennonesque schoolyard gobbledegook before a typical
fine solo from Jumpy. Then it’s back to the riff before keyboardist Waco lets
fly (much of his work on this album reminds me of Rain Dances-era Pete Bardens), with Mikey then joining in on sax.
The song segues into Cold Winter Gale,
which Denny Walley insisted the band play with him at Zappanale #21 (a
recording of which appears later). Hopefully they’ll be playing this together
again on tour in April. Next up is Waco’s cheeeky little Moog-led fun, a not
too distant cousin of the Harry Lime
Theme. Drummer Rhino’s amusing I’m
Not Drinkin’ Anymore (“...but not drinking any less…”) concludes with a
bluesey Road Ladies-type ending at
its finish. Twilight Zone starts as a
very laid back piece featuring nice key and sax solos
before Jumpy takes things up a ratchet with some blistering axe work. This is
taken from a live rendition of Pygmy
Twylyte. A Message From
The Ordinary Man In The Street is a jolly little anti-conflict song,
lyrically not unlike Culture Club’s War
Song, but carried off with far greater aplomb. This would make a great show
opener, methinks. The afore-mentioned JCB tribute is an In The Sky doo-wop thing, which leads
nicely into the strange Mexican Surprise.
Intergalactic F**kblast Diodem is Ben
Watson’s madness from Zappanale, which also occurred during Pygmy Twylyte. He sounds like one of the
Knights who says “Ekki-Ekki-Ekki-Ekki-PTANG. Zoom-Boing. Z’nourrwringmm...” Whipping Post from Zappanale of course features the mighty Robert
Martin on lead vox, and ends with Ike announcing that this band is fucking
great. And Denny concurs: he recently told me “I love those guys! They play for
the pure joy of playing, and that’s the same place I come from.” Here, here!
There’s a bonus slice of Pygmy, plus
the usual signing-off Muffin madness, and that’s yer lot. So, theoretically no
actual Zappa toons, but he’s always gonna be somewhere in the mix whenever
these guys play. Accept these substitutes.
I
quizzed Mr Gilliard on the whys and wherefores of this new album. Here’s some things we said today:
IB: Had you
actually written any of the songs on the album before deciding to go into the
studio to record?
RG: We need to go
back a few years. After Jimmy Carl left us for that great reservation in the
sky, we didn't have a game plan. We didn't feel like playing live, yet we
wanted to keep some momentum going. We needed some direction. We'd had the two
benefits arranged to help fund Jimmy's health bills. We played the first one in
Stockport, which was a fairly normal affair - playing a standard type of set.
Some money was generated and sent off to Moni. The following week Jimmy died,
which made the second gig a week later quite a different affair. Leading up to
that London gig, the organisers were talking about recording the whole thing and releasing it. There were several similar ideas about
tribute CDs being talked of. Although the London idea was obviously a genuine
gesture, some of the others seemed slightly dubious. We didn't feel the time
was right for such things, but that was just our viewpoint. Due to the
situation, our ideas for the set were very different to what had gone on in the
previous gig. The line-up was different, as Friz and Martin turned up too. We
went on stage and just started playing with no plan, we knew what we had to do:
just play; no songs, just let the improvisations
happen, with very little direction, save for the odd nod for key/time changes.
I think we played about 40 minutes of grooves. It was surreal knowing Jim
wasn't with us anymore. We found out later that for some reason the recording
of our set hadn't worked out, we'd just played for Jim and it had gone off into
the ether, never to be heard or analysed again. We were relieved: somehow that was what we'd wanted all along.
Jimmy had always said we should do some original material, but we needed something
to inspire us to do that - it had never been part of the criteria of the band.
So it seemed like the right time: Jimmy's words were echoing around our heads;
it was our duty. I was about to leave the UK for a six week visit to Crete. We
had a band meeting before I left, and decided to individually think about some
ideas for stuff and present it when we met up again. Well, Jumpy won the league
title outright scoring nine completed track ideas, including full backings done
in garageband. They were all instrumental, a bunch of fabulous guitar based
riffs. Waco came up with several cheeky tunes and two interesting improvised
piano pieces. Rhino came up with the I'm
Not Drinkin' Anymore blues, fully formed. Mike came up with a nice
two-chord jazz vamp, but he was busy working on his own album, so was
pre-occupied with that. I put the doo-wop thing together and scribbled
selections of words, thinking we might need some lyrics for things. We booked
three days' studio time with 'The Bean' (Steve Powell, our engineer mate) and
had a few rough rehearsals to try things out. We chose three of Jumpy's things,
to which we added lyrics. They turned into Doobie
Stopping, Cold Winter Gale and A Message From The
Ordinary Man In The Street. We
picked out two of Waco's tunes: Cheeky
Fella, and another which became Mexican
Surprise. Rhino gave us his blues, and we sorted the Jimmy-wop.
IB: Once you
were in the studio, did you come up with any more material - can we expect
another CD of non-FZ material anytime soon?
RG: All the stuff
was organically arranged in the studio and tracked live, with a few
overdubs...job done. I wasn't happy with my vocals on the doo-wop but, as luck
would have it, my old mate Dave Hale just happened to contact me when we were
mixing. Dave is a very talented musician/actor who I've known since music college back in 1981. He was interested in hearing the
song, so I sent him a copy of the track and within a week he'd returned it
complete with new vocals. It was perfect. After the stuff was mixed, it sat
around for the best part of a year - we had no real plans to do anything with
it, so we just passed some of it around in a low key manner. Eventually the
album was compiled, mainly because Ulli (our German tour manager) suggested we
should have some sort of new product for our forthcoming German tour. We added
some nice solos sections from a couple of gigs that had been recorded nicely,
plus we included a few things from last year's Zappanale. Denny wanted to play Cold Winter Gale with us, so that song -
along with Ben’s madness and Robert Martin singing Whipping Post - was taken
from the Zappanale tapes. We wanted to keep the album a "non-Zappa
composition" product. Some other things were mixed, but ended up on the
cutting room floor - for instance, Mexican
Surprise contains a long narrative/story about a travelling salesman in
Texas during the 1960's, but only the sung outro ended up on the album. The Not Drinkin’ blues has a coda which
never made the final edit, and a few other things must be rotting somewhere. There are still a bunch more of Jumpy's ideas which we could
look at and delve into. No doubt he has loads more in his head now, but there
are no immediate plans to record anymore stuff - although we never know what's
around the corner.
IB: The Muffins
and Denny seem to hit it off really well: could this be the start of a new
chapter for you guys?
RG: I'd spent six
weeks with Denny during the Magic Band UK tour some years back. We had both
spent lots of time with Jimmy over the years, so that was common ground, but we
actually found ourselves sharing so much more in common: similar humour,
outlook, etc. We became very close and
pondered ways of collaborating somehow - difficult with an ocean between us.
Bless the Zappanale guys for eventually making it happen! We are all looking
forward to the little tour; we're all coming from the same place musically
speaking. Indeed, a new chapter. What is exciting is the fact that we will only
have a sound check as a rehearsal, before our first gig (in Verviers, Belgium).
We've discussed a set and will crash it together over the first few days of the
tour. It is an exciting way of doing things, allowing the material to grow
organically on stage. Obviously we will be flying by the seat of our pants,
without a safety net. But isn't that the best way, keeping us all on our toes?
IB: Is there a
chance you'll get to record anything with Denny?
RG: We take each
phase at it comes. If we can find time and the logistics work out, something
more might happen. With today's technology, we will be able to record some of
the gigs on one of our Macs, using something like 16-track. We'll leave that up
to Mister Jump to sort out.
IB: Were you
aware of what Ben Watson was gonna do when you invited
him on stage at Zappanale - or did you just give him free rein?
RG: Ben is free to
do whatever he wishes with his ‘few minutes’ during the improvisations: he
understands what we are about, we know what he's about, so we just let him
spray his stuff all over it. Somehow it works - our little marriage from hell!
IB: Thank you
for adding a couple of UK dates to your April Euro tour! What other special
events can we expect in your 21st year?
RG: Denny
announced that he wanted to come to England for a few days after the German
tour. He said he wanted to go to Marks & Spencer and eat a good curry. So
we snuck in two dates before he flies back to the States. We managed to get a
Cavern gig for him; you know what Yanks are like about that sort of romance!
Sadly, we couldn't add anymore dates; it would have been nice to play the
Midlands and dahn Sarf too. Other events this year? We
don't know yet: everyone is busy with their other commitments most of the time
- jobs, families, other bands. Getting everyone to agree a time and space to do
something like this, which is based on fun but brings no financial gain, has
become more difficult as we creep into our middle aged mayhem.
IB: But you do
play regular gigs oop North with Rhino and Jumpy? What and where do you play?
RG: You must
remember that we have been playing together in many variations for more than
thirty years: pub and club bands, jazz gigs, theatre stuff, etc. Line-ups
evolve and diminish constantly. You can get a call from any number of guys who
are doing a trio or four-piece gig; we have a stock repertoire of standard rock
stuff that we can draw from on command. One current line-up might feature
Jumpy, Rhino and me, depending on who's available. But anyone is replaceable. stock repertoire includes Hendrix, Floyd, Lizzy, Neil Young,
Doors...anything we grew up with really. We play around the region in various
forms.
IB: Where did
you get the photos for the album cover?
RG: The old black
and white images are from 1960s Liverpool; there are tons to be found, free of
copyright around and about - plus lots of footage on YouTube. The front picture
of the cowboys and Indians just seemed right somehow. The back cover shows
Havelock Street in Everton which was the steepest street in the city, almost
impossible to walk up. It was demolished in the 1970s. The city was in a bad
state during the post-war decades, quite desolate. Most of the inner city
crumbled around us, the redevelopment programme was a farce, and the concrete structures that replaced the original
streets have since been replaced by other housing schemes which are already
outdated and decrepit. The same can be said of many of the towns and cities,
like Manchester and the East End of London, not just Liverpool; it just happens
to be part of our heritage. There is a recent film by Terence Davies called Of Time And The
City which captures much of what post-war Liverpool struggled through,
although I couldn't agree completely with his narrative. We lived through these
times. Sometimes you think back to how desolate it was, yet somehow there is
still some sort of tragic romance lurking in that black and white world. But we
didn't want all doom and gloom, so we added some colour. The inside graphic was
made by Rhino and his daughter, Kali. It was done on the Wii games console; the
angel wings were added later.
IB: Thanks,
Roddie – see you on 20 April!
FIDO PLAYS ZAPPA: TOO BIG TO FAIL (Czar Of Crickets,
LC 15207)
Track list: Don’t
Eat The Yellow Snow/Nanook Rubs It/St.Alphonzo’s Pancake Breakfast/Father
O’Blivion/Catapostrophe/Black Napkins/Camarillo Brillo/Sofa No. 2/Dupree’s
Paradise/Let’s Make The Water Turn Black/Montana/Colonia 4711/Eat That
Question/More Trouble Everyday/Basle III/What’s New In Baltimore/Musician’s
Salary (Extended Version).
Like Ensemble Ambrosius’ The Zappa Album, what separates this from other cover sets is the
instrumentation. Not quite big band (with four brass instrumentalists) - but
piano rather than electric keyboards, brushed drums, and acoustic/“jarz”
electric/steel guitars (there’s just the one brief six-string solo here, on More Trouble Everyday): it’s resolutely
not fuckin’ rock, ay? Recorded live and unplugged suddenly last summer, this
all makes for some appealing alternatives to accepted arrangements, and very
well played it all is too. The vox can sometimes be a let-down (especially when
English is not the first language – these guys hail from Switzerland) but not
here, with lead man Dave Muscheidt ably backed by his cohorts. There’s a few
band compostions slotted in: Catapostrophe
and Basle III are both brief
improvisations - the sort of breakdown thing prawns with horns do mid-song at
Zappanale; Colonia 4711 is
effectively an enjoyable extended piano introduction to Eat That Question; but the real meat is Musician’s Salary, a lengthy symphonic work that provides a
first-rate flabbergasting finale. If, like me, you’re one of those who likes to hear Frankie’s familiar fayre messed with by myriad
musos, you could do a lot worse than check this out. Told.
VARIOUS
ARTISTS: FRANK ZAPPA’S CLASSICAL SELECTION – The Dissonant Classics That
Informed And Inspired Zappa (Chrome Dreams, CDCD5049)
Disc One: The
Ride of the Valkyries (Richard Wagner)/‘Spring
Rounds’ from the Rite of Spring (Igor Stravinsky)/Bagatelle Opus 9 (Anton Webern)/‘Royal
March’ from A Soldier’s Tale (Igor Stravinsky)/‘Jupiter’ from The Planets (Gustav Holst)/Hyperprism (Edgard Varèse)/Ballet
Mecanique (George Antheil)/Bolero (Maurice
Ravel)/Begleitungsmusik Zu Einer
Lichtspielszene Opus 34 (Arnold Schoenberg)/Sensemaya (Silvestre Revueltas)/4.33
(John Cage)/Study No. 11 (Conlon
Nancarrow)/First Movement (L’artisanat
Furieux) of Le Marteau Sans Maitre (Pierre Boulez).
Disc Two: US
Highball – A Musical Account of a Transcontinental Hobo Trip ((Parts 1 and 2) (Harry
Partch)/Il Canto
Sospeso (The Suspended Song) (Luigi Nono)/Kontakte (Parts 1 and 2) (Karlheinz Stockhausen)/Chronochromie (Olivier Messiaen)/Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima (Krzysztof
Penderecki)/Electronic Music No. 1
(Bulent Arel).
There are some who complain that extracting pieces
from composers’ bigger works is to butcher their intent. And I too once shared
this purist view, laughing at ‘best of’ albums. But not
anymore. There are naturally passages from longer compositions that we
particularly like (for some reason, Wakeman’s Moog solo towards the end of The Revealing Science of God (Dance of the
Dawn) springs to mind), and I now can’t see anything wrong with
highlighting these – playing them in a different context. Hey chief, why not?
Who are we to say that compilations don’t actually make for better pieces of
art, sod what the composers’ intended? So what if the writer
wanted us to hear it a certain way? You can eat a sandwich, leave the
crusts, and still be satisfied, surely? And don’t packages like this sometimes
act as a key to a world we might otherwise never have explored? Okay, mini-rant
over – what stands out for me? Ballet
Mecanique features some most agreeable tinkly percussion, and Nanacarrow is
always a delight - in small doses; not sure I could tolerate 5 CDs worth. You
can certainly hear Zappa-like moments throughout this set, the male operatic
vox of Harry Partch’s US Highball being
one notable instance; I guess this spoken-song style is not so unusual these
days (with things like the Anna Nicole
opera), but people inside pianos sure is. The second disc features the more
experimental side of things, with tape manipulation a-go-go; the Stockhausen
and Arel pieces are really quite scary, and Penderecki’s Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima is so in yo’ face. Given that
I probably would never have heard many of these compositions had it not been
for this compilation, its appearance can’t be anything but worthy.
Perfect Partner: Frank
Zappa’s Jukebox (Chrome Dreams, 2008)
PAUL BUFF: THE PAL AND ORIGINAL SOUND STUDIO RECORDINGS: THE COLLECTION
(Crossfire Publications, 2011)
For track details: see http://www.idiotbastard.com/News/Buff.htm
Last year, Crossfire issued thirty five download-only
albums (comprising 417 tracks) taken from Paul Buff’s recordings made at Pal
Studios and Original Sound Studios. Now it is offering all of these, plus 56
bonus tracks (discovered and/or remastered after the series was completed) and
a PDF file featuring Greg Russo and Paul Buff’s historical liner
notes/photos/credits, all in one neat little package. The whole thing comes on
a flash drive and includes a plethora of tracks featuring the young FZ as a
performer, writer, producer or engineer - including two of the bonus tracks: Why Don’t You Do Me Right (Alternate Demo)
(the one with Floyd on Joe’s XMASage,
but without all the background noise) and High
Steppin’ (the piece on Lumpy Gravy
that was played at double speed, but now in real time as recorded by The Pal
Studio Band on the same day in January 1961 that they did Never On Sunday (aka Take
Your Clothes Off When You Dance) that eventually appeared on The Lost Episodes. If reading this ‘review’
makes your head spin, just think what listening to it is like – never mind
reading the incredibly detailed 138-page liner notes! Remembering that the Early Years CD (and many of the other
Cucamonga-era compilations) had tracks taken from the vinyl records, it’s great
to at last have good quality, freshly remastered versions of things like The Cruncher and Heavies (an excerpt of which...blah, blah) and the song that Frank
boasted “was Number One in Mexico for 17 straight
weeks!” but didn’t actually have any involvement in: Tijuana Surf. Its B-side, Grunion Run, we all know and love from
those Cucamonga CDs (and, of course, The Tornadoes’ live cover as performed at
Zappanale #15 and also made available by Crossfire), but hearing the original
in stereo is a real ear-opener. I’d never heard The Big Surfer before - you’ve probably read about it being hastily
withdrawn after black activist Medgar Evers’ assassination - but it’s a hoot
hearing San Bernardino DJ Brian Lord’s JFK impression (which prompted my wife
to ask if it was supposed to be Mayor Joe Quimby!) , and you can clearly hear
Zappa’s voice in there too. I bought the Ned & Nelda tunes on a Moxie
Records EP years ago (which I later found out was probably a bootleg): great to
hear them without the scratches now. The quality of the Drums A-Go-Go and Surfin’
Bongos albums is excellent, and there’s lots of fun stuff on both: Rush Street sounds just like Money, while Sunset Strip borrows from Louie
Louie; and then there’s some actual covers of familiar fayre like Wipe Out!, Bustin’ Surfboards, Eve Of
Destruction, and Satisfaction.
Although both albums are mainly performed by Mr Buff, that’s no reason not to
listen to these largely instrumental gems. Buff can be compared to Les Paul for
many of his recording innovations, and was a huge influence on the young Frank
- who told us this about the ‘amazing gentleman’ in The Real FZ Book: “He didn’t have a
mixing console, so he built one - out of an old 1940s vanity. He removed the
mirror and, right in the middle, where the cosmetics would have gone, installed
a metal plate with Boris Karloff knobs on it. He built his own homemade,
five-track, half-inch tape recorder - at a time when the standard in the
industry was mono. He wanted to become a singer-songwriter, so he listened to
all the latest hit records, figured out what the hooks were and, through a
mysterious process, created his own little hook-laden replicas. He taught
himself how to play the five basic instruments of rock and roll: drums, bass,
guitar, keyboards and alto saxophone - then taught himself how to sing.”
The bonus tracks on The Collection
include two major US hits that Paul Buff engineered - Strawberry Alarm Clock’s Incense And Peppermints and Sugarloaf’s Green-Eyed Lady - plus lots of very rare
meat by the other bands that recorded at Pal or Original Sound: The Music
Machine, Hunger!, Indescribably Delicious, The Biscaines, The Thundermugs, The
Tracers, Birmingham Sunday, Strawberry SAC (aka Crystal Circus), The Buff
Organization, Giant Crab and Big Brother featuring Ernie Joseph. While there’s
much of interest in the Buff recordings (Frank clearly ‘borrowed’ the intro
from Dog Patch Creeper by The
Velveteens for Tryin’ To
Grow A Chin), it’s undoubtedly the inclusion of the many previously
unreleased FZ songs by The Pal Studio Band on the Archive volumes that makes this THE release of the decade! You need
to hear all of this stuff, and you know it.
FRANK
ZAPPA: HAMMERSMITH ODEON (VAULTernative Records, VR 20101)
Disc One: Convocation-The
Purple Lagoon/Dancin' Fool/Peaches En Regalia/The Torture Never Stops/Tryin' To
Grow A Chin/City Of Tiny Lites/Baby Snakes/Pound For A Brown.
Disc Two: I Have
Been In You/Flakes/Broken Hearts Are For Assholes/Punky's Whips/Titties 'N
Beer/Audience Participation/The Black Page #2/Jones Crusher/The Little House I
Used To Live In.
Disc Three: Dong
Work For Yuda/Bobby Brown/Envelopes/Terry Firma/Disco
Boy/King Kong/Watermelon In Easter Hay [Prequel]/Dinah-Moe Humm/Camarillo
Brillo/Muffin Man/Black Napkins/San Ber'dino.
Despite occasional audio oddities (why does the sound
of the crowd drop away so drastically when FZ first speaks during Convocation/The Purple Lagoon?), this is
a great sounding CD. I like the fact that they've used performances from a
series of concerts rather than just putting out one whole concert. This means
we get the best versions and a whole load of different encores, making for one
super show. They've obviously excluded the material from these concerts that
was used as (cough) the backing tracks for much of the Sheik Yerbouti album, so there's no Yo Mama. Boo-hoo-hoo. But never mind - I
can play Side Four of that album anytime. The fact that I was at both concerts
represented here on Disc One (yes, you can kiss my 'groovy aura', Dora)
obviously enhances my enjoyment immensely, reliving the period when I stopped
being a teenager (in love). Ho-ho-ho. This was great
time for Zappa music, a year or two before the long improvisations stopped and
the set lists became a little more samey and predictable: Tommy Mars puts his
stamp all over the place, but especially on Pound
For A Brown (which includes the fab Hail
Caesar Variations). Terry Bozzio is amazing - you can almost hear him
straining at the reigns from which FZ would shortly release him. I thought Dong Work For Yuda
would be an acapella version, but it swings like a bastard. Bobby Brown starts with The Story Of The
Three Assholes, and is followed by a version of Envelopes with lyrics sung by Mr Mars. Really
neat/really sweet. Terry Firma
is a nifty Bozzio drum solo. Wanna know the truly great thing about this? When
the Zappa's unveiled Frank's bust in Baltimore, America got the Congress CD; we had a four day festival
and got this. Ha-ha-ha!
Perfect Partner: Sheik
Yerbouti (Zappa Records, 1979)
NAZARETH:
HAIR OF THE DOG (Union Square Music, SALVOCD035)
Track list: Hair
Of The Dog/Miss Misery/Guilty/Changin’ Times/Beggar’s Day-Rose In The
Heather/Whiskey Drinkin’ Woman/Please Don’t Judas Me/Love Hurts (single)/My White Bicycle (single)/Holy Roller (single)/Railroad Boy (b-side of Holy Roller)/Hair Of the Dog (BBC live recording)/Holy Roller (BBC live recording)/Teenage Nervous Breakdown (BBC live
recording)/This Flight Tonight (BBC
live recording)/Road Ladies (BBC live
recording).
As soon as the title track started - all cowbells and
belly-bum biting rock guitars - it took me back to first hearing Nazareth as a
small lad eating Aztec Bars. And I admit I salivated a little. The band was
successful in the pop charts here but it still seemed OK to like them, and they
really floated my boat with their splendid cover of Joni’s This Flight Tonight (a live version of which appears here). Hair Of The Dog
was later covered by Guns N’Roses, who were big fans (Axl sounds a lot like Dan
McCafferty, I think you’ll concur). So why am I reviewing this loud, proud and
remastered re-issue? Aside from the fact that it’s a pretty damn great album
that has now been bolstered by nine bonus tracks, it’s because of the final cut
– a live at the Beeb, bluesy outing of FZ’s Road
Ladies. And there is of course another tenuous Zappa link here: Frank
described Tomorrow’s My White Bicycle
as “one of the best-made singles of its time, and it may have been a little
ahead of its time too”. Pretty sure he would’ve liked the Naz’s stab at it– a
lot more than that hippy Neil’s, anyway.
MICHAEL
KIERAN HARVEY: 48 FUGUES FOR FRANK (Move Records, MD3339)
Track list (with obscure Zappa influences): 48 Fugues For Frank #1 (Greggery Peccary,
Pentagon Afternoon)/#2 (The Girl In The Magnesium Dress)/#3 (Jazz From Hell)/#4
(Tink Runs Amok)/#5 (Civilization Phaze III)/#6 (G-Spot Tornado)/#7 (St
Etienne: guitar solo)/#8 (Ruth Is Sleeping)/#9 (The Black Page)/#10 (Baby
Snakes).
Well, Michael sure knows how to tinkle them ivories! I
was a little uncertain about what to expect here, and it's not an easy,
relaxing listen, that’s fer sure. And if you come expecting to readliy identify
the FZ influences, think again. But anything that makes you wanna dig out those
source recordings has got to have something going for it. And this is a great
way of paying homage. The disc is comprised solely of solo piano pieces – while
the CD booklet contains a selection of ten of Arjun von Caemmerer's 60 extant
pieces which collectively comprise the concrete poetry that is Lingua Franka. A tasty
little package indeed. Harvey recorded a version of Frank’s Ruth Is Sleeping some nine years ago on
his Storm Sight album, and says that
fellow Australian von Caemmerer (who was amazed to happen upon this earlier recording)
was instrumental in reviving his interest in FZ. Of the album, Harvey has said:
“Each of the ten pieces uses four or five ideas
inspired by, reacting to, or developing some of Zappa’s techniques. Number One, for instance started out as
an exploration of his favourite chord, the added 2nd. Number Two explored the mechanical beauty of some of his Synclavier
writing, while Number Four is a
rhythmic looping exploration of five beats alternating with seven in a general
over-arching 12 beat time. Similarly Number Nine explores the interplay of 21
beat cycles and its prime subdivisions, with extended modal harmony based on
the same divisions realized as pitches.” That probably tells you all you
need to know.
Perfect Partner: Jeffrey
Burns Plays Frank Zappa (Pool Music, 1992)
WESTERN VACATION: STEVE VAI PRESENTS WESTERN VACATION
Track list: Western Vacation/Nocturnal Emissions/Fast
Notes People/Send Us More Light/Patty/The Velvet Line/Delicious/Borrowed
Time/Burning Flame.
I've been wanting to see a CD
reissue of this for sometime, as it's an especially great showcase for the
excellent vocals of wee Bobby Harris. The sleeve notes are new (by Steve and
his spanking longtime friend, Laurel Fishman), but they fail to mention (or,
perhaps, don't make crystal clear) a few things: like Bob (with wondrous
back-up from wife Thana) sings the bulk of the vocals; that Tommy Mars is on
virtually all of the tracks (and the aptly named Delicious is just him); that Steve Vai appears on just the title
track (turning in a typically great solo); that Marty Schwarz (the main man
here) plays all other guitars; that Scott Thunes plays bass on the final 'bonus
track'; that former Whitesnake drummer Chris Frazier plays on all but Tommy's
improv piece (the way he opens Patty
up is a joy to behold). But let's not let all this distract us from what is a
superb album (I just figured potential purchasers might like to know this nerdy
stuff…flavin!). The opening track pretty much sets things out nicely - a fine
singalong track, with many neat twists and turns. Wondrous to hear that
signature Mars sound punctuating things throughout.
Perfect Partner: The
Great Nostalgia by Bob Harris (Crossfire Publications, 2007)
DWEEZIL ZAPPA: RETURN OF THE SON OF... (Z Tornado/Razor & Tie, 7930183102-2)
Disc One: The Deathless
Horsie/Andy/Magic Fingers/Broken Are Hearts Are For Assholes/Bamboozled By
Love/King Kong (with Band Solos)/Montana/Inca Roads.
Disc Two: The Torture Never
Stops/Dirty Love/Zomby Woof/Billy The
Mountain/Camarillo Brillo/Pygmy Twylyte.
Putting aside the fact that this set duplicates two
tracks on the previous Razor & Tie ZPZ CD, one on the Fresh Cuts free Guitar Center disc, and at least one
actually-the-very-same recording from the 'free' Chicago 1 YCFOSA download,
this is a bloody good album. Starting with a super bad Horsie, Dweezil shows what a truly talented guitarist he has become
- not that he was too shabby with Z, but there's a lot more than widdly-widdly-scree
to him these days. Hearing Ben Thomas at such close quarters is also a
revelation: he sounds really, really good, though Ray White sings the bulk of
the songs. And Ray sounds wonderful. But you knew that. In his liner notes,
Dweezil describes this as a snapshot of performances by the band as it was and
now is, but has chosen to only include photos of the current line-up (who
perform just two tracks - Montana and
Zomby Woof – taken from 2009’s
Manchester show). Scheila also sings lead, on Dirty Love (à la Philly 76
- has anyone else noticed the surreptitious plugging of ZFT releases by ZPZ: FZ:OZ and the Dub Room Special DVD are issued, and
Napi's their special guest – and they play Imaginary
Diseases; Buffalo and the Dub Room CD coincide with Ray White's
stint; more recently, they played summat offa Ruben…). Have to say I felt a twinge of sadness hearing Aaron Arntz
- missed him last tour. So here's hoping Chris Norton is at least half as good
(though I’m positive he’ll be better than that). Still not sure about the
inclusion of Billy The Mountain here,
but it's not as depressing as it might’ve been; it just seems really odd to
pretty much replicate the record and treat this as ‘akin to classical music’,
when the piece included much ad-libbing. But I did laugh along. Again. King Kong
has some nice solos, including one from the Dweez's audio engineer
friend/guitarist, TJ Helmerich. Bottom line is: ZPZ play all the right notes,
and can still improvise like mothers. Despite what some might perceive as my
negativity towards them, do you think I won’t go and see them this summer? Of
course I will. It’s my avid fandom for ALL things Zappa that gives me
these, er, insights. I'm not about spreading 100% positivity throughout the
land, using all the frightening little skills that scientists have made
available. Oh no.
GREASY
LOVE SONGS: FRANK ZAPPA (Zappa Records, ZR 20010)
Track list: Cheap Thrills/Love
Of My Life/How Could I Be Such A Fool/Deseri/I’m Not Satisfied/Jelly Roll Gum
Drop/Anything/Later That Night/You Didn’t Try To Call Me/Fountain Of Love/“No.
No. No.”/Anyway The Wind Blows/Stuff Up The
Cracks/Jelly Roll Gum Drop (Alternate Mono Mix)/“No. No. No.” (Long
Version)/Stuff Up The Cracks (Alternate Mix)/“Serious
Fan Mail”/Valerie (Mono Mix)/Jelly Roll Gum Drop (Single Version)/“Secret
Greasing”/Love Of My Life (Pal Studio version).
Great to finally have the original Ruben & The
Jets on CD, though even this still doesn't feature the original drum
tracks: seemingly FZ had Art Tripp come in and redo them "because he
didn't like what Billy Mundi had played". But (unlike on WOIIFTM) GZ does at least repeat FZ's
original credit to JCB's lewd pulsating rhythm. And Jimmy is even listed as
playing trumpet on Valerie (sic)
recorded at the Money sessions. So he
just doesn't play any instrument on the album? Fuck off. Word.
Also, Paul Buff undoubtedly deserves a less grudging acknowledgement for
playing piano, fuzz bass, drums and all the sax parts, surely? And they wonder
why the negativity toward the ZFT? When they issue this as an overpriced
download, you’ll miss out on the wonderful packaging. Ooh, shiny!
CHICANERY: CHICANERY (dPulse Recordings, B003FSHR7I)
Track list: The
Rung Below/Hubert Selby Song/The Midnight Owls/Ice Page Repo/Solid Gold Helicopter/Alien
Chant/Cut Me From The Mirror/I.O.D./Chessmaniaques/I Came Back To You/Luminal
Dark/Gold Pavilions/Hit The Wall.
While still with Duran Duran, Warren Cuccurullo
briefly (and then literally) rocked out with his cock-out, releasing his first
solo album (Thanks To Frank) and
touring with the material that wound up on Roadrage.
He quickly did a right turn and recorded his ambient Machine Language series, and after DD has briefly returned to Missing
Persons while still working on lots of other stuff. Sadly, it took a few years
before another solo album hit us (Playing In Tongues). And Chicanery has been
an ongoing project for a few years now. So, finally, their debut is here.
Largely because it features the lyrics and vocals of Brit tone poet Neil
Carlill (who sounds like a cross between Billy Corgan and Hugh Cornwell), we
are again treated to something quite different from DoUBLEyOuSEe. While (as per
PIT) it features Terry and Dale
Bozzio, as well as Joe Travers on one track, it's full of concise songs (none
more than 4½ minutes) - so no long fluid solos from Warren. But that's cool. The Rung Below hits you like tomorrow
never knows, and before you know it you're surfing
with the Alien Chant that features
some nice bass from space by Bizarro Patanè. What do
Chicanery sound like? Solid Gold
Helicopter reminds me very much of Garbage, while Hit The Wall evokes The Bees’ End Of The Street - on mescaline.
Confused? Generally this music will make you want to perform perverted
movements of the body and breakdancing. And other forms of dancing. You can
download the pair’s first collaborative efforts at Warren's website, but
they're not very representative of the by and large more upbeat material on
display here - even Cut Me From The
Mirror, featuring Indian sarangi player and singer Ustad Sultan Khan,
differs a bunch - not least in length. Sounds like it has the
Tuvan throat singers in the mix too. I.O.D.
may have producer Simone Sello plucking a violin. Not sure. I’ll ask. Chessmaniaques is madder than Bobby
Fischer, but less hypnotic than I Came
Back To You. My favourite track is easily Gold Pavillions, which is performed by
just Warren, Neil and Simone, with lots of swirling electronics; it just
tickles my fanny - and will be released as the extra track with the Hubert Selby Song digital single just
ahead of the album's release. Got you juiced? That was the plan.
FRANK
ZAPPA: PHILLY '76 (VAULTernative Records, VR 20091)
Disc One: The
Purple Lagoon/Stink-Foot/The Poodle Lecture/Dirty Love/Wind Up Workin’ In A Gas
Station/Tryin’ To Grow A Chin/The Torture Never Stops/City Of Tiny Lites/You
Didn’t Try To Call Me/Manx Needs Women/Chrissy Puked Twice.
Disc Two: Black
Napkins/Advance Romance/Honey, Don’t You Want A Man Like Me?/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/Stranded In The Jungle/Find
Her Finer/Camarillo Brillo/Muffin Man.
The ZFT has come up trumps again with this release:
although there are many familiar songs, we've not heard them before with Eddie
Jobson's fantastic violin (during an epic Black
Napkins), Bianca Odin's lead vox (Dirty
Love, an especially soulful You
Didn't Try To Call Me and Advance
Romance), or even FZ's upfront singing on the sequence of Vaudeville
band-era tunes (Flo & Eddie were scheduled to be the opening act and make a
guest appearance with their old boss, but their guitar player Phil Reed fell to
his death from a hotel window a few days before the gig and they naturally
scrubbed such plans). Although Frank sounds a tad shaky at the start of this
medley, things really get going when Bianca joins in. Indeed, one of the many
great things about this album are the vocals: as well as Frank and Bianca,
Terry Bozzio and Ray White get to sing lead (Tryin’ To Grow A Chin and City
Of Tiny Lites respectively) - and Patrick O'Hearn sings back-ups - which
all makes for a very varied set. During Tiny
Lites, we get to hear Ray's great scat singing and it's evident he and
Bianca have a great understanding (Lady B's insightful liner notes reveal that
'twas she who introduced Ray to Frank, so we have much to thank her for). On
first listen, I have to say I wasn’t crazy about Bianca’s vocal on the sacred Napkins, but it grows on you. The same
cannot be said of Eddie’s contribution to the piece, which is something I’ve
longed to hear officially released and loved from the first play. The track
clocks in at nearly 19 glorious minutes. I wonder if Frank would’ve had such an
abrupt intro though? Great to have an official release
of Stranded In The
Jungle too. During Advance Romance,
O’Hearn’s first attempt to solo is quickly curtailed as his bass rig packs in
(Uncle Ian and I played our own low notes on the way back from Wigan to make up
for this temporary fault). How bluesy does What Kind Of Girl Do You Think We Are? - in
which Alice Cooper is replaced by both Punky Meadows and Steven Tyler - sound?
Throughout these two discs, Frank plugs the imminent release of the Zoot Allures album (and why not?) and of
course plays some fine, fine solos (he was reaching his peak around this time,
right kids?). Chrissy Puked Twice is
of course the original tittie for Titles
& Beer. So why did the ZFT not go with the more well-known title, as
they have for Manx Needs Women
despite FZ clearly introducing it as Mars…?
Oh well, whatever. Keep these thrilling examples from less-documented line-ups
coming - give 'em to me right here in the trunk of your Fillmore.
FRANK
ZAPPA: THE INTERVIEW SESSIONS (Chrome Dreams, CTCD7502)
This has eleven tracks, all from different unlisted
sources. It starts with Steve Allen's interview just before Frank played
Candy’s bicycle. The longest track I recognized as being on that B&W
picture disc from a few years back, where FZ talks about his Cucamonga
recordings and early influences, from the comfort of a creaky metal chair.
Another has him telling very specifically what happened with John & Yoko at
the Fillmore. It runs chronologically, and we get to hear (in turn): his
thoughts on
categorising music; a little about the Baby Snakes fillum and his then-current musical likes (The Slits,
Lene Lovich); that Thing-Fish (shock
horror) mirrors the AIDS epidemic; about laughing on stage and Frenchness; how
Mr Sting came to play with the Broadway band and how the Beatles Medley came to
be; some stuff about The Real FZ Book;
and the state of Czechoslovakia. The quality is fair, with the more recent naturally
sounding better, though some of these are phone interviews for radio. This is,
I guess, really for completists - though hearing Frank’s wit and wisdom would
make any non-believer sit-up and take note. Plus it adds nicely to the other
three Zappa discs Chrome Dreams have made available in recent years. Get yours here.
VARIOUS
ARTISTS: THE ROOTS OF FRANK ZAPPA (Snapper Music)
Track list: Space Guitar (Johnny 'Guitar' Watson)/Okie
Dokie Stomp (Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown)/Rock, Granny, Roll (Hank
Ballard & The Midnighters)/Head Hunter (Johnny Otis)/To The Aisle (The Five
Satins)/Little Star (The Elegants)/Ionisation (Edgard Varèse & Juilliard
Percussion Orchestra)/Hound Dog (Big Mama Thornton)/Koko Joe (Don &
Dewey)/Oh Yeah! (Guitar Slim)/Could This Be Magic (The Dubs)/Story Untold (The
Nutmegs)/Third Interlude (Maro Ajemian)/Moanin' At Midnight (Howlin'
Wolf)/Standing Around Crying (Muddy Waters)/Don't Start Me Talkin' (Sonny Boy
Williamson)/Work With Me Annie (Hank Ballard & The
Midnighters)/Interpolations from Deserts: Interpolation III (Edgard
Varèse)/Florence (The Paragons)/Goodnight, Sweetheart, Goodnight (The
Spaniels).
The obvious question: how does this compare to last
year’s Jukebox CD?
Well, as it only duplicates a few tracks, it’s a nice companion to it, and
sonically it sounds very good. But (unlike the earlier disc) there’s a distinct
lack of info about each track and their linkage to FZ, which the poorly written
liner notes don’t actually help to clarify. Still, much of the music is great
and you can hear some of the obvious influences on the young Frank. You’ve
probably seen previous Roots Of… CDs by Snapper and their distinctively similar artwork.
Given that MOJO and Uncut often give away similar
compilations, I’d never bought one before. But I’d say this is a must-have if
you’ve already got and liked the afore-mentioned Jukebox CD.
WARREN CUCCURULLO (featuring Terry Bozzio): PLAYING IN TONGUES (Edel
Records/Barfko-Swill)
Track list: The
Definitive Magical Miss Tickle Backwards Alphabet Song/For The Masses I, II,
III/Wreckelection/Meem/Think Kartoonz/Zoomout/Raging Bullshit/Sid Arthur's
Message/Intermission Possible/(Part 1) ImagineOrkestra Rehearsal Absolutely
Free Form/(Part 2) Smile/(Part 3) They're Mintee/(Part 1) Evreedaze Halloween
Bash From Imaginon - Hello Spoky/(Part 2) Holographic Jesus And The Cee Gee
Alien Attack/Prophomation Confirmed/Weedew/Simple Man/We're All Targets.
For The
Masses I, II, III and (Part 2)
Holographic Jesus And The Cee Gee Alien Attack include references to Mylo's
Destroy Rock & Roll (the latter
even samples Duran Duran’s Come Undone)
- something Warren once said he'd like to sample and use to introduce future
solo shows. I'd love to hear that (when are we gonna see you treading the
boards again, Warren?). Al Malkin, in his guise as fast-talking manager of many
Grammy award winners, Sid Arthur (“when I
talk, you listen”), amusingly refers to Warren as 'Cucamonga' and talks
about how he brought Shankar to the top during Zoomout. This album really is quite unlike anything Warren has ever
released before (and older readers may recall I raved about Trance Formed, The Blue, Road Rage and Thanks 2 Frank); it’s even better!
Terry's drumming of course impresses throughout, but there's many other fine
musicians here - including (notably, on We're
All Targets) some of the ZPZ guys and gal. And Dale Bozzio's in the mix,
too. The album has an Angelo Badalamenti/Twin
Peaks feel running through it, with lots of lyrical guitar solos (of which,
Sid Arthur’s is probably the
stand-out). Yes, Warren's conspiracy concerns provide much of the album’s
lyrical content, but that all just adds to the feeling of this being something
a bit special - and you should be aware that Warren does possess a great sense
of humour. What time is it, Andee? Time to download this
album.
FRANK
ZAPPA: LUMPY MONEY (Zappa Records, ZR 20008)
Disc One: Lumpy
Gravy (Primordial) - I Sink Trap; II Gum Joy; III Up & Down; IV Local
Butcher; V Gypsy Airs; VI Hunchy Punchy; VII Foamy Soaky; VIII Let’s Eat Out;
IX Teen-Age Grand Finale/Are You Hung Up?/Who Needs The Peace
Corps?/Concentration Moon/Mom & Dad/Telephone Conversation/Bow Tie
Daddy/Harry, You’re A Beast/What’s The Ugliest Part Of Your Body?/Absolutely
Free/Flower Punk/Hot Poop/Nasal Retentive Calliope Music/Let’s Make The Water
Turn Black/The Idiot Bastard Son/Lonely Little Girl/Take Your Clothes Off When
You Dance/What’s The Ugliest Part Of Your Body? (Reprise)/Mother People/The
Chrome Plated Megaphone Of Destiny.
Disc Two: Lumpy
Gravy (1984 UMRK Remix) - Part One/Lumpy Gravy (1984 UMRK Remix) - Part Two/Are
You Hung Up?/Who Needs The Peace Corps?/Concentration Moon/Mom & Dad/Telephone
Conversation/Bow Tie Daddy/Harry, You’re A Beast/What’s The Ugliest Part Of
Your Body?/Absolutely Free/Flower Punk/Hot Poop/Nasal Retentive Calliope
Music/Let’s Make The Water Turn Black/The Idiot Bastard Son/Lonely Little
Girl/Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance/What’s The Ugliest Part Of Your Body?
(Reprise)/Mother People/The Chrome Plated Megaphone Of Destiny.
Disc Three: How
Did That Get In Here?/Lumpy Gravy “Shuffle”/Dense
Slight/Unit 3A, Take 3/Unit 2, Take 9/Section 8, Take 22/“My Favorite
Album”/Unit 9/N. Double A, AA/Theme From Lumpy Gravy/“What The Fuck’s Wrong
With Her?”/Intelligent Design/Lonely Little Girl (Original Composition - Take
24)/“That Problem With Absolutely Free”/Absolutely
Free (Instrumental)/Harry, You’re A Beast (Instrumental)/What’s The Ugliest
Part of Your Body? (Reprise/Instrumental)/Creationism/Idiot Bastard Snoop/The Idiot Bastard Son (Instrumental)/“What’s Happening Of
The Universe”/“The World Will Be
As most people seem to agree, the first and last discs
are the ones to head for - all that unreleased wondrousness. But even disc two
has its moments (like the Thing-Fish sung opening to the finally available 1984
remix of Lumpy Gravy; makes you
wonder about Rip Rense's claim that, some sixteen years laters, Jerry Lawson
found a novel way to squeeze in the word "duodenum" on The
Persuasions' Frankly A Cappella vershum).
For my lumpy money, How Did That Get In There? is the big highlight - a 25 minute FZ construction, some of
which is familiar from LG, but not
all. Yes, the original orchestral mono edit for Capitol Records that opens this
whole thing is wonderful, but the start of disc three is just a revelation. And
that particular disc gets better and better (though I could probably live
without the interview interruptions - they would be better placed at the very
end, like on MOFO, as they're listen
once or twice affairs): the instrumental tracks from WOIIFTM are absolutely belter – IBS
in particular. And how apt that this final disc should end
with a few words from God. More soon.
DON
Track list: I
Can't Breathe/How Are You Doing, Really?/Relentless Pursuit (Live)/Eyes Of The
Dead/A Private Lesson/Found Again/Silicone Hump (Live)/Not So Cute/The Eye of
Agamoto/See My Aura (Live)/Progress/The Milky Way/Mothersolo (Live)/Medulla
Oblongata/For Love of Bach/Amsterdam/Un Gawa/Sweet 15/Takeoff
(Live)/Aegospotamos/Acid Rain Pelting the Underground (Live)/What Should You
Do? (Live)/Sacrificial Smoke (Remix).
Following on from the re-release of Vile Foamy Ectoplasm and Works, this third
JIMMY
CARL BLACK: CROSSFIRE DOWNLOAD BUNDLES
Some while ago I posted this page about
Crossfire's JCB download-only packages, providing track and musician details.
What I didn't add was any notes about this joyous stuff. So here goes. Rarities
on Can I Borrow A Couple Of Bucks Until The End Of The Week? include the
immediately post-Mothers Tom Wilson produced High And Mighty, the unedited Eternal
Question, the Big Sonny single Love
Me Two Times/Love Potion #9 and Jimmy's 1980 single Albuquerque Bound/Thank You,
Mr. Bill. Where's My Waitress? includes
both Black Olive tracks with Sandro Oliva from 1993 (Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance and Willie The Pimp - the latter with Don and Bunk), a stereo remix of Mayonnaise Mountain (featuring a
magnificent vocal from Ray Collins), some live and studio Geronimo Black
tracks, some Holzhaus, Black and Terrazas live material, a couple Jack &
Jim tracks, and the ultra-rare Lo Boys single from 1976 (Play Your Music/Funny Money).
My personal favourite of these downloads, If We'd All Been Living In
FRANK
ZAPPA & SPECIAL GUESTS: AAAFRNAAA FZ BIRTHDAY BUNDLE (Zappa Records, iTunes
Plus)
Track list: Dancin’
Fool (Disco Version)/More Trouble Every Day/Gorgeous
Inca/Ancient Armaments/America The Beautiful/You’re A Mean One Mr.
Grinch/Saturday Girl/Alice/Espanoza/Dumb All Over/Twenty Small
Cigars/Lacksadaisial/Dirty Love.
Nice to have the original edit of Ancient Armaments in the official digital domain at last, if still not
on a conventional CD. More Trouble
Every Day by the 88 band smokes – with Frank soloing over a 13-like vamp;
this, and the gorgeously laid-back Inca
solo from 79 are the two maion reasons why you should invest in this. Diva’s
two songs (Alice and Espanoza) are, again, pretty terrible.
When I interviewed Joe Travers back in 01, he said “I
don't write music, I just play everyone else's.” Well, this now sees his debut
as a composer: his Lacksadaisial (sic) features Scheila Gonzalez on sax and reminds me
a lot of Edgar Winter’s Frankenstein. His cover of 20 Small Cigars is pretty spiffy too.
More details can be gleaned here: http://www.zappa.com/fz/aaafnraa/2008aaafnraaa.html
JON
LARSEN: THE JIMMY CARL BLACK STORY
Disc One: En
Route/Hi Boys And Girls, I'm Jimmy Carl Black/An Early Glimpse Of Planet
Ruth/Spaceship Bigear III/Turn It On, Elliot/A Helping Hand From Unca
Mickey/Opal, You Hot Little Bitch/Jimmy Carl Black's Dachs Reduction/Mayday
From Space/First Encounter In Space With A Real Martian/Oh No, She's Trying To
Rip My Spacesuit Open/A Creature Is Lurking In The Shadow/Jimmy-As-A-Ghost.
Disc Two: My
Name Is Jimmy Carl Black/The Atomic Gadget On Anthony-That Happened In Our
Little Town/No Trumpets In Rock'n'roll-The Keys/California In 1964-In Walked
Roy Estrada-The Soul Giants/Then We Went To Hawaii-LSD/Back To LA-Frenchy's A
Go-Go-The Original Suzy Creamcheese/San Francisco And Fillmore West-Freak Out
Comes Out-Turn It On, Elliot!/New York City-Absolutely Free-Off-Off-Broadway At
The Garrick Theater/Europe 1967-Barbarella And Roger Vadim-Zappa Food Poisoned
In Italy/He Didn't Like Hippies-Jammin' With Jimi Hendrix/Miami Pop
Festival-Freak Out At The Cast Away Hotel-Arthur Brown/Captain
Beefheart-Dealing With Herbie-Linda Ronstadt/Back To California 1968-The
Mother's Second European Tour-Royal Festival Hall/Janis Joplin-Grace
Slick-Jefferson Airplane/Donuts In Austin 1973-New Mexico-Big Sunny And The
Little Boys-Bandidos/Albuquerque-Clearly Classical-The Blob Shaped lp/Zappa
Music Again-The Austin Grandmothers 1988-Settlement With Frank/Eugene
Chadbourne-Germany-Dreams On Longplay/Meeting Moni-Not On Sunday, Not In
Bavaria/The Grandmothers 1998-Eating The Astoria-Leukemia.
The first disc has some great harmonica, marimba and
violin dominated, mainly mid-tempo, pieces. Spaceship Bigear III is a bit of
stand-out for me – quite dreamy. Yum. Occasionally,
the ghost of Jimmy Carl Black – the first Indian on Mars - turns up to help
narrate the continuing the story of Captain Zurcon’s exploration of the dark
side of our solar system. And the guitars are rightly a little more upfront
this time. Dach’s Reduction, Mayday and First Encounter are from the unabbreviated JCB sessions for the Strange News From
Mars disc, and additionally feature Tommy Mars. Otherwise, it’s Mr Larsen
and his local crew. The sprightly Oh No,
She's Trying To Rip My Spacesuit Open reminds me of the Austin-era
Grandmothers, while A Creature Is Lurking
has a Sexual Harrassment feel to it.
The second disc is a whole other other: basically just JCB rapping ‘bout his
actual life. If you listen closely, you’ll hear yer actual Stones playing. As
noted in my review of our
FRANK
ZAPPA: JOE’S MENAGE (VAULTernative Records, VR 20081)
Track list: Honey, Don't You Want A Man Like Me?/The Illinois Enema Bandit/Carolina Hard-Core
Ecstasy/Lonely Little Girl/Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance/What's The
Ugliest Part Of Your Body?/Chunga's Revenge/Zoot Allures.
Peeps
be saying they can’t hear Norma Jean Bell (who makes this ‘a less documented
line-up’), but she warbles on Chunga’s
and toots her alto a bit elsewhere. So there is some evidence. This includes
yet another Enema Bandit but it’s
early and fresh, and I also like the funky Honey.
But it really is a crying shame that we didn’t get Swallow My Pride or a proto-Any
Downers instead of the Mothers medley that’s pretty much the same as FZ:OZ (though Andre Lewis has trouble
with his organ at the end of Ugliest Part,
sending Frank into some Wizard Of Oz and
It Can’t Happen Here references).
Also, even
ZAPPATIKA:
THE SHORT BUT LEGENDARY FLIGHT OF THE DODO (FreakOutProduktionz, 2008)
Track list: The Secret Word/Music Is The Best/Wino
Willie’s Montana Hop/Gregor The Swami/Snakeman/Dirty Animal/Finally Got It
Right/The Short But Legendary Flight Of The Dodo/Mysterious Masala/Frankie’s
Tune/Joe’s Cajun Garage/Heavy Shark/Indian Joe/I Don’t Think So!/Deception In
The Night/Age Of Megabot.
Must admit I was a little slow cottoning on to
ZAPPATiKA, who hail from my homeland. But when I finally did, I thought: this
is the way! They’re “a very badly disguised” FZ tribute band, who incorporate
lots of ‘fat’ beats, modern noises, and long airy multi-overdubbed guitar lines
– as well as copious FZ references - to create their own unique sound. My
favourite track so far is actually a non-Zappa slow guitar instrumental piece.
Originally titled Boris The Jazz Dog, band leader and guitarist McInnes wrote it
a long time ago, and always had a sound in his head for the lead guitar melody
which he could never quite capture. Until now – “I
finally kind of got it the way it is in my head!” he exclaimed. So,
now the song is simply known as Finally
Got It Right. I think you’ll agree. Where to start with the Zappa
references? Well, just a quick scan of the track list will give you a good
idea. They crop up all over. But as I say, there’s also much originality on display
here. No straight covers. Indeed, only Joe’s
Cajun Garage is actually credited to FZ, though the band readily admit that
the debt is large. Looking forward to big things from these
guys. Check out the album promo here: http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=44773211
J21:
YELLOW MIND:BLUE MIND
Track list: Within The Space Of 7 Breaths/The Truth
Behind The Veil/Earthspiritual Surgery/Felicidad/On The Shores Of The Cosmic
Ocean/The Edge Of Now/Yellow Mind:Blue Mind.
Experimental guitar player J21 (aka Joseph Diaz, who
put together the Eyeinhand Sampler CD a few years back) has produced a great
debut album here. Mixed and produced by former T-Ride, Snake River Conspiracy
guitar god Geoff Tyson, and featuring performances from Trey Gunn, Graham
Bonnet and Ed Mann, it's essentially a guitar-based rock album, but has lots of
nice spacey interludes and acoustic playing. The CD can be bought from J21's
website (www.lawof21.com) as a digital download, and the
booklet (with some great artwork) can be downloaded for free from there also.
The album's title comes from Don Preston. "I
did an email interview with him for the Arf-Dossier 10 years ago,"
says Joseph, "My last question (not published
in the mag) was if he could gave me a title for my next album. He answered me
"Yellow Mind:Blue
Mind". For some years, I forgot about it, and then when looking for a
title for the record I remembered it, and I really think it is perfect for the
record. I tried to contact Don recently to tell him about it."
VARIOUS ARTISTS: FRANK ZAPPA’S JUKEBOX – The Songs That Inspired The
Man (Chrome Dreams, CDCD5023)
Track list: Riot In Cell Block No. 9 (The
Robins)/Louie Louie (Richard Berry)/Work With Me Annie (Hank Ballard and the
Midnighters)/Ionisation (Edgard Varese)/My Starter Won't Work (Lightnin'
Slim)/Okie Dokie Stomp (Clarence Gatemouth Brown)/Leavin' It All Up To You (Don
& Dewey)/I Asked For Water (She Gave Me Gasoline) (Howlin' Wolf)/The Closer
You Are (The Channels)/Your Cash Ain't Nothing But Trash (The
Clovers)/Louisiana Blues (Muddy Waters)/Song (Cecil Taylor)/Bacon Fat (Andre
Williams)/Rubber Biscuit (The Chips)/Bagatelle (opus 9) (Anton Webern)/Symphony
(opus 21) (Anton Webern)/W.P.L.J. (Four Deuces)No No Cherry (The Turbans)/Out
There (Eric Dolphy)/The Story Of My Life (Guitar Slim)/Three Hours Past
Midnight (Johnny Guitar Watson)/Directly From My Heart (Little
Richard)/Stranded In The Jungle (The Cadets)/Rite Of Spring (extracts) (Igor
Stravinsky)/Nite Owl (Tony Allen).
Way back a long time ago, before I’d heard Edgard
Varese or the Them Or Us album
(mainly because it had still to be recorded), I tuned into FZ being a
fraudulent disc jockey on BBC Radio 1’s Star
Special. He announced “I think that it's
appropriate to make this segue because these are two of my very favourite
records and I think they should be heard as a pair. The first is The Closer You Are by The Channels, and
this will lead directly into Hyperprism.”
What I then heard made me instantly see where Frank was coming from. Well, this
album does that in spades. Hear Lightnin’ Slim exhort Lazy Lester to “blow your harmonica son”. Hear the originals of
songs Frank actually covered over the years. Hear the songs he frequently
referenced in interviews. During the above-mentioned radio show, he also played
I Asked Her For
Water by the Howlin' Wolf (“another person with
exquisite diction”). This CD is really well researched and put together
by Derek Barker, whose excellent liner notes reveal that Richard Berry sings
both the first two tracks on this compilation. This is a must-have for any
self-respecting Zappa fan. And we have more to look forward to from Chrome
Dreams: they’re part-way through the production of a Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention Under
Review 60s documentary DVD, having already filmed interviews with Billy
James, Art Tripp, Bunk Gardner and Don Preston.
FRANK
ZAPPA: ONE SHOT DEAL (Zappa Records, ZR 20007)
Track list: Bathtub Man/Space
Boogers/Hermitage/Trudgin' Across The Tundra/Occam's
Razor/Heidelberg/The Illinois Enema Bandit/Australian Yellow Snow/Rollo
Well, the release of this was kinda curious, but at least it’s here and
now we can see and hear what the ZFT has excavated from the Vault for us. As
Gail notes, it’s like a sandwich with Occam’s Razor (that’s the On The Bus solo kept simple, stoopid) the meat in the middle. And a
tasty little treat it is for sure. One of the things that leapt out at me (and
I really should know this by now, having purchased Roxy & Elsewhere shortly after its release) is what an
inventive bass player Tom Fowler. Bathtub
Man is a blues with atypical Duke and Brock (FZ’s co-composers on this one)
silliness that extends into great solos from George and Frank. Space Boogers has Chester keeping
straight 16ths on the hi-hat, a little like Dummy Up, while George and Frank
squirt notes at each other. It sounds like it’s from a soundcheck. Trudgin' Across The
Tundra is part pf a 30 minute improv by the Petite Wazoo called Seven, the second half of which appears
in edited form as D.C. Boogie on Imaginary Diseases. It features some odd
sheep-like bleats from the horn section. Then follows that
mighty full unfettered Inca solo with
a slightly controlled but still amazing Vinnie. Heidelburg is A Solo…
from The Guitar World According
To FZ cassette (so that just leaves the
MIKE
KENEALLY: WINE AND PICKLES (EXOWAX 2409)
Track list: 2CTV/Feelin' Strangely/Li'l/Backwards Deb
(3rd person)/Bubble Creek/Never Ever Wrong/Unused Hum/I Heard About What You
Said/Inhale (with Lyle Workman)/4S/Skull Bubbles (uncut)/Stop For Flashing Red
Light, Part One/Lonely Man (studio)/Selfish Otter (uncut)/A Concise Piano
Statement/AeroDef/Kevorkian 3/Thou Shalt Not Kill/Paloma (alternate
version)/Kevorkian 17/The Endings Of Things.
Comprising mainly outtakes from Dancing, Dog and Nonkertompf, this is a fine MK sampler
showing off the many facets of this multi-talented
guitarist/keyboardist/composist. His vocals are oddly reminiscent of Rufus
Wainwright on Feelin’ Strangely
(which features some nice guitar work, including from Rick Musallam)…and like
Roy Estrada mid-Stop For Flashing Red
Light. Li’l is just a wondrous
instrumental that gives me the same sit up and beg for more feel that most of
the Guitar Therapy CD does. Thou Shalt Not Kill would sound at home
on Wooden Smoke, and The Endings Of
Things is a great, great outtake; sounds like he couldn’t get the vocals
just right, but it’s a beautiful song. This disc provides a great overview of
the many talents of MK, so go get it.
JIMMY CARL BLACK: FREEDOM JAZZ DANCE (Azzurra Music, TBP11473)
Track list: Happy Metal/Taste Of
Snakes/Freedom Jazz Dance/Like A Virgin Queen/The Bad Wolf.
I hadn’t fully appreciated what a busy king bee JCB had
been in the run-up to his 70th birthday, what with tours with the Muffin Men,
the JCB Band and Eugene Chadbourne, his collaboration with Jon Larsen, the
commencement of Crossfire’s reissue campaign of his back catalogue, the release
of the How Blue Can You Get? and Hearing Is
Believing CDs, and this. Recorded in May 2007, it marks a bit of a change
musically, being performed without any guitars, three blow monkeys, two babes
(on keys and percussion), and one DJ T “The Thief” on electronics. Having said that, the first track is not such a radical departure,
being an R&B workout with typical oration and rock steady drumming from the
Indian of this happy metal band. Track two follows a similar pattern –
opening and closing vocals (this time by Valentina Black – no relation, “but I
wish she was!” quippeth Jimmy), with a lengthy horn-led mid-section – but it’s
a more up-tempo spacey psychedelic affair. Dr Chadbourne comments that Bruno
Marini’s organ is dripping with pesto on the cover of Eddie Harris’s title track.
Perhaps they should have renamed it Freedom
Jazz Discharge for this outing. Like A Virgin Queen is perhaps the most atypical thang here –
a flute propelled disco platform underpinning airy vox from Valentina. The
Blacks duet on the final track, obviously influenced by Neil Jordan’s The Company Of Wolves and starring
Valentina as Little Red Riding Hood, Jessica Fletcher as the Grandmother, and
Jimmy Carl Black in the title role. Oh yeah. I like it. I like it a lot.
ZAPPA
PLAYS ZAPPA: SOUNDTRACK EXCERPTS FROM THE ZPZ FILM (Razor & Tie, 7930182993-2)
Track list: Tell Me You Love Me/Florentine
Pogen/Cheepnis/Cosmik Debris/I’m The Slime/Don’t Eat The
Yellow Snow/St. Alfonzo’s Pancake Breakfast/Father O’Blivion/Black Page
#2/Peaches En Regalia/Zomby Woof/The Torture Never Stops.
With no visuals, you’re able to focus on the
sounds and here you note the differences from the original recordings –
noticeably, Scheila’s back-up vocals, Aaron’s keyboard fills, and the
re-arranged ‘almost Chinese’ part of Cheepnis.
You also hear the amazing playing of percussionist Billy Hulting and Jamie
Kime’s subtle contributions. Did Dweezil really not realise that Napi was able
to pull off his amazing performances as special guest because of his five
year’s of ‘rehearsals’ with Project/Object and the Grande Mothers? There’s a
couple of great guitar solos here: the first from Steve Vai during Zomby Woof (he makes the song his own),
and then young Dweez’s on Torture,
which starts slowly until he flicks a switch and burns the house down. Possibly
because of the way I’m The Slime and Black Page #2 segued into another piece
or a Dweezil rap (he says “thank you very much, everybody” a few times on this
disc), the audience cheers sound a little odd at the end of these pieces, but
that’s a minor quibble: ZPZ are the best FZ tribute band around at the mo’.
VARIOUS
ARTISTS: 20 EXTRAORDINARY RENDITIONS – THE IDIOT BASTARD SON (Cordelia Records,
CD043)
Track list: The
Idiot Bastard Son as interpreted by:
Die Beistelltische, Jerry Outlaw, The Vegetarians, Oldgreygoat And His Girls,
Ensemble Ambrosius, Freedom In Hats, Evil Dick & The Banned Members, The
FoolZ, John Tabacco, DOOT!, Nigey Lennon, The FrazKnapp Fusion Project, The
Thurston Lava Tube, Project/Object, Pojama People, Bogus Pomp Orchestra, Todd
Grubbs Group feat. Bo Smith, The Wrong Object Vs The
Friendly Dogs, The Whip It Out Ensemble and Gamma.
What can I
say? Well, it wouldn’t be right…but maybe I can quote Simon Prentis (Frank's
Semantic Scrutinizer)’s email to me after the London Grande Mother’s show: “…back to Gamma's and your immaculate IBS extravaganza.
Now THAT'S how it should be done. I'm sure Frank would have LOVED it, but
regardless, it does it for me fer sure. I think you've just found a template
for 'exploiting the back catalogue' so to speak. Each and every one of the
different versions comes at the song from a different angle, mining something
unique from the mother fractal without 'fetishing the commodity' in any way
whatsoever (always the downside with 'tribute bands' as far as I'm concerned).
What a great concept. What a great selection. What a great bunch of bands. And what a wonderful way to revisit and celebrate the work without
resorting to nostalgia for the old folks. Respect!”. High praise,
indeed. Read some more-a here. And there’s a
proper review (plus interview with yours truly, and an exclusive Bonus track)
at http://www.davemcmann.com/reviews.html
FRANK
ZAPPA: TRANSMISSIONS (Special guest reviewer: Dave from G&S Music – who isn’t stocking this item!)
Track list: I'm The Slime/Purple Lagoon/Peaches En Ragalia(sic!)/Dancin’ Fool/The Meek Shall
Inherit Nothing/St Alphonso.
Transmissions is just about as bad as you
might imagine it could be. Like the Music
In Review DVD, you get a "book" and a
disc in one package, but which is CD case size. The book is a short biography
written by Jeff Perkins, who I hadn't heard of before. His qualification for
the job appears to be that he likes Frank's music and works in journalism. He's
written 20,000 words which are mostly his opinion on a few CDs and a potted
history, mostly of the early Mothers. A quick read through didn't show up any
glaring errors of fact but no insights either. The CD has six tracks (all taken
from the December 76 and October 78 Saturday Night Live shows): audio and
"enhanced video" versions of each. The audio runs exactly 20 minutes.
The video plays in Quicktime and, initially, I couldn't get it to work. I lost
interest at that point. The sound quality is poor as well. In a word, avoid.
Put out by the people that Gail should really be after.
VARIOUS
ARTISTS: ZAPPANALE #18
Disc One: "The
psycho I've become..." (Larry "Wild Man" Fischer)/Pärt
Preston (Don Preston’s Akashic Ensemble)/Help, I'm A Rock-It Can't Happen Here
(Don Preston’s Akashic Ensemble)/Reggie Don't Sweat It (Monty & The
Butchers)/Apostrophe (Monty & The Butchers)/Tapas Nocturne (Christophe
Godin And Mörglbl)/Pygmy Twylyte (Christophe Godin And Mörglbl)/Uncle Meat
Suite (I Virtuosi Dal Pianeta Talento)/Village Of The Sun-Echidna's Arf (Of
You)-Don't You Ever Wash That Thing? (Project/Object)/Filthy Hobbits (Trigon)/The
Disc Two: "GOD!"
(Paul Green Kids)/Electricity (Kimono Draggin' featuring Stephen
Chillemi)/G-Spot Tornado (Octafish)/Sofa (Sex Without
Nails Bros)/"He screwed me..." (Larry
"Wild Man" Fischer)/Whales (Space Debris)/Grandchild of Mr. Green
Genes (Polytoxicomane Philharmonie)/Dog Breath Variations (The Great Googly
Moogly)/Debra Kadabra (Wolfhard Kutz featuring Lol Coxhill)/Meeting Of The
Spirits (Jazzprojekt Hundehagen)/Petrushka-Muffin Man (Harmonia Ensemble)/"Nice talking to ya..." (Larry
"Wild Man" Fischer)/Tell Me (Chad Wackerman Trio)/I'm The Slime-Dumb
All Over-The Message (Finale).
Bonus Disc: "I'm
famous in Germany..." (Larry "Wild Man" Fischer)/Central
Community Crisis (Don Preston’s Akashic Ensemble)/Any Downers (Monty & The
Butchers)/Février Afghan (Christophe Godin And Mörglbl)/Andy (I Virtuosi Dal
Pianeta Talento)/Big Swifty (Project/Object)/Zeitgeist Related Accidents
(Trigon)/Let's Get Bizet (Kimono Draggin)/Nothing (Octafish)/Uncle Remus (Sex
Without Nails Bros featuring Napoleon Murphy Brock)/Flight 858 (Polytoxicomane
Philharmonie)/Fifty-Fifty (The Great Googly Moogly)/Black Napkins (Jazzprojekt Hundehagen)/King
Kong (Harmonia Ensemble)/Eat That Question (Finale).
Can you imagine the feeling of walking away from the
Zappanale with the hard-drive of all that weekend’s music tucked under your arm?
Frickin’ gorgeous. John and I soon set to marking up
the tracks to be included on these discs, but were beset by technical problems.
We eventually overcame them, and this is what finally transpired. Friggin’ gorgeous. Shame it couldn’t have been a 3-CD set,
but with the Bonus disc it kinda is. I figure the main aim is for these to be a
souvenir of the event as well as a sort of sampler so that you then go check
out more of the featured bands’ material (and of course listen to the ‘riginal
sources; I personally finally went out and replaced my old Bird Of Fire vinyl with a 5-CD Mahavishnu box set). After a lengthy
period of time, and for no apparent reason, I played these discs again recently
and they actually blew me away. I guess I shouldn't blow my own trumpet, but
it's really the musicians that make it what it is. At times ragged, this is
mostly a very fine selection of finely played fineness. Shame there probably
won’t be a similar souvenir for #19.
ZAPPANALE
#22: BAD DOBERAN, GERMANY, 19-21 AUGUST 2011
THE MUFFIN MEN featuring DENNY WALLEY: THE CAVERN, LIVERPOOL, 20 APRIL 2011
First set list: Zoot
Allures/Don't Eat The Yellow Snow/Black Napkins/San Ber'dino/Crew Slut/Cold Winter
Gale/Dead Girls Of London/City Of Tiny Lights/Jones Crusher/Suction Prints.
Second set list: My
Guitar Wants To Kill Your Mama/Peaches En Regalia/Pygmy Twylyte/Tryin' To Grow
A Chin/Suicide Chump/Whippin' Post/Wonderful Wino/Camarillo Brillo/Muffin
Man/Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance.
Encores: Eat
That Question/Magic Fingers.
If the Muffins won’t come down to me, then I gots to
go north to see ‘em, right? Having spent a Beatles’
weekend in Liverpool earlier this year, I decided a trip back there would be
easily do-able, and Uncle Ian was happy to drive part of the way to make things
even easier. We arrived in time for a swift drink in The Grapes (the Fabs’
boozer), then hit the Cavern and met Roddie and Denny.
They told us the gig was to be a little later than advertised, so we were
thankfully able to grab a quick bite too. Back to the Cavern and a familiar
face awaited at the door to the back room – the guy
from Wolverhampton who attended the second Zappateers’ festival in
Bradford-on-Avon – with a spare ticket. Sweet! In I goes and the band are on
stage about to start. Sad to see tables and seats in front of
the stage, but nice to see both Mikey and Waco in the crowd. Starting as
per the opening triptych from Feel The Food (ah, what memories!), Napkins saw Denny playing sans steel finger, and knocking out some
real nice licks. The other ‘new boy’, Phil Hearn, then played a saxy keyboard
solo, before Jumpy let rip in characteristic stirring fashion. Roddie tells me
that Phil is really a guitar player (and huge Keneally fan); well, his keyboard
work was outstanding – especially when you learn that he only had five
rehearsals with the boys before hitting the road. San Ber'dino was the first dance number of the night, but
terpsichorean actions are kinda hindered with all them tables
in the way (we managed to infiltrate ‘em better a little later though).
Denny really lit up Crew Slut with
his slide, and Roddie ended it in typical Muffin fashion with a reference to
Rhino’s present for Mary looking like chips and mushy peas from
Whitechapel…she’d love it. Tiny Lites
saw Denny’s first lead vocal of the night, and things were warming up nicely
for a splendiferous end to the first set: the Captain’s Suction Prints was mind blowingly great, with Phil perfectly
replicating the horns. A quick piss and beer break, then straight into some
traditional dance music with My Guitar
and Peaches. Next it was Rhino’s time
to play drums like Napi and sing like Chester (or something) on the piece
they’ve really been making their own these past few years: Pygmy Twylyte. During this song, darling Ben had to reprise his act
of gallantry with the over-exuberant guy from the Black Country. Knirps and smirks. I’ve now lost count of the number of
times I’ve seen the Muffins in concert, but it’s more than any other band and
this was one of their very best performances - coming at the very end of their
tour probably helped. Missed the horns a bit during Eat That Question, but this was a very minor grumble. The arrival
of Denny has been a positive boon and I hope he continues to join them in the
futchum.
GUILDHALL
UBU ENSEMBLE: TWENTIETH CENTURY ROCKS, LSO ST LUKE’S, LONDON, 24 MARCH 2011
Set list: Chamber Sympony (John
Adams)/Octandre (Edgard Varèse)/Dérive (Pierre Boulez)/The Dog Breath Variations-Uncle Meat/The
Girl In The Magnesium Dress/The Perfect Starnger/Questi Cazzi Di
Piccione/Harry, You’re A Beast-Orange County Lumber Trick/G-Spot Tornado
(Frank Zappa).
Largely conducted by Matt Groening lookalike, Simon
Wills (who donned a poncho for the FZ pieces), this was a fairly low-key
affair, similar to Manson Ensemble’s final evening of the Roundhouse festival
at the Royal Academy of Music. St Luke’s is a fine old church, restored for use
as a rehearsal space for the LSO and sundry concerts (Elton John performed here
in 2006), and it was gratfifying to have a few people say they were only there
because I listed the event in my diary. The Ensemble is comprised of a bunch of young uns, who appeared to be
chuffed to be playing these tunes. The Adams’ piece had three movements
(fast/slow/fast) and was, in part, inspired by 50s
cartoon music. Most enjoyable (enhanced by the outbreak of audible heavy
breathing during the final movement from one young violinist, who was really
going for it).
DIVA ZAPPA’S BRUCE, MAISON BERTAUX
GALLERY, LONDON, 3 FEBRUARY 2011
Her biggest art show to date,
and it's in London. Maybe it's the water, mama, maybe it's the tea? No, this
obviously came about as a result of The
Mighty Boosh connection, Noel Fielding having had a couple of exhibitions
in this here cake shop (Maison Bertaux is London’s oldest patisserie); indeed,
Prince Vince’s scribbles from his Bryan
Ferry Vs The Jelly Fox show are all over the walls still. Noel was of
course in attendance for this, the launch party, as were his little brother
Michael (who turned his back on me!), Edward Tudor-Pole, Sean Bean, Jane Horrocks
(who looks stunning in real life - forget the image you may have of her from Life Is Sweet and Ab Fab. Shwing!). The place was heaving,
so at various points I stood shoulder-to-shoulder with these celebs (and was
able to get Diva to show me her white ink tache tattoo), plus Sister Moon and
GZ. I had a nice chat with Dave Gamson of the Roundhouse, who was there to talk
to Gail about the possible second annual festival this year. I bemoaned the
demise of the Electric Proms, which
he seemed to think had had a fair old run. I had a longer natter with Alan
Clayson, who I'm finding to be a very pleasant eccentric gentleman indeed. He
feels the planned FZ biog is the one he was destined to write, so I'm keeping
my fingers crossed that all pans out. Anyway, the reason we were there was to
check out Diva’s knitwear art pieces and couture canvas. There were over 50
pieces of this very colourful stuff hanging in the gallery upstairs - you can
check some of them out here, but if you're in the smoke during the next five months, why not drop
in and see them for real? It’s very interesting stuff (the embroidered canvases
especially), and you'll also glimpse her work in progress, Emilio Estevez - which will eventually be a mile-long scarf. For
the record, the show is named Bruce
because Diva is always watching the film Die
Hard, so the spirit of Mr Willis apparently inhabits all of her pieces. And
the scarf is named after Martin Sheen's eldest because of an obscure film he
made with Moon in the early 80s. Prior to this event, I did seek to interview
Diva but was told by the gallery that, due to the family's sensitivities
towards knowledgeable fans/fan sites, this had not been relayed to the girl
herself. Instead, they've opted to expose her to the no-nothing mainstream
media who've just read the press release before going in. I guess the family
has no desire to present a better image to the fanbase? As GZ readily admitted
at the Roundhouse, she's a control freak. But surely any publicity is good
publicity? Oh well, they call the shots. End of.
ZAPPA
AT THE ROUNDHOUSE, LONDON, 5-7 & 13 NOVEMBER 2010
ZAPPANALE
#21: BAD DOBERAN, GERMANY, 13-15 AUGUST 2010
ZAPPA
PLAYS ZAPPA, THE BRIGHTON CENTRE, BRIGHTON, 22 JULY 2010 & HIGH VOLTAGE
FESTIVAL, VICTORIA PARK, LONDON, 24 July 2010
Brighton set list: Purple
Lagoon/Stink-Foot/Inca Roads/Daddy Daddy Daddy/What Kind Of Girl Do You Think
We Are?/Lonely Little Girl/City Of Tiny Lites/Blessed Relief/The Blue
Light/Pick Me, I'm Clean/The Little House I Used To Live In/Latex Solar
Pimp/Apostrophe/Advance Romance/T'Mershi Duween/Big Swifty/Montana/Peaches En
Regalia/Echidna's Arf/Keep It Greasey. Encores: Yellow Snow/Easy Meat/Cosmik
Debris/I'm The Slime.
High Voltage set list: Purple Lagoon/Florentine Pogen/Cosmik Debris/Inca Roads/Big Swifty/Easy
Meat/Latex Solar Pimp/Apostrophe/Keep It Greasey/Peaches En Regalia.
When ZPZ started, I felt Dweezil seemed to sit back a
tad - after all, he had Napi and Vai and Bozzio along. But now there's no
question: he's definitely the main man, with his guitar solos pretty much
stealing the show and his between song banter now a lot slicker. It was
fantastic that he'd obviously noted my request for Dragonmaster at Brighton at DweeziZappaWorld, as he referred to
"Mr IBS" and relayed the story behind the song for us all. It also struck
me at my first few ZPZ gigs how the whole band appeared fully engaged at all
times: in Brighton, Scheila and Bill and Ben sat out for a few periods, with
Billy really only contributing one big solo (during Big Swifty). And Jamie Kime didn't even get to solo by the sea (but
did at High Voltage). Okay, bottom line, brass tacks and all that: I think ZPZ
are now better than ever and Brighton was the best gig I've seen them play
(with the possible exception of Vicar Street); there was none of that carefully
rehearsed ad-libbed hand signal stuff, and the Dweez just blazed his way
through some great solos. His playing really has improved dramatically in the
past few years, and Canadian John was especially thrilled with his quote from
Rush's Tom Sawyer during Apostrophe. At High Voltage, someone was
heard saying they might as well go home after ZPZ as they'd seen the best band
of the weekend. High praise, eh? With a much shorter
set, they were a lot livelier with the songs tailored for a less-discerning
(but bigger than Brighton) audience. But that's not to say the Dweez wasn't
mindful of us anoraks: when he introduced Big
Swifty, he said it was from the Grand
Wazoo album; the second the band finished playing it, he corrected this
statement! Oh yeah - it's great to see Thomas Nordegg is now back in the fold. Most peculiar, mama.
ZAPPATISTAS,
PIZZAEXPRESS, LONDON, 14 JULY 2010
Set list: Peaches
En Regalia/The Grand Wazoo/Let's Make The Water Turn Black/Sofa/Eat That
Question-Sexual Harrassment In The Workplace/King Kong/Sleep Dirt/Big
Swifty/Waka Jawaka/Heavy Duty Judy/Harry, You're A Beast/Son Of Orange
County/Oh No!/Lumpy Gravy/I'm The Slime.
Having trekked up to Wigan last year for the 'Tistas
no show on Frank's birthday, I made sure they were playing this time. Mr E
wasn't enjoying the best of health, but he manfully manipulated his wang bar
and, I think, this was quite possibly the best I’ve seen his splendid
seven-piece ensemble. While they make no attempt to replicate the sound of the
records (no one can touch ZPZ in that regard), when they improvise on stuff
like King Kong, that's when they're
really happening, maaan. They made me wanna listen to the version on YCDTOSA as soon as I got home - which,
if I hadn't have drunk so much red wine, would've been later that night. Yelp,
bellow, rasp et cetera. Thorpe Bay’s nice this time of year, isn’t it? Wonderful to hear their take on Waka
Jawaka. Much better than Shakira’s vershum.
Er. Princess says they played Heavy Duty
Judy like a Machine Gun. Shame
there wasn’t a few more there as John is a truly great guitarist and more
should appreciate that fact. Annie Whitehead played a couple of great solos –
in fact the whole band took a turn. And most importantly of all, they all
looked like they were having fun. Great night.
ZAPPANALE
#20: BAD DOBERAN, GERMANY, 14-16 AUGUST 2009
ZAPPA PLAYS ZAPPA, O2 SHEPHERD’S BUSH EMPIRE, LONDON, 14 JUNE 2009
Set list: Apostrophe/Montana/Village
Of The Sun/Echidna’s Arf (Of You)/Don’t You Ever Wash That Thing?/Cosmik
Debris/Inca Roads/The Black Page Drum Solo-Black Page #1/Black Page #2/Wind Up
Workin’ In A Gas Station/Carolina Hard-Core Ecstasy/Peaches En Regalia/Son Of
Orange County/More Trouble Every Day/The Grand Wazoo/Outside Now/Bamboozled By
Love.
Encores: Don’t
Eat The Yellow Snow/Zomby Woof/Willie The Pimp.
“The
gal I love is up in the gallery. The gal I love is looking now at me. There she
is, can’t you see, waving her handkerchief, as merry as a robin that sings on a
tree.” Yes, boys and girls, Gail was in attendance, sitting
up in the balcony right alongside Mr Noel Fielding and his Mighty Boosh co-star, L’il Missy Diva. And how
proud she was to be gazing down upon her eldest boy and his chums.
Dweezil later said he thought this “was one of the
most fun shows we've played from any tour we've ever done. Amazing audience…”
Pity that the set consisted of nothing released after 1979 or any MOI originals
(with the exception of More Trouble Every
Day’s lyrics, I suppose). And though the new singer, Ben Thomas, has a good
strong voice, he didn’t actually get to use it to lead too many of the tunes
presented here: the overworked Scheila Gonzalez sang lead on Village Of The Sun
and Son Of Orange County and Joe
Travers sang Cosmik Debris, while a
number of songs featured unison singing. So it would be nice to see Dweezil’s
born-again vision of a non-FZ associated band performing more like one in
future - and covering a less-narrowly focused crowd-pleasing era of his
father’s music. Having said that, they played what is – in the parlance of our
times - still great material very competently and looked like they were really
enjoying it on a number of occasions. Dweezil himself seems a lot more relaxed as
the front-man these days, though his cringe-worthy attempts at emulating Frank
(eg. his spoken word intro to Black Page
#2 and use of hand signals to conduct the band/audience) should be binned.
While ZPZ do now seem to be attracting a young and more diverse audience, it
was heart-warming to see a couple of coves invited up on stage to dance during Willie The Pimp festooned in
Zappateers/Zappanale apparel (Ob & Evil Prince, be they you?). So, what
else to report? Echidna’s featured
many soli, including a great one from the under-appreciated Jamie Kime. Having
industriously plunked her keys through the mid-section of Inca, talented Ms Gonzalez failed to hook her horn up in time and
missed a beat. Lacksadaisial? Hardly.
It didn’t really matter. Son Of Trouble Every Wazoo had a bunch more solo spots, with
DZ doing his hand-jobs and Ben showing off his fine musical powerhorn technique
and Nordestino Brazilian Rap meets Afro Cuban Vocal thang (thanks, Gary!). Oh,
and Diva jumped up for the Black Page #2
ballet lesson. Click this pic to make it come to life:
ZAPPATiKA,
THE PLOUGH INN, WALTHAMSTOW, 18 MARCH 2009
First set list: Spanish
Highwayz/Wonderful Wino Man/Scarlet Pimp/Sexual Harassment In The
Workplace/Space Flip/Rainy Dayz/Santani Variati/Leroy/Bamboozled By Love/The
Torture Never Stops/Lazy Gun/City Of Tiny Lites (a-la-rapido).
Second set list: My
Guitar Wants To Kill Your Mama/Sleep Dirt/My Little Pony-Dark Room/Thru The
Wormhole/Crocodile Smile/Watermelon In Easter Hay/Titties & Beer/Cosmik
Debris/Black Napkins/Bobby Brown/Dirty Love/Muffin Man/I’m The Slime.
I first encountered front-man McInnes at Zappanale
last year, and he’s quite some dude. He really bigged-up his band of merry men and so I very much looked
forward to seeing them in action. And here was my first opportunity. The
Plough is a little out of the way place, but Uncle Ian and I found it easily
enough and had time for a few beers and a play with the pub moggies. The band were a little late starting as their young bassist had
mislaid his passport. Emergency arrangements were made, and... to punish him, they played one of their songs extra fast.
Poor lamb! So. Gamma, having counted them in, they
were away. Many of their own songs are sprightly little instrumentals with some
pretty obvious influences (guess what Santani
Variati sounds like). Leroy, though,
has fun lyrics about wanting to be a rock star and tonight quoted Michael
Jackson’s Beat It. The FZ stuff was pretty faithful,
though McInnes’s spacey lead lines spiced things up. And while the Keltik
minstrel is indeed a great front-man, his band should not be overlooked: Bongo
Fury on percussion and “odd noises” adds much, but I think the laid-back second
guitarist, Zomby Woof, is their secret weapon – ably doubling up on lead
(notably on Tiny Lites) and playing
some solid rhythm. Sadly no Dr Lau on keyboards tonight – perhaps he’s really
just a shadow? And what a shame more folk didn’t turn out to witness this. I
myself couldn’t stay to the bitter end and so missed loads of classic Zappa
(which Princess Helen assures me was rockin’). But to miss it all for no reason
at all? Special thanks go to Mr Bean who gifted me a bottle of Lagunitas WOIIFTM beer. I’m not worthy, etc. But I
sure as hell didn’t say no! Why would I? Tell me why.
FIVE
PEACE BAND: ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL,
Set list: Stella
By Starlight/Raju/The Disguise/New Blues, Old Bruise/Hymn To Andromeda/Dr.
Jackle/Señor CS. Encore: In
I was most surprised to see all of the gear set up so
closely together on what is a fair sized stage. And Vinnie’s kit, compared to
Mr Bozzio’s, looked miniscule - but what a joyous racket he made on it (which
made you ponder why Terry Ted has such a huge one). First out were the two
stars of the Five Peace Band, Chick Corea and John McLaughlin, for a duet on
Victor Young’s lovely old jazz standard, Stella
By Starlight. Then came
the rest of the band: bassist Christian McBride, alto-saxophonist Kenny
Garrett, and one Vincent Colaiuta hitting things. Throughout, Vinnie was the
most animated – applauding his colleagues and looking genuinely thrilled to be
part of this band. But he has every right to stand/sit shoulder to shoulder
with these great players. Chick explained that they’d be doing two sets so that
we could compare one with the other. I have to say I found the first to be
generally a little more accessible, with it building to a right old frenzy with
a busy VC on McLaughlin’s New Blues Old
Bruise; unlike the Industrial Zen
album version, this one didn’t fizzle out in a drizzle of electronic frippery.
The second set was a little less fusion-y, though again was filled with some
great playing. Christian McBride played mainly stand-up acoustic throughout the
night, and was just wondrous. I guess if there was anything to be disappointed about, it was the lack of solos from McLaughlin. Sure, he
did a few fine runs, and burned bright as Señor
CS built to its thrilling denouement. But I think I was hoping for a little
more from him. Of course, Chick was on good form, switching between Moog and
grand. And the fact that the two stars let Kenny, Christian and Vinnie share
the limelight was a measure of how much respect exists between these five great
musicians – who we’ll probably never see play together again. Shame.
A
CONCERT FOR JIMMY: BRIDGE HOUSE II,
Well, what a strange venue – as Ben Watson noted, “like
visiting a club on the moon”. This concert was suggested by Dave McMann when we were trying to
figure out how we could help the ailing Jimmy
Carl Black following the diagnosis of his inoperable lung cancer in August.
We were both deeply affected by Jimmy, who managed to touch us just by being
himself. A cursory scan of the various Zappa fora following Jimmy’s death on 1
November shows that we were far from alone. I first talked with Jimmy in
October 1993 when the Jack & Jim Show played at The Swan opposite Fulham
Broadway tube – yeah, right near the home of football drinking beer with an
idol of my youth. Nirvana! I was with Fred
Tomsett, the editor of T’Mershi
Duween, who was doing most of the talking, having met Jim before. I just
bought them the odd beer. Months later, the Grandmothers played Dingwalls near
Camden Lock. There’s me sat in the middle of this darkened room with the late
Paul Mummery, when up pops Jimmy – singles me out, comes over, says, “Hi Andy, how are ya?”, puts his arm round me. How
special did that make me feel? And thus started our
friendship. I last spoke with Jimmy in August after that devastating
diagnosis, as he was preparing to leave hospital. He said he actually felt OK,
but had been told that he wasn’t. It seemed that it was just the chemo he’d
been undergoing these past few years for his leukaemia that made him “feel like shit”. So a concert to raise funds for
his mounting medical bills seemed a perfect idea. So who’s the obvious choice
to play such a concert in the
MIKE
KENEALLY (plus special guest, Dave Gregory): RIFFS BAR,
Set list: Hello/Ankle
Bracelet/1988 Was A Million Years Ago/Potato/Thanksgiving/Joe/Song Of The
Viking/Airport-Hallmark/Tranquilado/Desired Effect/Floppy Hat/2001/Sleep
Dirt/Skull Bubbles/Cowlogy/The Idiot Bastard Son/Paranoid Android/Splane/Live
In Japan/Aye Aye Monster/Skies Of LA-Improv-Cold Hands/Pride Is A Sin/Father’s
Day/Inca Roads/Rosemary Girl.
I think this was only the second solo visit by Mike to
ZAPPANALE
#19: BAD
THE 3RD
INTERNATIONAL ZAPPA CONFERENCE: PARIS, 5-6 JULY 2008 – special guest reviewer:
Evil Dick
ICE-Z 3, ICE-Z 69 or The 3rd International Zappa
Conference…what was this conference called?
As it turned out, it was called all three things depending on who you
spoke to. This time it was the turn of
MUFFIN
MEN: THE BOARDWALK,
Set list: Willie
The Pimp/Plastic Factory/Road Ladies/Great White
Buffalo/Pygmy Twylyte/Jones Crusher/San Berdino.
King Kong/Big Leg Emma/The Indian Of The Group/City Of
Tiny Lites/Wino Man/Zoot Allures/Yellow Snow/Black Napkins/More Trouble
Everyday/Flower Punk/My Guitar.
Train. Uncle.
Drive.
BEN
WATSON AND DIDIER MERVELET ON 1968,
MUSIC, CAPITALISM: CONWAY HALL,
Before this lecture, Didier (Sécrétaire Generale of
Les Fils de l’Invention) confided in me that this would be Ben reading a paper
and "I’m supposed to add (improvise) some entertaining interpolations".
And he did. Say what you like about Ben, he’s an engaging performer – though he
claimed he had to stick to his script because of nerves. But as someone pointed
out during the subsequent Q&A/discussion, he was just as lucid, interesting
and charming when improvising. And the interventions from Didier throughout
were no different. It was during the subsequent discussion that Ben spoke of
the reasons for his avid interest in Zappa over the MC5, Sun Ra, Hendrix, et al
(because of the wider references to music of all kinds, mainly). So what was
the crux of their biscuit? Ben provided a critique of anniversaries and
sectarian attempts to carve up the past by referencing May 1968 (the time of the student
protests and general strike in
ZAPPATEERS
NL FESTIVAL, 14-15 MARCH 2008
THE
GRANDE MOTHERS:
Set
list: Hungry Freaks Daddy/Let’s Move To Cleveland/Lonely Little Girl/Take
Your Clothes Off When You Dance/Chunga’s Revenge/Call Any Vegetable/The Idiot
Bastard Son/Uncle Meat/Obligatory Drum Solo-T’Mershi Duween/Pygmy Twylyte.
Peaches
En Regalia/Montana/Big Swifty (interpolating
I Come From Nowhere and Evelyn, A Modified Dog)/I’m The Slime/In The
Sky/Let’s Make The Water Turn Black/Harry, You’re A Beast/Oh No/Son Of Orange
County/More Trouble Every Day/San Ber’dino/Sofa No. 1/I’m The Slime.
Encores:
Little House I Used To Live In/Merely A Blues In
F/Mother People.
I was
lucky enough to meet the guys backstage beforehand and presented Don with a
copy of the 20 Idiot Bastards CD
(after all, it’s his logo on the back – see top of this page too). Napoleon and
PAULINE BUTCHER: FREAK OUT! MY LIFE WITH FRANK ZAPPA (Plexus Books, ISBN
978-0-85965-479-1)
The story of a prim and proper part-time model/typist
who Frank whisked from Twickenham to Hollywood to be his secretary, for reasons
that aren’t entirely clear. Contains lots of inside
information about the true state of the grubby log cabin and Gail & Frank’s
strange relationship, Pamela Zarubica’s role as FZ’s social agent, Pauline’s
brief affair with Cal Schenkel, and Ian Underwood’s creation of the
‘clonemeister’ post. It’s interesting that the man who spent his final years
glued to CNN never seemed to read a book or newspaper, listen to the radio or
watch TV during Pauline’s four year ‘life’ with him - yet he still had a fully
formed opinion about the state of US politics and thought he stood a realistic
chance of becoming President. Indeed, one of the stated reasons for employing
Pauline was to help him with a book he had been commissioned to write – a
political perspective. It never happened, of course. Pauline’s time with the
Zappas was very eventful, with an assassination attempt, constant work-related
squabbles with Gail (who she says “has three speeds: slow, very slow, and stop”), and
general in-house strife. But she also had many good times, getting to see
moments of pure brilliance as well as witness some of Frank’s more fanciful
projects (the GTOs, Wild Man Fischer, etc.). Like Zarubica, Pauline loved Frank
but was not in love with him – though she admits that had he not been married,
things might have been different between the pair (which could’ve applied to
Underwood too), and the book does detail Frank’s rebuffed advances for
‘nookie’. She clearly did not see him as the God-like genius everyone else
around him at the time seemed to, and was not terribly enamoured with much of
his musical output. Certainly she was very different from the others Frank
surrounded himself with, which seems to be another reason he liked having
Pauline around. She originally wanted to call the book Reflected Glory, My Time With Frank Zappa, and this is an honest,
accurate – and very well written - account of her thoughts and feelings at the
time, based as it is on her diaries and letters home. Entertaining and
occasionally laugh-out loud funny, too. With books like this – factual ones,
covering in detail specific eras, tours or pieces of equipment – Mr Clayson
will have much useful raw material to help him write the definitive official
biography. Whether that’s what we’ll get remains to be seen - so, meantime,
this fills in some of the blanks between 1968 and 1972 very nicely.
FRANK
ZAPPA: THEM OR US (THE BOOK) (Pinter & Martin, ISBN 978-1-905177-56-1)
Like the books of the late great Kurt Vonnegut, the
Zappa canon is loaded with cross-references that definitely add to the fun.
Inside Them Or Us (The Book) we get
mentions of stupid girls named Debbie, the stench from an accordion, poodles
dogs & sofas (naturally), and great swathes of words from Billy The Mountain, Hunchentoot, Joe’s Garage
Acts I & II, Ship Arriving Too
Late To Save A Drowning Witch and Thing-Fish.
It’s odd then that someone who often dismissed his own lyrics as mere
decoration for the wondrous music what he wrote should believe that they’d make
a decent film script. And that’s essentially what this is, in its original
computer print-out dot matrix font (complete with the odd typo), a facsimile of
1984’s self-published tome presented in conventional paperback form by the UK’s
Pinter & Martin - in a binding that won’t fall apart! Frank would later
update, edit and truncate this ‘story’ and present it to a bemused Terry
Gilliam as the Dwell screenplay;
Gilliam (probably justly) declined to helm such a vehicle. For those of us
unlucky enough to have witnessed Bunny
Bunny Bunny at the Roundhouse, it’s clear that Frank was no Bergman. Certainly not a Mike Leigh or Woody Allen. Maybe not even an
Ed Wood…light years away from Michael Bay. And that's an awful lot, girl. But
he did write some entertaining songs. And this book (narrated in part by
Francesco Zappa) is still pretty diverting, if not an easy read. Definitely a must-have for the hard-core into Frank’s conceptual
continuity...er, concept. Bonzer dog-doo, with a fried
egg on top of spam.
ANDREW GREENAWAY: ZAPPA THE HARD WAY (Wymer UK, ISBN 978-0-9557542-4-1) (Special guest
reviewer: Pauline Bird (née Butcher) – Frank’s former secretary and author of Freak
Out! My Life With Frank Zappa)
In 1988, Frank Zappa hung up his guitar for good and
never played with his band again. The reasons given publicly relate to
squabbles between members of the band. Frank Zappa stated, “everyone
in the band hated Scott Thunes so much they simply refused to play with him
anymore.” But was this the real reason? Could it have been an
excuse, a cover up for something else – ie. Frank’s ailing health? Could
Frank have been feeling increasingly unfit to cope with the relentless concerts
across America and Europe night after night – 81in all in 127 days, in other
words, one concert every one and a half days, including travelling.
Andrew Greenaway has tackled this anomaly in his
excellent book, The Hard Way. He
shows how it was that these eleven men lived and played in harmony through
dozens of concerts because of their respect and admiration for Frank Zappa. And
what astonishing concerts they were too. Andrew manages to convey the
brilliance and uniqueness of this band not only through his own descriptions
but also from the band members’ own praise for the astonishing variety of music
they created. But even this respect could not stop cracks opening up and let’s
face it, any group of people locked together without a break for this period of
time would snap and to my mind it is surprising not that they imploded but that
they endured as long as they did.
Through interviews with various band members, Andrew
pieces together the evidence and attempts to tease out the truth. So you could
say this is a ‘why done-it’ book. Other band members, including Thunes, give
their explanations and Andrew relates several incidents of verbal and physical
abuse.
Read this meticulously researched book which every
Zappa fan will want to read, as well as those like myself who stumbled across
this great man, and find out the answer to why Broadway, The Hard Way was Frank
Zappa’s last band.
VINCENT BAKKER: THE GANGSTER OF LOVE – JOHNNY “GUITAR” WATSON: PERFORMER, PREACHER,
PIMP
More appreciated outside his native US; never fully crediting his
musicians; Andre Lewis was once a band member; guitar not his first instrument;
influenced by the rapid fire, multi-note guitar shuffle style of Clarence
“Gatemouth” Brown; died too soon, before his mother…yes, Johnny “Guitar” Watson
had a few things in common with Frank. And it’s all detailed here in the first
ever comprehensive biography of The Gangster Of Love.
It’s important to note that English is not the author’s first language (he’s
from Amsterdam), which means you occasionally have to re-read things to get
their true meaning (something he acknowledges by relaying an interview he
conducted with curmudgeonly pianist, Eddie “Gip” Noble), but Vincent’s
enthusiam for his subject more than makes up for this. If you look, you will
discover: Watson was a long-time friend of Obie Jessie (composer of Mary Lou); Watson played guitar on Chuck
Higgins’ Pachuco Hop (“let me twirl
you!”). Yes, there’s much of interest here, including a whole ‘Zappa on Watson’
chapter that reveals how JGW “never got into” Frank’s music, and why he didn’t
go on tour with his friend. More to follow, as I’m still
reading it. But meantime, why not check out http://www.myspace.com/johnnyguitarwatsonbook
and order yourself a copy?
SCOTT
PARKER: THE ZAPPA SUPPLEMENT ONE - A BOX OF HISTORY AND THE MUD SHARK SAGA (SPB
Publishing)
I wasn’t sure that a book looking into The History And Collected
Improvisations Of The Mother Of Invention and all the Mud Shark
bootleg elpees would hold the same sort of appeal as Scott’s two
slightly-broader The Recordings Of Frank
Zappa series of books. But I does! I didn’t know
Frank ‘wrote’ two different pieces called Kung
Fu, did you? What about the uncredited (string) bass player on Burnt Weeny Sandwich. It’s all in here,
but it’s kinda hard to review properly coz it’s so engrossing.
SCOTT
PARKER: STRICTLY GENTEEL The Recordings of FRANK ZAPPA
and the Mothers of Invention - Volume Two 1970-1971 (Parker Books)
And so, the second of a possible eight volumes of
Scott’s ‘Recordings of FZ’ series. This
covers 1970-71, which for many is both a period that
got them into Zappa and one which is probably less revered than it deserves to
be. Especially in terms of released material (Burnt Weeny, Chunga’s).
Once again, the level of detail included is outstanding. Talk about guilty
pleasures – you know you want to see the Hebrew lettering on the Israeli
pressing of Weasels and song titles
translated into Spanish. I note that Barfko-Swill is now selling a t-shirt
featuring the famous bowler-hat photo
from Volume 1. Here’s hoping they do similar with the lovely photo on the cover
of this volume.
PAMELA
DES BARRES: LET’S SPEND THE NIGHT TOGETHER - BACKSTAGE SECRETS OF ROCK MUSES
AND SUPERGROUPIES (Helter Skelter Publishing, ISBN 1-905139-17-9)
Miss Pamela’s new book is based on interviews she
conducted with self-proclaimed groupies, rock wives and others. In it we learn
of Gail Zappa’s psychic powers: she’d see major world events before they
happened and, in 1964, she knew that an important person was to enter her life
and so screwed around for a few years waiting for him to happen along. As a
young girl, seems our Gail felt different from everyone else and believed
the Stones’ Out Of Time was about
her. Before Frank, she turned down Tom Jones, broke The Who in America, had an
‘uninteresting’ relationship with Jim Morrison (who she met, age 5), blanked
Bob Dylan, and got a couple of Lovin’ Spoonfuls. We also discover that: Tura
Satana taught Elvis how to shimmy and orally pleasure women (both upstairs and
downstairs); Cherry Vanilla did publicity balling for Bowie and Vangelis; and
the artist formally known as Yusuf liked Patti D’Arbanville to dress as a
schoolgirl.
SCOTT
PARKER: HUNGRY FREAKS, DADDY The Recordings of FRANK
ZAPPA and the Mothers of Invention - Volume One 1959-1969 (Parker Books)
Imagine someone picking up where Norbert Obermann’s
Zappalog left off and correcting the entire bootleg track list errors left be by the Torchum Team, and you’ve got an idea of what this
book’s like. Add to that some helpful narrative along the way and you’d best
zip your anorak’s up tight ‘cause you’re in for a thrilling ride. Scott doesn’t
try to emulate Greg Russo’s detailed tome, but it is similarly a labour of true
love - from the detailed breakdown of the component parts of the unreleased
Capitol Records version of Lump Gravy to the corrected bootleg track lists.
Check out Scott’s website for more info, including ordering details: http://www.scottparkerbooks.com.
AHMET
ZAPPA: THE MONSTROUS MEMOIRS OF A MIGHTY McFEARLESS (Puffin Books, ISBN
0-141-38309-7)
Review coming just as soon as I’ve read the
thing...but obviously you’ll wanna know stuff like this: the main character
(Minerva McFearless)’s mother’s middle name is the same as Gail’s first
(Adelaide), and her father is played by Ahmet himself in the book’s
accompanying illustrations; a painting of Minerva’s
great-great-great-grandfather (Maximillius McFearless) is based on a Them Or
Us/True Glove-era photo of FZ (see below); and another illustration uses the
pic of Frank from the rear of the Lumpy Gravy sleeve.
KELLY
FISHER LOWE: THE WORDS AND MUSIC OF FRANK ZAPPA (Praeger Publishers, ISBN
0-275-98779-5)
Although Miles’s tome appears to have been generally
well received, it seems most of the recent FZ books have been more academic
studies of his work rather than straightforward biographies like Barry’s. Well,
who really needs another bio? But I was still a little sceptical about this after Kevin Courrier’s scholarly effort. However, it’s
actually very readable and thought provoking. It sets its stall out early on
and Lowe doesn’t come across as no smart
arse, though he’s clearly very knowledgeable - both about
Frank and the pitfalls of rock journalism. And I like the way he’s dismissive
of hard-core anal-retentives
who crave every slightly different version of Frank’s
recorded output (but, yes, I freely admit to feeling like Waylon Smithers when Malibu Stacey gets a new hat, and will of course avidly fetish
Charles Ulrich’s Project Object book once it’s finally baked). It doesn’t
actually get off to a good start, referring to Joe’s Garage and a ‘Fender
Camp,’ on the first page...it gets better, though.
Vids
FROM STRAIGHT TO BIZARRE: ZAPPA, BEEFHEART, ALICE COOPER AND LA’s LUNATIC FRINGE
(Chrome Dreams, SIDVD568)
The most professional and well put together documentary film from these
guys yet takes an in-depth look at Frankie and Herb’s twin record labels. It
features some exclusive new interviews, with: Sandy Hurvitz (aka Essra Mohawk,
on her bizarre relationship with FZ); Kim Fowley (making, um, prophesies about
the future of Wild Man Fischer); GTOs Mercy (the original Scary Spice) and
Pamela (on Permanent Damage); a
modest Jeff Simmons (who expresses gratitude for people’s appreciation of his Lucille album, which he is more
dismissive of); Drumbo and Zoot Horn Rollo (on Decals, and the genesis, recording and release of Trout Mask). One recurring theme
throughout is how the future of many of the Straight/Bizarre releases hinged on
FZ’s reaction to different ‘incidents’ – eg. the Alice
Cooper group and the GTOs getting stoned/busted; Wild Man Fischer lobbing a
bottle at Moon Unit; Sandy Hurvitz asserting herself in the studio. There’s
many a nice quote - eg. Jerry Lawson asking “Who the fuck is
Zappa?” on being told of Frank’s interest in the Persuasions - and some
insightful ones, too (eg. Ben Watson’s comment that looking at all of
the Straight/Bizarre releases is to see Frank’s many influences). Some nice
extras also: Lawson chatting about
yellow snow, skinny chickens and listening to Frankly A Cappella (released in 2000) with
FZ! (if you think that’s odd, he also attributes Hot-Plate Heaven At The Green Hotel to the Carnegie-era Mothers); and Harkleroad and French reminiscing about
the Magic Band’s arrest for shoplifting while living at the Trout House. Well
worth a peek.
CHAD WACKERMAN TRIO: HITS LIVE (Drum Channel DVD, DV10003801-H01)
This live performance was filmed in the Drum Channel
studio, with no audience - and, more importantly, no electronic explosions
triggered by clumsy stage hands! The 'concert' footage is interspersed with
brief chats with the Trio (seems these guys all met through FZ: Doug Lunn met
Chad when he auditioned for Frank in the early 80s; and Mike Miller was invited
to play with Chad in the Banned From Utopia by The
Fowler Brothers), with separate introductions to each song by a solo Chad. He
describes Balancing Acts as almost
prog-rock, and indeed it is. Tell Me
starts with a nice drum solo, as per the version on the Zappanale #18 CD. Bang.
The gentle Holland is so gorgeous, I could wear it as a scrunchie. The City also opens with a CW solo, as
he channels his first NY visit, then builds to a great McLaughlin-esque guitar
solo. Twang. This must be a great gig for MM, who gets to shape the tunes and
play oodles of solos, though he also has the job of replicating the missing
vibe parts from Chad's compositions. Throughout you see what fine, fine players
these are. And unlike Bozzio, Chad actually uses every bit of his kit, and Doug plays all five strings on his fretless bass. Talk to me. Although this is played totally live, with no
studio trickery, some clips of Chad appear to have been sped-up. But really,
he's just super fast. Wow. The bonus material consists of Mike's The Good Guys, played as a tribute to
the late Mark Craney. It rocks. And Introduction,
which has possibly been relegated from the main feature because MM has to sight
read for most of it. I think the intimate studio setting suits them a lot
better than a field in Germany.
FRANK
ZAPPA: THE FREAK-OUT LIST (Chrome Dreams, SIDVD555)
The first 30 minutes of this documentary focus on
FZ's classical/orchestral influences, then it looks at his R&B likes (some
of the stuff that's featured on Chrome Dreams' excellent Frank Zappa's Jukebox CD),
emphasising Johnny "Guitar" Watson's impact on Frank's
guitar playing. It's then on to doo-wop (including a present day interview with
The Cadillacs) and, finally, jazz. We are guided through these by an insightful
Ben Watson (who, God bless him, bigs up Jimmy Carl Black), various music
professors, Don Preston (who boasts that he introduced many of the classical
remnants incorporated into Zappa's oeuvre), author Greg Russo (who has his own
extra, talking us through ‘Frank Zappa's Record Collection’), GZ’s new best
friend, Alan Clayson, and (scooptastically) George Duke and Ian Underwood –
really nice to see them involved. Significant other things: crystal clear
snippets of one of the Saturday Night
Live performances (unlike those countless DVDs that flooded the marketplace
a year or so back) and Ensemble Modern rehearsing stuff for The Rage And The
Fury. One of the nice other touches is the Zappa-referencing excerpts from:
Wagner's Valkyrie, performed by the
RPO; Schoenberg and Rite Of Spring, conducted by Boulez; Holst's Jupiter by the LSO; and Once, At A Border (Tony Palmer's film
about Stravinsky). It uses the list on the inside cover of Freak Out! as a touchstone, rather than
taking us through it name by name – which would’ve been deadly boring to watch.
If you enjoyed Chrome Dream’s previous FZ
& The MOI In The 60s DVD, you’ll love this.
TONY
PALMER’S FILM OF FRANK ZAPPA’S 200 MOTELS (Voiceprint Records, TPDVD127)
I guess we can forgive Palmer's lack of Zappa
knowledge (for example, he doesn't know who Motorhead is, can't remember Jeff
Simmons' surname, and thinks Herb Cohen was Frank's only manager and they never
had a cross word), but not sure about his dismissal of Frank's orchestral works
- especially when he adds some thing about McCartney being able to get away
with it because he's a genius. Palmer does though point out some things you may
not have noticed before (his nod to his pal, Kubrick; how some of the effects
were achieved) and relays many interesting anecdotes from the making of the
film. And it's really his commentary that makes this a must-buy DVD - you
wouldn't get this on a ZFT-approved product, that's for sure. The quality of
the film is maybe a little better than my old Warner Bros VHS videotape, but
there's no discernible improvement in the sound. Shame.
Also, the 16:9 aspect ratio appears to mean they've
squeezed the image throughout so that little is chopped from the screen - so
the camera adds more than 10lbs.
THE
DRUMMERS OF FRANK ZAPPA: ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION AND PERFORMANCE (Drum Channel
DVD Collection: Vol. One, DV10005801-H01)
Track list: Terry’s
Intro And Ralph’s Audition/How Chester Got In The Band/Ruth’s Story Meeting
Frank/More Stories And Chad’s Audition/Discussion Of Other Player’s
Audition/The Black Page Of Frank’s Music/Playing In The Band/Performance.
Total time: 140 min.
I imagine most folks have seen some of this online,
but it's wonderful to have the complete thing collected together on one DVD -
something I actually prayed would happen; thank you, Drum Channel! In the
roundtable discussion, Ruth Underwood is easily the most endearing, and she
brings along some of Frank’s sheet music for the others to marvel at. Chester
Thompson and Chad Wackerman are both pretty modest, but have great tales to
tell. Ralph Humphrey and Terry Bozzio come across as very eloquent (which is
not to say that the others are dummies – far from it), and Terry keeps things
moving apace. It's a real nice mix of informal reminisces - about: the 'clash
of the titans' (the Mothers Vs Mahavishnu); scary in-concert auditions;
learning Kung Fu and Approximate; hanging with Frank; Ruth's
cocktail version of Freak Out!;
playing quintuplets LOUD; Phil Collins trying to learn More Trouble Everyday; and lots of other really entertaining stuff.
Terry reveals that the intro to The Black
Page was ripped off of Tony Williams on the Stanley Clarke album. One of the highlights is undoubtedly when
Ruth calls Chad “dear” (Chad told me,
“Ruth is great. That's the first time I
had a chance to speak with her.”)! The 42 minute ‘performance’ part
(featuring all but Ruthie, sadly) is pretty cool: obviously Chester & Ralph
built up a great rapport back in the day, and Chad & Terry have done many
duet concerts together since; seeing all four men-in-black improvising together
is sure fine looking, man.
STEVE VAI: WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE (Favored Nations, FN2610-9)
Disc 1: Paint Me
Your Face/Now We Run/Oooo/Building The Church/Tender Surrender/Band Intros/Fire
Wall/The Crying Machine/Shove The Sun Aside/I’m Becoming/Die To Live/Freak Show
Excess/Apples In Paradise/All About Eve/Gary 7/Beastly Rap/Treasure
Island/Angel Food/Earthquake Sky.
Disc 2: The
Audience Is Listening/The Murder/Juice /Whispering A Prayer/Taurus
Bulba/Liberty/Answers/For The Love Of God.
I think we finally have THE live Vai doovdé. Much as I
loved the Astoria and Sound Theories discs, and Steve’s
performances in the G3 fillums, at times these all lacked a little extry
something. This one seems to have it all for me: it features a great band
(enhanced a goodly deal by the two violinists, whose Apples In Paradise duet is a delight) and is
beautifully/professionally filmed; Steve doesn’t come across as too cloying or
insincere, as he sometimes can (he even apologises for his James Brown jiving);
and much humour is added by the between song sub-titles. Unlike many so-called
music videos, you get close-ups of the band’s hands here, so all you musos can
check what’s really going down (eg. on Steve’s delicate little solo that is I’m Becoming). And the sound is
phenomenal. I saw this band live in London, and was lucky enough to be in the
front few rows. This video puts you even closer to the band, and really makes
you get up out off your seat and shake your thang – especially during Die To Live and Freak Show Excess, wherein Steve’s long-time on-stage foil, Dave
Weiner, perfectly duplicates his master’s every note, and Keneally’s bass-boy,
Bryan Beller, gets to strut his stuff. The fact is,
these guys make it all look so easy and, perhaps more importantly, enjoyable.
How anyone can smile and dance while actually performing this music is quite
remarkable. The half-naked, heavily tattooed Jeremy Colson is also fun to
watch: a bit like Placebo’s new drummer, he’s kinda cartoony. But an amazing
player - his left arms swings mesmerize me. Treasure
Island - an acoustic duet, with Jeremy wearing his portable kit - will make
you smile. And the preceding Beastly Rap
allows for some Frank-inspired banter. The truly great thing about Steve is
that he takes his music very seriously and is always changing tack - simply
refusing to rest on his laurels. Yes, we get some old favourites along the way,
but they are always presented in new and interesting ways (aside from the
violins, Zack Wiesinger adds his lap steel during the encores). The whole thing last over 3½ hours. Phew!
FRANK
ZAPPA AND THE MOTHERS OF INVENTION IN THE 1960s (Chrome Dreams, SIDVD545)
This includes the last filmed interview with Jimmy
Carl Black (sadly, I think I was the last person to actually interview him),
plus new ones with Don Preston, Bunk Gardner, Art Tripp, Billy James (ANT-BEE),
Alan Clayson and Ben Watson. The archive footage used of Frank & the
Mothers in the 60s is just shortish clips, used legally under review and
criticism fair dealing provisions present in both European and American
copyright acts. This, plus the professional editing and narration, make this a
cut above the Music In Review DVD or any of those
Edgehill/Classic Rock things. Yes, it's not an official ZFT-sanctioned
documentary. But it's also not 'complete and utter bullshit', as someone who
hadn't even seen it claimed at the Zappa Forum. In fact, it's really well put
together and includes some footage I'd never seen before - of a young,
clean-shaven FZ with Ray Collins - plus short extracts from a really good
'print' of the Steve Allen show when Frank played sister Candy's bicycle.
Watching that, you can see the amazing resemblance between Frank and his oldest
son.
FRANK
ZAPPA: THE TORTURE NEVER STOPS (Honker Home Video, HHD 1221)
Track list: Black Napkins/Montana/Easy Meat/Beauty
Knows No Pain/Charlie's Enormous Mouth/Fine Girl/Teen-age Wind/Harder Than Your
Husband/Bamboozled By Love/We're Turning Again/Alien Orifice/Flakes/Broken
Hearts Are For Assholes/You Are What You Is/Mudd Club/The Meek Shall Inherit
Nothing/Dumb All Over/Heavenly Bank Account/Suicide Chump/Jumbo Go
Away/Stevie's Spanking/The Torture Never Stops/Strictly Genteel/The Illinois
Enema Bandit.
Extras: Teen-Age Prostitute/City Of
Tiny Lights/You Are What You Is (promo).
Review coming soon. But it’s good!
THE
MUFFIN MEN: MUFFINZ MOOVIES (2004-2005) VOLUME THREE
The saga continues, though this time there’s less chat
and more music. The documenta’y part covers two action packed years, and starts
with Roddie’s 50th birthday party which saw some old faces return
for a one-off gig in Liddypool. Fun to see Bammo, Rhino and
Jumpy on stage together again. There’s a return to
STEVE
VAI: VISUAL SOUND THEORIES
Track list: Kill
The Guy With The Ball/The God Eaters/The Murder Prologue/The
Murder/Answers/Lotus Feet/I'm Becoming/Salamanders In The Sun/The Attitude
Song/Gentle Ways/Liberty/For The Love Of God/Shadows And Sparks/Frangelica Pt. I & II.
Bonus features include: an Orchestra-only performance
of Bledsoe Bluvd./an
interview at De Oosterpoort with Steve Vai/feature length commentary with
Steve, Michael Mesker and Jason Feinberg.
Oooo!
ZAPPANALE
#18
Friday
-
Saturday
- August 04, 2007: chen unst (Germany); Team Zappa (Norway); Octafish
(Germany); Kimono Draggin’ (USA); Sex Without Nails Bros. (Austria); Space
Debris (Germany).
Sunday
- August 05, 2007: Polytoxicomane Philharmonie (Germany); The Great
Googly Moogly (Sweden); Jazzprojekt Hundehagen (Germany); Harmonia Ensemble
(Italy); The Chad Wackerman Trio (USA); Good Bye till 2008 Session (all
musicans).
Photos: From artists, crew, backstage, audience & festival ground.
From Christophe Godin And Mörglbl’s set (wrongly
credited to Kimono Draggin’), they’ve included a snippet of his excellent
Village Of The Sun outro (practically a new song in itself) and his wacky take
on AC/DC’s Highway To Hell. This
hopefully contrasts nicely with the CDs (see above).
FRANK ZAPPA: MUSIC IN REVIEW (Ragnarock Films, CRP2569)
Ben Watson told me, “They paid me a derisory fee [£150] to sit in front
of a drum set and answer questions read out by an accomplice paid a slightly
less derisory fee. I suspect a torrent of ‘opinion’ by second-string talking
heads in the manner of most current cheap docus. On the other hand, it does
have ME in it so it's obviously highly collectable.” Indeed. While
there is much to condemn about this (the fact that it only covers the period up
to Apostrophe (’), for starters),
there’s also much to commend it. Certainly I’ve seen worse; the Zeppelin Making Of A Supergroup DVD springs to
mind. And unlike that, there’s at least some ‘talking heads’ whose opinions you
actually respect and want to hear (hi
Ben!), as well as actual clips of yer actual subject (albeit grainy ones
from the Saturday Night Live 76 and
78 shows, Stockholm 73 and 68’s Colour Me
Pop). Melody Maker writer Chris
Welch met Frank in the late 60s, but otherwise has never exactly been a
prominent fan – indeed, he
inadvertently lets slip comments about “inflicting” this “dreadful”
music on people. He also slams the 200
Motels film as a “disaster”. Gem Howard-Kemp apparently worked for Frank
for three months on an early
ZAPPA
PLAYS ZAPPA DVD (Strobosonic, STROBO-D-100)
Disc One: Andy/Call Any Vegetable/Tell Me You Love
Me/Florentine
Pogen/Cosmik Debris/I’m The Slime/Pound For A Brown/Don’t Eat The
Yellow Snow/St. Alfonzo’s Pancake Breakfast/Father O’Blivion/Inca Roads/Eat That Question/I’m So Cute/Tryin’ To Grow A Chin/Punky’s
Whips.
Disc Two: Black Page #1/Black Page #2/Regyptian Strut/Peaches En
Regalia/Montana/Village Of The Sun/Echidna’s Arf (Of
You)/Zomby Woof/Black Napkins/The Torture Never Stops/Oh No/Son Of Orange
County/Trouble Every Day/Sofa. Bonus Material: Cheepnis/Interview with DZ.
Filmed with 12 HD cameras at the Rose Auditorium in
Portland and the Paramount Theatre in Seattle last December. The
FRANK
ZAPPA: CLASSIC ALBUMS APOSTROPHE (‘)/OVER-NITE SENSATION (Eagle Rock
Entertainment, EREDV625)
The first time I watched this I nearly dribbled, I was
concentrating so hard. It’s a definite must-have DVD, featuring some tantalising - and not nearly enough! - studio footage (you can see them recording
Zomby Woof and parts of the Yellow Snow suite); sped-up on the road shots;
black and white film of a rehearsal with Ponty (playing Zomby); a short clip of
Bianca Odin singing Dirty Love live in 1976; Kerry McNab in the studio now and
then; and on and on. There’s lots of stuff not used on the records (vocals,
studio chatter and such) heard when Joe Travers and Dweezil dissect certain
tracks, and a wondrous segment of Ruth Underwood today showing us Frank’s
beautifully handwritten score for Rollo Interior and playing a small part of
the Idiot Bastard and an almost perfect section from St Alfonzo’s Pancake
Breakfast on her marimba. Gail and three of the kids appear, so we hear Moon
parley about being embarrassed by her father’s lyrics. David McMacken talks
about designing the Over-nite artwork, and many of the musicians who played on
these two albums (Ruth and Ian Underwood, Napi, Ralph Humphrey, Bruce Fowler,
George Duke) look back at those times. Dweezil claims you can find “every aspect of
Frank’s music squeezed into [these] two perfectly formed records”.
The bonus material features longer extracts of Joe and Dweez at UMRK,
highlighting the Ikettes contributions and a whole bunch of the ‘cool little
elements’ from Dirty Love, Nanook Rubs It (including an edited out section) and
Dinah-Moe Humm (where they both look amazed to hear Frank espousing the concept
of the pigmy pony - so they maybe haven’t listened to the version on Have I
Offended Someone?). There’s also the Zappa Plays Zappa band competently playing
Camarillo Brillo in Joe’s Garage (with Napi resplendent in red Prawns With
Horns t-shirt) and Montana from the Roxy (as per at zappa.com) and I’m The
Slime by the In New York band from Saturday Night Live in 1976. If you’re still
waiting for your copy to arrive, you’re in for a real treat.
ED
SEEMAN PRESENTS FRANK ZAPPA & THE ORIGINAL MOTHERS OF INVENTION, 1967-1968
(Personal DVD)
A 40 minute psychedelic excerpt from 14 hours of footage
shot be Ed, this includes the Mothers (Billy, Roy, Don, JCB, Ian, Bunk,
Motorhead, FZ) live (at the Garrick Theater and Royal Albert Hall), in
Apostolic studios, and hanging around in London with Suzy Creemcheese (Pamela
Zarubica), groupies and Tim Buckley’s manager. There’s a nice sped-up piece of
Cal Schenkel making a Zappa dummy for the WOIIFTM sleeve with Gail and Ed. Like
Muffin Moovies 2, there’s also a meeting with Arthur Brown. There’s
some nice clips with Gail and baby Moon in Frank’s
MUFFINZ
MOOVIES TWO & THE MUFFIN MEN LIVE @ ZAPPANALE,
The documenta’y picks up where the last one left off
and is indeed a very worthy sequel. I guess some might criticise the fact that
there are very few complete live performances of songs, so for them there’s the
entire performance from Zappanale #14. Also, this is precisely why Ben Watson’s
contention that nobody really wants us talking heads (yes, me and him is both
one) misses the point, because it is the heads that effectively tell the story
of the band. Includes a segment on the excellent When Worlds Collide which can
be viewed on YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzUk9-McXs4
. Moovies includes a few bonus items, like the
travelling to and from Zappanale, as well as a chunk of their set with Jimmy at
the festival. There’s also a highly amusing interview by an unknown fan when
Jimmy met his old pal Arthur Brown on tour. The Arf Society’s Bands DVD from
Zappanale #14 used a very dark camera for much of the Muffin’s segment;
“luckily we had Esther (Leslie) standing in practically the same place, so we
replaced all the duff camera with our shot, plus we added an audience bootleg
camera for the odd angle or two” Roddie told me. And now this looks really
nifty. In all the excitement of hooking Napi up with the boys and travelling
all day to see them together in
UBin
Twinz presents dErailRoaDed - InsiDe tHe MiNd oF LarRy ‘WILD MAN’ FiScHeR
(Plexi Limited, 802 plexi)
I first saw this at the National Film Theatre in 2005,
where we were treated to a Q&A session with the film’s producer, Jeremy
Lubin. Jeremy told us that the project came about the day Fischer approached
him in a restaurant, stared into his face and proceeded to tell him: he’d been
named ‘Wild Man’ by Solomon Burke; had appeared on Rowan & Martin’s
Laugh-In; made an album with FZ; recorded a further three for Rhino Records; and
sung a duet with Rosemary Clooney. Following such an intriguing introduction, a
semi-believing Lubin (and his partner, the film’s eventual director, Josh
Rubin) had a Google and found it was all true. They realised his story would
make an interesting documentary and were amazed that no one had done it before.
They later realised that no one else would have had the time and patience to
complete it (as was the case with HBO). The mentally ill are not known for
their predictability, after all. Filmed over a three-year period, this film
shows Larry in his 60s convinced that Steven Spielberg wants him dead and
others want to cut his dick off and throw it in the ocean. He remains convinced
he’s the best rock singer in the world, while his mild mannered brother disagrees.
The Wild Man Fischer Story is used to good effect at the start of the film -
listening to that really had my bemused kids laughing. At one point, Larry
claims that FZ wanted a son just like him but, having discovered him, Frank
disowned him the day he smashed a bottle near baby Moon. Despite the subsequent
acrimony (we see puppets re-enacting the scene when Dr Demento played an
enraged FZ Larry’s song Frank live on his radio show), Fischer says the
highpoint of his career was the concert he played with the Mothers at the
Rosebowl. And footage of FZ (who Larry describes as a ‘good
businessman’) from 1970 pops up a couple of times - as well as a more recent
interview with Gail. It is indeed an interesting and engaging film, but
it only scratches the surface of why Larry turned out a paranoid schizophrenic.
He’s no Syd Barret-type drug casualty but, ironically, drugs are responsible
for enabling him to lead a comparatively normal life these days - though
robbing him of any artistic urge (or his ‘pep’). Whatever the reason, The Ubin
Twinz should be applauded for their persistence. Long may this continue, but it
looks like we’ll have to wait for a future special edition to hear Fischer’s
initial reaction to the film (seems he’s still to pluck up the courage to watch
it), as the audio commentary with Larry on this DVD is just some spliced
together phone conversations with the Man. But there’s 49 minutes of bonus
footage, including ‘Weird’ Al Yankovic singing Merry-Go-Round, and a nice
extract from Dennis P. Eichhorn’s comic book. Now check out the Derailroaded
MySpace page (http://www.myspace.com/derailroaded)...
BRUCE
BICKFORD:
Firstly, I’m glad to report to fellow European
denizens that this disc being encoded in the NTSC video format does not prevent
me from playing it on my way old Region 2-only DVD player. So, yeah - it’s
really region free, really free, really really free, really me...er. Anyone who
saw Keane’s Bedshaped video will know that the influence of the amazing Mr
Bickford lives on. Like me, Bruce has a thing about miniature things- Julie
Sexburger says, ‘Just as well. K-yuk! K-yuk!’ But one
of my favourite places on earth is the model village at Babbacombe. Fact - and
so I can empathise with his love for the little guys he creates. And the smaller the better, so it would seem. He sincerely
believes that animation is the single most important thing in the world. Here
he states that Bill Gates should be ploughing his millions into animation
studios, and that we should be making films about wars rather than actually
fighting them. Sound. Computer generated animation
appears to be beyond Bruce’s means, so it’s all really painstaking stuff. But
he’s truly passionate about what he does, and what he does he does brilliantly.
This film obviously features much of his work (with a great soundtrack by Shark
Quest), but the subject of it is he and his father, George - a retired
aerospace engineer suffering from the onset of Alzheimer’s Disease - who took
his son to see Bergman’s Wild Strawberries when he was a kid and interviewed
him about it the next day. (Bruce thinks you should just watch films - not
discuss them.) Filmed at the turn of the century, in a way this reminds me of
Crumb - though not so shocking or perverted, It is
actually a delightful, at times quite profound, little film. Now pray with me
that Bruce outlives the 255-year-old Chinaman; George passed away at the end of
2005 (so sadly me and Bruce have something else in
common). This DVD has been released by Bright Eye Pictures in his memory. It
features a bunch of extras, including deleted scenes and some previously
unreleased BB animation clips. To get your juices flowing, here’s a photo from the
Andre Cholmondeley Collection (circa. 2004), showing Bruce’s handiwork - ladies
and gentlemen, it’s the 1973-74 band. [This is NOT featured in the DVD, but...]
