A brief interview one day after Zappa’s birthday, 1976. He was 36.
What’s That Stuff In Yer Mustache?
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Yearly Archives: 2013
Merry Zappadan Eve!
‘Ray Collins, we love you!’
Ray Collins, probably the finest voice ever to have worked in the Zappa realm, died on Dec. 24, 2012.
In October, a fellow MeFite created an exhaustive tribute to him on the popular community Web log known as Metafilter.
If you have time today, go kill some time there. Actually, you could spend an entire week perusing this thing. It is a marvelous tribute.
If I’d Interviewed Graham Nash for This
“So we went to see the Mothers at Albert Hall, and we got high.”
“And?”
“That’s all.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s your whole story about seeing the Mothers at Albert Hall. Did you see when they played ‘Louie Louie’ on the house organ?”
“Um.”
…
“Man, I got high with Jimi Hendrix. What more?”
Instead, it went like this:
Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz
As you may well know, the world lost Marian McPartland in 2013.
McPartland, jazz pianist, composer, writer, and host of course of Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz on National Public Radio, and, not to mention, Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire.
Sadly, Frank Zappa’s appearance on her radio show in 1988 is lost to the ages. It is, however, documented by All About Jazz dot com.
For her solo feature, McPartland again shows off a bit with an impressionistic take of Zappa’s “Twenty Small Cigars,” causing its composer to ask, “Do you wanna go on the road with us?” Finally, all ends well with a rousing finale of “King Kong,” prompting McPartland to say, “I’ve never had so much fun playing rock!”
Such a shame it can’t be heard.
Let’s Move to Cleveland. For Piano.
Love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love this.
By Stefano Bollani, on the album Småt Småt.
And no, you can’t have it because I just bought the last one on Amazon.
It Just Smells Funny
Just gonna take up about an hour and 28 minutes of your time today for Zappadan.
In 2003, the tenth anniversary of the last day that Frank Zappa refused to die, the BBC did a radio documentary, “Jazz from Hell – His Bizarre Relationship with Jazz.”
This is an information-rich program (actually a series of three). You will come away from it as a more learned freak. Promise.
Run Home Slow
December 15, 1965 was the official release date of “Run Home Slow,” described on the Internet Movie Database like this:
Evidently an attempt by Mercedes McCambridge to appear in a dumber western than “Johnny Guitar” and she succeeds in the role of Nell Hagen who sets out to retaliate for the hanging of her father Judd, who ruled their valley with an iron hand before the natives revolted.
What’s notable about the film of course was its scorer. Scoring this film was Frank Zappa’s first paid gig and allowed him to buy Studio Z.
Later reprised:
Fred Zappelin
All I’m going to do is to embed the YouTube link and copy the notes. That’s all I need to do because this is a great bootleg.
Frank Zappa – Fred Zappelin (Discogs)
This recording is a digital copy of the Frank Zappa vinyl bootlegrecord Fred Zappelin.
Fred Zappelin (2 LP) – in a spirit of overall fun and merriment, the idea was tossed around alt.fan.frank-zappa that “one of the early ’80s albums” would have had Fred Zeppelin as a working title. He was really drunk, though / I don’t know if it’s real –
Cologne musicians: Frank Zappa, Ike Willis, Tommy Mars, Arthur Barrow, Ray White and David Logeman
* Sporthalle, Cologne, 7-Jun-1980
US musicians: Frank Zappa, Ike Willis, Steve Vai, Ray White, Arthur Barrow, Vinnie Colaiuta, Tommy Mars and Bob Harris
* Phoenix, Arizona, 13-Oct-1980
* Palladium, New York 1-Nov-1980
* Various (frankly unkown) USA locations and dates late 1980
* Tracks 1-9 are live in Cologne 7-Jun-1980.
1. A Pound for a Brown on the Bus
2. Pick Me, I’m Clean
3. Society Pages
4. I’m a Beautiful Guy
5. Beauty Knows No Pain
6. Charlie’s Enormous Mouth
7. Dancin’ Fool
8. Bobby Brown
9. Ms Pinky
* Tracks 10-11 are live in Phoenix, Arizona, 13-Oct-1980.
10. Truck Driver Divorce
11. Luigi & the Wise Guys[listed as “You’re a Dork”]
* Tracks 12-17 and 21-23 are from various unknown US live dates late 1980.
* Tracks 18-20 are from the late Palladium show in New York 1-Nov-1980.
12. Outside Now
13. Tinseltown Rebellion
14. The Dangerous Kitchen
15. The Blue Light[listed as “Your Ethos”]
16. Dumb All Over
17. Shall We Take Ourselves Seriously?
18. Black Napkins / Introduction
19. Doreen
20. Goblin Girl
21. Broken Hearts Are for Assholes
22. I’m so Cute
23. Andy
Issued in December 1980 with a black & white paper insert. The original edition was 2000 copies, but a re-press of 500 copies came in a deluxe colour sleeve, and another 500 copies were pressed on coloured vinyl.
This boot was made from a soundboard tape stolen from Carlos Santana’s luggage at a hotel in New Haven, Connecticut, where Carlos was staying after a concert at the “New Haven Colliseum” [?]. Crazy but true. (A “friend of the thief” has been in touch, reporting that he also came by some Santana tapes of the same time period, as “both Frank and Santana were touring Europe at the same time”.)
and so you can see that what we’re doing here on stage is part of a great American tradition
Want your mind blown today?
Watch Mike Keneally belt out “Jazz Discharge Party Hats.”
From the “Zappa’s Universe” album of 1991, the release of which, by the way, first led to the public revelation that Frank was sick. Originally, he was supposed to be a part of the project. When he pulled out, people asked why, and Moon and Dweezil had to make the announcement.
I surmise this project gave rise to the current Zappa Plays Zappa project.
Very nice.