Posts Tagged ‘The Mothers of Invention’

FRANK ZAPPA – ” Songs “

Posted: December 25, 2020 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Frank Best Frank Zappa Songs

Born on December 21st, 1940, Frank Zappa packed a ridiculous amount of great music into his 52 years on this planet. During his lifetime he made nigh-on 100 separate recordings, put out dozens of classy compilations, fistfuls of singles (some of them super rare), and was the subject of various tribute albums. Among such a plethora of work, the best Frank Zappa songs stand as a testament to a remarkable mind the likes of which we’re unlikely to see again.

His legacy is equally vast: inspired in part by his earlier band The Mothers of Invention’s , Zappa’s discography has touched on avant-garde, musique concrète, industrial, neo-classical and theatrical rock.

Zappa is one of the few artists operating in a rock or post-rock medium who deserves the epithet “genius.” He poked fun at both the establishment and the counterculture with varying degrees of venom. He was also an advocate for free speech and personal choice, and was quite prepared to accept any barbs that came his way. Celebrated by the Velvet Revolutionaries in Prague, he also became a friend of Czech writer and philosopher Václav Havel. Closer to home, Zappa also earned a place within the upper echelons of Rolling Stone’s list of Greatest Guitarists Of All Time.

He could make metal, pop, rock, and blues, along with free-form jazz (à la Albert Ayler) and even classical. His own influence, meanwhile, ranges far beyond commercial success. Zappa had ideas to burn and would undoubtedly still be recording today, had it not been for his early death in 1993. Above all, he was a great musician and a venerated songwriter. Below we offer a selection – and it can only be that some of the best Frank Zappa songs.

Zappa in the 60s

What better place to start than at the beginning: the opening track on the Zappa/Mothers 1966 debut, Freak Out! In “Hungry Freaks, Daddy,” Zappa addresses the countercultural view of the Great Society. America was in both class and social turmoil at this time, and a psychedelic treatment was undercut not with Frank’s often-quoted cynicism but a fair degree of analysis. One assumes that a certain David Bowie was in contact with this album, since his song “Moonage Daydream” seems to reference the mantra, “Freak out, far out…” and he may have lifted his son’s name from the soon-to-come song “Wowie Zowie.

If you want to explore rock conspiracies, then unravel the ditty “Who Are The Brain Police?” A highly creepy Orwellian diatribe, it earns its place among the best Frank Zappa songs – not least for having freaked out its writer, who admitted that its gestation was a concern. “At five o’clock in the morning, someone kept singing this in my mind and made me write it down,” he recalled. “I will admit to being frightened when I finally played it out loud and sang the words.”

But Zappa wasn’t content to stay within the margins of hippie-speak. On “Brown Shoes Don’t Make It,” from the 1967 album “Absolutely Free”, the song’s bluesy origins give way to a cavalcade of musical styles – baroque, surf and rock opera among them. The lyric is a black comedy and another social satire, and the song remains the blueprint for Zappa’s revolutionary attempt to address the underground in a seven-plus-minute musical.

The Mothers’ third album, “We’re Only In It For The Money”, is an obvious send-up of materialist rock culture that even takes a poke at Sgt Pepper’s… For many Zappa fans, each track could make its case among the best of his songs. Perhaps the weirdest one is the short piece “Concentration Moon,” on which people – dissidents, minorities, et al. – are dragged away on buses and incarcerated. It’s no pastiche, but a heavy little number that still resonates.

Time for a breather. Time to “Stuff Up The Cracks.” The late ’68 album Cruising With Ruben & The Jets offers plenty of opportunity to unwind with a little experimental doo-wop. One of Zappa’s early loves, dating back to his own Italian-American roots, doo-wop has influenced many of the best Frank Zappa songs. Blessed with a cool Ray Collins vocal, some hot horns, and a sublime long-fade guitar solo from the main man, this is vintage Mothers, right down to the locked-down-tight rhythms of Roy Estrada and the percussive fills of Jimmy Carl Black and Arthur Dyer Tripp III. You might say this is atypical Frank, but then what is typical Frank?

“Hot Rats” (1969) is crammed with goodies, but the perennial live favourite, the instrumental “Peaches En Regalia” (also released as a single) retains its currency as one of the best Frank Zappa songs. From an early solo period when Zappa was embracing fatherhood with the birth of son Dweezil, this sumptuous track features studio-effect half-speed mastering and progressive fusion elements. Imagine it as a bizarre cross between Steely Dan and Weather Report, and enjoy the journey while Shuggie Otis plucks his bass and the masterful Ian Underwood carries the horn and organus maximus parts. Every time you play it you’re bound to hear something fresh. 

Zappa in the 70s

Skipping with a heavy heart over “Burnt Weeny Sandwich” we land on Weasels Ripped My Flesh and an expanded Mothers featuring Lowell George (en route to Little Feat fame). Both live- and studio-based – and Mother-great throughout – it boasts a classic early Neon Park artwork and includes “My Guitar Wants To Kill Your Mama.” Nothing problematic here, just grand warp-rock with a surprisingly folky central acoustic guitar solo and the type of rolling blues rhythm one might also hear on a period Steve Miller Band album.

Recorded live at University Of California, Los Angeles, 1972’s “Just Another Band From LA” features The Turtles’ Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman (aka Flo & Eddie) and shouldn’t be overlooked. To get more bang for your buck, lay back and immerse yourself in the utterly madcap “Billy The Mountain,” a rock opera parody that slaps The Wizard Of Oz next to a sly allusion to Crosby, Stills & Nash’s “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes.” Given the experimental nature of this cracked tune, one suspects most of it was improvised on the spot after a few studio run-throughs, but that adds to the humorous tension.

Ever-prolific, Zappa and his Mothers were on fine form again during 1973’s “Over-Nite Sensation”, a flat-out comic rock extravaganza with more sexual innuendo than you can shake a stick at. Derided at the time, it sounds excellent today thanks to “Camarillo Brillo,” “I’m the Slime,” “Dinah-Moe Humm,” “Dirty Love,” et al. – but grab onto “Montana,” featuring Tina Turner and The Ikettes, as well as oddball singer Ricky Lancelotti. Fiendishly complex and funky, the track allows the ensemble to blow hard – none more so than Uncle Frank, whose long solo is a tour de force.

Zappa enjoyed a renaissance during this period, and 1974’s “Apostrophe (’)” would be his most successful album in the US. “Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow” kicked off a “suite” concerning an Eskimo and a fur trapper, but ends up as one of Frank’s zaniest and most profane tunes. Don’t let that put you off. It’s one of the best Frank Zappa songs of the mid-70s. Audacious rhythms and percussion proliferate, and DiscReet even released the song as a single, which helped the parent album break into the charts . Remarkable, considering the subject matter. (“Cosmik Debris” is another highlight from the standout album.)

For something slightly less leftfield, try “Cheepnis,” a delicious item on the live-album-with-overdubs “Roxy & Elsewhere”. As an experiment in echoing the FX on B-movies, this is hard to beat, with the new-look Mothers including Napoleon Murphy Brock and pioneering funkster George Duke.

The Mothers concept ends on One Size Fits All, which opens with the progressive fusion of “Inca Roads” but generally sends itself up thanks to a sequence of time signatures and a famous Zappa guitar solo.

During another prolific year, Zappa teamed up in earnest with his labelmate, friend, and kindred madman, Captain Beefheart (aka Don Van (Glen) Vliet). However, the results were less avant-garde than one might expect. Every track on 1975’s “Bongo Fury” satisfies, but we’ve picked out the appealing “Advance Romance” for its parodic but affectionate insight into how a love song is written and deconstructed. Soulful mid-70s blues.

The more minimalist approach taken on “Zoot Allures” brings old tropes back into the fold: doo-wop and blues-rock in particular. Disco, German culture, and sexual stereotypes all crop up in the lyrics, but for dark social commentary lock into “Wind Up Workin’ In A Gas Station,” where the sardonic dismantling of the work ethic manages to be blackly comic.

Without decrying Studio Tan and Sleep Dirt – fine albums both – take a look at Sheik Yerbouti, a monumental double-album recorded at London’s Hammersmith Odeon and The Palladium, New York. One song that didn’t get much homegrown airplay was the scatological “Bobby Brown,” in which Zappa’s delight at ignoring the boundaries of taste reaches a zenith. Hugely popular in Northern Europe, the song may be Zappa’s most successful commercial moment: the single shifted enough copies to go gold and became a firm live favorite.

In 1979, Zappa increased his fascination with Xenochrony and progressive guitar solos, but also enjoyed a period of intense exposure on North American FM radio. “Joe’s Garage” (from Joe’s Garage Act I) is based on a tongue-in-cheek, put-down of garage punk but, by using the God-fearing epiphany of the protagonists, it mutates into a punk classic that sticks it to corporate censorship while being unashamedly misanthropic.

On the same album, you’ll find “Watermelon In Easter Hay,” a song that’s often cited as being Zappa’s favourite composition. Much lighter than anything else on Joe’s Garage, the fluid guitar solos, occasionally reminiscent of Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour, make it worth the price of admission alone, and it is a testament to Zappa’s compositional skill. (The original title was “Trying To Play A Solo With These Guys Is Like Trying To Grow A Watermelon In Easter Hay.” Bit long, maybe.)

Zappa in the 80s

After a sequence of albums dedicated to the art (and debunking) of guitar histrionics, Zappa enjoyed a later hit with “Valley Girl” a song that introduced fans to the culture of San Fernando schoolgirl “Valspeak.” The outcome was a double-edged sword, since Zappa was often viewed as a novelty act, but the track transcends its own joke and stands as one of the best Frank Zappa songs of the era. It elevated its inspiration (and vocalist), Moon Unit Zappa, along with his then 14-year old daughter, to the status of a star in her own right. Better still, it enabled the album Ship Arriving Too Late To Save A Drowning Witch to break the Top 30, while the single peaked at No.12.

By the 80s, it was arguable that Zappa, while not turning his back on rock music, had become far more interested in his other loves: Boulez, Stravinsky, Eric Dolphy, and post-bop free jazz in general. To complete this journey, dig into the version of “Uncle Meat” on 1993’s The Yellow Shark, the final disc released during Zappa’s lifetime. Revisiting one of the best Frank Zappa songs of the 60s, this version, featuring the Modern Ensemble, helps wrap up a career of immense achievement. Tom Waits (who, as a fledgling artist, once supported Zappa on tour) described it best: “The ensemble is awe-inspiring. It is a rich pageant of texture in colour. It’s the clarity of his perfect madness and mastery. 

One of Zappa’s final performances is the album’s closer, the epic “G-Spot Tornado,” on which he overcame his illness and marched on stage in Frankfurt in order to conduct the Ensemble and received the ovation of his life. We won’t see his like again.

FRANK ZAPPA and the MOTHERS of INVENTION – ” We’re Only In It for the Money “

Posted: December 6, 2020 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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In the late ’60s, when rock music was exploding in countless, new creative directions, when musicians were testing all of the limits—in the studio, onstage and in life—the Mothers of Invention proudly declared themselves freaks. And their leader, Frank Zappa, was the freakiest freak of all.

He’d first come to the attention of the public in a small way in 1963, when he appeared, as a young man with a greasy pompadour, on The Steve Allen Show—“playing” a bicycle. (Scroll to the bottom to check out the video.)

For rock fans though, it was the Mothers’ debut LP, appropriately titled Freak Out!, that first opened our eyes and ears. Released on Verve Records in June 1966, it was only rock’s second double album (preceded by Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde), but the fact that it was recorded by a band unknown outside of the Los Angeles club circuit made it an instant curiosity—especially when DJs and fans heard what kind of outrageousness these crazy-looking Mothers were up to.

Freak Out! was unlike any other rock album that had come before. Produced by Tom Wilson—whose other clients included Bob Dylan, the Velvet Underground, Simon and Garfunkel and many notable jazz artists—it threw into a crockpot all manner of oddness: avant-garde experimentalism, blistering psychedelic rock (although Zappa eschewed drugs), doo-wop, blues and more, with songs, often satirical, pointing fingers at authoritarianism, hypocrisy and, in “Trouble Every Day,” the very real horror of race riots plaguing the Watts section of Los Angeles. The album ended with a side-long, 12-minute freeform jam called “The Return of the Son of Monster Magnet (Unfinished Ballet in Two Tableaux)” that established the Mothers of Invention as some of the most gifted and boundary-busting musicians in rock.

On album number two, Absolutely Free, released just days before the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club band, the expanded group, now eight musicians including horn players, fine-tuned its ideas, with barbed commentary on society (“Plastic People,” “Brown Shoes Don’t Make it”), absurdly surreal musings (“The Duke of Prunes,” “Call Any Vegetable”) and more of that brilliant musicianship.

But it wasn’t until their third release (actually Zappa’s fourth, as it followed his solo opus Lumpy Gravy) that the Mothers truly found their footing: We’re Only In It for the Money, released on Verve in March 1968, would become Zappa’s highest-charting album for six years (it reached #30), even while the band remained defiantly and resolutely anti-commercial in its scope. In fact, it was initially conceived as part of a larger Zappa project titled No Commercial Potential, which ultimately encompassed three other diverse albums: the aforementioned Lumpy Gravy, Cruising with Ruben & the Jets and Uncle Meat.

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There is some question regarding who exactly plays on “We’re Only In It for the Money“. The front cover shows seven Mothers, including Zappa. The liner notes list, and picture, eight: guitarist, pianist and vocalist Zappa; drummer Jimmy Carl Black (who famously declares himself to be the “Indian of the group” at the end of the lumbering, foreboding Musique concrete opener, “Are You Hung Up?,” one of two numbers featuring minor spoken parts by Eric Clapton); another drummer, Billy Mundi; bassist Roy Estrada; woodwinds player Bunk Gardner; another woodwinds musician, Ian Underwood, who also played piano; and Euclid James “Motorhead” Sherwood, who plays baritone and soprano saxophones. Don Preston, a multi-instrumentalist who had played on Absolutely Free, and would work with Zappa for several more years, is listed as “retired.”

What confuses the issue is that later re-releases of the album state, in their liner notes, that, “All musical duties on the album were performed by Frank Zappa, Ian Underwood, Roy Estrada and Billy Mundi. Jimmy Carl Black, Don Preston, Bunk Gardner and Euclid James ‘Motorhead’ Sherwood were all featured in some capacity on the record.”

Regardless of who did what, Money, produced by Zappa, is indisputably a ’60s classic and, for many, the apex of Zappa’s early years, if not his entire career. It was a concept album, owing to but simultaneously parodying Sgt. Pepper.

Its inside gatefold photo was a carefully choreographed takeoff on that previous year’s game-changer. Originally intended for the front cover, an idea nixed by the record label due to photo licensing issues (a portrait of the band in drag—Zappa wearing pigtails and a mini-skirt—adorned the outside instead), the Mothers’ Pepper parody was created by Cal Schenkel, with photography by Jerry Schatzberg. It found the band members surrounded by a seemingly random collage of people and objects, ranging from President Lyndon Johnson to the Statue of Liberty, Lee Harvey Oswald to Jimi Hendrix, the latter actually present for the photo shoot. Where the Beatles had had their name spelled out in flowers, the Mothers used vegetables and watermelons.

The humour displayed in the album art carried over to the music, but “We’re Only In It for the Money” also had its share of rather serious, biting moments as well. Its patchwork of musical elements—more of that patented avant-weirdness, doo-wop harmonies and deliberately funny voices, found sounds (including snorts, whispered dialogue from engineer Gary Kellgren and a telephone conversation in which a female caller, ostensibly Pamela Zarubica, a.k.a. Suzy Creamcheese, tells the other party, “He’s gonna bump you off, yeah; he’s got a gun, you know”)—was matched to Zappa’s sharpest lyrics to date; its 18 tracks, many of which segued abruptly into the next, were somewhat connected lyrically, albeit loosely at times.

In a few songs, Zappa bravely lampooned a sizable segment of his own audience, who adhered to the blossoming flower children/hippie ethos: “Flower Punk,” a takeoff on the oft-recorded “Hey Joe”—played at a breakneck pace in convoluted time signatures—asked, “Hey, punk, where you goin’ with that flower in your hand?”; “Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance” instructed listeners to free their minds and bodies and do just that; and, most notably “Who Needs the Peace Corps?” savaged the burgeoning youth migration to San Francisco at the time with lines like, “I’m hippy and I’m trippy, I’m a gypsy on my own, I’ll stay a week and get the crabs and take a bus back home, I’m really just a phony but forgive me ’cause I’m stoned.”

On the other hand, Zappa certainly had no love for the vapid suburban lifestyle of the hippies’ parents. “Bow Tie Daddy,” appropriately set to a giddy vaudeville-style melody, cautioned, “Don’t try to do no thinkin’, just go on with your drinkin’, just have your fun, you old son of a gun, then drive home in your Lincoln,” while the acerbic “The Idiot Bastard Son” spoke of a father who’s “a Nazi in Congress today” and a mother who’s “a hooker somewhere in L.A.” Zappa’s focus often shifted to the frayed relationships between adults and their nonconformist children—in “Lonely Little Girl,” he wrote, “The things they say just hurt your heart, it’s too late now for them to start to understand.”

Being Zappa there was both frivolity and outright darkness, sometimes in the same song: “What’s the Ugliest Part of Your Body?,” set to a balladic, sing-along doo-wop melody, proposed nothing beyond that question (“Some say your nose, some say your toes, but I think it’s your mind”). Another, “Let’s Make the Water Turn Black,” was truly otherworldly, with its descriptions of Kenny’s “little creatures on display” and Ronnie saving “his numies on a window in his room,” not to mention “Mama with her apron and her pad, feeding all the boys at Ed’s Café, whizzing and pasting and pooting through the day”).

But several of Money’s songs induced palpable shudders among the young who encountered them upon the album’s release. Zappa’s political statements didn’t hold back, and he spoke openly to the paranoia and fear that was in the air during that game-changing year of assassinations, domestic strife and the escalation of the Vietnam War. In “Concentration Moon,” the ballad near the top of the track list, Zappa described deadly attacks on young people who posed a threat to the powers-that-be in the ’60s: “American way, how did it start?, thousands of creeps, killed in the park, American way, try and explain, scab of a nation driven insane.” The kids, he suggests, may soon have regrets that they ever left home: “Concentration moon, wish I was back in the alley, with all of my friends, still running free, hair growing out every hole in me.” Directly following it was the mournful and equally dismal “Mom & Dad,” which continued the harrowing theme: “Someone said they made some noise, the cops have shot some girls and boys, you’ll sit home and drink all night, they looked too weird… it served them right.”

“Harry, You’re a Beast” was, perhaps, the album’s most chilling of all, a graphic depiction of male dominance and the ritual abuse of women. Set to an awkwardly chirpy melody, Harry informs Madge, presumably his wife, that she’s “phony on top and phony underneath,” after which he rapes her: “Madge, I want your body! Harry, get back! Madge, it’s not merely physical! Harry, you’re a beast!” The album’s printed lyrics follow the depiction of the incident with several instances of the word “censored,” but a later remix of the album by Zappa (which is best avoided—Zappa inexplicably re-recorded bass and drum tracks) reveals those censored words—among several segments of the original recording either altered reluctantly by Zappa or excised by the label—to be “Don’t come in me, in me,” repeated several times. Madge, as the song concludes, is still sobbing as Harry proclaims, “Madge, I couldn’t help it, doggone it.” Needless to say, rock music had never before addressed this sort of despicable behaviour so openly. (A reference to comic Lenny Bruce was cut from the final track.)

Each of these songs, up through the self-deprecating “Mother People,” the final vocal number (with its x-rated stanza,“Better look around before you say you don’t care, shut your fucking mouth about the length of my hair, how would you survive, if you were alive, shitty little person?”), contained a plethora of words to consider, and bulged with innovative musical ideas, yet the vast majority of Money’s songs were extremely short, ranging from under a minute to a little over two, with three tunes falling between three and four minutes. Only the album-closing “The Chrome Plated Megaphone of Destiny,” one of three tracks featuring the Sid Sharp-conducted Abnuceals Emuukha Electric Symphony Orchestra and Chorus—the liner notes instructed listeners to read Franz Kafka’s In the Penal Colony before proceeding with this one—flirted with serious length, clocking in at six-and-a-half minutes, nearly all of it experimental noodling.

The whole of We’re Only In it for the Money is just under 40 minutes total, encompassing uptempo tracks, ballads and the aforementioned studio explorations. It goes by briskly though, stopping and starting and shifting gears constantly and unexpectedly to what might seem dizzying effect at first but quickly settles into its own groove.

Frank Zappa, both with and without the Mothers of Invention, would never stop seeking new ways to express himself, until the end of his life. He recorded more than 60 albums in all, some exceedingly brilliant, others disappointing to an alarming degree. But it was on this early release, We’re Only In it for the Money, when he helped make it clear that anything was possible in rock music, that Frank Zappa confirmed his true genius.

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FRANK ZAPPA – ” Original Motion Picture Soundtrack ” 5LP Box Set

Posted: November 29, 2020 in MUSIC
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With unfettered access to the Zappa Trust and all archival footage, “Zappa” explores the private life behind the mammoth musical career that never shied away from the political turbulence of its time. Alex Winter’s assembly features appearances by Frank’s widow Gail Zappa and several of Frank’s musical collaborators including Mike Keneally, Ian Underwood, Steve Vai, Pamela Des Barres, Bunk Gardner, David Harrington, Scott Thunes, Ruth Underwood, Ray White and others. The soundtrack is a perfect complement to the film available as a limited edition 5-LP 180-gram smoke color vinyl set for the Zappa completist. Showcasing 69 total songs, there are 12 previously unreleased recordings from the Zappa archive along with his 1978 Saturday Night Live performance; 24 additional Zappa songs from his extensive catalogue spanning four decades; songs from Zappa’s labels Straight / Bizarre Records like “No Longer Umpire” by Alice Cooper and “The Captain’s Fat Theresa Shoes” by The GTO’s; 2 classical compositions by Edgard Varese and Igor Stravinsky; and 26 Original Score cues newly composed by John Frizzell for the documentary – all of which give the universe a sonic exploration into the musical brilliance of Frank Zappa.

The music in “Zappa” spans the composer’s entire career, including psychedelic rock, jazz and classical experiments — beginning with several cuts from his 1966 debut with the Mothers of Invention, Freak Out, to the last recording released in his lifetime, 1993’s The Yellow Shark. It contains 12 tracks that have never been commercially released — including three selections from a June 1968 concert at the Whisky A Go-Go, his 1978 performance of “Dancin’ Fool” on Saturday Night Live and several interview clips — along with two songs originally released on Zappa’s labels. 

For Zappa, Winter received full access to the Zappa Trust. He interviewed several musicians who worked with Zappa, including Steve Vai, Mike Keneally and Ian Underwood, as well as Zappa’s widow Gail, who died in 2015. You can see the trailer below and stream the movie from its official website.

Frank Zappa’s story is not a predictable arc of youthful talent and enthusiasm blossoming into commercial success and critical acclaim followed by a long, boring afterlife. Frank began composing as a teenager after hearing the rhythmically iconoclastic sounds of Edgard Varèse, and well before picking up a guitar. In 1965, he formed the Mothers of Invention to support his composing habit. According to Paul McCartney, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was directly inspired by the Mothers’ debut album, Freak Out!, which would have been rock’s first double album if a different variety of freak out, Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde, hadn’t arrived a week earlier. Have I mentioned that ZAPPA devotes surprisingly little screen time to Frank onstage with his various Mothers iterations? There are snippets galore, but don’t stream this movie expecting previously unheard guitar magnificence or comedy-rock tomfoolery. Winter points out that you can easily find that sort of thing elsewhere, and that’s definitely not the crux of this cinematic biscuit.

A triple-CD companion soundtrack, meanwhile, delivers oodles of complete tracks along with composer John Frizzell’s unexpectedly discreet and complementary score for the film. Universal is accepting orders for the physical set, which will be available next year as three-CD or five-LP formats (black or smoke vinyl), along with a 21-track compilation that will be sold digitally and on clear vinyl.

FRANK ZAPPA And The MOTHERS – ” The Mothers 1970 ” 50th Anniversary Box Set

Posted: June 21, 2020 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Zappa Records/UMe will next month issue “The Mothers 1970”, a four-CD Frank Zappa box set which features 70 unreleased tracks from the short-lived 1970 line-up of the Mothers of Invention.
The band during this period last around seven months and was Aynsley Dunbar, George Duke, Ian Underwood, Jeff Simmons, and Flo & Eddie (aka Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman).

This new box set features over four hours of unreleased music, with the first CD featuring unheard studio sessions from Trident Studios in London England (with engineer Roy Thomas Baker) and the remainder offering historical live performances mostly captured by Zappa’s own tape recorder (a UHER recorder).

All recordings were sourced from their original tapes discovered in The Vault and digitally transferred and compiled by Travers in 2020. Some tracks were mixed by Craig Parker Adams and the collection was mastered by John Polito at Audio Mechanics. The Mothers line-up that included Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman, is one of my favourite periods in Frank Zappa’s musical history. Howard and Mark did some amazing vocals for their group, The Turtles, and as back-up singers for Marc Bolan & T. Rex, but really stole the show when doing lead vocal harmonies (and naughty satirical dialogues with Frank) as the reincarnation of The Mothers for the 1970-1972 live performances. I loved this stuff when I was in my early teens, plus the fact that my mom and dad really hated it made it even more alluring.  Historical live performances mostly captured by Zappa’s own tape recorder.

The Mothers 1970 is presented in a clamshell box and includes a booklet and a button. It has been produced by Ahmet Zappa and Joe Travers and will be released on 26th June 2020.

FRANK ZAPPA – ” Ruben And The Jets ” Released December 2nd, 1968,

Posted: December 2, 2019 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Cruising with Ruben & the Jets is the fourth studio album by the Mothers of Invention. Released on December 2nd, 1968, on Bizarre and Verve Records with distribution by MGM Records, it was subsequently remixed by Frank Zappa and reissued independently.

As with the band’s previous three albums, it is a concept album, influenced by 1950s doo wop and rock and roll. The album’s concept deals with a fictitious Chicano doo wop band called Ruben & the Jets, the cover illustration depicts the Mothers of Invention as anthropomorphic dogs. Zappa described the album as an homage to the 1950s vocal music that he was “crazy” about. Mothers member Collins later left the Mothers of Invention, and Zappa began working on a project entitled No Commercial Potential, which included sessions that produced Cruising with Ruben & the Jets,which later produced three other albums: Lumpy Gravy, We’re Only in It for the Money and Uncle Meat.

Zappa later stated, regarding the releases Lumpy Gravy, We’re Only in It for the Money, Cruising with Ruben & the Jets andUncle Meat, “It’s all one album. All the material in the albums is organically related and if I had all the master tapes and I could take a razor blade and cut them apart and put it together again in a different order it still would make one piece of music you can listen to. Then I could take that razor blade and cut it apart and reassemble it a different way, and it still would make sense. I could do this twenty ways. The material is definitely related.

The album and its singles received some radio success, due to its doo wop sound.

Ray Collins rejoined the Mothers of Invention for the recording of the album, as his high falsetto was really suited for the recordings. According to Collins, “I brought the style of being raised in Pomona, California, being raised on the Four Aces, the Four Freshmen, Frankie Lane, Frank Sinatra and Jesse Baldwin. The early influences of R&B came into the Southern California area when I was probably in the tenth grade in high school. And I remember Peter Potter’s show, and I think I recall the first R&B tune on there was ‘Oop-Shoop’. Frank actually had more influences from the ‘real blues’, you know, like Muddy Waters, those kind of people. But I wasn’t into that in my early life. I was more of the pop culture, pop radio things, and it’s always been more of a favourite of mine than the early blues stuff

The range of material includes originals as well as standards like Chuck Berry’s “Almost Grown,” and there’s not a weak moment anywhere on the album. And as good as all of For Real! is — without a false note sounded anywhere — they save the best for last, a stomping, killer version of “All Nite Long” that definitely leaves the listener wanting more

FRANK ZAPPA and The MOTHERS of INVENTION – ” Live In Paris ” 26th October 1968

Posted: January 5, 2019 in MUSIC
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Anyone who is a fan of the Uncle Meat period of Frank Zappa and The Mothers Of Invention will get a kick out of this one. It explains, in a little over 50 minutes why Zappa was so influential among the fledgling Progressive Rock community. Frank really never made music to dance to, even though some could argue that parts of Freak Out and Cruisin’ With Ruben And The Jets were finger-poppers, and the first number on this tape is a jumping improv, he mostly appealed directly to an audience who liked their music brainy and challenging. He was responsible for freeing up much of Rock’s inherent restrictions, and in doing so forged a new direction during a period of time where musicians and listeners were looking for a bit more substance and meaning.

And even though it became a very public joke that none of Frank’s music would ever make it on Top-40 radio, he achieved worldwide recognition without it. Popular Music was exploding in directions that hadn’t happened before the 1960s. By 1968 the revolution was in full bloom.

And when you consider this concert from Paris, five months after the great French Strike of May and the monumental changes that occurred during that time, it’s only fitting and natural that Frank Zappa and The Mothers Of Invention play to a sold out and enthusiastic audience at the Olympia.

Fortunately, this concert sounds great and completely belies its age (almost 50 years ago . . .seriously?). Further evidence that history doesn’t need to sound dim and distant in order to be profound. Unfortunately, it’s just the first half of the concert.

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The Mothers Of Invention: 
Frank Zappa—guitar and vocals
Don Preston—keyboards
Ian Underwood—keyboards and woodwinds
Bunk Gardner—woodwinds
Motorhead—baritone sax
Roy Estrada—bass and vocals
Jimmy Carl Black—drums and vocals
Art Tripp—drums and percussion

Recorded 26th October 1968, Olympia, Paris, France

FRANK ZAPPA – ” Inca Roads (A Token Of His Extreme) ” Originally Released on “One Size Fits All”

Posted: October 20, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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“Inca Roads” is one of Frank Zappa’s most cherished, covered, and appreciated pieces. It allied his ability to write a catchy song with his mastery of complex music forms, making it a favorite among progressive rock fans and virtuoso ensembles. The lyrics begin on a UFO theme: “Did a vehicle/Come from somewhere out there/Just to land in the Andes?,” referring to South American architectural structures some believed were landing sites for flying saucers. But quickly the song takes a dive into “life on the road.” The word “vehicle” is replaced by “booger-bear,” a title given to the band member who ended up with the ugliest groupie the previous night (which makes it the contrary of “Bwana Dik”). The name of drummer Chester Thompson comes up in regards to that, as it will again under similar circumstances in “Florentine Pogen.” The song ends with a tutti “On Ruth!,” a wink at percussionist Ruth Underwood’s .

“Inca Roads” was the opening track of the Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention 1975 album, “One Size Fits All”. The song features unusual time signatures, lyrics and vocals. The marimba-playing of Zappa’s percussionist Ruth Underwood is featured prominently. The song was played in concert from 1973 to 1976, 1979 and 1988. “Inca Roads” uses mixed meter time sequences.

The song starts with dominant vocals, drums, and marimba, but soon features a massive, iconic guitar solo performed by Zappa in late September 1974 at a live performance in Helsinki, Finland. An edited version of this solo recording (and part of the bass and drums accompaniment) was “grafted” onto the KCET track and forms the backbone of the One Size Fits All version . Later, George Duke plays an equally complex solo in . On the video, Zappa is seen smiling gleefully, as he plays the backup chords. After a short marimba solo, “Inca Roads” reprises its snappy intro. The song ends with the lyrics “On Ruth, on Ruth, that’s Ruth!” acknowledging Underwood for her leading on the marimba.

In an interview vocalist and keyboard player George Duke said that Zappa pushed for him to sing on “Inca Roads” and that beforehand Duke had no intentions of singing professionally and was only there to play keyboards. He went on to explain how Zappa had bought him a synthesizer (an instrument which Duke had disliked) and told him he could play around with it if he wanted. This led to Duke playing the synth part on “Inca Roads” as well

This re recorded version was featured on the Eagle Rock Entertainment Vdeo release in conjuction with the Zappa Family Trust first official release of A TOKEN OF HIS EXTREME, an original program created by Frank Zappa for TV. Recorded on August 27, 1974 at KCET in Hollywood.

“A Token of his Extreme” features Frank Zappa with five incredibly talented band members for this extravaganza of live music. The line-up exists of Frank Zappa—guitar, percussion, vocals; George Duke—keyboards, finger cymbals, tambourine, vocals; Napoleon Murphy Brock—sax, vocals; Ruth Underwood—percussion; Tom Fowler—bass; Chester Thompson—drums.

I always end up emotionally overwhelmed at the unparalleled majesty of this band’s musicianship. Ruth Underwood percussion is amazing, This is truly one of Frank Zappa’s greatest compositions. Not only is his solo jaw dropping but the band are just scorching hot too. All that knotty odd time, crazy harmony and difficult vocals just shows how great these guys were. George Duke just absolutely burns on this song.

The track was taken from the Program, as edited and thoroughly tweezed & produced by Frank Zappa for Honker Home Video includes these delights: The Dog Breath Variations/ Uncle Meat, Montana, Earl Of Duke (George Duke), Florentine Pogen, Stink-Foot, Pygmy Twylyte, Room Service, Inca Roads, Oh No, Son Of Orange County, More Trouble Every Day, A Token Of My Extreme. Stereo Mixes Produced by Frank Zappa with Kerry McNabb at Paramount Studios, 1974.

“This was put together with my own money and my own time and it’s been offered to television networks and to syndication and it has been steadfastly rejected by the American television industry. It has been shown in primetime in France and Switzerland, with marvelous results. It’s probably one of the finest pieces of video work that any human being has ever done. I did it myself. And the animation that you’re gonna see in this was done by a guy named Bruce Bickford, and I hope he is watching the show, because it’s probably the first time that a lot of people in America got a chance to see it.”- FZ appearing on the Mike Douglas Show, 1976 Because ‘Token’ has never been commercially released until now, it is one of the most sought after Frank Zappa programs.

The Band

  • Frank Zappa – guitar, vocals
  • George Duke – keyboards, synthesizer, lead vocals
  • Napoleon Murphy Brock – flute, tenor saxophone, vocals
  • Chester Thompson – drums
  • Tom Fowler – bass
  • Ruth Underwood – vibes, marimba, percussion