Frank Zappa

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C
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Re: Frank Zappa

Postby C » 23 Feb 2022, 10:30

Matt Wilson wrote:Image
Waka/Jawaka 1972


One of the 'wheelchair' albums

An absolute masterpiece from start to finish.

The pedal steel guitar solo on One Shot Deal is to die for.

Stunning stuff and full of music throughout





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Re: Frank Zappa

Postby mudshark » 23 Feb 2022, 16:13

Wow, I didn't know that. Thanks Matt!
So I guess the male voice is Sal Marquez?
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Re: Frank Zappa

Postby Matt Wilson » 23 Feb 2022, 17:24

Image
The Grand Wazoo 1972
Recorded at the same time as Waka/Jawaka, and just as good for my money. The second of Frank's "wheelchair albums" as C puts it, this one gets a 'Mothers' credit for some reason while the previous LP did not. The continued emphasis on music over lyrics is encouraging with three tracks being instrumental. Zappa rarely did these songs live unfortunately, but all of them (except "For Calvin") have been performed by other bands.

The LP cover is worth discussing. Ulrich - "The front cover shows Cletus Awreetus-Awrightus, The Funky Emperor, blasting his Mystery Horn at Mediocrates of Pedestrium. The Army Awreetus is armed with brass instruments and even an electric guitar, while the army of Medioctrates wield violins and a zither. The record company logo can be seen atop a crumbling pillar. A series of carvings on the obelisk shows a man drinking, getting drunk. and vomiting. The quacking camel echoes one of the dog-Mothers on Cruising With Ruben & The Jets and reappears on Ahead of Their Time.

The back cover depicts Uncle Meat in his secret laboratory On the wall is a blueprint for the mu-meson voluptuizer from the Uncle Meat booklet. The false aralia from the back cover of Waka/Jawaka has borne a crop of eyeballs. The coat hangers and the map of Delaware reappear on the cover of Ahead Of Their Time, and Uncle Meat himself reappears on the cover of The Best Band You Never Heard In Your Life."

Zappa even wanted to make the story into a film - I thought of making a movie from Wazoo but unfortunately the plot was too thin to do a full-length feature. I thought of doing a short, but with the cast of thousands and the immense settings that Wazoo would need to be done properly, it would be impossible t finance it as a short.

Wiki: "Along with its predecessor Waka/Jawaka (July 1972), this album represents Zappa's foray into big band music, the logical progression from Hot Rats (1969) (which used a much smaller lineup). This was the last release on Zappa's own Bizarre Records label.

This was the third Zappa album released in a period where he needed to use a wheelchair. Zappa was unable to tour after being assaulted and pushed offstage into an orchestra pit during a concert on December 10, 1971 at the Rainbow Theatre in London, UK.

The album is mostly made up of instrumental pieces, similar in style to those of three previous albums: Hot Rats (October 1969), Burnt Weeny Sandwich (February 1970), and Waka/Jawaka (July 1972).

Zappa was also producer and principal composer for Jean-Luc Ponty's album King Kong (1970) during this period."

"Zappa coined the expression "The Grand Wazoo" back in 1969, recording a song of that title with Don Van Vliet on vocals, with lyrics pointedly aimed at members of Lodge societies. It can be found on Frank Zappa - The Lost Episodes, although it is quite dissimilar to the other 3 versions of "The Grand Wazoo" track." - Discogs

Musicians
"The Grand Wazoo" and "For Calvin (And His Next Two Hitch-Hikers)"
Mike Altschul - woodwind
Billy Byers - trombone (including solo on "The Grand Wazoo")
Joanna Caldwell - woodwind
Earl Dumler - woodwind
Aynsley Dunbar - drums
Tony Duran - guitar (including bottleneck guitar solo on "The Grand Wazoo")
Erroneous (Alex Dmochowski) - bass
Alan Estes - percussion
Fred Jackson - woodwind
Sal Marquez - vocals, trumpet (including solo on "The Grand Wazoo")
Malcolm McNab - brass
Janet Neville-Ferguson – vocals
Tony "Bat Man" Ortega - woodwind
Don Preston - minimoog (including solo on "The Grand Wazoo")
Johnny Rotella - woodwind
Ken Shroyer - brass, "contractor and spiritual guidance"
Ernie Tack - brass
Frank Zappa - guitar (including opening solo on "The Grand Wazoo")
Bob Zimmitti - percussion

"Cletus Awreetus-Awrightus"
Mike Altschul - woodwind
"Chunky" (Lauren Wood) - vocals
George Duke - keyboards, vocals
Erroneous (Alex Dmochowski) - bass
Aynsley Dunbar - drums
Sal Marquez - brass
Ken Shroyer - trombones
Frank Zappa - vocals, guitar
with:

Ernie Watts - C Melody Saxophone (the "Mystery Horn") solo

"Eat That Question"
Mike Altschul - woodwind
George Duke - keyboards
Aynsley Dunbar - drums
Erroneous (Alex Dmochowski) - bass
Sal Marquez - "multiple toots" (brass)
Joel Peskin - woodwind
Frank Zappa - guitar, percussion
with:

Lee Clement - gong

"Blessed Relief"

Mike Altschul - woodwind
George Duke - keyboards
Aynsley Dunbar - drums
Tony Duran - rhythm guitar
Erroneous (Alex Dmochowski) - bass
Sal Marquez - brass
Joel Peskin - woodwind
Frank Zappa - lead guitar

All songs written, composed and arranged by Frank Zappa.


1. "For Calvin (And His Next Two Hitch-Hikers)" 6:05
The 2012 CD, which has the original 1972 analog master, puts this song second for some reason. It's bizarre, and not the best way to open an LP.

Zappa - ...is dedicated to Calvin Schenkel, a long-time friend who has been responsible to a large extent for anything graphic/visual associated with the Mothers (from album covers to billboards to the animated sequence in 200 Motels).

Ulrich - "The song is based on a true story that happened circa 1969. Schenkel's 1939 Pontiac was in the shop, so he borrowed the 1959 Jaguar that FZ had bought from Captain Beefheart and given to Janet Neville-Ferguson for her birthday. While Schenkel was stopped at a red light en route from FZ's house to his own studio, a hippie couple got into the car uninvited. They never spoke, and they remained in the car when Schenkel arrived at his studio. An hour or two later, the hitch-hikers went to the supermarket for provisions, then returned and made sandwiches, which they ate in the back seat before finally leaving."

2. "The Grand Wazoo" 13:18
Awesome display of technical chops, and a better opening for the album in my estimation - though I still don't agree with the rearranging of the song sequence. There's a Zappa acoustic guitar solo through a wah-wah. Tony Duran plays the slide guitar solo and Bill Byers does the trombone solo while Sal Marquez plays the trumpet solo.

Frank: About six weeks ago, I finished the book and lyrics for a science fiction musical called HUNCHEN-TOOT (which may never be staged), and under the title 'Think it Over,' this piece is used as an aria, sung by a religious fanatic conman of the future [Durk], as an instruction to his Alpha-mediating followers [the Force-Lings]... But, as an instrumental item, it goes under the title-disguise of 'The Grand Wazoo.' It doesn't require too much in the way of scientific explanation. It's just a shuffle.

Hmmm, guess we're not missing out on that sci-fi musical then... Some concepts are better heard as music on an album.

Image Image

3. "Cletus Awreetus-Awrightus" 2:57
Nonsense syllables are sung by Zappa, Ilene 'Chunky' Rapaport, and George Duke. For some reason this strikes me as the most throw-away of the cuts here. Not that it's bad or anything, but the two tracks chosen to open the LP sides could have been better. Actually, I just played it, and it didn't sound so mediocre after all...

Ulrich - "Nigey Lennon recalls FZ saying 'awreet' in spring 1972 -- a pronunciation of 'all right' that she associated with 'doofuses in berets and goatees... It made him sound like he was wearing a zoot suit... The funky emperor's name may, as Ben Watson suggests, allude specifically to Big Joe Turner, who sang 'Well awright then/Well awreet then' in several songs, including "Well All Right." (1954)

Actually released as a 45 in '72.

4. "Eat That Question" 6:42
Yeah, I like this 'un. Funky opening moves into a cool riff and what we have is excellent fusion of the type Zappa rarely could be bothered to write. He plays an electric guitar solo too. Frank - The original name of that song was 'Eat that Christian'...I thought 'Question' was better...it's a more twisted concept -- 'Eat that Question.'

Ulrich: "'The Legend of Cletus Awreetus-Awrightus' & 'The Grand Wazoo' describes Questions as a 'grotesque cult of masochistic ascetic fanatics who don't like music' and tells in considerable detail how they are fed to a tankful of UnDifferentiated Tissue (UDT) complete with references to several cues in the song. UDT also figures in the 'Talking Asshole' section of Naked Lunch by William Burroughs, which FZ read on stage at the Nova Convention in NY on December 2, 1978. In '79, FZ met with Burroughs and expressed interest in creating a musical based on Naked Lunch."

5. "Blessed Relief" 8:00
Beautiful fusion number again, not necessarily representative of your typical Zappa tune from this era. It certainly sounds like his music though and I wish there had been more of this type of song on the last few LPs. Marquez plays the trumpet solo, Duke plays the electric piano solo, and Frank does the wah-wah acoustic guitar solo.

Love it!

Image

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Re: Frank Zappa

Postby pcqgod » 23 Feb 2022, 18:00

C wrote:
Matt Wilson wrote:Image
Waka/Jawaka 1972


One of the 'wheelchair' albums

An absolute masterpiece from start to finish.

The pedal steel guitar solo on One Shot Deal is to die for.

Stunning stuff and full of music throughout





.


Agreed.
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Re: Frank Zappa

Postby mudshark » 23 Feb 2022, 21:30

I still have that Nova Convention LP on which the talking asshole appears. Besides Zappa and Burroughs it features Philip Glass, John Cage, Allen Ginsberg, Brion Gysin, Laurie Anderson, the inevitable Patti Smith and a few others I can't remember.

In the 70's Wazoo and Roxy were my favorite FZ albums. Gorgeous compositions, excellent musicians all over the place.
The Wazoo Tour didn't last very long and hey didn't seem to have done a lot of Wazoo music. At least, if the Wazoo live CD is representative for the tour. It has The Grand Wazoo and Big Swifty (Waka), and a lot of Studio Tan/Lather stuff, in particular Greggery Peccary, a kids' favorite in the car for many years. They enjoyed the Studio Tan CD and The Beserkley Years, a Jonathan Richman compilation. He's another genius that doesn't get enough attention over here. There's an abominable snowman in the market!

Anyhoo, what follows is the era of Dinah-Moe and Nanook.
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Re: Frank Zappa

Postby Matt Wilson » 23 Feb 2022, 21:56

You know, I still don't have a 2012 CD of Studio Tan, and that's the one with the original LP mix.

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Re: Frank Zappa

Postby mudshark » 23 Feb 2022, 23:14

The mix of the Greggery composition is mixed way different on the vinyl compared to the CD and Let Me Take You to The Beach is song #1 on side 2 of the LP but the third song on the CD. Don't think the songs (other than GP) were re-mixed. Not sure which GP-mix is on Lather. Should check it out one day.
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Re: Frank Zappa

Postby Matt Wilson » 24 Feb 2022, 00:20

mudshark wrote:The mix of the Greggery composition is mixed way different on the vinyl compared to the CD and Let Me Take You to The Beach is song #1 on side 2 of the LP but the third song on the CD. Don't think the songs (other than GP) were re-mixed. Not sure which GP-mix is on Lather. Should check it out one day.


The 2012 CD should be the exact same as the LP, Muddy.

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Re: Frank Zappa

Postby mudshark » 24 Feb 2022, 00:44

Yes, I read that. Still wonder what mix is on Lather. I'll check it out tomorrow.
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Re: Frank Zappa

Postby C » 24 Feb 2022, 21:45

Matt Wilson wrote:Image
The Grand Wazoo 1972


Another incredible album

An absolute corker - which possibly just has the edge on W/J

Full of stunning music

You might enjoy this:



[I wish they had moved the red piano cover out of camera shot!!]




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Re: Frank Zappa

Postby Neige » 25 Feb 2022, 21:19

Thanks C, I really enjoyed that

EDIT: She's got loads of Zappa tunes on her Youtube site, there's one of Cletus for double bass and vibraphone too!

Meanwhile I stumbled over this little nugget and found out there's half an album of Zappa track by that trio:


https://www.discogs.com/release/8524091-ReineckeTrio-Music-From-The-Last-Century-Zappa-Uhl-Fran%C3%A7aix-Jacob


Anyway, I'm enjoying your write-ups and don't want to disrupt, Matt, carry on.
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Re: Frank Zappa

Postby C » 26 Feb 2022, 14:31

Neige wrote:Thanks C, I really enjoyed that

EDIT: She's got loads of Zappa tunes on her Youtube site, there's one of Cletus for double bass and vibraphone too!

Meanwhile I stumbled over this little nugget and found out there's half an album of Zappa track by that trio:


https://www.discogs.com/release/8524091-ReineckeTrio-Music-From-The-Last-Century-Zappa-Uhl-Fran%C3%A7aix-Jacob



Yes Felix- she is the friend of my son Zap's double bass teacher

Here's a nice one:






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Re: Frank Zappa

Postby Matt Wilson » 01 Mar 2022, 18:03

Image
Over-night Sensation 1973
1972 had been an improvement for Zappa when the second edition of The Mothers had ended after Frank's onstage accident resulting in an increased attention to music over lyrics, and the following year attention was focused on a more commercial feel for the latest version of The Mothers (now just FZ and whomever he could get to play with him). Some of the juvenile lyrics would remain, but a more streamlined sound takes over, giving us the first gold album of Zappa's career and a fan-favorite to boot. Frank plays a lot more solos than usual as well - six by my count, and all tracks have vocals (though on the subsequent tour, the shows were largely instrumental. Go figure).

Drummer Ralph Humphrey: I guess Frank's concept on that record was to make things short enough where they could get radio play and keep it vocally oriented. It was part of what we were doing, but not everything.

The Ikettes were hired for backing vocals, but Ike wouldn't let them be credited for some reason. The cover shows a Holiday Inn room covered with trash from a rock tour. There's lots of stories concerning what's in the picture, but I'm far too lazy to type it all out, sorry. FZ's new label, DiscReet (with partner Herb Cohen) replaced Bizarre and Straight, and the title refers to the discrete quadraphonic system that the record was originally released in. They thought all DiscReet LPs would be released in quad, but alas, only this and Apostrophe were (his only two gold records in the States. Coincidence?).

Here's more on the Ikettes which I just found on Wiki - "Frank Zappa wanted to use backup singers on the songs "I'm the Slime", "Dirty Love", "Zomby Woof", "Dinah-Moe Humm" and "Montana". His road manager suggested The Ikettes, and Ike & Tina Turner were contacted. Ike Turner insisted that Zappa pay the singers, including Tina Turner, no more than $25 per song. However, an invoice shows that they were actually paid $25 per hour, and in total $187.50 each for 7 1/2 hours of service. During the recording sessions at Bolic Sound, Tina brought Ike into the studio to hear the highly difficult middle section of "Montana" which had taken the Ikettes a few days to learn and master. Ike listened to the tape and responded "What is this shit?" before leaving the studio. Ike later insisted that Zappa not credit the Ikettes on the released album.

The recording sessions which produced Over-Nite Sensation also produced Zappa's followup, Apostrophe (') (1974), released as a solo album rather than a Mothers of Invention release."

Musicians

Frank Zappa – guitar, vocals on all tracks except "Fifty-Fifty" and most of "Zomby Woof"
Kin Vassy – vocals on "I'm the Slime", "Dinah-Moe Humm" and "Montana"
Ricky Lancelotti – vocals on "Fifty-Fifty" and "Zomby Woof"
Sal Marquez – trumpet, vocals on "Dinah-Moe Humm"
Ian Underwood – clarinet, flute, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone
Bruce Fowler – trombone
Ruth Underwood – percussion, marimba, vibraphone
Jean-Luc Ponty – violin, baritone violin
George Duke – synthesizer, keyboards
Tom Fowler – bass
Ralph Humphrey – drums
Tina Turner and the Ikettes – backing vocals (uncredited) (Tracks 2-3 and 5-7)

All tracks are written by Frank Zappa.

Side one

1. "Camarillo Brillo" 4:01
Fucking love this one. Frank sleeps with a hippie chick (the kind he despises in his songs, natch), with nappy hair. Zappa: There's a certain kind of girl in California -- they have 'em in some placs in NY, too--that has this it's like cartoon hair...I've always thought that those kinds of girls needed to be commemorated... Because the way pop culture is constructed, the way dress fads come and go, and the way hairstyles come and go...if you don't make a little note of it while it's going by, then it'll be lost to the ages. And a hundred years from now somebody'll get that record and say, 'Hmm, Camarillo Brillo --what does that mean? But you'll know.

Ulrich: "Both Camarillo State Hospital and Mendocino State Hospital were mental institutions in CA. Brillo is a brand name for steel wool soap pads. 'Toads of the Short Forest' is the title of a song on Weasels Ripped My Flesh. Newts appear in 200 Motels. The doll with a pin is presumably a voodoo doll. The four-way stereo is quadraphonic.

Wiki - "Camarillo Brillo" is a song by Frank Zappa and The Mothers and was first included on his 1973 LP Over-Nite Sensation. The song's lyrics include many colloquialisms and made-up words. The title itself is a pun; Zappa incorrectly pronounces Camarillo, the name of a city in California, to rhyme with brillo, "shining" or "brilliant" in Spanish.

"Camarillo Brillo" is in the key of E major, though the key briefly changes to D major during the chorus. The arrangement includes liberal use of brass instruments and a wide range of percussion techniques. It ends with a short coda played on piano. There are two versions of this song, the first being in a slower tempo and the second being a much shorter up tempo version played later in Frank Zappa's career. The shorter version can be heard on You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 6. The reason for changing the song's pace was discussed in an interview with Zappa in which he states that the song was "boring" so they sped it up in future performances."

2. "I'm the Slime" 3:35
This anti-TV tune utilizes the Ikettes. FZ: The influence of TV as a negative sociological element in the hands of big business and big government is, well, it's a complicated thing to think about, because it's not just what it can do to you to make you vote for somebody who shouldn't be in office, but it's all the horrible things that it sells to yo and the lifestyle that it merchandises to you and makes you want things that aren't really necessary. It puts the process of informing people into the hands of a very few. They decide what you will know, what you will see, what you will be. And probably the less TV you watch, the happier you'll be.

Released as a single with a different mix and guitar solo.

"Live recordings of the song can be found on Zappa in New York and You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 1, the latter version having been performed and recorded on the same night as the majority of tracks appearing on 1974's Roxy and Elsewhere. "I'm the Slime" and its b-side version of "Montana" were put on Zappa's best of Strictly Commercial. It was performed in concert from 1973 to 1977 and 1984.

The song contains two parts; the first part is a riddle of insults in the form of "what am I?"

"I am gross and perverted. I'm obsessed 'n deranged. I have existed for years, but very little has changed. I'm the tool of the government and industry too, for I am destined to rule and regulate you. I may be vile and pernicious, but you can't look away. I make you think I'm delicious, with the stuff that I say. I'm the best you can get. Have you guessed me yet?"

The second part discusses the evils of the answer to the riddle: the various things seen on television.

Zappa performed "I'm the Slime", as well as "Purple Lagoon", and "Peaches en Regalia" in his first of two appearances on Saturday Night Live. NBC announcer Don Pardo was utilized for his distinctive delivery for the second movement (or B section) of "I'm the Slime". Zappa described this as the "highlight of [Don Pardo's] career." Moreover, Pardo was present and onstage live with Zappa in December 1976 at the Palladium in New York City during a performance of "I'm the Slime", as well as during parts of "Punky's Whips" and "The Illinois Enema Bandit", as documented in Zappa in New York. - Wikipedia

3. "Dirty Love" 3:00
The third winner in a row, bluesy and low-down. Tina Turner on backing vocals!

Nigey Lennon: I thought that what the tune needed was a down-home kind of backup chorus--grunts, groans, the sound of sweat dripping down the walls. Almost jokingly, I told FZ I could work out some background vocal parts. I was a little surprised, but he let me overdub three backup vocal tracks.

When we played them back with the rest of the song, it was obvious that, although my vocal arrangement was effective, my very white-sounding voice just didn't cut it...

It only took Tina Turner one pass to nail all my vocal harmonies, and another to lay down her first track. The other two followed in short order, grunts, groans, and all. Her three overdubbed parts somehow managed to sound like a whole gospel chorus in the throes of sanctified estrus.


4. "Fifty-Fifty" 6:08
Probably the least of the songs on side one, but still certainly not filler; it's also the lengthiest cut on this side. The odds might be fifty-fifty that the singer will have something to say, you see...

Image Image

Side two

5. "Zomby Woof" 5:11
Hard-rockin' ditty about a werewolf, I guess - which Bruce Fowler enjoyed performing: That one's real fun to play. You play the whole lick backwards. That's a really important thing. It goes exactly backwards.

Actually, not one of my faves.

6. "Dinah-Moe Humm" 6:05
Sex, sex, and more sex. Zappa - You won't believe this, but it was an exercise. You see, every sci-fi movie, whenever you go to the mad scientists's lab, there's always this noise of a dynamo humming in the background. And I thought, what if that was a girl's name? Dinah-Moe Humm. So I sat down one day, and I said if you were gonna have a girl's name and write a song like that, what could you make out of it?

also:

This particular song was a custom-made fantasy, because I presume that such a situation must have occurred at one time or another to somebody somewhere. So I did the song, and I had a cassette of the album before it was released, and we proceeded to do a tour of Australia. And...after the concert in Brisbane I was in the company of two young ladies, who I played this cassette for, just to get a little preview audience test. One of them was the head of the women's liberation organization there in Australia. And she loved it. She thought it was excellent. And furthermore, she wanted to act it out. And she wanted to do it as fast as the things are happening in the record. Now you just try that sometime, folks.

There's also the zircon-encrusted tweezers thing he talks about both here and in the next song.

FZ: Terry Wimberly (piano player for the Blackouts) always wanted to be the missing link between Fats Domino and Otis Blackwell, who was the guy who sang the original version of "Daddy Rolling Stone"...Do you know... what size zircon you can buy for a hundred dollars? So he had this enormous, cheap-looking obviously-fraudulent diamond sort of thing on his little finger that he used to wear to school all the time. And so, since that moment, I've always considered the zircon to be the symbol of...not wealth, but the ultimate cheapness as applied to the back of a comic book. It's cheap grandeur, you know? It's grandeur that we can all afford. Bu if you dare to afford it you can make yourself look just like Terry Wemberly playing the piano...And it helped his piano technique tremendously. he could play triplets like nobody's business with that thing on his finger.

So the tweezers I've always considered to be an object of potential sexual ecstasy, if applied properly to some sort of unique erogenous zone, which may or may not exist in each and every one of us, it we would only but take the time to experiment with a friend and find out where that zone might lie. And then to apply tweezer pressure might yield some very interesting results. Therefore, if you took the tweezer and encrusted it with enough zircons, you would have something that was not only cheap and grand, but sexually gratifying at the same time.


Got that, folks?

7. "Montana" 6:37
One of the more popular numbers from an LP filled with nothing but. The surreal idea of someone moving to Montana to raise dental floss came from Frank himself:

I got up one day, looked at a box of dental floss, and said, hmmm... I felt it was my duty as an observer of floss to express my relationship to the package. So I went downstairs and I sat at my typewriter and I wrote a song about it. I've never been to Montana, but I understand there's only 450,000 people in the whole state. It has a lot of things going for it, plenty of space for the production of dental floss...and the idea of traveling along the empty wasteland with a very short horse and a very large tweezer, grabbing the dental floss sprout as it pooches up from the bush...grabbing it with your tweezers and towing it all the way back to the bunkhouse... would be something good to imagine.


Wikipedia: "The structure of "Montana" is intro–verses–chorus–solo–middle section–verses–outro. The lyrics, sung by Zappa in a humorous manner, talk about a person who decides to go to Montana to grow "a crop of dental floss," mounting a pony named "Mighty Little." He dreams of becoming a dental floss tycoon, by commercializing it. The verses are filled with pseudo-ranch pronunciation and are intended to be very lighthearted.

At 1:55, right after the chorus, Zappa plays a long guitar solo. Then, there's a complex middle section with vocals (performed by Tina Turner & The Ikettes, uncredited) backed by percussion, singing some of the verses. Zappa follows singing the last verses and finally there's the coda, where the line from the chorus ("Moving to Montana soon...," sung by Tina Turner and the Ikettes) is repeated constantly and answered by a high-pitched "Yippy-Aye-O-Ty-Ay" (sung by Kin Vassy). This goes on until it fades out towards the six-and-a-half minute mark.

Of the Ikettes' harmonies, Zappa later said:

”It was so difficult, that one part in the middle of the song "Montana", that the three girls rehearsed it for a couple of days. Just that one section. You know the part that goes "I'm pluckin' the ol' dennil floss..."? Right in the middle there. And one of the harmony singers got it first. She came out and sang her part and the other girls had to follow her track. Tina was so pleased that she was able to sing this that she went into the next studio where Ike was working and dragged him into the studio to hear the result of her labor. He listened to the tape and he goes, ‘What is this shit?’ and walked out".

Much of the album's lyrics deal with sex. For example, "Dinah-Moe Humm" describes a woman who wagers that the narrator can't give her an orgasm and is ultimately aroused by watching him have sex with her sister.

On other topics, "I'm the Slime" criticizes television, and the playful and musically adventurous "Montana" describes moving to Montana to grow dental floss.

The music of Over-Nite Sensation draws from rock, jazz and pop music. "Zomby Woof" has been described as a "heavy metal hybrid of Louis Jordan and Fats Waller".

The album initially received mixed reviews due to its lyrical content, which some critics found puerile. Rolling Stone magazine disliked the album, describing Zappa as a "spent force", and saying that his best work had been recorded with earlier incarnations of the Mothers. New Musical Express said that the album was "not one of Frank's most outstanding efforts." Robert Christgau gave the album a C, mocking the notion that Zappa's humor underscores serious commentary by asking "where's the serious stuff?"

Later reviews evaluated the album far better, with AllMusic writer Steve Huey writing, "Love it or hate it, Over-Nite Sensation was a watershed album for Frank Zappa, the point where his post-'60s aesthetic was truly established". Kelly Fisher Lowe, in The Words and Music of Frank Zappa, wrote that "Over-Nite and Apostrophe (') are important [...] as a return to Mothers of Invention form and as close to traditional pop albums as Zappa would ever come."

The record was certified gold on November 9, 1976."

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Re: Frank Zappa

Postby ConnyOlivetti » 01 Mar 2022, 19:36

Great album, one of his best.
Great write up, Matt
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Re: Frank Zappa

Postby C » 01 Mar 2022, 21:55

Jean-Luc's violin solo on Fifty-Fifty is to die for.

A fantastic album

Nice write-up Matt

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Re: Frank Zappa

Postby Fonz » 07 Mar 2022, 09:01

Matt Wilson wrote:Image
Cruising with Ruben & the Jets 1968
The Mothers were given free rein to indulge their love of '50s rock 'n' roll/doo wop on this album of "greasy love songs and cretin simplicity." FZ: I conceived that album along the same lines as the compositions in Stravinsky's neoclassical period. If he could take the forms and cliches of the classical era and pervert them, why not do the same with the rules and regulations that applied to doo-wop in the fifties?

The band really loved that stuff though, it's not just parody. Zappa again: some of the most adventurous diatonic music that has ever been written... I don't know how you feel about suspensions and irresolutions, but the quintet vocal harmony of the fifties is frightening, it's frightening what's going on there. You get a bunch of guys that would really sing that stuff and forget that they're singing about their girlfriend. If you saw it on paper it would be amazing.

Anyway, he goes on and on about his love for the genre, claiming that the whole '50s teenage social system is implied in doo-wop, how it's all about sex, not love, and how the music is very sophisticated and not simplistic at all (despite what I quoted in the first paragraph). The rest of the guys in the Mothers loved this stuff as well. Ray Collins even rejoined the band to sing these songs and it's doubtful they could have faithfully reproduced these recordings in a live setting. Art Tripp rerecorded all of Billy Mundi's drum parts for reasons only Frank knew, and the entire endeavor was Zappa's notion that current rock fans should be aware of music other than what was currently happening. That what was obsolete and archaic in the late '60s would be how modern rock would be viewed ten years later, and that people should have a more broad taste in regards to what they listened to. Stick to the original LP version and not the eighties remix/rerecording. You can find it on 2010's Greasy Love Songs set.

David Hidalgo (Los Lobos): When CWR&TJ came out, it was like "Wow, someone's actually talking to us!" You know? He was speaking to our community... It meant a lot to us.

Ray Collins – lead vocals
Frank Zappa – low grumbles, oo-wah and lead guitar (also drums, piano, bass)
Roy Estrada – high weazlings, dwaedy-doop and electric bass
Jimmy Carl Black and/or Arthur Dyer Tripp III – lewd pulsating rhythm
Ian Underwood or Don Preston – redundant piano triplets
Motorhead Sherwood – baritone sax and tambourine
Bunk Gardner and Ian Underwood – tenor and alto saxes
Art Tripp - drums

All tracks are written by Frank Zappa except as noted.

1. "Cheap Thrills" 2:23
Probably my fave track on the LP. I don't know how '50s-sounding it is though, but one can certainly tell he's trying for that vibe. I say "he" because FZ does everything here - guitar, piano, bass, drums, etc. Sings all the parts too. Zappa: It was fucking murder to make that record. There's only two songs on the record that were easy to do --- 'No. No. No' ad 'Cheap Thrills.' I wrote them, recorded all the instruments and vocals, and mixed both of those songs on a Sunday afternoon. It took about seven hours and I did both songs from top to bottom.

"Hear my plea" was a common line in tons of '50s songs, and "story untold" was also a popular phrase at the time. There was even a song called that by the Nutmegs.

2. "Love of My Life" 3:10
With Ray singing lead, this is more indicative of the rest of the LP. At the end of the cut they quote two songs, "Earth Angel," by the Penguins, and "We Go Together," by the Moonglows. Frank regarding the Moonglows: I think the best harmonizing group from the old days was The Moonglows. They really had it down. That wouldn't be one of my favorite groups because they were...so precise that it was almost like they were unreal. I went for groups that really sang out of tune and really cried. Like 'Valarie' by Jackie & The Starlites was a real good one.

Doo wop aficionados know that Jesse Belvin had a song with the same title, and that the phrase "love of my life" was also used in many other songs of that era. Zappa's song of that name was originally done in 1963 by Ron Roman - I've never heard it.

3. "How Could I Be Such a Fool" 3:35
Remake of the Freak Out! tune, but this time in 4/4 (it's in 3/4 on the FO album). I definitely prefer the earlier versions of the four cuts reworked for this record.

Wiki - "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, represented by the cover illustration by Cal Schenkel, which depicts the Mothers of Invention as anthropomorphic dogs. It was conceived as part of a project called No Commercial Potential, which produced three other albums: Lumpy Gravy, We're Only in It for the Money and Uncle Meat.

The album and its singles received some radio success, due to its doo wop sound. The band Ruben and the Jets were named after this album."

4. "Deseri" (Ray Collins, Paul Buff) 2:07
One of the better numbers to be found on this endeavor, and it wasn't written by Zappa! Ray does all the vocals, Frank on acoustic guitar. It continues the pattern of using '50s lyrical cliches used in many songs from that decade. This time it's "my heart skipped a beat." "Deseri" was a 45 with a different mix than the LP version, and was another tune originally recorded in '63. Ray liked the first version better.

5. "I'm Not Satisfied" 4:03
Another Freak Out! number redone for this project. Are any BCB Zappaphiles going to pimp for these versions over the earlier ones? I'd like to hear a spirited defense of these remakes. This one is in 6/8 rather than the original 4/4, other than that, not sure what the point is.

6. "Jelly Roll Gum Drop" 2:20
Yeah, I like this one though. The B-side of "Deseri" (in another different mix if memory serves - too lazy to look it up) which contains the usual references to past '50s songs. Let's see... Richard Berry & The Dreamers did "Jelly Roll," and Otis Williams & The Charms did "Gum Drop." "Pachucko Hop" was an instrumental by Chuck Higgins, and 'the LA Slop' could refer to "The Slop" by The Olympics. The Mothers actually performed this in concert.

7. "Anything" (Ray Collins) 3:04
Ray wrote and sang all the parts and it's from a pre-Mothers era.

Wikipedia: "During a previous recording session, engineer Richard Kunc and the Mothers of Invention discussed their high school days and love for doo wop songs. Ray Collins and some of the other members of the band started singing and performing the songs, and Zappa suggested that they record an album of doo wop music. Zappa described the album as an homage to the 1950s vocal music that he was "crazy" about. 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, as well as We're Only in It for the Money, a revised version of Lumpy Gravy, and Uncle Meat. After the Mothers of Invention's contract with MGM and Verve Records expired, Zappa and Herb Cohen negotiated to form Bizarre Productions, with Verve releasing three Bizarre releases with distribution by MGM: a new Mothers of Invention album, Cruising with Ruben & the Jets, the compilation Mothermania, and an album by Sandy Hurvitz, Sandy's Album is Here at Last.

Zappa stated, regarding the releases Lumpy Gravy, We're Only in It for the Money, Cruising with Ruben & the Jets and Uncle 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."

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8. "Later That Night" 3:06
Another Ray lead (as I mentioned before, he's my fave Zappa singer). This one is funny. I find it hard to believe anyone was fooled into believing that these recordings were made by an actual '50s group when the production is so obviously late '60s. I laugh the moment this cut starts.

Jackie & The Starlites did "I Cried My Heart Out" as late as 1964. The line "I hold in my hand three letters from the stages of your fine, fine, super-fine career..." was from "Glory of Love" by the Velvetones, but it was used in songs before that.

9. "You Didn't Try to Call Me" 3:57
The third number from Freak Out! to be reworked for this album. Here, it starts in 3/4, where the original is in 4/4. They changed some of the lyrics as well.

"Ray Collins rejoined the Mothers of Invention for the recording of the album, as his high falsetto was 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 Laine, 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 favorite of mine than the early blues stuff - even though I love John Lee Hooker and all those people."

According to Bunk Gardner, "Cruising with Ruben & the Jets was an easy album to record. We were recording it at the same time as Uncle Meat because the songs were easy and very simple and didn't require a lot of time for arrangements and technical overdubbing. It was the beginning of the end for Ray Collins because all the new material Frank was writing was a little too far out and away from Ray's roots - which was Ruben-era material. Motorhead too was in his glory during the recording of this album. He loved Ruben and that was really his kind of music to get nostalgic over - on stage and doing the dance steps and playing that music [...] I really enjoyed playing a solo on Ray's tune 'Anything'. I remember Frank, Ray and Roy standing in the control booth while I recorded my solo. Frank was telling me after the first take to keep it simple. So I nailed it on the second take and everyone was happy!" - Wiki

10. "Fountain of Love" (Frank Zappa, Ray Collins) 3:01
To these ears, fairly pedestrian '50s homage co-written by Ray. Frank can't help but throw some Stravinski in, and his bass vocal is from "Sincerely" by The Moonglows." This is what he had to say about the lyrics: Give me a fucking break! Is this song about a douche bag, or what? Some people take that kind of lyric seriously.

Can't say I've ever paid attention to the words to be honest.

11. "No No No" 2:29
FZ sings all the vocal parts and plays the instruments too. Kinda monotonous though... I think at this point in the project, they're starting to run out of ideas.

Wiki: "Within the concept of the album, Ruben Sano was the leader of the fictitious Chicano band "the Jets". The back cover depicted Ruben with an early high school photograph of Zappa. According to artist Cal Schenkel, "I started working on the story of Ruben and the Jets that is connected with the Uncle Meat story, which is this old guy turns this teenage band into these dog snout people [...] We started that before it actually became Ruben and the Jets. That came out of my love for comics and that style, the anthropomorphic animals, but also it was part of a running story line."

Zappa stated regarding the album's lyrics, "I detest 'love lyrics'." He intentionally wrote lyrics he described as "sub-Mongoloid" to satirize the genre. The music of Cruising with Ruben & the Jets was the most straightforward genre work the Mothers of Invention had performed yet, attempting to faithfully reproduce the sound of 1950s doo wop and rock and roll. However, the arrangements included quotes from Igor Stravinsky pieces and unusual chord changes and tempos."

12. "Anyway the Wind Blows" 2:58
One of my favorite numbers on Freak Out! is given the Ruben makeover here, and it's out of tune to boot. They thought enough of this recording to consider releasing it as a single until cooler heads prevailed and "Deseri" got the nod. Apparently, promo 45s of this song exist though.

13. "Stuff Up the Cracks" 4:35
The last and the longest track utilizes Johnny "Guitar" Watson's guitar arpeggio in "Those Lonely, Lonely Nights," while Frank's bass vocal tips the hat to "This Paradise" by the Bel Airs. I like this one the most of the side two songs.

Wiki - "The album was popular with radio stations, as they believed it to be an unearthed doo wop album by an unknown band called Ruben & the Jets. A single was issued ("Deseri" b/w a remixed and overdubbed version of "Jelly Roll Gum Drop") credited to "Ruben and the Jets", with no mention of the Mothers of Invention; according to Zappa, later pressings, which credited the Mothers of Invention, did not receive as much airplay as the original Ruben pressings. The album's cover has a word balloon stating "Is this the Mothers of Invention recording under a different name in a last ditch attempt to get their cruddy music on the radio?" Zappa later dismissed claims that he had "fooled people" with this album as "nonsense".

Subsequently, Zappa stated that the Mothers of Invention would record a second Ruben & the Jets album. No sequel to Cruising with Ruben & the Jets was produced. However, a band called Ruben and the Jets, named in honor of the album, released their debut album, For Real! in 1973 on Mercury Records, produced by Zappa."

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'Stuff Up the Cracks' has got to be one of the darkest tunes Zappa recorded. I love CWRATJ and Greasy Love Songs, but then, I love doo-wop.
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Re: Frank Zappa

Postby Matt Wilson » 07 Mar 2022, 17:38

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Apostophe (') 1974
Still the highest-charting Zappa album (actually making the Billboard top ten) thanks to the 45 mix of "Don't Eat the Yellow Snow" (the only song of his I ever heard on the radio in the '70s), and the continuation of the more commercial-sounding music begun on the previous LP. Another gold record too - FZ was on a roll in the mid seventies. The quad version is different than the two-channel stereo mix in that the latter has two extra measures in "Uncle Remus,' but is missing two measures in "Don't Eat the Yellow Snow." The 2012 CD has the 1974 analog master.

"Stink Foot" provides the title when the dog says "The crux of the biscuit is the apostrophe." The apostrophe is used in contractions of course, which the dog uses in his speech - doesn't, can't, won't, don't, hasn't, isn't, ain't, shouldn't, couldn't, etc. There was even a thirty-second TV commercial which Cal Schenkel animated that I've never seen (wonder if it's on youtube?). This is a fan fave, so let's get to it, but first - a word from our friends at wikipedia:

"The first half of the album loosely follows a continuing theme. "Don't Eat the Yellow Snow" and "Nanook Rubs It" tell of a dream the singer had where he saw himself as an Eskimo named Nanook. It continues into "St. Alfonzo's Pancake Breakfast," which Zappa said was inspired by a television commercial for Imperial margarine.

As was the case with many of Zappa's albums, Apostrophe (') was a melange of archival and recent recordings; side one of Apostrophe (') (1974) and Over-Nite Sensation (1973) were recorded simultaneously. The tracks on side two originate from various 1972 sessions with overdubs recorded in 1973 and 1974, except for "Excentrifugal Forz", where the drum track (played by Johnny Guerin) originally came from the Hot Rats sessions in 1969 (along with the bass and drum tracks for "Lemme Take You to the Beach" on Studio Tan (1978) and Läther (1996), although in the case of "Excentrifugal Forz" this is not actually noted in either the album liner notes or official correspondence), and "Stinkfoot", where the basic track, possibly originally known as "The Bass & Drums Song", dates from the Chunga's Revenge sessions in early 1970.

"Apostrophe (')" is an instrumental featuring bassist Jack Bruce and session drummer Jim Gordon, who was on tour with Zappa's band at the time of the session in November 1972. Bruce is credited on the album cover with bass guitar and co-writing the title song. However, in an interview for Polish rock magazine Tylko Rock he said that he had not played any bass guitar parts or done any co-writing on "Apostrophe (')", only the cello intro. He reminisced, "So I turned up in a NY studio with my cello, I'm listening to [Zappa's] music, pretty awful, and just don't know what to do with myself, and Frank [Zappa] says to me: "Listen, I would like you to play a sound, like this... whaaaaaang!!!" So I did what he asked me to do. Whaaaaaang!!! That was all. That was my input to Frank Zappa's most popular record! [laughs]" Bruce had studied the instrument at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and performed with it on some of his other recordings.

However, Zappa has referred to Bruce playing bass on the song in an interview: "Well, that was just a jam thing that happened because he was a friend of (drummer) Jim Gordon. I found it very difficult to play with him; he's too busy. He doesn't really want to play the bass in terms of root functions; I think he has other things on his mind. But that's the way jam sessions go."

Weird, as Frank expressed his love of Cream on multiple occasions. Probably why he used Jack in the first place.

Musicians
Frank Zappa – vocals, guitar, bass, bouzouki
Sal Marquez – trumpet
Ian Underwood – saxophone
Napoleon Murphy Brock – saxophone
Bruce Fowler – trombone
Don "Sugarcane" Harris – violin
Jean-Luc Ponty – violin
Ruth Underwood – percussion, vibraphone
George Duke – keyboards
Tony Duran – rhythm guitar
Tom Fowler – bass guitar
Erroneous (Alex Dmochowski) – bass guitar
Jack Bruce – bass on "Apostrophe'" (see controversy presented above)
Ralph Humphrey – drums (side one)
Johnny Guerin – drums on "Excentrifugal Forz"
Aynsley Dunbar – drums on "Uncle Remus" and "Stink-Foot"
Jim Gordon – drums on "Apostrophe"

Back-up vocals
Lynn (Linda Sims)
Robert "Frog" Camarena
Ruben Ladron de Guevara
Debbie (Debbie Wilson)
Ray Collins
Sue Glover
Kerry McNabb
George Duke
Napoleon Murphy Brock
Tina Turner (uncredited)

All tracks are written by Frank Zappa except where noted.

Side one

1. "Don't Eat the Yellow Snow" 2:07
Classic FZ cut which was quite different in its 45 mix (it can be found on the Strictly Commercial compilation). New member Napoleon Murphy Brock on tenor sax and vocals, and you've got Chester Thompson, pre-Genesis on drums. Tina Turner is on it as well. Or maybe they're all on the following tracks, as it's hard to tell exactly who played on which cut. The song is part of a suite including "Nanook Rubs It," "St. Alfonzo's Pancake Breakfast" and concludes with "Father Oblivion."

Zappa described it all as: a collection of musical events that work together to form another big event. The first event is called 'Don't Eat the Yellow Snow.' It's about baby seals and lead-filled snowshoes. The second song, which is actually sort of part two of 'Don't Eat...' is called 'St. Alfonzo's Pancake Breakfast,' and it's a religious number. Then, as if that weren't enough, ladies and gentlemen, and folks, it goes into an instrumental mish-mash entitled 'Father Oblivion' that has --hey!-- a drum solo in it.

The 45 mix was originally created by Dennis Waters of 13Q (WKTQ-AM Pittsburgh). He edited "Don't Eat the Yellow Snow," "Nanook Rubs It," and the beginning of "St. Alfonzo's Pancake Breakfast" down to about 3 1/2 minutes and played it on the air - making it a regional hit. Frank simply reproduced the mix and released it as a single, which made #86 on the charts. There's a musical quote from Lionel Hampton's "The Midnight Sun" at around the .27 - .29 mark.

FZ - ...came from a conversation with an English teacher in Kansas... about language and how different societies put different emphasis on different words based on the functional nature of the word within that society. And as an example she talked about the Eskimo language, which she said had twenty different words for snow because it was so important to them. And she actually made the comment that probably in the Eskimo language there was some sort of warning for children not to eat yellow snow.

The film Nanook of the North was a silent picture in 1922.

Wiki: "Don't Eat the Yellow Snow" is a song about a man who dreams that he was an Eskimo named Nanook. His mother warns him "Watch out where the huskies go, and don't you eat that yellow snow." The song directly transitions into "Nanook Rubs It." The song is about Nanook encountering a fur trapper "strictly from commercial" who is whipping Nanook's "favorite baby seal" with a "lead-filled snow shoe." Eventually Nanook gets so mad he rubs husky "wee wee" into the fur trapper's eyes, blinding him. According to the lyrics, this scene is destined to take the place of "The Mud Shark" (a song from the live album Fillmore East – June 1971) in Zappa mythology. Zappa then sings in the fur trapper's perspective, who laments over the fact that he's been blinded. The fur trapper then makes his way to the parish of St. Alfonzo, introducing the next song "St. Alfonzo's Pancake Breakfast."

From this point forward, the suite almost completely abandons the previous story line (the fur trapper's blindness is never explicitly healed). In this song a man attending St. Alfonzo's Pancake Breakfast engages in such appalling deportment as stealing margarine pats from the tables, urinating on the bingo cards, and instigating an affair with an attractive married female churchgoer whose husband is in the Marine Corps and who is into sadomasochism. The final song in the suite, "Father O'Blivion", is about a priest, Father Vivian O'Blivion, who makes the pancakes for the St. Alfonzo fund-raiser. The lyrics somewhat ambiguously describe his recent sexual encounter involving a leprechaun and a sock, after which the Father proclaims that St. Alfonzo would be proud of his achievement. Then he utters the Latin phrase "Dominus vobiscum, Et cum spiritu tuo (meaning "The Lord be with you, and with your spirit."). Won't you eat my sleazy pancakes just for Saintly Alfonzo." There are many possible reasons why the pancakes are "sleazy"; Zappa leaves them to the listener's interpretation. The suite can only loosely be said to follow a story and is treated as one piece only because of the musical transitions, the way each song introduces the next, and how later songs reference previous songs."

2. "Nanook Rubs It" 4:38
Frank sings this just like he did the last number. There's yet another quote from "Midnight Sun" at .11 - .16. The "strictly commercial" line is used for the first time, and "unmitigated audacity" is the title of a disc in the Beat the Boots set.

Zappa: Howlin' Wolf's 'Going Down Slow' contains the original version of 'great googly moogly,' The first time I ever heard 'great googly moogly' any place is in the middle of this song. And he does a really good rendition of it.

They say "great googa mooga" in The Cadets' version of "Stranded in the Jungle" too.

3. "St. Alfonzo's Pancake Breakfast" 1:50
Frank used to say St. Alfonzo was the patron saint of smelt fishermen of Portuguese extraction, and that his church is located in the Columbia River Delta (Ulrich). He's singing lead again. Ulrich says the saint's name is Alfonso in Portuguese, Alfonso in Italian and Spanish, but that a church in the US would probably use the Latin Alphonsus. Hey, I had to think of something to say about this track!

"Rollo" was a piece of music that went along with the original suite, but Zappa decided against putting the whole piece in the album. Instead, he decided to add the main theme of "Rollo" as the instrumental second half of "St. Alphonzo's Pancake Breakfast". The entire suite appears in full on the live album You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 1, recorded at Hammersmith Apollo (Hammersmith Odeon), in London, on February 18–19, 1979. The piece by itself also appears on his posthumous album QuAUDIOPHILIAc, and his posthumous live album Imaginary Diseases. The piece itself was written during Zappa's recovery from injuries suffered in December 1971, when he was pushed from the stage at London's Rainbow Theatre by a deranged fan. The original piece had lyrics detailing the adventures of a "Man and a dog" (the dog being named, "Rollo") who encounter a couple in some sort of act of lovemaking. The piece was performed with the vocals during much of Zappa's Grand Wazoo Orchestra tour in September 1972. Sometime after that tour, Zappa decided to drop the lyrics and play it strictly as an instrumental; eventually finding its way into the Yellow Snow suite. In 1978, Zappa resurrected and revised the lyrics (sung by keyboardist Tommy Mars) into the suite. Rollo was performed on October 21, 1978 during Zappa's appearance as host of Saturday Night Live. For the broadcast, Tommy Mars' vocals were modulated via a vocoder to avoid issues with network censors concerning the song's lyrical content." - Wikipedia

4. "Father O'Blivion" 2:18
Another Frank vocal (one of the reasons I like this suite so much). FZ - Did you ever see that commercial for Imperial margarine? Do they have that here? you know that guy sitting in bed, and the chick comes in with a sleazy breakfast and lays it on him and says, 'Good morning, your highness?' And he pretends like he's going to really enjoy it? Well, that's where it came from.

Wonder what a "sleazy breakfast" is?

Ulrich says the title is a play on "Farther Oblivion" modified into the name of an Irish priest. The priest gets the lyrics to "Rock Around the Clock" wrong. Frank loved that song as a kid and the Blackboard Jungle film which contained it.

5. "Cosmik Debris" 4:14
This one was recorded during the Over-Nite Sensation sessions. Tina and the Ikettes are on here for sure. The words harken back to "The Grand Wazoo" and "Camarillo Brillo." Side one of Apostrophe (') is excellent, and in my estimation, this is as good as FZ got in the mid seventies. But then - it was all great at this time!

Wikipedia: "It concerns the Mystery Man, a typical guru or psychic, offering to help the narrator reach Nervanna for a "nominal service charge," and the narrator's refusal to buy into his act, "Look here, brother, who you jiving with that cosmik debris?" When the Mystery Man gets pushy, Zappa as the narrator tells how he snatched the crystal ball, hypnotized the Mystery Man, stole his stuff and blew his mind.

The song was popular on the Dr. Demento Show in the 1970s, and in Zappa's concerts, with memorable guitar solos from Zappa, also featuring George Duke on keyboard and Napoleon Murphy Brock on sax. The song was featured in the late-2010 Zappa Plays Zappa tour, where through video and editing (from 1970s-era shows), Frank Zappa on a large video screen both sang and played a guitar solo while the ZPZ band provided a live backing. This song was also a B-side to the single "Don't Eat the Yellow Snow."

References of previous songs are frequent in many Frank Zappa songs. "Cosmik Debris" shares the lyric "Now is that a real poncho or is that a Sears poncho?" which is a reference to the song "Camarillo Brillo" from the previous album Over-Nite Sensation. The "dust of The Grand Wazoo" is also mentioned in the lyrics and refers to the album released by Zappa in 1972."

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Side two

6. "Excentrifugal Forz" 1:33
The slightest cut here opens side two. Frank took drummer John Guerin's drum track from another recording and wrote this song to it. Ulrich says the play on words "excentrifugal" is eccentric and centrifugal. "Hammond organism" is a Hammond organ plus organism, and "Pup Tentacle" is a pup tent plus tentacle. He never played this one in concert.

7. "Apostrophe'" (Zappa, Jim Gordon, Jack Bruce) 5:50
I don't care if Frank had issues with Jack Bruce's playing because this is fucking awesome. One of my favorite Zappa instrumentals and recorded in the wee hours of the morning on November 8, 1972. The version on the LP is edited with about three minutes taken out. Love to hear the full-length cut.

Jack Bruce - FZ originally wanted me to use a cello on that track, but as my instrument was back in London he hired one from a company in NY. It was so bad that I couldn't use it. That's when he suggested doing something with me playing my EB 3 bass and the track 'Apostrophe' came out of that.

8. "Uncle Remus" (Zappa, George Duke) 2:44
George Duke wrote this, with Frank providing the lyrics. Tina and the Ikettes are also on board. About a minute is edited out.

George Duke - Frank said 'I think I'd like to use this track on my album and I'm going to write some lyrics to it.' And so I said 'Hey Frank, you paid for it. Go ahead.'...Frank came up with these lyrics for it that I thought were great... He had the whole idea about these jockeys on the lawn and the whole bit. That was all Frank. The whole Uncle Remus thing -- I would never have written a lyric like that... I was very happy and honored by the fact that he'd even consider doing it, because I didn't think it'd be the kind of song that he'd be interested in.

Uncle Remus was a character an 1881 book by Joel Chandler Harris. He was an old slave who told folk tales about Br'er Fox and other animals says Charles Ulrich. The Disney film The Song of the South deals with this stuff, and I think that's the only Disney picture from the classic animated era you can't purchase today.

"The lyrics of "Uncle Remus" have been said to reflect Zappa's thoughts regarding racial tensions in the United States, including the civil rights movement and civil rights work that has not been done. It has also been described as an extension of Zappa's feelings on racism featured on his earlier song "Trouble Every Day". Author Ben Watson called the song "a gentle reprimand, noting how protest was being abandoned for fashion", citing Zappa's mention of growing a "'fro", along with water from fire hoses having the potential to harm "sharp" clothes.

The song's lyrics also refer to lawn jockeys, statuettes that often depicted black figures with exaggerated features. Zappa sings about targeting jockeys on the lawns of "rich people" in Beverly Hills, suggesting a connection between class and race." - Wiki

9. "Stink-Foot" 6:33
This is the oldest recording here, from 1970 with more recent overdubs, something Frank did a lot. There's a Dragnet quote, and uh, let me see... the lyrics "Here Fido" are on the "Nanook" song, "The poodle bites" part is from "Dirty Love," etc. Frank called this stuff 'conceptual continuity' and loved to keep these leitmotifs going from song-to-song or album-to-album for as long as he could. Quentin Tarantino does the same thing in his movies where he'll put a certain fictional cigarette brand in different films or make certain characters related to characters in other pictures.

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ConnyOlivetti
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Re: Frank Zappa

Postby ConnyOlivetti » 07 Mar 2022, 18:46

Another great write up/album
Classic stuff
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mudshark
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Re: Frank Zappa

Postby mudshark » 09 Mar 2022, 02:24

I like what frank said in an interview, back in 1989:

Over-Nite didn't sell that well when it came out. Apostrophe (') was the first one that sold a quarter of a million, or whatever it was, and that was our first gold record. And that was an accident, because a radio station in Pittsburgh took "Don't Eat The Yellow Snow," cut it down from 10 minutes to three which was part of a chain, part of their format of playing novelty records from the'60s. The guy who did it heard the song, perceived it as a modern-day novelty record and put it on right alongside of "Teeny Weeny Bikini" and it became a hit. And at this time, we were touring in Europe. We hadn't even released it as a single, and I was informed in Europe that I had a hit single on this chain of stations in the East Coast and what do you want to do about it? And I told the engineer, who was still in Los Angeles, who worked on the album, to edit a version of "Don't Eat The Yellow Snow" to match the way in which this guy had cut it, and put it out. And it was a hit. But it was nothing that Warner Brothers ever foresaw, it was nothing that I could have foreseen as a guy at DiscReet Records, a subsidiary of a subsidiary of a subsidiary. Who knew? The credit goes to the DJ.

I lurve the album and could go on and on, but I just don't have the time. I'm stuck in Olympia WA trying to supervise the unloading of a ship. The hippie stevedores over here don't know a drill pipe from a hash joint and don't seem to be particularly in a hurry. I wouldn't be either if I was them, but we're paying them $11,000.00 per 8-hour shift and if they don't start to get going I'll be here til they knock the little jockeys off the white people's lawns. I wish I was in Austin, in the Chili parlour bar, drinking mad dog margarita's and not caring about this shit. These pipes are badly needed for drilling in Alaska, otherwise we'll never manage to raise the temperature by a few degrees up there. Sarah is calling me every other hour!
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Matt Wilson
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Re: Frank Zappa

Postby Matt Wilson » 09 Mar 2022, 17:40

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Roxy & Elsewhere 1974
Now this is my fave live Mothers album. The Roxy Performances box is even better, but we'll concentrate on this one for today. An in-concert double LP consisting of mostly new material (like Fillmore East - June, 1971), and the performances are smokin'. I think this is a perfect blend of humor, skilled musicianship, and live excitement. The fact that The Mothers would perform all this intricate material in a club setting without ever releasing studio versions on an LP fascinates me. Other bands would fashion a career out of this material, this was just another Zappa record and next year he'd be off on a new tangent.

First, the facts. Wiki: "Roxy & Elsewhere is a double live album by Frank Zappa and The Mothers, released on September 10, 1974. Most of the songs were recorded on December 8, 9 and 10, 1973 at The Roxy Theatre in Hollywood, California. The material taken from the Roxy concerts was later amended with some overdubs in the studio, while the "Elsewhere" tracks ("Son of Orange County" and "More Trouble Every Day") were recorded on May 8, 1974, at the Edinboro State College, Edinboro, Pennsylvania (and parts of "Son of Orange County" on May 11, 1974, at the Auditorium Theatre in Chicago, Illinois (late show) and do not contain overdubbed material.

The album primarily comprised recordings from three shows at the Roxy Theater in Hollywood, and featured tracks never before or thereafter released on any Zappa/Mothers album."

The 2012 CD was taken from the 1992 digital master (with the 'Cheepnis' remix). The 1974 LP made #27 on the Billboard charts.

Musicians

Frank Zappa – lead guitar, vocals, producer
Jeff Simmons – rhythm guitar, vocals
Napoleon Murphy Brock – flute, tenor saxophone, vocals
George Duke – keyboards, synthesizer, vocals
Don Preston – synthesizer
Bruce Fowler – trombone, dancer
Walt Fowler – trumpet, bass trumpet
Tom Fowler – bass guitar
Ralph Humphrey – drums
Chester Thompson – drums
Ruth Underwood – percussion
Robert "Frog" Camarena – backing vocals on "Cheepnis"
Debbie Wilson – backing vocals on "Cheepnis"
Linda "Lynn" Sims – backing vocals on "Cheepnis"
Ruben Ladron de Guevara – backing vocals on "Cheepnis"

All selections composed by Frank Zappa and performed by Frank Zappa & the Mothers, except where noted. Original LP editions separated Zappa's vocal introductions at the start of each side; these were each listed as "Preamble". When the album was reissued on CD, these were combined as the first tracks on each side, as displayed below.

Side one

1. "Penguin in Bondage" The Roxy, Dec 8 and Dec 10, 1973 (early & late shows); Auditorium Theater, May 11, 1974 (early & late shows) 6:48
So he's got two drummers here, Chester is in the left speaker, and Ralph Humphrey is in the right one. FZ said this was "a song about unnatural acts performed with effervescent beverages and pink gift-wrap ribbon." Ulrich: "The penguin jumping through the flaming hoop dates back to Flo & Eddie's Sanzini Brothers routines: FZ - Well, folks, the last time we were here, at the lovely and piquant Harrisburg Farm Show, and event occurred in the dressing room which formed part of the basis for the song that we're gonna do for you now...Do you remember the penguin going through the flaming hoop? Four years later this is what's happened to the penguin: he's been immortalized in song.

Let's see... looking at the lyrics - Knirps is a German brand of collapsible umbrellas. Zappa saw them for sale in Australia and thought

What if I was designing an advertising campaign for this umbrella and...we didn't want it to be overstated, so it would say, 'Knirps...for moisture.'

That's from The Big Note book.

Wikipedia: "The opening track, "Penguin in Bondage" is edited together from performances at the Roxy and the Chicago date. The guitar solo on "Son of Orange County" is one of the few Zappa guitar solos edited together from more than one concert, in this case the Edinboro and Chicago dates."

2. "Pygmy Twylyte" The Roxy, Dec 8, 1973 2:13
Brock is on vocals and plays tenor sax. The words mention drugs like crank (meth), coke, quaaludes, and downers. Zappa was notoriously anti-drug so this song gives a good indication of this thoughts on the matter.

"Some of the unused tracks from the Roxy shows circulate as bootlegs, as well as the entirety of the Edinboro show. Other tracks were released on Volumes One, Three and Four of the You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore series. On a side note, Zappa can be heard, on the released and unreleased Roxy tapes, speaking of the making of a 'film' that could potentially be "broadcast on television", as well as reminding the audience not to be "uncomfortable around the intimidatingly large 16 mm cameras."

A four-channel quadraphonic version of the album was prepared and advertised, but not released." - Wiki

3. "Dummy Up" (Brock, Simmons, and Zappa) The Roxy, Dec 8, 1973 6:02
Napoleon sings lead again. Simmons tries to corrupt Brock and Frank provides commentary. The title refers to keeping quiet about something. Desenex is a remedy for Athlete's foot, Reseda is in the San Fernando Valley where I live, and San Jose (where Brock is actually from) is about 300 miles north of LA.

Carl Zappa - Yes, the socks were mine. I was in the audience. Before Frank went on stage, he said he needed a pair of white gym socks and he asked me if he could have mine. He had planned it out beforehand.

There's a 'Cheepnis' quote at 1:58 - 2:00, and Simmons quotes the song "College Rhythm" from a 1934 movie with that same name.

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Side two

4. "Village of the Sun" The Roxy, Dec 9 (late show) and Dec 10, 1973 (late show) 4:17
Love this 'un. Sun Village is in Palmdale, as you know from Frank's intro. Palmdale is right next to Lancaster in the Mojave Desert, North of LA. There's nothing out there but a big prison and beautiful poppies during a certain time of year. Zappa lived there for years in his youth and this song must have been personal for him in a way few Mothers songs were.

Ulrich: The Village Inn & Barbecue

FZ: was owned by a woman named Thelma. And Thelma was married to a guitarist that used to work with some jazz bands during the thirties and forties named Teddy Bunn... So Teddy used to hang out and sit on the side and wait to sit in with the group. We were playing songs like 'High Heel Sneakers' and 'Steal Away' and 'Midnight Hour.' But when we would stop for a minute, Teddy would come over and play jazz on the guitar.

Teddy Bunn is listed in the Freak Out! LP as an influence. Johnny Franklin was the sax player in The Blackouts - Frank's band in Lancaster.

5. "Echidna's Arf (of You)" The Roxy, Dec 10, 1973 (late show) 3:52
Echidnas are these little spiny critters in Australia and New Guinea. The Zappas sponsored an echidna at the LA Zoo which they named Evelyn. Outstanding playing here, don't you think?

Wikipedia - "The 2014 CD Roxy by Proxy includes other material from the Roxy shows, including alternate versions of some songs from Roxy & Elsewhere, with no overdubs. On February 2, 2018, Zappa Records/UMe released The Roxy Performances, a definitive set that collects all four public shows from December 9–10, 1973, and the December 8th film shoot and soundcheck, each presented in their entirety without overdubs, along with bonus content featuring rarities from a rehearsal, unreleased tracks and highlights from the recording session at Bolic Sound."

6. "Don't You Ever Wash That Thing?" The Roxy, Dec 9 (late show) and Dec 10, 1973 (late show) 9:40
Longest track on the first LP. Ruth plays marimba, vibraphone and other percussion solos. Quite the jack of all trades. Fowler overdubbed his solos though because the drums were leaking into his mic.

Zappa - What does it mean? Well, I'll give you a hint: You ever been around when Cupid's quiver fails?...Ladies and gentlemen, 'Don't You Ever Wash That Thing?' --on behalf of free clinics everywhere.

Side one of this album is great. Side two is fuckin' EPIC!

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Side three

7. "Cheepnis" The Roxy, Dec 10, 1973 (late show) and Bolic Sound Studio, Dec 12, 1973 6:33
Where is Duncan these days anyway? Still on Facebook for sure. Anyway, another Napoleon Murphy Brock-sung lead. Frank said "I like monster movies, childish entertainment. When I turn on the TV, I keep changing the channel till I see a giant spider or something. There's nothing quite like a good black and white monster movie made about 1956."

Ruth Underwood - The abundance of 'aha's running through some of the songs, especially this one, was Frank's imitation of my laugh (at times of extreme road mania) a sort of folkloric leitmotif, worked into the shows even more the following year.

Frank - We had a dog named FRUNEY. He eventually turned into FRUNABULAX, the monster in the song 'Cheepnis.'

Ruth - 'Frunobulax' is a name Gail thought up, based on the name of a cow Moon drew when she was five years old.

I'm sure you guys know that It Conquered the World is a 1956 Roger Corman flick. Ulrich says other inspirations could have been The Creature from the Black Lagoon, Tarantula, or The Crawling Eye - all horror films from the '50s

8. "Son of Orange County" Edinboro State College, May 8, 1974; Auditorium Theater, May 11, 1974 5:53
So this is the ending of the "Orange County Lumber Truck" suite if you recall, but with a different arrangement. I do prefer the original, but the band is so on fire on this record I begrudge them nothing. The title can also allude to Nixon, who was born in O.C.

9. "More Trouble Every Day" Edinboro State College, May 8, 1974 6:00
Another one where I like the original better, but this song kicks ass - so who's complaining? The drum fill by Chester Thompson is the reason Phil Collins hired him to play tubs for Genesis.

Collins - I'd seen Chester perform with Weather Report, but that wasn't what convinced me...What convinced me was that a friend of mine played me Frank Zappa's album Roxy & Elsewhere... I had always liked Zappa, and would check out whatever he was doing, and this live album was fantastic. There was one song called 'More Trouble Every Day,' which had a particular drum fill where these two drummers played a great move together. And I thought, 'I want to do that with that guy.' I had never met Chester, but I managed to track him down, called him up and said, 'Listen, I play in Genesis, I don't know if you know us. Do you want to join us?'

It's the same drum fill they both play together in live versions of "Afterglow" by Genesis.

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Side four

10. "Be-Bop Tango (Of the Old Jazzmen's Church)" The Roxy, Dec 10, 1973 16:41
The most ambitious number here because of the length. There's over seven minutes edited out of the album track. The music heard at 2:36 - 2:40 is called "The Hook," which Frank said was - a very special tune. This is sort of an abstract, mod a go-go, non-objective tune. The melody is played by the bass drum. Just watch Ruth.

There's musical quotes from other songs here which I'm too tired to type out, so I'll wrap it up:

Frank - the hardest, twistedest bunch of notes you ever saw on paper...like a bunch of ants had run across the thing..It was originally written as a trumpet solo for a guy named Malcolm McNab. It took him three months of constant practice before he could play it.

Bruce Fowler - one of Zappa's great masterpieces. I spoke to him about it once, mentioning that it was almost a 12-tone piece. He said that he refused to stick with rigid mathematical rules i composition, and that even though many of the phrases start out playing each note once, he always used his ear to complete them. Frank's music is often mathematically complex, but it is always written with feeling.

Wiki - "There was a 3-minute trailer released in the new millennium advertising a Roxy DVD, which could potentially contain the footage from all three nights. The trailer was later included on the Baby Snakes DVD as a bonus feature.

Joe Travers has stated that "It's sitting in the vault. Waiting for a budget to do it properly. Basically the film footage, the negatives were transferred by Frank in the '80s using '80s technology. What we want to do is go back to the original negatives and do it in High Definition and then create a 5.1 mix from the original masters so that we have surround sound as well as Frank's 2 channel stereo mix. Once we get all that together, then we need to cut the program. Edit the program together, camera angles, what shows, what we are going to include from what shows or include all the shows. I have no idea what Dweezil and Gail want to do. It's great stuff, but the process of just getting to that point is going to cost a lot of money and take a lot of time." Two songs from the unreleased film ("Montana" and "Dupree's Paradise") were used as opener for the Zappa Plays Zappa concerts in 2006.

On April 1, 2007, Zappa.com unveiled a redesigned website, which included the 30-minute segment from the Roxy performances, which had been used at the Zappa Plays Zappa concerts, on its new videos page.

The clip for "Montana" was included as a bonus feature of the Classic Albums: Apostrophe(')/Over-Nite Sensation DVD, which was released on May 1, 2007.

The Blu-ray Roxy: The Movie was released in October 2015. It includes some of the takes released on Roxy & Elsewhere and others from Roxy by Proxy, revealing some editing that went into those releases. (For instance, the second half of Zappa's "Be-Bop Tango" intro mostly matches Roxy & Elsewhere while the first half is different.)"


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