YOU CALL THAT NEWS?
(Hot Poop, Lukewarm Poop…final poop)
(Last
updated 30 June 2009)
Hot Poop
·
There’s a new book out, The
Gangster of Love - Johnny “Guitar” Watson: Performer, Preacher, Pimp, by
Vincent Bakker. It includes a whole ‘Zappa on Watson’ chapter, which reveals
how JGW “never got into” Frank’s music, and
why Watson didn’t go on tour with his friend. You can buy it at Amazon.com. (Thanks,
Mr Brainpang.)
·
Watch Steve Vai’s tribute to the King Of Pop here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBd4QXrEPHA
·
The soundtrack to Michael Mann’s new film, Public Enemies (starring Johnny Depp), features a track called Chicago Shake by The Bruce Fowler Big Band.
It was co-written by Bruce and features brother Walt on trumpet and Albert
Wing on sax. Malcolm McNab also
plays trumpet on the score.
·
I recently bought Ed Palermo’s
new CD, Eddy Loves Frank, and it’s
effin brill; I’ll pen a review at some point. But meantime, here’s a press release for
y’all to peruse if you’ve not yet got this fab disc.
·
Zappa.com has just posted a couple of clips from the LA stage production
of Joe’s Garage (at http://www.zappa.com/stufftoget/video/packardgoose.html
and http://www.zappa.com/stufftoget/video/diva_joesgarage.html).
Good to see former Grande Mother, Ken
Rosser, prominently featured during Packard
Goose.
·
A cover of Peaches En Regalia
will be included on How I Got Over,
the forthcoming album from hip-hop band, The
Roots.
·
Herb Cohen is currently in court in LA demanding $1M damages
from journalist Barney Hoskyns and Random House, claiming that they defamed him
by accusing him of embezzling royalties from Tom Waits in the biography, Low
Side Of The Road: A Life Of Tom Waits.
·
Howard Kaylan is finishing up a memoir, How Not To Be Me, which he hopes will be turned into a film.
·
“The gorgeous Gail Zappa has invited me to cover a
Frank Zappa song. I am incredibly honoured. I am looking through his oeuvre. That’s
a whole lot of oeuvre! Any suggestions? You know I like things fruity.
Suggestions?” asks Lucy Lawless, aka Xena: Warrior
Princess.
·
Gary Lucas and Lenny Kaye
performed Who Are The Brain Police?
at the Gods & Monsters’ 20th Anniversary Show in New York on 11 June. Bet
that was good.
·
Denizens of the continental US of A can host a concert by Mike Keneally and Bryan Beller at a venue of their choice. The MyKeneally Tour will
take place between 6-20 August. See this for more.
·
Grand Funk off-shoot Flint
has its eponymous 1978 debut album now out on CD (from Wounded Bird Records). FZ plays guitar on
two tracks (Better You Than Me and You’ll Never Be The Same).
·
New book, Afterbirth: Stories You
Won’t Read in a Parenting Magazine, features an essay by Moon Unit called Mom Redefined. Here’s an extract: “When
I was little, ‘Mom’ meant let people be themselves so Dad doesn’t leave us for
a groupie and we can keep food on the table and a roof over our heads. ‘Mom’
meant do your own thing, because my mom didn’t have time to play with us or
teach us conflict resolution - she was too busy making sure my dad didn’t leave
us for a groupie. ‘Mom’ meant yell a lot to get us to stop screaming so Dad can
sleep so he can work and doesn’t leave us for a groupie. By the time I was
ready to leave home, the definition of ‘Mom’ had expanded to include unfair
rule through financial bondage, control through psychological and emotional
manipulation, and profound apathy.” Hear more at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wF5SKiP5dHg.
·
This Idiot understands that the ‘great singer from a well known group’
who ‘had not done any of the required preparation’ for the gig of singing with
ZPZ was Living Colour’s Corey Glover.
·
See Diva, Dweez, Gail and Bust in Vilnius: http://united-mutations.blogspot.com/2009/06/dweezil-and-gail-zappa-in-vilnius.html.
By the bye, I note that the radio ad for
the imminent UK dates by ZPZ on Planet Rock talks about Dweezil and a 12-piece band.
Shome mishtake surely?
·
Other Minds Records has just issued Conlon
Nancarrow’s Studies for Player Piano: The Original 1750 Arch Recordings,
Volumes 1–4 on CD. If you’ve not heard and of this, it’s crazy, mind-blowing
stuff. Go here to sample some brief excerpts: http://www.otherminds.org/cgi-bin/shop.pl/page=Nancarrowstudies.html/SID=PUT_SID_HERE/buy=1
·
The Alambic Électric Festival this year will feature the Grandmothers – more at http://www.myspace.com/festivalalambicelectrique.
·
The amazing Mr. Bickford will
be a special guest at Zappanale 20. Bruce is bringing lots of his work over to
Bad Doberan, where you’ll be able to see his little creatures on display. He’ll
also have some of his newest pictures and his new film with him. This Idiot is
part-way through interviewing Bruce, in cahoots with the incredible André Cholmondeley.
·
Interested in hearing Edgard
Varèse conducting Charlie Mingus?
Go here: http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2009/06/edgar-varèse-and-the-jazzmen-mp3s.html
·
Mike Keneally appears on Todd
Grubbs’ next CD, The Return Of The
Worm (due soon), on a song called The
Message. Todd tells me Mike’s solo is “weird
and fantastic!” He adds that “this album is
a bit different than some of my other ones; it has a lot of ‘field recordings’,
humour and overall strangeness.” The Todd Grubbs Group (with ANT-BEE, Bo Smith and Tony Arnone)
have also contributed a wondrous piece for my 21 Burnt Weeny Sandwiches project.
·
Onion boy Bryan Beller: “I have it on good authority that Steve Vai is now finally, finally done with the live DVD of the
2007 String Theories band, and that it’s coming out this summer.”
·
Oh my - a new interview with Ray
Collins: http://www.dailybulletin.com/ci_12484780.
And some interesting chats with Jimmy
Carl Black here: http://sprisk.com/kultur/jimmy-carl-black-1938-2008.html
·
Wendy Bannister tells me “we still have a
few of the Knebworth Frank Zappa T shirts left in all sizes from small to XXXL.
They are normally £12.45 but we would keep the price down to £11.95 – plus a second
one at half price (£5.97) - for the visitors to your site. Anyone interested
should email info@rockmusicmemorabilia.com or phone 01954 268088. I have been receiving lots of
requests for them because of the imminent ZPZ tour. We also still have a couple
of the original 1971 posters left in mint condition for £80 if anyone is
interested.”
·
This Idiot’s long-promised interview with Robert ‘Bobby’ Martin is finally done: http://idiotbastard.com/Interviews/RobertMartin.htm
·
Following its Zappa jukebox CD, Chrome Dreams has now released Captain Beefheart’s Jukebox: The Songs That
Inspired The Man. It duplicates a couple of the songs on the FZ one, but
looks pretty nifty. The wondrous Radar Station has a short review here: http://www.beefheart.com/datharp/albums/related/jukebox.htm
·
Ed Mann is selling Zappa stuff: http://www.edmann.info/ZAPPA_PAGE.html
(thanks, Bob).
·
The Vegetarians (one of the 20 extraordinary idiot bastards) have a
new CD, 24 Carrot Songs, available
from CdBaby (http://cdbaby.com/cd/vegetarians2)
and on iTtunes. You can also listen to and download all the songs at www.annellssongs.com.
·
Back in 2003, Gail said we “can expect a new
batch” of Beat The Boots. And
here they finally are: six ‘discs’ now being sold by AmazonMP3.
Apparently Rhino passed on flogging these particular ‘unpolished turds’ a while
back. Here’s some helpful info on what the discs contain: http://groups.google.com/group/alt.fan.frank-zappa/msg/dad9046b7600f47b?hl=en
·
Old Skool Hooligans are offering some ‘awesome new imported t-shirts’, including
Weasels Ripped My Flesh
and Freak Out!
ones.
·
I wanted a quick way to notify folk about new news, and I didn’t quite
get this newfangled Twitter thing. So I created The Idiot’s Little Bastards
Club on Facebook (at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=93547360554&ref=mf).
Join us, Michael?
·
A message from Scott Parker: “The third volume
in my Recordings Of Frank Zappa book
series is now available. You can read more about this 399-page monster at www.scottparkerbooks.com. This book explores
the recorded work of FZ in his first decade. The first half of the book
includes a full-color worldwide discography from 1972-1973, complete with
commercially-issued LP and CD bootleg releases. The second half of the book
contains in-depth reviews of every known bootleg concert recording of FZ from
1972 through 1973. Transcriptions of FZ’s inter-song announcements are also
given. The book is 399 pages long. This version of the book is limited,
numbered and signed by the author.”
·
Gail’s former boyfriend, Bobby
Jameson (for whom Frank arranged Gotta
Find My Roogalator) is in intensive care after emergency surgery for an
aortic aneurysm. His condition is stable. Read his mother’s blog: http://thinkaboutitworld.blogspot.com/
·
Arf…http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/south_of_scotland/8048173.stm
·
Steve Vai appears on the forthcoming Spinal Tap album, Back From
The Dead, released on 16 June. Steve is also to release a 25th Anniversary
Edition of his first solo album, Flex-Able.
·
Ben Thomas is the new ZPZ singer (read about it here). This is the
same Ben Thomas who appeared in the Gail-approved Joe’s Garage musical in LA last year.
·
Zappa Records is pleased to present the official digital download of Mothermania,
a special 40th Anniversary Edition in celebration of the original vinyl
release, on Mothers’ Day. (Make sure you have Java version 1.4 or later
installed and, oddly,
if you buy each track separately, it works out cheaper than getting it in one
hit.) Read more at: http://www.zappa.com/zapparecords/2009_mothermania.html.
Coming soon at zappa.com, “GZ Sez”.
·
Why not watch a very nice clip of the Central Scrutinizer Band with specialle guesta, Ike Willis, on what could well be
Chanel 9 at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzArFXSFa7U
(courtesy Sminky-pinky John-Kaminski, aka Mr Cool).
·
Don’t think I’ve mentioned this before, but Mike Keneally is now offering the Sluggo!, Half Alive In
Hollywood and Mistakes albums for
download (including new liner notes – if someone writes and tells me which FZ
song title Mike sings backwards in What
Happened Next, I may send them a peanut), on either mp3 or FLAC, for a mere
$10 each. And he’s currently running a Mothers’ Day sale which means you can
get a 10% discount off these (and other items - go here: http://store.moosemart.com/servlet/StoreFront)
by using the promo code “MIKE4MOM”. Support this artist! Oh, and he’s just
finished Scambot – yay! I like Mike.
·
If you were unable to attend our concert for Jimmy Carl Black last November, you can hear The Thurston Lava Tube‘s
Caravan (with a drum solo) and The FrazKnapp Fusion Project (featuring Carlo Bowry and Andy Frizell)’s Ra Ja For
Jimmy from that evening on their MySpace pages. And shortly you’ll be able
to hear even more of the Thurston’s set when Cordelia Records releases the
band’s fifth album, The Year Of The Dog.
Material from the concert will be included as mp3 format in the “CD extra”
content doings. The actual album includes recordings of four of the songs
(Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust, The Beatles’
I Wanna Hold Your Hand, and their own
Don’t Borrow Dominoes From A Black Man
and Ianisation) that they played that
night. I like the Thurston Lava Tube.
·
This Idiot had forgotten (he’s old
and retiring) about Miquette Giraudy’s
The Blimp quote in Steve Hillage’s Light In The Sky. Sure hope they play it at Zappanale this year.
·
Out in July from Rykodisc, New
York Times, a two-CD set of live performances from Flo & Eddie recorded at The Bottom Line in New York City from
1979 to 1994. The second disc includes their FZ medley (Who Needs The Peace Corps?/Concentration Moon/The Ugliest Part Of Your
Body/Absolutely Free/Peaches en Regalia/Magic Fingers) from the 1993 show. “This was a great collection of songs we did while
singing with The Mothers of Invention. Howard and I loved the early Zappa
records and this medley showcases some of our favourite songs from We’re Only In It For The Money.”
says Mr. Volman. “We can’t ignore the late Mr.
Zappa whenever we are doing a history of our careers. One day, we’d love to work
with Dweezil too, just to keep the genius of his father alive. There was never
a more brilliant musician and he was, of course, a well-acknowledged father
figure to both Mark and me as well.” says Mr. Kaylan. Meantime,
available right now is ‘Save The Turtles’
The Greatest Hits of The Turtles (see http://www.idiotbastard.com/News/PressRelease.htm).
·
The Chad Wackerman Trio has a
live DVD out soon. Confirms Chad, “The DVD is close to being finished. We
recorded it at the Drum Channel, so it’s a matter of squeezing the time in with
their schedule. I hope in a couple months it’ll be out.” Regarding the Drum
Channel’s excellent Zappa Drummers Roundtable thing, during which Ruth
Underwood called Chad “dear”, young Master Wackerman adds: “Ruth is great.
That’s the first time I had a chance to speak with her.”
·
In Germany, the May edition of Playboy
featured the lovely Moon Unit in the
naughty naked semi-rude:
·
Warren Cuccurullo’s rendition of Wreckelection,
the never before previously recorded piece of music by FZ, can now be streamed
from his MySpace page - and, indeed, my own: http://www.myspace.com/idiotbastard. You can
download it, and the rest of Warren’s long-awaited Playing In Tongues album, from Barfko-Swill.
·
Dave McMann asks: “want some stunning sport video with music?
Well, check this out: http://vimeo.com/4167288.”
·
“Here is a link to a live ZAPPATiKA version of Zappa’s
CITY OF TINY LITES which was recorded during one of our recent shows - we
already made the top 30 so give it a click today or tomorrow and maybe we can
push this little mother all the way to the top of the chart! Cheers for your
Click! http://soundclick.com/share?songid=7215773.” – ZAPPATiKA
·
The Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band,
featuring Sean Lennon & special guests, play London’s Royal Festival Hall
on Sunday 14 June as part of Ornette
Coleman’s Meltdown.
·
In the latest instalment of the continuing story of Michael Myers, H2: Halloween 2 (written and directed by
Rob Zombie, and starring ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic), Howard Hesseman’s
character is called Uncle Meat.
·
Drumbo answers some interesting questions (largely about Trout Mask), stuff that won’t appear in
his autobiography, here: http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=349652501&blogID=484741730
·
Ed Palermo has uploaded some tracks from his imminent Eddy Loves Frank CD at http://www.myspace.com/edpalermo
·
Here are the links for the final JCB downloads from Greg Russo’s Crossfire Publications:
·
JIMMY CARL BLACK, STEVEN DE BRUYN & JOS STEEN, Black Brown Stone: http://cdbaby.com/cd/jcbsdbjs
(complete session, including tracks that Jimmy is not on)
·
JIMMY CARL BLACK & THE ROUTE 66 ALL-STAR BLUES BAND, Live All-Stars: http://cdbaby.com/cd/jcbr66asbb (same as the
original album)
·
JIMMY CARL BLACK & THE ROUTE 66 ALL-STAR BLUES BAND, More Rockin’ Blues: http://cdbaby.com/cd/jcbr66asbb2 (same as the
original album)
·
JIMMY CARL BLACK, MICK PINI & UWE JESDINSKY, Live In Steinbach: http://cdbaby.com/cd/jcbmpuj (same as the
original album)
Says Greg: “Amazon.com
will have these titles in a few days for those wanting a song here or there.”
·
A 20th anniversary CD/DVD reissue of Whitesnake’s Slip Of The
Tongue, featuring Steve Vai, will
be issued in the second week of June 2009.
Bonus material includes Fool For
Your Loving (The Vai Voltage Mix)
and (on both the CD & DVD) Slip Of
The Tongue and Kittens Got Claws
live from the Monsters Of Rock at Donnington in 1990.
·
William L. Fowler, 1917-2009 (http://memorialwebsites.legacy.com/billfowler/Homepage.aspx).
·
Read Art Tripp on the MOI In The 60s DVD at http://www.zappa.com/messageboard/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=16840&p=411640
·
Project Object with Ike
Willis and Don Preston are
lining up some European dates to coincide with their appearance at Zappanale
#20 in August. Keep an eye on their website for details as they emerge.
·
Some kool t-shirts here: http://www.oldskoolhooligans.com/catalog/1/zappa
·
In the May 2009 edition of Record Collector,
Alan Clayson talks to Gail Zappa – principally about Lumpy Money and her own pre-FZ musical
career. In this interesting article, Mrs Z reveals that The Rage & The Fury may never be released (“Frank didn’t care if anyone [else] heard it – and I feel the same,”), that FZ
‘ordered’ her to sell the master tapes of a second un-issued Wild Man Fischer album to Rykodisc,
that she’s thinking of taking guitar lessons, and that she is keen to write her
autobiography.
·
The groovy Drum Channel website
now has an interview up with Chester
Thompson - by Terry Bozzio - in one, two, three, four parts.
·
Out now from Zonic
Entertainment/Hot Club Records, No Forest
Fire by the Mar Vista Philharmonic
– that is: Tommy Mars, Arthur Barrow, Bruce & Walt Fowler,
Larry Klimas, Kurt McGettrick and VINNIE
COLAIUTA! Says Artie: “It is a wild and cool
free improv from August 2002. It is the one and only assemblage of this group,
sadly, as Kurt is no longer with us. This session led to the BBC sessions after
the BBC guy heard this and asked if we could do something to go with their 10th anniversary show. It’s for the hard
core fans who might like to hear what some of the vets might do left to their
own devices!” See more butts here: http://www.idiotbastard.com/News/PressRelease1.htm
·
Love Bomb: Live 1967-1969 by Blossom
Toes features FZ’s guest appearance with the band at the legendary Amougies
Festival, as well as a cover of the good Captain’s Electricity. Grab it from Sunbeam Records now.
·
Check out this new website: Zappa Music Dot Com.
·
Here’s a sneak peek at the forthcoming Son Of Roxy & Elsewhere DVD from Zappa Plays Zappa - filmed on 12 December 2008 at the Roxy Theatre
in Hollywood: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wb-b4s-0ps&fmt=22.
Looks way spiffy, and note how the band are all w-e-r-e-i-n-g black tops like
the Mothers did on that still-to-be-released Roxy Performances DVD. Accept no substitutes, eh? In other ZPZ
news, Dweezil says “In about two weeks I will be making a very special
announcement regarding our new SINGER for the upcoming European and American
tours. Who will it be? Who could it be? Wouldn’t you like to know...” My
money’s on the SINGER in the woods, Brother A. Zappa.
·
Billy James (aka the ANT-BEE)
is currently hosting his own online radio programme called Listening Through A Glass Onyon on the UK’s largest classic rock
website (www.GetReadyToRock.com). The first show
was aired on 5 April; along with playing ANT-BEE music, James is also spinning “eclectic slices of prog, psychedelic and experimental
music by such legends as Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart, Magma, Godley &
Gouldmen, Daevid Allen, Le Orme, Supersister, Flo & Eddie and Wildman
Fisher to name a few. The next show will be aired sometime in May 2009.”
·
Listen to Frank Zappa: A ‘Lumpy’ Legacy
– a short news item by Joel Rose for NPR, featuring Gail and Ike. After the
story first aired on 9 April, NPR was asked to take down the two FZ pieces it
had been given permission to stream.
·
Next April sees the complete works of Edgard Varèse performed in one weekend at London’s South Bank. See here for more: http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/festivals-series/varese-360
·
Gary Lucas’ arm will be all better for a rare solo appearance at
London’s Jazz Café on Saturday 16 May. He’ll be joined for parts of the show by
Bristol’s Dark Poets. Tickets just £12.
·
Read ace bass-boy Bryan Beller
on Scott Thunes at: http://www.bassplayer.com/article/frank-zappas-alien/apr-09/94337.
Hope that gets you juiced for me book.
·
The Zappatistas are
headlining the Real Ale Jazz & Blues
Festival in
·
First, Zappa Plays Zappa “suffered the departure” of Aaron Arntz (keyboards & trumpet). Then Thomas Nordegg (guitar tech to Frank, Warren, Keneally, Vai &
the Dweez) was apparently ‘let go’ to save costs. Now ‘special guest’ Ray White (guitar & vocals) has
bailed on the eve of dates in
·
Brian Eno in the Grauniad: “Zappa was very technical and impressed by things that were
musically challenging - weird time signatures, strange keys, awkward chord
sequences. Zappa was important to me as an example of everything I didn’t want
to do. I’m very grateful to him, actually.”
·
Thanks to my good friend John Kaminski for flagging-up this clip of
Frank playing the church bells in
·
Eddy Loves Frank is the new CD from The Ed Palermo Big Band. It’s scheduled for release on Cuneiform
Records on 19 May. Track list: Night
School/Echidna’s Arf (Of You)/Regyptian Strut/Don’t You
·
European gig news: The Grande
Mothers are playing three dates in
·
Read Scott Thunes’s very own account
of his recent guest appearance with ZPZ here.
·
There’s to be a special presentation of FZ’s music in
·
Long time FZ fan, Penn Jilette,
talks about turning 54…and FZ: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZGED-s4cK0
·
The Muffin Men have just updated their website:
they are to record some original music in the summer and “this material may or may not be released, the band may or
may not take the material out on the road. Due to the current climate with
regard to permissions for playing FZ music, the Muffinz will not be performing
or recording FZ material for the rest of this year.” There should though
be a tour of
·
Interesting Dweezil interview
here from late last year: http://www.q107.com/DJsandShows/KimMitchell/Audio.aspx
(thanks, Dave). He talks about how ZPZ has pretty much used up all of the
friendly special guest alumni, impersonates Don Van Vliet, and jams along to the Mighty Zep’s How Many More Times.
·
YouTube has some great clips of Mike
Keneally and chums covering some ‘classic rock’. Try these for starters: War Pigs (he’s on drums); Sunshine Of Your Love (guitar &
vocals); Harvest Moon (bass!).
·
Jon Larsen has been in the studio again with Tommy
Mars. But this time “Tommy did not play one
single note! The studio, by the way, is the LA based Lotek Studio, owned and
engineered by the Zappa alumni, ‘clonemeiser’, and bass player par excellence, Arthur Barrow. Anyway, even without
touching his keyboards once today, Tommy gave me goosebimples on my arms,
chills up and down the spine, he made me laugh, and cry. How? By reading the
surrealistic short story Willie
Nickerson’s Egg, or not just reading it, but making it come alive! Tommy’s
reading is spiced up by short glimpses of music.” Willie Nickerson’s Egg is expected to be released in the middle of
August.
·
Dale Bozzio has now been convicted of animal cruelty. Police say
12 cats had to be put down after being found in Bozzio’s home last year. She
pleaded not guilty to several misdemeanor counts of animal cruelty, but has
been convicted of one count last week. The 54-year-old singer is expected to be
sentenced next week in District Court for Southern Carroll County. She faces up
to a year in jail and a $2,000 fine. Her manager
said Dale had left the cats in the care of a friend.
·
Out now from Edel Records in Europe, Playing
In Tongues, the new album from Warren
Cuccurullo featuring Terry Bozzio.
It includes the “never before recorded piece of
music by Frank Zappa, Wreckelection,
a 14 chord progression that was part of my 1978 Zappa audition [and] is now a ZFT approved new work by FZ…Munchkin Music is the
BEST!”. You can see WC’s Sid
Arthur’s Message solo at http://www.cuccurullo.tv/sam-vid.htm;
the album track features the voice of Warren’s long-time friend, Al Malkin. Also on the album is Dale Bozzio (as Miss Tickle). You can
buy selected tracks - and listen to samples of all of them - right now
at Play.com in the
·
The 399 pages of Scott Parker‘s new book, Blessed Relief: The Recordings Of FRANK
ZAPPA Volume Three, 1972-1973, are being readied for print as I type.
·
You can now see all seven episodes of the Drum Channel’s The Zappa Drummers Roundtable –
featuring Terry Bozzio, Ralph Humphrey, Chester Thompson, Chad
Wackerman and Ruth Underwood -
at http://www.drumchannel.com/entertainment/15004.aspx.
And The Zappa Drummers Drum Jam, too
(http://www.drumchannel.com/entertainment/13294.aspx).
·
At the Wells Fargo Center, Santa Rosa, on 7 March, ZPZ opened with Cletus Awreetus Awrightus, played Why Don’tcha Do Me Right?, and had Scott Thunes as a special guest on
bass. He apparently “did some amazing improv over
the Run Home Slow Theme before being
asked to stay for Willie the Pimp.”
·
Les Fils De L’Invention is urging fans to
boycott the ZPZ show at the
·
Like last year, the Zappanale fun starts early in Hamburg when, on
Tuesday 11 August, Sheik Yerbouti
and Napi play ‘live and unplugged’
at St Katharinen’s Church...then there’s street parties in BD on both Wednesday
and Thursday featuring films, music, Fritz
Rau and various exhibits. Click the z20 banner above for full details.
·
We’re now making some good progress on the 21 Burnt Weeny Sandwiches album – check here for the
latest.
·
Chris Opperman’s fifth album, The
Lionheart, features ten brand new studio recordings - including The Porpentine, his ambitious
12-movement piece for full orchestra plus rhythm section - and a ferocious double
guitar solo by Mike Keneally.
·
The May 2009 issue of Guitar World
features Steve Vai on the cover and
an in-depth article celebrating the 25th anniversary of Flex-Able. Steve recounts the production of the album, and the
article includes many rare photographs of Steve’s self-built studio, as well as
photos from the sessions.
·
Sadly, there’s no official Arf Society CDs from last year’s Zappanale,
but Italian band Fattore Zeta has
released its set from the festival on a new CD called Dio Fa.
·
Coming soon: new book, Beefheart:
Through The Eyes Of Magic, by John “Drumbo” French (http://www.propermusic.com/epk/teaser/vol1.html).
·
You can now listen to a snippet of the Fraz Knapp Fusion Project featuring Carl Bowry, plus special guest Andy
Frizell, live at the Bridge House II on Fraz’s MySpace page. It’s from last November’s Concert For Jimmy, and the piece
performed (Raja JCB) is based around
The Beatles’ Tomorrow Never Knows.
·
Foothill Records has just released a new Don Preston album, The Gary
Plays, a recording of the music Don wrote for three Murray Mednick theatre
plays. See hear: http://msmusicproductions.com/STM33101-the-gary-plays.html
·
If you were waiting for G&S Music to
get copies of Lumpy Money before
ordering, please note that its first batch has gone already. Reserve a copy now
to avoid further disappointment.
·
Listen to Gail Zappa & Joe Travers talking about Lumpy Money (“...and
maybe a little something special on the side”? Yeah, there is fer sure:
a Frankly Valarie excerpt from the currently-being-worked-upon 4tieth
anniversary Ruben & The Jets CD)
on KPFK Radio. It’s all here (fast-forward
one hour to the start, then to around
·
Pay The Indian, a new CD compiled by Leaping Cat Records and sold by
Inkanish Records (with all funds going to Jimmy Carl Black’s family) is now
available. It features tracks donated by Jon
Larsen, Don Preston & Bunk Gardner, The Wrong Object, Ed Mann,
Zappatika and many others. Find out
more here.
·
The Unmatched series of Zappa
tributos just got bigger: http://www.halloffame.es/unmatched8-9-10.html
·
Yay! A tearful Dweezil
accepted the Grammy for ‘Best Rock Instrumental Performance’ for Peaches En Regalia by Zappa Plays Zappa featuring Steve Vai and
Napoleon Murphy Brock at the 51st Annual Grammy Awards on Sunday. “Did you feel it? The world actually fell off its axis,”
said the Dweez, “This particular song means a lot.
It’s 40 years old, and it was on a record dedicated to me when I was born…so
I’m dedicating it right back.” Nice one, guys: a time to celebrate. For
thems as wants to see ZPZ in
·
Hey, Grasshopper, wanna buy two pages of FZ handwritten sheet music? http://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/6170701
·
Nice li’l interview with our Mikey here.
·
Following the sad death of John
Martyn, I was also (belatedly) distraughtened to learn of the demise of Delaney Bramlett and (Page/Plant, Cult
drummer) Michael Lee. Sigh.
·
The third and final part of the great CBC Radio 2 documenta’y, I Am All Day And Night: The Music Of Frank
Zappa, is now online. The whole caboodle features Gail, Joe, Elliot Ingber,
Ruthie, Artie, Sophia, Brucie, Stevie (the latter five all spanking some Frank
as they’re interviewed)…right click, save as…one, two…three…er, five-five-FIVE, sir!
·
Check this press release on
Drumbo’s great
·
Steve Vai is bringing his Alien Guitar Secrets Master
Class to the London International Music Show on 13 and 14 June.
During the LIMS, Steve will also be jamming on a couple of standard rock covers
(on Saturday and Sunday afternoon) with Phil Hilborne and Nicko McBrain - but
will not be performing a solo show, or any Vai material.
·
The small town of
·
Read an interview from 2000 with David
Ocker (Zappa copyist, orchestrator, librarian and Synclavier programmer) by
J21 at http://www.myspace.com/j21music.
·
The Zappateers are having a party in
·
Hey, you can get 20 Extraordinary Renditions
from iTunes Plus.
·
Electro-poof, Vince Noir, has
bought his parents one of Don Van Vliet’s
paintings – read all abaht it in The Currant Bun.
·
My buddy J-Roc wants to share
this cool video of Mike Keneally performing in
·
Markus Stauss’s Trank Zappa
Grappa In
·
According to a reliable source, the ZFT has signed a deal with Rhino to
distribute Lumpy Money. Meanwhile,
folks have started to get their copies from Barfko – and Jabba at the Zappa
forum has kindly posted some photos of the project/object at http://www.zappa.com/messageboard/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=15562&p=402297#p402297.
Guess we’ve all clocked the track list?
·
The ZFT has finally lost its battle to curb Arf-Society activities in
organising the
annual Zappa music and more festival in Bad Doberan. Basically, it could not
prove that it owned any rights to the name ‘Zappanale’ (see Spiegel Online article
here) Therefore, the 20th festival will
go ahead as planned (see updated details here).
·
An update from Dweezil: “I am in the process of putting a 2 disc live record
together from
·
Classic Records have re-released Hot
Rats on vinyl. See here http://www.classicrecords.com/item.cfm?item=RS%206356%2D200GRAM
·
Now available from Crossfire Records, Don Preston’s Retrospective.
Start of Review here.
·
A recent edition of Goldmine
has a ‘peek inside the FZ vaults’ article. Read it online (reasons to be
cheerful): one;
two;
three;
four.
·
Having already covered I’m Glad,
The Black Keys have now contributed
their interpretation of Captain Beefheart’s Her Eyes Are A Blue Million Miles to new compilation, Covered, A Revolution in Sound: Warner Bros.
Records, due out on 24 February.
·
The line-up for Zappanale #20
can now be seen at http://www.arf-society.de/zap20/runningorder.html
- tell me you won’t be there, and I’ll not believe you.
·
Dweezil says: “We [ZPZ] will definitely be back to
·
Ed Mann’s new CD, Sing
Gong 24, is available now from http://www.edmann.info:80/SingGong24.html.
Read an interview with Ed by J21 at http://www.myspace.com/j21music.
·
Listen to last August’s concert by the Bogus Pomp Low Budget Semi-Acoustic Orchestra at St Katharinen’s
Church in
·
You can now order the Frank Zappa And
The Mothers Of Invention In The 1960s DVD direct from Chrome Dreams. And
here’s an in-depth review.
·
For their special January Sale, www.rockmusicmemorabilia.com is reducing the
price of its Frank Zappa Bath and Knebworth commemorative set by £10 to just
£49.99, and it still includes the special gift of CDs ad DVDs. This offer is
only available in the
·
I assume many of you see this stuff on YouTube, but...the Mothers rehearsing in Sydney
in June 1973, Joel Thome conducting The
Shalom BSAL Orchestra with some very special guests in 1997, and Mauraxe fingerpicking his way to Cleveland
are all goodies - that Gail will hopefully not get removed too soon.
·
“We are not groupies. You better understand that…I
told Robert Planet CBE,
I told Sir Elton John, I told all those big guys…”
·
As well as the Lumpy Money
hold up, there have been delays in making the free MP3 downloads available from
the ZPZ You Can’t Fit On Stage Anymore
shows - Dweezil having underestimated the huge amount of work involved in
getting the sonic quality of these just right. Well, his efforts are now paying
off, as can be heard from this audio stream of Bamboozled By Love from the
·
Apparently this will be the last Zappa beer from Lagunitas: http://www.legalbeer.com/2008/12/lagunitas-crusing-with-ruben-the-jets
·
Eddie Jobson’s new band, UKZ,
is to release its debut EP entitled Radiation
on 6 January. This will be INTERNET ONLY (with the actual CD/EP release to
worldwide retail following in March). See the video for the title track now on YouTube. The band - which also features Trey Gunn and Marco Minnemann – plays its debut concert on
·
Seems Gail has been getting her
henchmen to write to Internet Service Providers asking them to get their users
to ‘cease and desist infringement of
copyrights owned exclusively by the Zappa Family Trust’. Jerry Scroggin
(owner of Bayou Internet and Communications)’s response asked for their billing
information ‘so we can have a contract
signed and full understanding of what I do. If you want me to work for you, you
should expect to pay.’ Says
Scroggin: “They have the right to protect their
music, but they don’t have the right to tell me I have to be the one protecting
it. I don’t want anyone doing anything illegal on my network, but we don’t work
for free.”
·
ZPZ bassist Pete Griffin: “As
you may have heard, Zappa Plays Zappa has been nominated for a Grammy. We’re in
the Best Rock Instrumental category for our live performance of Peaches En Regalia. Seeing as how I’ve always
felt this song was three and half minutes of compositional genius, and that we
painstakingly dissected the original recording to reproduce it live, I think we
may have a decent chance of winning. The Roxy shows were a total blast, over 12
hours of Zappa music in 4 nights. Hopefully the footage we filmed on Friday
will turn out well, it’ll be interesting to see it in comparison to the footage
of Frank at the same venue 35 years earlier.” I’ll probably be dead
before I get a chance to compare it…
·
Some great new live videos of Keneally-Minnemann-Beller at http://www.kmblive.com/video.html
·
An XMASage from Bob & Thana Harris: “Nate is almost 19, and he’s just finished a punk rock
album that’ll be released on
·
Aynsley
Dunbar is “excited
to announce that my first solo CD in many years has just been released. This CD
features many of the biggest rock and blues musicians in the industry today.
There are some new songs and some surprises in there for some of you Journey
and Zappa fans.” It features his cover of Chunga’s Revenge.
·
Project/Object
featuring Ike Willis, Ed Mann, Don Preston & Denny
Walley will be playing a few
·
Derek at the Radar Station kindly sent
me this link to a drawing/collage done by FZ when he was 18 that’s for sale on
eBay: http://cgi.ebay.com:80/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&item=120344291145.
Would make a nice Christmas prezzie for someone.
·
Mike
Keneally has put together a special little
holiday presentation sort-of-preview of his upcoming Scambot CD (The Scambot
Holiday Special). Says Mike “I’ve been obsessively
listening to [FZ’s] music in the car for several months without being
specifically conscious of the upcoming significance of December 4, but when I
realized what day it was, I was struck by how strongly Frank’s presence has
been exerting itself in my life lately. Sending out strong love and gratitude
to Frank right now. Possibly as a result of all that, I think he had an
unusually strong influence on the construction of The Scambot Holiday Special. It’s about fourteen-and-a-half minutes
long; five tracks, with tracks 1, 3 and 5 acting as framing devices for tracks
2 and 4, which are full-length studio recordings of the songs Holiday Face and Salve-Dependent Scorpions. Tracks 1, 3 and 5 are twisted little combinations
of electronic music done on a Moog, other added effects, and
dialogue/narration/singing which advances a peculiar narrative. There’s some
heavy Lumpy Gravy and Läther influence in there. I can’t help
it, sorry.” You can get this special CD-R free from Mike if you order
$50 worth of stuff from Moosemart.
·
Coldplay
have been sued by Joe Satriani, who
claims the band’s song Viva La Vida
uses “substantial original portions” of his
2004 instrumental If I Could Fly.
Satch is seeking damages and “any and all profits”
for the alleged plagiarism. Check this out, and I think you’ll agree he’s on to
a winner: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=1ofFw9DKu_I
·
Watch Zappatika playing Wino Man
here and Leroy there. Over Crimbo,
the band edited various concert video footage for a DVD release of live material,
and also decided on the tracks for their next album (“hot
on the stubby little tail of the Dodo Album...early in 2009”), which
will be completely filled with FZ tracks
and called Strictly Frankly.
·
Bryan Beller is “doing a full-song
transcription of Frank Zappa’s Alien
Orifice, featuring bits of an interview I just did with the one and only Scott Thunes...”
·
New seven page FZ article in LA freebie mag, Record Collector News, here: http://recordcollectornews.com/images/RCN_1108.indd.pdf
·
See Terry Bozzio, Ralph Humphrey,
Chester Thompson and Chad Wackerman in an exclusive preview
of Drum Channel’s Drum Jams -
featuring the Zappa Drummers, at http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ruB1JplOmTw
·
Fred
Tomsett has sent
some more “poxy references” to FZ. This time,
from comics: “Just finished
·
Adrian
Belew has been blogging some more on the
Summer bust up betwixt André
Cholmondeley and Zappa Plays Zappa at: http://elephant-blog.blogspot.com/2008/11/life-is-very-sh-part-iii.html.
ZPZ will play Bluesfest 2009 down under in
·
“The ghost of
Frank Zappa keeps appearing in my dreams and bugging me to do mass overdubs on
stuff from his catalogue.” Read all about it at http://www.sandiegoreader.com:80/news/2008/nov/12/blurt3/
and listen to the results here. (Thanx,
mighty D.)
·
Why, it’s little Roddie on
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FB4DejSAc5Y
·
Our benefit gig for JCB in the
middle of a strange industrial site in London’s
·
Lots of you keep telling me
about 200 Motels coming out on DVD
soon. Well, it’s being released by a company called Intergroove, who also
released the Zeppelin Live At
·
Schott Music is now the
worldwide representative for Munchkin Music, FZ’s orchestral and ensemble works
for hire.
·
The Gotan Project have released a live album that includes another
rendition of their interpretation of Frank’s Chunga’s Revenge.
·
Geoff Wills thought we might be
interested to know about the recently published autobiography of the eminent
American composer John Adams (Hallelujah Junction: Composing An American
Life. The Autobiography of John Adams, Faber & Faber). Says Geoff: “He devotes three pages to a discussion of Zappa, and
thinks that Frank was ‘very much in the
lineage of our best social satirists - Mark Twain, Ambrose Bierce, H.L. Mencken
and Hunter S. Thompson.’ However, he says ‘I was always uncertain about Zappa and remain puzzled by him.’ He
thinks that ‘In comparison to what was
being accomplished at the same time by other contemporary composers, his
orchestral music was hardly more advanced than what had been around for half a
century.’ This despite the fact that
·
And this in from Donald: “The Toronto Youth
Wind Orchestra put on a concert tonight (24 October) in the Glenn Gould Studio
in Toronto Canada and they played Dog
Breath Variations & Uncle Meat
- Yellow Shark style! It was a ZFT
authorized performance. TYWO, in its 18th season, ‘strive to offer a professional-calibre performance, providing their
audiences with a wide variety of programming, thereby encouraging appreciation
for and knowledge of wind band music in our community.’ The ‘Youth’ in
their title means just that…these were KIDS!! PLAYING ZAPPA…CLASSICAL ZAPPA!
And the kids ripped it up! If just one of them plays some more Frank and
continues on the musical journey like we have all been on… Besides Dog Breath Variations & Uncle Meat, tonight’s programme included
pieces by Bernstein, Ticheli, Hindemith, Tschesnokoff, Von Weber, Grainger and
Anderren, Ulvaeus & Anderson (yes, ABBA). The special guest was Kathleen
McLean, Bassoonist with the TSO, who conductor Colin Clarke introduced with a
quote from Frank. Frank said: ‘The
bassoon is one of my favourite instruments. It has the medieval aroma, like the
days when everything used to sound like that. Some people crave baseball…I find
this unfathomable, but I can easily understand why a person could get excited
about playing the bassoon.’”
·
Somehow missed this one: A to Z of Jazz by the UK’s Fine Arts
Brass Quintet (Nimbus Records, UHJ Ambisonic NI 5703) includes Theme From ‘Lumpy Gravy’ and Dog Breath Variations.
·
Rick
Musallam and Colin Keenan are Mother Eff,
combining vintage rock groove with infectious pop quirkiness for an effing
righteous sound. Their debut album, Are
We Famous Yet?, features performances from bassist Bryan Beller, guitar and keyboardist Mike Keneally and drummer Joe
Travers. See more butts…er, just go here: http://www.myspace.com:80/mothereffmusic
·
The Arf-Society has released a limited edition two-CD set of the
legendary Grandmothers reunion
concert from
·
Drumbo’s new solo album, City
Of Refuge, was released by Proper Records in November. It features his
former Magic Band colleagues, Bill Harkelroad, Mark Boston, Greg Davidson
and John Thomas.
·
As mentioned lower down the page,
George Duke’s new CD, Dukey Treats
(released in August), features Napoleon
Murphy Brock on two tracks. It also features Vinnie Colaiuta on another two.
·
Bruce and Walt
Fowler, along with Albert Wing,
are the featured horn section for two tracks on the new Lucinda Williams album, Little
Honey.
·
As well as giving me one set to be raffled off at ‘A Concert for Jimmy’
in November, Wendy Bannister is now offering readers of this website a ‘credit
crunch special offer’: you can buy the Bath and
Knebworth Frank Zappa commemorative box sets by paying half (£29.99)
plus the postage now - and the set is sent to you immediately - then you pay
the remainder four weeks later. Email info@rockmusicmemorabilia.com for details. And
don’t forget to say the Idiot sent you.
·
Waxed Oop, the second Fast ‘N’ Bulbous album, came out on
Cuneiform Records in January 2009.
·
Little Scotty Parker has produced another book: The Zappa Supplement One: A Box Of History And The Mud Shark Saga. “The book is a Supplementary Volume to my first two books,
Hungry Freaks Daddy and Strictly Genteel, which are part of my
Recordings Of Frank Zappa series (the third volume, Blessed Relief, will be out later this year). The supplement is
divided into two parts: part one takes an in-depth look at the unreleased 1969 History And Collected Improvisations Of The
Mothers Of Invention box set (greatly expanded from the previous mentions
in the Hungry Freaks book). Part two
is the history of the all-FZ bootleg LP label Mud Shark, which issued a number
of now-classic Zappa LP bootlegs from 1979 up to its demise in 1981, following
an FBI bust.” See here for more.
·
Rhino has released the ‘lost’
- According to Dr Dot,
just before the great Zappanale climb-down (see http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,573478,00.html),
Gail had been busy “sending ALL of the Zappa
alumni, including all of them that she has filed lawsuits against, little
presents (remastered DVDs/CDs and cards that say “Thank you” and
“Peace”)...even Ike Willis, who
just two weeks ago received his gift from Gail via his record label.”
·
Check this from the
·
Curtis Sherwood left
·
Cinefamily presented Frank’s The
Amazing Mr. Bickford on the big screen at the Silent Movie Theatre in
·
Bassboy Bryan Beller’s second
CD, Thanks In Advance (featuring
performances by Mike Keneally, Joe Travers, Marco Minnemann, Scheila
Gonzalez and Steve Vai’s violinist, Ann
Marie Calhoun, among many other fine folk), is now out.
·
Spain’s most experimental guitar player, J21 (aka Joseph Diaz, who put together the Eyeinhand Sampler CD a few years back), has just released his great
first solo album, Yellow Mind: Blue Mind,
mixed and produced by former T-Ride, Snake River Conspiracy guitar god Geoff
Tyson. The album’s title comes from Don
Preston and the disc features Trey
Gunn, Graham Bonnet and Ed Mann. The CD can be bought from his
website (www.lawof21.com) as a digital download, and the
booklet can be downloaded for free from there also.
·
The Open Fist Theatre Company in
·
Mondo Hollywood is now out on DVD. For those that don’t know, this
1967 film briefly features FZ & the Mothers, Vito, Rodney Bingenheimer, and
Bobby Jameson with his then girlfriend, Gail Sloatman. Check it out here: http://www.chaletfilms.com/dvd/395-Mondo_Hollywood_ed._Collector.html
·
Jack Bruce was intimately involved in putting together Can You Follow?, a 6-CD set spanning his
career from 1962 to 2003, which of course features Apostrophe. Now here’s an extract from a 1992 interview with Jack by
Polish rock magazine Tylko Rock
regarding his involvement in said track: “At the
time I was recording an album with Carla Bley, far more interesting one...so
Frank, whom I met earlier, appeared one day in the studio and asked me: “Can
you take your cello and go to my session?” So I turned up in a NY studio with
my cello, I’m listening to his music, pretty awful, and just don’t know what to
do with myself, and Frank 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)” (Bear in mind that this was found on Wikipedia, which
also claimed that Jan Molby was openly bi-sexual and that Ronnie Hazelhurst
co-wrote Reach for S Club 7.)
·
The Ed Palermo Big Band is
recording a third FZ tribute CD. Hooray! Should be out in May. While you wait,
read Ed’s message about not using Frank’s name to advertise future gigs at http://www.palermobigband.com/index.htm).
·
Warren Hayes: “The first two Zappa
records I heard as a teenager were Apostrophe
and Roxy And Elsewhere, both of which
really changed my life and my open-mindedness about music. I think the most
important thing that we can all learn from Frank is that music doesn’t have to
be any certain thing, it can be whatever you make it. He was one of those
people who was just so good that he forced people to pay attention to whatever
he was doing. He often said he would prefer to make instrumental records and
the only reason he wrote lyrics and sang was because people demanded it, that
the world didn’t accept instrumental music. So if he was going to write lyrics,
they were going to be his kind of lyrics which I love him even more for. I had
the pleasure of seeing Zappa at the Fox Theater in
·
For all you Xbox/Playstation doots, Steve
Vai has made his virtual debut in Activision’s Guitar Hero III: Legends Of Rock, which features the “guitar slinger’s reflective For The Love Of God.”
·
Thanks to Kill Ugly Radio,
you can now read some of the papers read at Les Fils de l’Invention’s Grande
Freak in
·
Bunk Gardner says “Hello, boys and girls!”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seaZMjnv7KU
·
Lumania Records released a rarities compilation CD, Lost And Found Pep, by Wild
Man Fischer in 2008. It includes the track, I’m Sorry, Frank Zappa.
·
Marco Minnemann’s latest DVD, The
Marco Show, includes almost one full hour of drum solos and performance
with the Buddy Rich Big Band, Bryan Beller and Mike Keneally. Mike also plays additional guitar on two tracks on
Marco’s imminent A Mouth Of God CD.
·
The Gail-approved Ascolta played Zappa
in the
·
Walt Disney Studios has signed a multiyear deal with Ahmet Zappa to help oversee its newly
christened Kingdom Comics, which will shortly announce which graphic novelists
and artists plan to collaborate on upcoming projects.
·
The life and career of Motörhead
frontman Lemmy Kilmister is being
celebrated in a new documentary, tentatively titled Lemmy and slated for release in 2009. The film will include an
interview Steve Vai.
·
Mike Keneally is “26 minutes into
recording on Normalizer 2: Evidence of
Humanity which is an entirely insane collaboration with Marco Minnemann. The story of this one:
Marco recorded a 51-minute improvised drum solo, and then gave the recording to
a few different composers to record music. Following the twists and turns of
Marco’s improvised musical choices has led me to write some of the most intense
and crazy music I’ve ever done, probably.” Meanwhile, Marco’s new band, UKZ (led by Eddie Jobson) is about to reveal its first piece of music via
YouTube. And the band will apparently also be playing at a festival in
·
“Jimmy Carl
Black was living in
·
Patrick O’Hearn spent April 2008 in the studio with Terry Bozzio. Their collaboration of improvised
duets was filmed and will be viewable on The Drum Channel. But before then,
Patrick can be heard, then seen, with singer-songwriter John Hiatt; Patrick played upright and electric bass on John’s soon
to be released album, Same Old Man. They had not met previously, but got on so
well that Hiatt has now invited Patrick to join his band for an upcoming Summer
tour.
·
Read about Scott Carter Thunes’ personal style.
·
Wymer Publishing is planning a new book:
·
A bust of FZ is to be erected in
Lukewarm Poop
…My Soul - The Complete MPS Fusion Recordings, a 4-CD box set comprising George
Duke’s Solus; The Inner Source; Faces In Reflection; Feel;
I Love The Blues…; The Aura Will Prevail; and Liberated Fantasies, has just been
released. Not sure where this leaves the Promising Music remastered
reissues…Wendy Bannister: “We have two of the big original 1971 tour posters
left (with a slightly larger tear than the ones we sold through your site for
£75) for only £45.” Anyone interested should email Wendy on info@rockmusicmemorabilia.com
or phone 01954 268088…Vivid Entertainment plans to release what it says is a
film from the vaults of classic rock: a sex film supposedly of Jimi Hendrix. The film shows a naked
man who resembles Hendrix, but his full face appears on screen for only a few seconds,
with his eyes closed. The film has no audio, but the DVD includes commentary
from two women who believe the tape is real: Pamela Des Barres and Cynthia
Plaster Caster, who says “I’m 100 percent sure
it’s him. The facial bone structure is the same. The eyebrows and the moustache
are true to the style he was wearing in 1970.”…Ray Scherr and Steve Vai are the Executive Producers
of Crazy, a new independent feature
film inspired by the tragic life and music of 1950s-era guitarist Hank Garland. Steve performs a cameo as
Hank Williams…2007 saw the release
of Tony Palmer’s All My Loving DVD. Now, available for
the first time, his All You Need Is Love
has made its DVD debut as a lavish boxed set containing all 17 episodes of the
TV series on 5 discs. This includes interviews with some of the major names of
the past 50+ years including John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Elvis Presley, Jimi
Hendrix, Tina Turner, Bill Graham, FZ and Eric Clapton. the mighty Paul StatusBaby asked Tony about the chances of 200 Motels coming out on DVD. And this
is what he said: “Keep your fingers crossed - we
are doing our best! We have now found the master tapes, so are looking into the
potential contractual problems.” Any extras? “We are still
examining the material, but there might well be an interview with me about the
film’s origins, if only to dispel some of the garbage that has been written
about what actually happened, usually by people who were not there.”…German
label, Promising Music, has gained access to a range of more than 400 titles of
the MPS catalogue and has remastered and reissued Don ‘Sugarcane’ Harris’s Got
The Blues and George Duke’s Faces In Reflection. They may also
reissue George’s I Love the Blues, She
Heard My Cry (featuring Ruth Underwood, Bruce & Tom Fowler, Janet
Ferguson and Johnny “Guitar” Watson), The
Aura Will Prevail (featuring Echidna’s Arf and Uncle Remus), Feel (featuring FZ), and Liberated Fantasies (featuring Napi).
The CDs are packaged in downsize replicas of original LP, with inner sleeves, an
extra booklet with legible reprints of liner notes…I Believe In Music: The History Of The Gross Prophet is a 50-track,
double CD collection featuring tracks recorded by Gross Prophet members before,
during and after their time in the band (1962–1999). The band’s prime line-up
included bassist/vocalist Gerald Sanders of the Tornadoes. The collection
(which includes the FZ-engineered Tornadoes’ track Moon Dawg) has been put together by Greg Russo (with Gerald’s help)
and will be available from Crossfire Publications in May. If you haven’t
checked out the two Tornadoes CDs that Greg put together (Now And Then and Charge Of
The Tornadoes), visit the Crossfire site for more info now…Bright Eye
Pictures has two new DVD releases: Prometheus’
Garden (28 minutes, 1988) is the only film over which Bruce Bickford maintained complete creative control. The DVD
features a commentary track by Bickford, an alternate score by Laird Dixon, and
the half hour documentary featurette, Luck
Of A Foghorn: The Making Of Bruce Bickford’s Prometheus’ Garden, directed
by Brett Ingram. The other is an exclusive release of the new Monster Road “Collector’s Edition” DVD,
featuring a DVD-9 encode for superior image quality, plus the movie soundtrack
by Shark Quest and 15 additional minutes (45 min. total) of extras, including
rare Bickford animation and deleted scenes from the documentary…got a very
sweet email from Frank’s brother, Charles
Robert “Bob” Zappa: “I have been reading - and enjoying - material on your
web site for quite some time and would like to thank you for keeping Frank’s
memory alive for so many of his fans,” he wrote. Guess that makes me Zappa
Family approved? Bob has written a book (Frankie
and Me: Growing Up ZAPPA), but it’s still out on submissions and has not
yet been sold…Claude Nobs and Perry Richardson have just published four
hardback books – Live! From Montreux: 40
Years Of Music From The Montreux Jazz Festival – that include many photos
from the 1971 casino fire…Guitar Center’s Fresh
Cuts Volume 1 CD, featuring Guitar Center employees & more, includes Magic Carolina by Dweezil Zappa, seemingly an excerpt from a ZPZ show of the segue
between two songs by his daddy. Get it on eBay today…in 2007, Marty Smyth released an album of tunes
played on a church organ, called Synchronous,
that includes Peaches En Regalia (http://www.martysmyth.ca/Listen/A39642BC-30AB-49D2-BA57-C54A30CFA358.html)...like
father like son: Dweezil’s version of the mighty Zep’s Stairway To Heaven can be heard on three new-ish releases: Led Box: The Ultimate Tribute To Led
Zeppelin (2008, Cleopatra Records); Rock
Band Classics (2008, Deadline); and Classic
Rock Masters (2008, Deadline). Sounds like Axl Rose on the out-chorus…Pamela Des Barres is “looking for
former groupies or modern girls still hanging with bands for an upcoming doc
based on my last book, Let’s Spend the
Night Together. The bands have to be very well known, sorry! Please send me
a brief note about your exploits,” she asks…watch George Clinton’s P-Funk All Stars rip into I’m The Slime on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Bqf2mPoOns
(thanks to The Amazing Mr Bickerton for that)…Steve Vai has contributed a previously unreleased song to the Musicians For Minneapolis - 57 Songs for the
I-35W Bridge Disaster Relief Effort benefit CD. Without Me is a soaring ballad originally recorded during the Ultra Zone sessions, and features Philip Bynoe on bass, Mike Mangini on drums and Mike Keneally on keyboards…get the
latest DVD (or CD) from Robert Martin
here: http://www.lookgreatnakedatanyage.com/...Phish has released a live album (old recording:
Vegas 96) that includes their version
of Peaches En Regalia…eaders of T’Mershi Duween may recall Bruno MacDonald (also of The Amazing Pudding Floyd ‘zine)? Well,
he’s written a book with Robert Dimery called Rock & Roll Heaven (Quintet Books) – about musical icons who
have joined the great gig in the sky…including FZ. Read it and weep.…the artist
formerly known as L Shankar is now Shenkar. His self-produced solo
release for Big Deal Records was released on 25 September 2007 and features
guest artists and musicians such as Patrick Leonard, Natasha Bedingfield, Wendy
& Lisa and former Pussycat Doll, Ana Maria…after Zappa Plays Zappa Phaze
II, Dweezil went back to What The Hell Was I Thinking?, “a project I was hoping to finish last year,
after working on it for 14 years. It’s a continuous piece of music that’s also
a 75-minute audio movie featuring 35 different guest guitar players. It’s a
‘Guinness Book’ sort of thing, I guess.” Hoop-la! Meanwhile, Dweezil can be
heard on the soundtrack to the film, Gracie,
playing a song called Bad Intensions
(not the Dr Dre song, one
assumes?). The film, set in 1978, sounds like a Gregory’s Girl/Bend It Like
Beckham teenage girl plays footie type thing...trumpet player Malcolm McNab, who toured with both
Grand & Petit Wazoos, released his first solo album last year, entitled Exquisite - The Artistry of Malcolm McNab,
which includes a cover of The Be-Bop
Tango featuring (among others), Earle
Dumler on bass oboe, Bruce Fowler
on trombone, Ruth Underwood on
marimba and Vinnie Colaiuta on
drums...okay, this didn’t make it onto my CD, but this entry into
WFMU’s Sixty Second Song Remix contest is well worth a listen: http://blogfiles.wfmu.org/KF/2007/01/one/General_Assembly_-_Idiot_Son.mp3...spiffing
news from Mike Keneally: Vai Piano Reductions Vol. 2 is underway.
“We’ve settled on a list of songs for me to
tackle and I’ve started work on arranging Love Secrets for solo piano. Wicked.”
Indeed. If you haven’t got the first volume, what you waiting for,
godammit?...
…here’s ZPZ’s Scheila Gonzalez at the Shepherd’s Boosh Empire on 14 June
2009. Click her to see more…
21 BURNT WEENY SANDWICHES –
coming soon!
Contact: disco.boy@blueyonder.co.uk