The Mothers "Fillmore East, June 1971"
By Mr. Jelly
FILLMORE EAST, JUNE 1971 – THE MOTHERS – REPRISE (BIZARRE) MS-2042
Willie, having lost his fave rave girlfriend and feeling lonely and horny, decided to set out Saturday night in his ’55 Nash on a nookie hunt. “Hope I can locate a bit of action tonight,” he said to himself. “Let’s see. I think the only concert tonight is the Grand Funk/Black Sabbath/Ten Years After smashup, but I’d rather not bother ’cause all the teenage girls there have their minds chewed up on reds. I could cruise on over to the Clairemont Rec Sugarplum Hop, and pick up a voluptuous 15 year old girl. I know! Alfred and Pat’s 1956 Christmas Dance is tonight! I’ll slip into some khakis, roll up’ my tee-shirt sleeves, whip on some two-tone shoes, and grease down my hair.”
As Willie buzzed around the corner of Second Street he turned just a bit too wide and ended up on the wrong side of the street. “Oops!” The sound of crinkling metal and shattering glass filled the air.
The man leaped from the other car, which Willie had just struck head on, and asked if he was alright. Willie, transfixed in a state of shock, stared at the man. He looked like, someone familiar. “Aren’t you ... ahm ... ”
“Frank Zappa.”
Willie’s heart leaped into his big toe. Frank Zappa was his idol! And there he stood, not more than three feet from him. “How’d ya like to go to a 1956 Christmas Dance,” Willie asked Frank.
“Sure, I’ll retrieve a copy of my new album from, the trunk of my car and take it with me.”
“Wow,” gasped Willie. “Frank Zappa’s gonna play his new album for us. I’ll be the hit of the party!”
Pat and Alfred did a really sharp job of dressing their house for the party. Here it was 1971 and their home looked identical to a high school gym in 1956. They even strung Christmas lights all over the outside of the house.
Inside the house, when Frank walked in, all the girls in their bright red lipstick and ankle-length skirts and the boys in their ’50s garments, stood up and stared in amazement. “Hey, it’s Frank Zappa,” someone screamed. “That’s the best costume I’ve seen yet. Ha, ha, ha!”
“No, no,” said Willie, “it really is Frank Zappa. Look, he brought his new album with him.”
“Well, let’s hear it.”
Jim, who had come equipped with a violin and a switchblade, took Gene Vincent off the stereo and put on the live Fillmore recording. Everyone sat back, completely silent, waiting for the music. “Little House I Used to Live In,” the first song on the album, was a descent hand-clapping, toestomping song which pleased everyone.
The needle tumbled into “The Mud Shark,” the first number to really utilize the satirical voices of Frank Zappa and two talking Turtles. The tale about making eight millimeter movies by the Vanilla Fudge with a voluptuous young lady on hand left the audience enthralled. What a catchy number!
The second number, “What Kind of Girl Do You Think We Are,” beings the story of some teenage girls who approach rock and roll starts for UNNATURAL ACTS. “What filth,” ranted Judy Clean as she tromped out the door. “I came here for a fun, pure, disinfected party. Not to hear some lunatic Mothers chant things about cream corn, slits, bottles, balling, groupies, dicks, Holiday Inns and suculent young ladies.”
Everyone else at the party, sensing the satirical implications of the contents of the recorded material and knowing there was nothing wrong with sex, listened happily to the recording. After all, people are more interested in money, sex and death than anything else.
The humorous, satirical tale continued through “Bwana Dik” and “Latex Solar Beef.” The two ex-Turtles, Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan, pumped out some fine vocals, often down the lines of an operatic style. The various voices of Frank Zappa, Ian Underwood, Jim Pons and Bob Harris move around each other in an insanely interesting style.
Side one closed with “Willie the’Pimp, Part One,” an instrumental version of the Zappa classic. This version was extra electric and fast.
Side two opens with “Willie the Pimp, Part Two,” which was, of course, a continuation of the other side.
The electricity died down after a while and returned to the moving melody of the groupie tale. This part is the super obscene, triple-X piece guaranteed to dement the minds of any teenager. The groupie tale was derived from 200 Motels.
Mick, who was sitting in the corner of the party by the sky brown Christmas tree decorated with 1950’s 45 rpm records, with his girlfriend, really like the new Zappa, album. “This has got to be Zappa’s best album,” he said.
Everyone at the ’56 party really got off on the part that went:
“ ... I wanna hear the big hit record now with the bullet. With the bullet!”
“The bullet?”
“The bullet ... the bullet! It’s the part that gets me the hottest. Now sing me that record, and I want to hear it right now, or you aren’t driving nowhere tonight, buddy!”
“Well, I know when I’m licked ... all over. Okay baby, bend over and spread ’em. Here comes my bullets!”
The Mothers then charged into one of the finest versions of that good old Turtles hit, “Happy Together,” ever recorded.
“We’d like to thank you very much for coming to our concert tonight,” says Frank as he closes the set. He then says goodbye to Graham’s Fillmore, and the whole group dives into a maladjusted chorus of “Goodnight boys and-girls.”
But the end is not at hand!
The audience screamed “moooorrrrreeeee, More, more, more.”
Don Preston popped back on the stage to levitate the bizarrest moog music ever recorded. One fine moog piece! It was called “Lonesome Electric Turkey.”
“Peaches En Regalia,” the second bit of encore, was an interesting piece from Hot Rats, but nothing extremely exciting. It lacked the excitement created by the aura of the HR disks.
The album, much to everyone’s delight, closed on an excellent ’50s style rock and roll song, “Tears Began to Fall.” Fast, dynamite and bulbous!
Everyone seemed to agree by the end of the album. Not only might this be Zappa’s best album, it might even be his funniest.
“I love it,” said Phil.
Willie, having come to the party with Frank, captured the delight of every girl’s heart at the party. He guzzled the last bottle of Diet-Rite, walked over to Helen and asked her if she’d like to venture over to the meadow to look at the Golden Rods.
Note. Richard Alden Peterson wrote a column called Mr. Jelly for the San Diego Door. (OB Rag)