Source: Barry Monks

MOTHERS OF INVENTION: "Freak Out!" (Verve): Throwing off their social chains, freeing themselves from their national social slavery and realising whatever potential they possess for free expression the Mothers Of Invention toss the moral code aside like spare sugar lumps. That is, they're sending up American society, advocating free love, nay, advocating freedom already. The medium they have chosen is mainly electronics, echo, the occasional feeding back guitar, thundering drums. Vocally you are presented with a studio full of "freaks" looning about and reminding you that they can give you "motherly love 'till you don't know what to do." Some of it's very funny, some of it's a monotonous bore, some of it's got overpowering sexual connotations. Suzy Creamcheese breathes heavily into the mike now and again and on the whole it's a very funny album. It just depends how broadminded, tuned-in, and far out you are. Side one contains a fair bit of music. "Hungry Freaks, Daddy", "Who Are The Brain Police", and the great "Motherly Love". Side two is mainly the free-form lunacy and not recommended for anyone with an unstable mind!  

Source: Barry Monks

America's Mothers Of Invention will arrive in England in the second week of October, said Move manager Tony Secunda this week. The Move will be going to the States in exchange.

Secunda reported that the Mothers would be in England for a week. They then visit Scandinavia for a week and finally spend a week playing around Europe.

"We are looking for one really big venue for the Mothers. We're also looking for genuinely interested people to help us set the whole thing up."

A new Mothers' album, "Absolutely Free," is scheduled for release in the States soon and the group opened their own show at the Garrick Theatre, New York, last week.

Source: Barry Monks

If affluence and power is the Great American Dream, Frank Zappa is the Great American Nightmare.

Zappa leads the Mothers Of Invention. The Mothers arrive in Britain in September. September could well prove to be an interesting, if not explosive, month.

"It's difficult to evaluate the impact we'll have on British audiences. As I've only just landed I can only go on the bare minimum of facts that I've gathered, reports I've read, and things people have told me," said Zappa quietly last week in his London hotel. (read more)

This issue has several FZ references. On page 4 is Royal Albert Hall concert ad. Readers letters on page 24 as a reaction to August 26 issue front cover are funny. They are all similar, very much like this:

I have never in my whole life seen such a horrid, vile and disgusting picture as Frank Zappa's on the MM front page (August 26). Effeminate flower power has turned our pop scene into a charade of rubbish.

Source: Barry Monks

Another issue with several FZ references. Page 3 has a picture of the Mothers Of Invention "with two Suzy Creamcheeses". On page 5 is Absolutely Free ad. On page 11 Stevie Winwood is reviewing singles, including "Big Leg Emma":

What a voice! I really can't make this out at all. Is it a joke or something? If it is a joke then it's quite good. Who is it? The Mothers Of Invention? Never. I've heard them do some good things and this must be a joke. Actually I think it could well be a hit.

Source: Barry Monks

FOR one delicious moment the Royal Albert Hall seemed to glow with an all enveloping smile uniting everybody within its walls. Almost a freak-out. Not a love-in. Most definitely a send-up.

The hall rocked with laughter and applause as awkward penguins (allegedly members of the London Philharmonic Orchestra) in full evening dress insanely staggered about the stage like controlled puppets, dancing together, and at a word from Frank Zappa, leader of the Mothers Of Invention, even rolled up their sheet music and blew loud raspberries.

As Zappa coolly said "Music can be fun too." (read more)

Source: Barry Monks

Out of sheer curiosity I decided to go to the Mothers Of Invention concert at the Albert Hall, fully expecting an evening of meaningless noise.

I could not have been more wrong. The Mothers produced the most original music that I have heard from a pop group. They managed to fuse pop music, modern jazz, fragments of modern classical music and music concrete. Surely this is an achievement which must give them much wider recognition.

Here, at last, is one American group that really lives up to its name.
TONY KERPEL, London, W.I.

Source: Barry Monks

Source: Barry Monks

"Generally, people are so apathetic about anything and everything that just shout the most shocking thing you can do is to insult them. The idea is shock theory." (read more)

Source: ebay

The Mothers Of Invention, America's avante garde pop group, are coming to Britain in October. The group, which has been called The Great American Nightmare, appear in two concerts at London's Royal Festival Hall on October 25, their only British dates.

To coincide with the trip, MGM Records are releasing their most recent American album "Lumpy Gravy."

The Mothers, led by Frank Zappa, are expected to arrive in Britain from America on October 22. After their London appearances. they visit the Continent for concerts in Frankfurt, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Hamburg, Munich, Vienna, Berlin and Amsterdam.

Their last British visit was in September last year when they appeared at the Royal Albert Hall.

SHAKEN
Of this concert, the MM said: "Almost a freak out. Not a love-in. Most definitely a send-up ... Without doubt this was one of the greatest live performances to have shaken this earth on this side of the Atlantic for a long long time."

Source: Barry Monks

On page 5 are the Mothers Royal Albert Hall concert ad and We're Only In It For The Money and Lumpy Gravy ads. On page 3 is a short notice:

ZAPPA VISIT
MOTHERS of Invention's leader Frank Zappa is to spend a day in Britain this month. He arrives on September 24 and will give a press conference and appear on TV. The Mothers play two concerts at London's Royal Festival Hall on October 25.

Source: Barry Monks

[1] The tall, thin, S-shaped figure, with a bearded angular face was in London last week to arrange promotion for the Mothers concert at the Royal Festival Hall on October 25. Far from being a savage satirist, sending up everybody from room service to the elevator attendant, Mr. Zappa proved merely to be intelligent, coherent, amusing, sincere, and capable of providing a verbal spectacular of anecdotes. (read more)

[2] DRIFTERS: “Ruby Baby” from the album “Rockin' & Driftin' ” (Atlantic 587 123).

Drifters – “Ruby Baby.” I went to High School with that record, I really like that. We'll have to bring it back! Does this album have “Steamboat” or “Your Cash Ain't Nothin' But Trash”? This is very slick compared with the funky rhythm and blues sound they used to play. (read more)

On page 6, a short news item is "Zappa zaps 'lood' poster".

Frank Zappa never gave permission for that lood poster going the rounds ...  

It seems the Mothers are so afraid of being labelled, categorised, or committed to anything, they have backed away from everything, and become nothing. Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band — where art thou?  (read more)

Source: ebay

Viv Stanshall:  MOTHERS OF lNVENTION: I like their recordings which are impressively inventive and musicianly, but I was a bit disappointed with their concert at the Royal Festival Hall. Frank Zappa has a great lino cut quality
about him. He's so graphic, like the Michelin tyre man – absolutely unmistakable. Where are the Mothers at? I should think they are all interested in
gardening. They are the Harry Wheatcrofts of the scene. Well it's obvious. I'm mental.

Source:Barry Monks

Life is never dull when the Mothers of Invention are around, and although their Royal Festival Hall appearance in October was a bit of a let-down. in “We’re Only In It For The Money” they produced their finest album to date, a Frank Zappa equivalent of “Sergeant Pepper.”

While the majority of groups flit around the “problems of society " and take up political stances which have no firmer foundation than an endearing naively. Zappa knows where It’s at as far as America is concerned. And know; how to use his music as propaganda.

Few albums this year aspire to the sustained quality of this LP. The send-ups of the sacred cows of yesterday — the pop philosophy hippies, Haight-Ashbury, acid — are hilarious. On this level, Zappa and the Mothers have produced the funniest record of the year. Instrumentally, the Mothers leave most of their contemporaries way behind. The arrangements, done by Zappa, show an acute musical intelligence, which draws on a variety of sources with confidence and style.

And welding it all together is Zappa’s disgust for the emptiness of the American way of life.

Zappa has chosen the medium of pop to point out the error of their ways. Other groups have also elected to tread the same path, but none have done it quite so brilliantly as the Mothers of Invention

We're Only In It For The Money was picked up by the Melody Maker experts as the Pop Record Of The Year. Page 13.

source: Barry Monks

Mothers Of Invention: "Ruben & The Jets" (Verve)

Anyone old enough to recall the heyday of rock and roll should nod the Mothers' album hilarious. Most of the tracks are extremely subtle send-ups relying on slight touches of overemphasis rather than outright lampoon. In fact, the Mothers play this music so well it is onvious they hold it in great affection. Younger listeners will probably accept it as serious, if slighted dated. 

source: Barry Monks

Six-city tour planned

The Mothers Of Invention – the most controversial group in the world today – are to tour Britain from May 30.

This will be the first time that the group has been seen in Britain outside London. They first came here from America in 1967 for a concert at the Royal Albert Hall and, in 1968, appeared at the Royal festival Hall. Both concerts drew mixed reviews, ranging from adulation to denegration.

The tour opens on May 30 at Birmingham Town Hall and continues at the City Hall, Newcastle (31), Palace Theatre, Manchester (June 1), Colston Hall, Bristol (3), Guildhall, Portsmouth (5), and London's Royal Albert Hall (6).

The Mothers will play the whole of each concert, with no supporting acts.

A new album "Mothermania," subtitled "The Best Of The Mothers," was released this week by Verve.

The group, led by Frank Zappa, are expected to arrive in Britain two or three days before the first show.

source: slime.oofytv.set 

On the transatlantic phone this week – he called at exactly the time he said he would – Zappa announced one addition for the Mothers on their tour, trumpeter Buzz Gardner who is a brother of the group's tenor saxist, Bunk Gardner.

I asked if Zappa had seen Tony Palmer's All My Loving TV film, in which he is interviewed, and told him that the National Viewers And Listeners' Association was taking legal action against BBC-TV for showing it.

Did they, I wondered, have similar censorship problems in the States.

He said he hadn't seen the film but warmed up on TV censorship. (read more)

source: The Waldo Scrapbooks, Barry Monks

FRANK Zappa and the Mothers of Invention took the aware youth of Britain by storm last week and – perhaps – made them just a bit more aware.

Within a few days of their arrival they upset a dozen preconceived ideas about their views and music.

Zappa took on students at the London School of Economics and found himself being lectured on student unrest. (read more)

Mothers Of Invention: "Uncle Meat" (Transatlantic).

A double volume set of madness, absurdity, serious music, rock and roll, electronics and sprech stimme by Frank Zappa, Suzie Creamcheese and the Mothers, presents us with another bafflement. Most of the music, as Frank explains in the sleeve notes, was recorded from October '67 to February '68 and is not particularly representative at the Mothers' work as presented on their recent tour. But it remains exciting, weird and basically entertaining.

Zappa's writing ranges from the tongue in cheek to the brain in ferment. There's Schoenberg in there as well as Reuben and the Jets. The lyrics are quote: " Very serious and loaded with secret underground candy-rock psychedelic profundlties" so we can make what we like at that. The music takes advantage of all the techniques modern recording can offer, and draws from a huge range of influences. There is an extract from the famous occasion when the Mothers played "Louie Louie" on the Royal Albert Hall organ.

It could take record buyers years to get into the Mothers and find enjoyment in their work. Those who already have a wide
knowledge, or at least a passing acquaintance with modern serious music, free jazz and early rock, will be intrigued. They are obviously fine musicians and it is well worth the effort to try and understand them.

On page 14 is "Blind Date" by Mick Farran of The Deviants, where he also reviews Uncle Meat.

THE MOTHERS are dead. Killed by a public apathy towards a style of music which the rest of the world will catch up with maybe around 1975.

After Frank Zappa had announced that he and his loveable bunch of freaks were no longer together, the MM rang him at his Los Angeles home to ask about the reasons for the break-up.

" I don't like to say that we're breaking up – we're just not performing any more," he replied enigmatically.

"We're not getting across, and if we'd continued to progress at the rate we've been doing for the last year and a half, we wouldn't have any audience left at all.

"We were heading towards concert music – electronic chamber music. We performed it several times in America and had horrible reviews and an unpleasant audience response.

"The reviews we got were so simplistic, and I don't want to go on having to put up with all that bullshit. (read more)

Frank Zappa breezed into London last week in an orange tee-shirt. His aim was to launch the British end of his record label, Straight, who are to be distributed in this country by CBS. With him was the wondrous Captain Beefheart, star of one of Straight's first releases: the double-album "Trout Mask Replica." Braving Zappa's sharp and accurate wit, the amiable enigma that is Beefheart, and the full might of CBS's top brass, Melody Maker's RICHARD WILLIAMS spoke to both gentlemen. (read more)

FRANK ZAPPA: “Hot Rats” (Reprise). Frank's new band marches on from where the Mothers left off. “Rats” is a superb set of arrangements that feature the melodic writing of Zappa and the cream of contemporary rock musicianship.

For those who thirst for more of Frank’s exciting and satisfying guitar-work there are extended solos on “Son Of Mr. Green Genes,” a typical Zappa tune which dances nimbly between paths of coyness and heaviness.

The introduction to “Little Umberellas" is quite fantastic – in comes Max Bennett’s string bass, rich deep notes, then John Guerin’s drums drop the beats in unexpected places. Much use of violin is evident with Sugar Cane Harris featured on “The Gumbo Variations,” and Jean Luc Ponty on “It Must Be A Camel.” Ian Underwood contributes keyboards and horns and displays a most brutal tenor style on “Gumbo.” The only vocals are from Capt. Beefheart making a guest appearance on “Willie The Pimp.”

MOTHERS OF INVENTTON: “Burnt Weeney Sandwich” (Reprise). It was one of the great tragedies of modern music when the Mothers broke up last year, but they leave behind memories of success and failure, jests and genius. They also leave a remarkable album.

The sandwich consists of two thin slices of “back to the roots” pop tunes by “The Four Deuces,” and “Jackie and the Starlites,” which typifies the nostalgic yearning of many in their late twenties for the teen rock of their youth. Between the slices is a rich, adventurous and entirely enjoyable layer of composed, arranged and improvised modern music that makes most progressive groups sound decidedly traditional and touchingly conservative. With taste and intelligence Frank utilises recording possibilities, like fast speed drum passages, but not to the extent of dominating the artistry of his musicians. And what musicians! The hugely talented Ian Underwood plays piano (first solo on “Little House I Used To Live In”). organ, flute, clarinet and all the saxes. Frank has not given credits to all the players on these sessions but presumably they include Jimmy Carl Black and Arthur Tripp (percussion), Buzz and Bunk Gardner (horns), Sugar Cane Harris (violin), Don Preston (piano), Roy Estrada (bass). and Motorhead Sherwood (horns).

Probaly Zappa's best production to date, it represents a peak in his composing career and highlights his own exceptional guitar work as well as the musicianship of violinists Sugar Cane Harris and Jean Luc Ponty.

In many respects "Rats" is a jazz album, but the edges are blurred on most musical categories now, and while there is much instrumental improvisation, basic rock drum rhythms are utilised to lay down a solid foundation and spur on the soloists.

The violinists are featured on "The Gumbo Variations" (Harris) and "It Must Be A Camel" (Ponty). The multitalented Ian Underwood, one of Frank's compatriots from the now defunct Mothers Of Invention, contributes keyboards and horns and displays a most brutal tenor style.

Frank's guitar playing more than equals the best British super stars and he has extended solos on "Son Of Mr Green Genes," a typical Zappa tune.

His writing, while sophisticated, is often extremely melodic and memorable. Frank also has the other vital attributes of a true musician – a sense of humour and awareness of the past, qualities displayed by another great American musician – Roland Kirk.

It will be an interesting occasion when these two combine talents.

Frank Zappa may re-form his original Mothers Of Invention group for this year's Isle of Wight festival.

Festival organizer Ronald Foulk told the MM on Monday: "It is true that we have approached the Mothers to re-form for the Isle of Wight. We think they would be a very good act for the Festival this year."

Hot Rats

No further details could be obtained at press time, but it is understood that, if Ronald Foulk cannot clinch the Mothers' booking, he would welcome the appearance of Zappa's new group, Hot Rats, whose first album was voted MM LP Of The Month.

Although plans for Zappa to perform at London's Royal Albert Hall this month have been postponed, he definitely plans to re-form his original Mothers of Invention for two concerts in the States.

They appear at new York's Fillmore East on May 8 – America's national Mother's Day. They also give a concert with a 100-piece orchestra at the University of California in Los Angeles on May 15.

Ballet

They will perform Zappa's ballet "200 Motels," described as a "love triangle involving a boy, a girl and an industrial vacuum cleaner."

The line-up of Hot Rats includes British drummer Aynsley Dunbar, plus Zappa (lead guitar), Max Bennett (bass), Ian Underwood (keyboards and reeds) and Sugar Cane Harris (violin).

Joins Bath Festival, with Floyd

FRANK ZAPPA, leader of the famous Mothers Of Invention, is coming back to Britain! He has been booked for next month's mammoth Bath Festival and he's bringing some of the original Mothers over with him.

Bath promoter Frederick Bannister clinched Zappa's appearance at the weekend. He's also added American rock outfit STEPPENWOLF and Britain's own JACK BRUCE and the PINK FLOYD to the impressive list of top American and British talent appearing on the weekend of June 27 and 28.

Bannister is also negotiating for Neil Young from the Crosby, Stills and Nash aggregation to appear.

Mothers coming with Zappa are Motorhead Sherwood (saxes), Ian Underwood (saxes and keyboards), Don Preston (keyboards) and Ray Collins (vocals). Completing Zappa's outfit is another new musician named Scalas.

Already appearing at Bath as exclusively reported in MM last week – are Canned Heat, Jefferson Airplane, Johnny Winter, Flock, Santana, It's A Beautiful Day, Byrds, Country Joe, Dr. John, Led Zeppelin, Fairport Convention, Colosseum, Keef Hartley, John Mayall, Moody Blues and the Maynard Ferguson big band.

First article is an interview with Frank Zappa. Second article is an interview with George Duke.

Source: ebay

Zappa dates

Two London concerts by Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention have been fixed by promoters  Roy Guest and Peter Bowyer.

Zappa will play a late night show at a major London concert hall on November 28, followed by a show at the London Palladium. On November 30, Zappa plays the De Montfort Hall, Leicester.

On November 26, Zappa will play at Liverpool's Mountford Hall and next night a late show at Manchester Free Trade Hall.

Musicians Zappa will bring with him includes Ian Underwood (reeds), George Duke (keyboards), Jeff Simmons (bass), Aynsley Dunbar (drums) and vocalists Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman.

Guest and Bowyer are also bringing Captain Beefheart to the country for concerts.

The tour opens in London on November 15.

1970 Pop Poll Results

...

It's been a good year, too, for Frank Zappa, who began it by breaking up the Mothers of Invention and then had a change of heart during the summer. His "Hot Rats"was voted Top Album in the International division and Frank was also named Top Record Producer, another brand-new category which reflects the increasing awareness of the public.

...

TELL ME, Mr. Zappa, what do you think of the critical reaction to your work over the past five years? Well, he said, writers write for two reasons: either they like writing or they need the money. “They make assumptions about my music which are far from reality.” (read more)

Source: slime.oofytv.set 

On page 6 is the cancelled February 8th Royal Albert Hall concert ad. Later in 1975 court suit followed.

First article is about banned Royal Albert Hall concert, planned for February 8. Next two articles describe 200 Motels shooting at Pinewood Studios.

Source: slime.oofytv.set 

“Before the second show at the Fillmore, Zappa, Lennon and Yoko jammed in the second-level dressing room to an overflow crowd of Fillmore cognoscenti and hangers-on. They played old R&B: Zappa lead, John chording rhythm and Yoko playing her Ornette Coleman voice. Just good old R&B, folks.” Zappa also showed John the hand signals he uses to conduct the Mothers, mostly with his middle finger. (read more)

Source: Barry Monks 

HIS Unique Hand Signals: I developed them in '67. It just occurred to me one day that, like, you're playing away and the rhythm section is dragging, so it's natural to reach over and beat time and speed 'em up, so you would take that and extrapolate on that. (read more)

Source: Barry Monks

HERB COHEN, manager of the Mothers of Invention, Alice Cooper, Captain Beefheart, Wild Man Fischer and the GTOs talks to Michael Watts

First off, you should know that Herb Cohen likes to think of himself as an aware person. Lately, for instance, he has been keeping in touch by reading Alvin Toffler's "Future Shock," the current American best-seller about society in the seventies. (read more)

Source: Barry Monks 

Source: slime.oofytv.set 

[1] Three of the Mothers of Invention’s concerts at London’s Rainbow Theatre last weekend were cancelled following an incident after the first show on Friday night.

The incident resulted in Zappa falling off the stage into the orchestra pit, and being carried to hospital in an ambulance. (read more)

[2] Ian Underwood was feeling happy. His hotel had given him a back room and a piano to go in it.

He could practice there all hours of the day and night without bothering anyone or they him. He just loved that hotel. It was the first time since he joined The Mothers that he’d actually been able to play a few classical variations while on the road. (read more)

Source: Barry Monks

FRANK ZAPPA is to headline the rock concert at London’s Oval Cricket Ground on September 16. It will be Zappa’s first appearance in Britain since he was knocked from the stage of the Rainbow Theatre, London. last December. The fall resulted in Zappa breaking a leg and, at a subsequent court appearance, a man was jailed for assaulting the guitarist. As a result of the incident, three shows by Zappa arid the Mothers Of Invention, were cancelled. Zappa is anxious to play again in Britain following this and a separate incident — the Albert Hall ban which occurred earlier last year — to show he bears no ill-feeling towards Britain. It will be his only British concert during a quick visit to Europe. One show in Holland and another in Germany are also scheduled during the visit.

The Oval rock concert, promoted by Ron and Ray Foulk. will be run on similar lines to the Who/Faces event at the venue last year. There will be at least six other groups, mostly British, on the bill. The only difference will be that the entry is restricted to 15,000. Last year the crowd was estimated at well over 30,000 for the one-day event. Ticket prices will be £2 both from the usual agencies and on the door.

At press time it was not certain whether Zappa would be bringing the Mothers of Invention on this trip, or a reported new group called Hot Rats. 

Source: slime.oofytv.set 

Full page Rock At Oval ad is on page 9.

Source: Fulvio Fiore 

HIS ARMS AROUND a red-haired girl whose ample chest was covered with a Mighty Thor t-shirt, debonair Frank Zappa (32) sank deeper into the couch, flexed his bare bronzed torso, refused a Gitane – "Too strong for me" – and concentrated his mind on the latest edition of the Mothers of Invention. (read more)

YOU once said " I was never a hippie. Always a freak, but never a hippie." What made you a freak and not a hippie?

Because there is a generic difference. You see the origins of hippies as per "San Francisco flower power Haight Ashbury", is quite a different evolution from the Los Angeles "freak movement," of which I was a part and there was just a difference in the concept of it.

I was never a hippie. I never bought the flower power ethic. (read more)

The Mothers are on a North American tour, constantly being hassled for interviews now "Apostrophe" is making it big here, and Zappa is due to finish a TV special as soon as he gets back to LA.

Hectic or not, he was taking time out to think about his schedule for when all this was over – his European tour coming up in September. And that brought him onto the subject of England.

"Well," he recalled with a sigh, " sometimes it's fun, and sometimes you end up in hospital."

Apparently, he didn't rate the National Health Service. (read more)

"DO YOU u need any more from Chester? Have you got the tom-toms... They haven't got the tom-toms, Chester. Have you got any bass... HAVE YOU GOT ANY BASS ON THAT BOARD? No... THEN WHAT HAVE YOU GOT? "

Jeez, Zappa looks so peeved it makes you wince. He lays a really morose stare on the sound crew. One of his specials, reserved for unfortunate individuals who don't quite measure up to the moment, designed to reduce those individuals to total insignificance and cause them to wish they were well out of the line of fire. (read more)

That’s FZ I say, pointing to the guy with the gypsy hairdo, hook nose and the sneer of a mouth fringed by the drooping black moustache. Because Zappa’s in court – right now they’ve got him as far as the witness box – Estelle is convinced he’s up on some charge. "Is he gonna get the chair?" (read more)

FRANK ZAPPA – self-appointed master of the bizarre, musical innovator, puppeteer and chief iconoclast, has, out of necessity, created his own light in the form of the Mothers of Invention.

Though battered and bruised somewhat in his time, the scars do not show as he sits in the lobby of the Hotel Australia, hair clean and long, eyes healthily alert; maintaining, as always, an aristocratic coolness. (read more)

Ensconced in a New York Hotel room with his wife Gail, he is directing, producing and rehearsing a band for a series of one-off Christmas shows at the Palladium Theatre that will document the history of the Mothers since their inception in 1967 to the present day. Zappa is importing the kind of liquid light show of yesteryear into the concerts. (read more)

On page 5 is following news:

Zappa pulls out of provincial shows
FRANK ZAPPA has scrapped plans for two provincial concerts in Britain next month.
   He was originally scheduled to play four shows in this country as the climax to a European tour. But now only the two London shows, at Hammersmith Odeon on February 9 and 10, remain on his itinerary.
   promoter Fred Bannister explained: "After the European tour Frank goes straight to Japan for a tour. Unfortunately the Japanese concerts were brought forward a few days and that meant we had to drop the idea of more shows in this country."

‘Pretty soon there’ll only be two records to play – both punk rock’ . . . ‘Straight musicians – they’ll do anything so long as they get paid’ . . . ‘The quickest way to get an audience to shout is to play something quiet’ . . . who else but the ever-controversial Frank Zappa? He reveals his latest thoughts on rock, audiences and, of course, Frank Zappa, to CHRIS WELCH. (read more)

FRANK ZAPPA's hero, the French avant garde composer Edgar Varèse, once gave up composing for a quarter of a century because the New York musical establishment was giving him a hard time. Now, thanks to a dispute between Zappa and his record company Warner Brothers, it may be five or six years before any new Zappa records come into the shops.

But Zappa intends to continue composing, to carry on recording, even if the work never ever sees the light of day.

"I like to make music, you see," he explained. "I get my jollies from hearing what I write.

"I don't think Varèse did the right thing. I've never met the man, but everything I read about him led me to believe that he had a very strong, individualistic personality.

"And I think that not composing for 25 years means he took an awful lot of s--- from somebody and he shouldn't have done it. In 25 years he could have written a lot of works and his total catalogue isn't that big. I just wish there was more of it.

"I feel bad that America is the kind of place that forced that situation on a man like Varèse." (read more)

Zappa In New York reviewed.

Source: ebay

[...] Frank Zappa runs a tight ship. He has a band who play anything from big-band and rock to compulsory weirdness with metronomic tightness and respond to the leader's snapp of the fingers without a moment's hesitation, kicking straight from one number to the next, filling out those tricky time signatures with unison darts, runs and jabs.

The effect was intellectual disco music that proved wearing as the set drew on. Zappa moved with the predictability of one of those old "rain-or-shine" weather indicators, pushing himself to stage front for a bout of snooty sneering, or lamely tame lyrics, then pivoting back to blitz out a couple of minutes of scabrous guitar frenzy.

As his tales of petulant secretaries on mis-directed dates streched into the evening, the inevitable thought arose that it was a pity such a well-schooled group was not given some of Zappa's early masterpieces to interpret, rather than having to cope with his current mirthless arrogance. [...]

Source: ebay

If we pay for our culture’s innovators in the longueurs of their cheapjack imitators, Frank Zappa is the price-tag on Lenny Bruce. Numerically rich in noughts, Zappa nevertheless inspires in his followers an air of self-congratulation which usually attends the praetorate of the millennium. 200 Motels – that leaden hippies’ Hellzapoppin’ – gave a fair indication of the rock satirist’s directionlessness and creative nullity; his latest double-album confirms his consistency, Zappa’s creativity benumbs the back of the neck. (read more)

Frank Zappa wasn't feeling too good, which made two of us. He was suffering from some sort of stomach ailment and was sitting in aroom behind the marble portals of the Hyde Park Hotel looking pale and wan and living on herb tea. I was still trying to figure out the central message of his latest opus, "Joe's Garage", which made the whole massive enterprise worthwhile. (read more)

As usual, Zappa has gathered around himself musicians of devastating ability. They're there to be led. Zappa might jokily flash a conductor's baton and instruct Tommy Mars to "just play the chords", but that's the way of hammering home the fact that, at a twist of Frank's little finger, Tommy will build musical cathedrals with his keyboards. (read more)

Source: eBay

Don Van Vliet (aka Captain Beefheart) and his wife, Janet, arrive at New York's JFK airport. Gary Lucas, staff writer at CBS and guitarist, and his wife Ling Ling (Van Vliet's manager) are waiting to drive them to their motel in Long Island.

Van Vliet is in New York to finish off his 11th album, 'Doc At The Radar Station', on the new CBS discomputer cutting lathe. Lucas plays guitar on 'Flavor Bud Living', one of the two instrumentals on the album. Somewhere in Greenwich Village Gary gets out of a car, followed by Janet. Ten yards later, Don follows. Van Vliet is a large tree... he's wearing a black jacket, black trousers and sunglasses as thick as his voice.

"I love your shoes," he says as we enter the building where Gary and Ling Ling live. Beefheart's shoes are big and grey-green – a dancer gave them to him. (read more)

Source: eBay

Review of the album The Grandmothers (A Collection Of Ex-Mothers Of Invention Vol 1).

Source: eBay

THIS was a re-healed Zappa, though I could detect a slither or two of ice in the unbaked centre. A chancey conglomerate or satire, the usual oinks and bongs, obscene guitar blood-baths, unexpected order and (cha cha cha) Loony Toons-style lunacy. No more. Charles Manson was not, repeat not playing the flute, as advertised. It was Broadway brought to another planet, but running out of gas, and having to settle with North London. (read more)

 No Zappa, but Captain Beefheart's "Diddy Wah Diddy" is here.

Source: nothingelseon