In the above clip (short as it is), Frank Zappa expounds on what an Australian concert goer might expect from one of the various shows on his 1973 Australian tour. For some FZ fans, this particular ensemble is their favorite incarnation of the Mothers (right next to the Roxy band).
Continue reading “Best of Zappa In Australia – 1973 Tour”
Month: November 2010
Sunday Big Note – Listening Session #3
This week’s Sunday Big Note finds Chick Corea and Return to Forever performing at the Chateau Neuf in Oslo, Norway on the 14th of March, 1976. Return to Forever were touring to promote their sixth studio album, Romantic Warrior (the final album by this longest-lasting lineup which all tracks from today’s listening session originate). After this tour (and album) Chick Corea and Return to Forever would continue with a wholly new lineup with Stanley Clarke, producing one more studio album before disbanding.
From February 2011, Return to Forever commences a reunion world tour in Australia. The line-up, billed as Return to Forever IV, is Corea, Clarke, White, Bill Connors and Jean-Luc Ponty.
And so, without further ado, Return to Forever in Oslo, 1976:
Hammersmith Odeon – a Review
This is yet another great release from the Zappa family trust. Excellent material (yes, one of my favorite line ups), great sound, not as “close” as Frank used to make them, but the sound is clear and the balance between the intruments and voices is very good. In some selections the vocals are a little too low though.
The sound is compressed BUT it’s not overdone, like on the Buffalo album. It’s more like the Philly ’76 album.
Read the full review at Radio Dupree! (You’ll find some reviews here as well in the discography section.)
Happy Thanksgiving!
From one of my all time favorite movies
George Duke, ZPZ, Gail: Zappa.com News
1st: George Duke will be joining ZPZ in Los Angeles, I think on the 4th of december. Possibly in the Aposrophe tunes. Hey hey.
2nd: Gail Zappa answers 50 questions before Christmas. Follow the link – and ask!
3rd: Here’s an interesting solo by Mathias Eklund with the ZPZ in Gothenburg (from Dark Clothes). Fun. To me.
That’s all for today, folks.
I´M Using A Chicken To Measure It – A Tribute To Frank Zappa
To celebrate the 70th birthday of Frank Zappa, Hunchentoot presents a group show featuring the work of Pit Noack, Stefan Roigk, Heidrun Schramm, Oliver Schmidt and Nicolas Wiese. All of whom are working with sound installation. Like Zappa they use eclectic assemblage and deconstruction to develop an open form of individual references to Zappa and his multifarious work. Using comic, collage, diapositive projectors and sounds the artists create a joint collage of five individual positions. In the tradition of Frank Zappa they create a situation, in which bicycle sounds, grotesque laughter, guitar solos, notation and utopian ideas combine to an oeuvre between composition and improvisation.
All this happens in Berlin (I love it, I love it!) this december at Galerie Hunchentoot (as I see it this program is not yet on their homepage). Otherwise it opens right before FZ’s birthday:
Group Show 04.12.2010 – 12.02.2011
Opening 03.12.2010 19 – 22 Uhr
Zappa in the Thicke of it – May 30, 1984
In this interview clip, Frank Zappa makes an appearance as a guest on the short-lived talk show, Thicke Of The Night, hosted by Alan Thicke, on May 30th, 1984, promoting his upcoming tour, as well as a never filmed satirical video.
It didn’t surprise me that so much of middle America took to Thicke‘s wholesome image. We Canadians had been tuning out his afternoon talk show, The Alan Thicke Show, since it aired in 1980.
If they’ll swallow Alan Thicke (some network executive must have thought), they’ll swallow anything!
Sunday Big Note – Listening Session #2
It would be another year – the last week of April and the early weeks of May 1973 – before the Mahavishnu Orchestra found themselves on the road opening for Frank Zappa and the Mothers Of Invention on the tour promoting Zappa‘s Over-Nite Sensation album. Yet, as the above clip of Ruth Underwood illustrates, the Mahavishnu Orchestra had a profound effect upon Zappa and the direction which his music took.
Continue reading “Sunday Big Note – Listening Session #2”
“MyKeneally Tour” at Emerald Hall, Braintree, MA.
Imagine your favorite musician or group performing for you and your friends in your very own living room, backyard, or rented hall? That’s what Mike Keneally and Bryan Beller did last year when they put out the call to their fanbase that they were ready, willing, and very much able to perform in these very intimate venues. They hit the road with their first “MyKeneally Tour“:
Continue reading ““MyKeneally Tour” at Emerald Hall, Braintree, MA.”
Sunday Big Note – Listening Session #1
Over the last few weeks and months, fellow KUR-Meisters, while compiling the various mixtapes for Kill Ugly Radio, I had an idea for an ongoing weekly “listening session” of various artists and groups, both Zappa-related along with his contemporaries, as well as others, from various field recordings, FM radio broadcasts, and internet webcasts.
I brought the idea to Barry who also shared my enthusiasm for a weekly “listening session” and he gave the project an enthusiatic green light. Anyone who knows me, knows that I have a near rabid love of recorded live music, so it can pretty much be guaranteed that my contributions to the “Sunday Big Note” listening sessions will be of the “live music” variety. What the other SBN contributors will contribute, though, will be as much a surprise to me as it is to you.
Without further ado, for your listening pleasure, I present The Billy Cobham/George Duke Band at McAlister Auditorium, New Orleans, Louisiana, on February 18th, 1976: