Fillmore East June 1971

5 thoughts on “Fillmore East June 1971”

1. The best of the Flo and Eddie albums.The “Groupie Opera” contains material that was written for “200 Motels” that didn’t make the film cut. This was originally supposed to be a double album, with the Fillmore version of “Billy the Mountain” and the John Lennon and Yoko Ono encore jam on the second disc ( they were later released on “Playground Psychotics”) but for some reason (record company objections?) it was cut back to a single disc. Some p.c. types were offended by this record but I think it is hilarious. The band is really tight and there is some beautiful music (“Little House..” and “Peaches..”) mixed in with the satirical sexual boasting and pop music jokes. Zappa plays some killer hard rock guitar too.

2. Having seen this band on tour during the summer of ’71 in Portland (“After all, this is PORTLAND, OREGON!”), I can tell you that this is a great chronicle of one of the most hilarious, outrageous tours in the history of rock and roll. This album helped shape the bizarre sense of humor of an entire generation of Zappa fans. Great musicians with fantastic chops.

3. I love “Fillmore East”, and I love the “Flo and Eddie” Mothers as well. Many really despaired of Frank, simply because he openly and proactively insisted on making the main new thrust (pun intended) of his Mothers performances the documentation of the most sexually weird and bizarre behaviors of rock musicians on the road. What I think really offended so many (beyond just the subject matter and presentation) was that prior to this, Frank safely wrote and commented on behavior from a audience-perceived stance of “brilliant satirist”, who the listeners thought was probably “above” the base, sexual and adolescent/indulgent behaviors documented herein (but it should be noted that maybe those people also never listened to the lyrics of “Motherly Love” on the very first album, either!). Suddenly, Frank seems to be possibly CONDONING or even worse PARTICIPATING in the “glorification” of this crude, indulgent road activity! Many were absolutely shocked, and probably still fail to remember or realize that it is precisely the whole point of Frank’s life work to thrust together the worlds of “high” and “low” art, in order to show that EVERYTHING is not only “fair game”, it can become part and parcel of any important compositional work in any medium, and therefore, DESERVES some attention. This notion is absolutely essential in understanding Frank’s whole aesthetic. So having laid all that out, here we have “Fillmore East” which is (consistent with the critics blastings at the time) truly a poorly recorded live album when compared with everything else Frank ever released in terms of live recordings. But let’s face it, folks, the whole “Flo and Eddie” Mothers NEVER had particularly great sounding equipment. They always sounded rather trashy and over-modulated, as though everything was coming through a mid-range speaker that was overloaded, with little good low-end, and tons of falsetto shrieking (thanks to Volman and Kaylan). All the recordings of this band sound very mid-rangy and “floppy”. That said, it is a deceptively “loose” sounding band, that in reality did practice their rear ends off, over six hours a day, and tackled very challenging material, like “Billy the Mountain”. Maybe most of all, this was a blast of a band to enjoy listening too, and misogynistic or not, they were damn funny. I love the “Sanzini Brothers” sodomy trick routine (although not documented here), and the closing “Tears Began To Fall” is one of the most kickin’ Frank pop-tunes he ever tossed off. You can tell by just listening to any track that this band had tons of fun playing, working, lauging and performing, and Frank was having the time of his life too. Later on (around the time of the liner notes to “Playground Psychotics”), Frank referred to this particular band as (and I know I’m paraphrasing greatly) one that existed when it was still kind of fun to tour on the road. “Fillmore East” documents that fun, insanity and great musicianship (sloppy sounding or not) wonderfully. It is very important to note here that anyone who likes this album also needs to pick up “Playground Psychotics”, the 2-CD collection Frank later compiled to fill in the remaining parts of the story with this particular band. Frank was so fascinated with the individual behaviors of the this version of the Mothers, he tape recorded every single thing religiously, and went on to call his documentation “Social Anthropology”. A very rich, fun and fascinating chapter in Frank’s musical and mythological career.

4. The album I was weened on. After searching years for that one composer, that one band, that had it all, I found Frank. I was addicted to his music somewhere in the middle of ”Willie the Pimp”. Thanks Earl! (the dude who turned me on to it) From that tiny apartment in Santa Barbara off of Kentia to the Hill country today. (The city of the Guacamole Queen)

5. Willie the Pimp Part Two, where art thou? How could you Frank? What were you thinking down in the UMRK? Is there a spare vinyl copy anywhere in North America? The world? Great album. Vroom, vroom, vroom. Do you like my new car? It’s a Fillmore, isn’t it? I dig the fins!

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