Sieg Zappanale!

Remember a certain lawsuit issued by a certain dead rockstar‘s widow against a certain fan-organized tribute festival? As it turns out, said widow just lost the appeal. Robert who mailed in the story, says:

Sorry, currently only available in german. But the message is simple: GZ had appealed against the negative decision from some time ago, this appeal has now been denied, which completes the lawsuit in favor of Zappanale.

From my understanding, the Zappanale festival even retains the right to use FZ’s trademark imperial in its promotional material.

Posted in Community, In The News, Zappa Family Trust, Zappanale | Tagged , , , | 15 Comments

Immaculate Voodoo Butter Mix – Part IV

It’s that time of the month, fellow KUR-Meisters, when I dip into my personal, not-so-mythic, vault of Zappa field recordings to compile the latest KUR mix: the “Immaculate Voodoo Butter Mix – Part IV“. What is Part IV? Part IV is 200 tracks from the maestro’s last two touring bands, ’84 and ’88, beginning with a Rehearsal session from December 23rd, 1987. Why 200 tracks? 200 allows for the best performances of each respective tour to shine through…

Click here to listen to the mixtape. Enjoy!

Note: In the tradition of leaving the best for last, the fifth and final installment of the Immaculate Voodoo Butter Mix will arrive on July 15th, 2010.

Posted in Frank Zappa, Miscellany, Music, Personal | Tagged , , , , | 35 Comments

Best FZ Covers – DZPZ & Eric Johnson’s “Carolina Hardcore Ecstasy” & “Muffin Man”

For those who think Dweezil Zappa Plays Zappa is a cold, “note-by-note” band, incapable of improvisation, I’m obviously not going to alter your view with a few posts, and neither would I endeavour to try. For those willing to look past original preconceptions, though, might be pleasantly surprised, as I was, when I dug deeper into this band.
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Posted in Miscellany, Music, YouTubery, Zappa Plays Zappa | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Dust Radio – A Film About Chris Whitley

As a fan of the music of the late Chris Whitley, I was excited to learn that the documentary about his life and music, Dust Radio, had gone into post-production (view trailer above).
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Posted in Miscellany, Music, YouTubery | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Best FZ Covers – Sandro Oliva’s “Watermelon In Easter Hay”

Sandro Oliva – former member of The Grandmothers, and one of my favourite guitarists – has been torturing Italian eardrums with his own band, The Blue Pampurio’s, since 1974.

Sandro Oliva‘s cover of FZ’s “Watermelon In Easter Hay” (one of the very best covers of that particular song I’ve heard, I might add) from the above clip is from the 2005 4CD private release, “NEVER COVERED” (for family and friends).

Long before making “NEVER COVERED” I recorded “LOVES OF MY LIFE”, a collection of FZ songs sang in Italian, along with a few instrumentals.

This is one of them.

The project has never been put out for copyright reasons, but I still have fun listening to “BROWN SHOES DON’T MAKE IT”, “JOE’S GARAGE/PEE”, “HELP I’M A ROCK”, “GO CRY..”, “CAMARILLO BRILLO” and “TURNING AGAIN”, the Italian Way!

I’m sure Frank would have appreciated it.

Unfortunally he got ill and after that more shit happened, so that I never asked the ZFT permission for releasing the italian translations.

Oh, well… maybe now that I’m not a Grandmother anymore…

But no, never mind.

I’m too busy with MY OWN MUSIC!!

~Sandro

Sandro Oliva – Guitar, Bass, Electric Sitar, Keyboards, Percussion, Sequencing.

Posted in Frank Zappa, Music, YouTubery | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments

The Grande Mothers Re:Invented – Viva Brazil, 2010

KUR recently received an email from The Grande Mothers Re:Invented thanking “the fans, the promoters, the crews, and everyone behind the scenes who support their performances, making these concerts and tours possible.”

THE POWER OF THE FANS

The GMSRI receive many letters from fans, many of them asking: “When are the GMSRI coming to “fill in your choice of city,state, country here.”

The standard reply is: “They would love to perform there, they just need the following logistics taken care of – airfare, ground transportation, promotion, instruments etc., etc., etc.”
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Posted in Alumni, Frank Zappa, Miscellany, Music, YouTubery | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

CACA: Pierre Vervloesem Whips It Out

CACA

Pierre Vervloesem (previously) writes:

I have recorded and mixed a CACA cd, i don’t know when it’s gonna be released and on wich label etc… simply because that doesn’t interest me at all. I “compose”, play the guitar, planned one (1) rehearsal, record and mix, other than that i just don’t feel it’s my business, i could be perfectely happy doing cd’s just for 2,3 friends and play gigs at their anniversary.

Somebody convince this man he needs to get his music outthere!
Luckily the band does have a website where you can listen to three of their tunes – “ZGROL” for one, is quite a delightful Zappaesque treat.

Posted in Music | Tagged , | 9 Comments

Best FZ Covers: G-Spot Piano by Vika


With some other stuff and scores on her homepage.

Posted in Frank Zappa, Music, YouTubery | Tagged | 18 Comments

One Size Fits All – Best Album Art

With the recent news of an upcoming Zappa release, my thoughts turned to releases of days gone by – in particular, 1975’s ‘One Size Fits All’ and its magnificent album artwork. Zappa fans who only know of FZ’s albums through CDs, missed an era when his album covers were almost as anticipated as was his music. View the album artwork in the video above, along with the album’s first track, “Inca Roads”, or download the artwork here.

Thanks to gvmota.

Posted in Frank Zappa, Miscellany, Music, Official Releases, Visual Arts, YouTubery | Tagged , , , | 8 Comments

The Next Zappa Release: Joe’s Menage a Trois

Shore Fire, the PR firm that has the ZFT as one of its clients states it quite clearly:

June 11
Zappa Records releases Frank Zappa’s Joe’s Menage a Trois’

The new release is also mentioned in this Variety article.

(Hat tip: Maroual)

Update June 12 2010: No mention of a release anywhere. KUR-reader Rob wrote to Shore Fire yesterday, and got this rather odd answer:

Hi there,
Lauretta at Shore Fire here. Will you please let me know where you received info on a Frank Zappa release?

You’d think the people at Shore Fire at least read their own press releases…

Posted in Frank Zappa, In The News, Official Releases, Zappa Family Trust | Tagged , | 67 Comments