Overview:
After 18 months in New York, Frank decided to bring the Mothers back to LA. In April ‘68 he explained to Rolling Stone that “we’re moving because we don’t like New York. I don’t like New York, which is probably the basis for it. It makes me sick to stumble over people dying in the street. It’s a drag. I don’t like it. I don’t like the weather, and so on and so forth and so on and so forth.” At this point they’ve firmly decided they’re done in the east, and the Zappa family returns to California in the first week of May. The Mother’s performances had changed significantly over these 18 Months, and Frank describes it well at the Fillmore East, just a couple weeks before his return to California:
“A year ago, when we uh… A Year Ago Today… when we came to New York and set up our genetic laboratory, the program we would present to you New York folks was a little bit different than the items we do today. Back in those days we were a little bit more oriented to sort of, uh, bullshit, slapstick electric buffoonery on a teenage level. And gee whiz, it was wonderful for you. You could identify with at least 50% of it because you know where you’re at, you electric buffoons you… but things have changed a little bit, and uh we noticed last night that during our performance, which we thought was at least acceptable, that a number of people found, well it was difficult for them to relate to what we were doing. Mainly because our program tends to consist now of more, uh, non-verbal material, in other words we just play a lot.”
Billy Mundi quit the band to join Rhinoceros in February 1968 and Art Tripp became a Mother later in the same month. In the meantime, Jimmy Carl Black reclaimed his spot as primary drummer, and kept this position even after Art joined in (he seemed to specialize in percussion more than Billy or Jim). This nine-piece version of The Mothers only lasted six months before Ray Collins quit for good in August, and though it was relatively short lived, this is a prime era of the Mothers. We have a rhythm section that really, really works well together, all our lead instrumentalists continue to hone their skills, and Ray Collins is in top form. Ray brought so much humor and heart to the band, and The Mothers definitely have a different vibe after he leaves (Still great, but undoubtedly different). Mr. Collins really just wanted to sing beautiful music, and it comes as a bit of a surprise to learn he didn’t enjoy performing with the Mothers very much, since he fits in so damn well. But Frank was constantly moving the band away from the vocal tunes heard on Freak Out into more abstract, instrumental territories, so Ray’s reaction really isn’t too shocking.
These shows had no setlists, the band would appear on stage and Frank would decide the program on the spot every night. Each show has something unique and interesting, and truly anything could happen when the Mothers took the stage. Intricate compositions, rock n roll, dumb doo-wop songs, disturbed improvisations, jazz-rock jams, Stravinsky, Varese, Boulez, Brahms, you name it. The improv can occasionally go on too long, but that’s just part of the risk (and the fun) of playing (and listening to) this kind of music. You just never know what’s going to happen next.
The Band:
Frank Zappa – Guitar, Vocals, Audience Disdain
Ray Collins – Lead Vocals, Harmonica, Flakiness
Jimmy Carl Black – Drums, Indian Of The Group
Roy Estrada – Bass, Asthma
Don Preston – Keyboards, Tarot Cards
Bunk Gardner – Woodwinds, Silver Hair
Ian Underwood – Keyboards, Woodwinds, Wholesome
Motorhead Sherwood – Baritone Sax, Tambourine, All-Purpose Weirdness
Art Tripp – Drums, Percussion, Cheerful Outlook
Recordings Available:
1968 04 20 – Fillmore East, New York, NY (Two Shows – Audience C+ and Audience B-)
click here to listen to the early show
click here to listen to the late show
Early Show:
It’s a bummer about the lousy sound quality, because these shows have everything that makes the original Mothers so wonderful. The recordings aren’t fantastic, but they’re listenable, and offer a great insight into what these late ‘67 and early ‘68 shows were like. These are some of the last shows the Mothers performed in New York before re-relocating in early May (They also played two shows the night before on the 19th). Our taper notes that a picture of Elvis Presley appears on the screen while they The Mothers tune up, and not long after that Frank gives a lengthy intro about how they “don’t play that kind of stuff that you’re accustomed to hearing, and [they] don’t intend to play that kind of stuff that you’re accustomed to hearing.” He lets us know that “Bunky Gardner” will “begin by merely playing”, and the show starts off with some intense free improv.
“Thank you boys and girls, A year ago, when we uh… A Year Ago Today… when we came to New York and set up our genetic laboratory [cuts] The program we would present to you New York folks was a little bit different than the items we do today. Back in those days we were a little bit more oriented to sort of, uh, bullshit, slapstick electric buffoonery on a teenage level. And gee whiz it was wonderful for you you could identify with at least 50% of it because you know where you’re at you electric buffoons you. The now generation, aren’t ya? Sure you are… but things have changed a little bit, and uh we noticed last night that during our performance, which we thought was at least acceptable, that a number of people found, well it was difficult for them to relate to what we were doing. Mainly because our program tends to consist now of more, uh, non-verbal material, in other words we just play a lot. And unfortunately, because of the type of upbringing you Americans have had, and the limited opportunities that you have had to establish criteria with which to judge straight musical performance rather than somebody mumbling at you constantly. It makes it harder for you to sit and listen to a band just play, especially if they’re playing a kind of music that you’re not accustomed to hearing. We don’t play that kind of stuff that you’re accustomed to hearing, and don’t intend to play that kind of stuff that you’re accustomed to hearing. Even so [Shouts from Crowd]… Eat a big dick!…. What? Speak up cretin… Oink Oink! …. Ammonia! (?) Anyway…. Just you cool it will ya… We will begin by merely playing…. He needs a better PA system. Bunky Gardner will begin by playing.”
Our silver-haired sax player starts with wailing discordant sax noise, and Ian quickly joins him on a lower register. Eventually Ian begins to play Varese’s Octandre, and we get a nasty, distorted take of the piece. Art joins in with some crazy, out of place marimba riffs, while the rest of the band slowly begins to enter too. After about three and a half minutes Don starts to play some pretty keyboard improv, and Frank comes in with the chords to the ending of Twinkle Tits (also known as Interlude, when played standalone). By six minutes into the show, we have a surprisingly beautiful piece of music (though keep in mind, it’s buried under a fair bit of distortion and tape hiss). Once the improv reaches its peak, Frank plays the opening riff of Trouble Every Day, and we’re thrown into the first real song of the night. Frank rattles off the poignant words (this is a rare performance with all the lyrics), and Ray lays into his harp. Frank then delivers a long, hot guitar solo, before bringing us back into more atonal, feedback-laden improv (I think he maybe quotes Toads Of The Short Forest too?). He then says something I can’t make out (“it’s on this level”?), before launching the band into a great Status Back Baby. The Mothers then take their first rest of the show, and Frank chats with the audience for a bit, giving them an insight into how his “electric bullshit is structured”.
Audience Member: “Maharishi!” [or maybe “Motorishi”??]
Frank: “Let’s have none of that now, this is America… And now boys and girls, in keeping with our policy of more music and less entertainment… Maybe I should tell you how, uh, some of our electric bullshit is structured. There are certain noise, uh, noise elements, melodic elements, harmonic elements and rhythmic elements. If you consider those like little individual mysterious quantities, which get tossed into a sort of a community pot. After these elements are tossed into the pot and cooked for a while they often emerge as well, they’re sorta like little musical compositions that happen on the spot, you see. And sometimes it comes out to sounding like something else again entirely, crap we call it. Crap you call it, but we do it anyway because we figure at least it’ll give you something to judge the good stuff by. And not that that has ever worked in the past because generally an audience falls asleep in the middle of the instrumental songs, because they’re so, well, they’re stupid, and it will be our pleasure to leave New York. MEANWHILE KIDS HERE’S A LITTLE DEAD AIR!”
[Dead Air Ensues; Audience Gets Upset]
Disgruntled Audience Member: “Hey [unintelligible] Can you play for us?!”
Frank: “Play some concerto shit…”
[Brahms’ Lullaby Starts]
[Someone yells something like “what are we paying for?!”]
[More Brahms’]
Crowd: “Stop it!”
Frank: “Does this make you tense? Irritable? Make you feel hostile? Does it bring out all that bad stuff in ya? Sort of like a carburetor boil-out ain’t it? Now you just sit there and take your Dead Air like a man”
Audience Member 1: “Sock it to me!”
Audience Member 2 [or Frank? Or Ray?]: “Sock it to yourself”
Frank: “Here it is kids, the moment you’ve been waiting for: Louie Louie!”
He calls the average audience stupid right before announcing: ”MEANWHILE KIDS HERE’S A LITTLE DEAD AIR!” and that’s exactly what we get. The crowd laughs, and then gets annoyed with this silence, so Frank instructs the band to “play some concerto shit…”, and Don whips out Brahms’ Lullaby (while Frank continues to goad the audience – “Does this make you tense?”). They fuck around for a little bit longer, until Frank declares “Here it is kids, the moment you’ve been waiting for: Louie Louie!”, and the band follows suit. They play the tune for about 30 seconds before Frank says “here’s the real words to this song” and they switch to Plastic People (where Frank says “narcos” instead of “nazis”).
Frank:“And now here it comes ladies and gentleman, the world renowned Mothers Of Invention electric gotta gotta revue. In this short sequence we will try to perform for you every known cliche in the gotta gotta rock n roll business. With the able assistance of none other than Baby Ray Collins, who will demonstrate the [unintelligible – maybe “various tropes”?] used by the important rock n roll groups of the day. There’s the one feet[?] on the floor microphone in hand, baby baby.“
[…]
[During You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling]
Frank: “Got-Got-ta!“
Ray: “Gotta! A whole lotta soul…”
Frank: “C’mon, You people gotta say got-ta!“
Audience Member: “Gotta!”
Frank: “That’s it!! Oh, you have so much soul! Boy, Boy, if you ever had a lotta[?] soul, c’mon, I know you’re white but go ahead and say it. Get it all out. C’mon. Got-ta. That’s it. A little more. Gotta gotta. Gotta gotta gotta. Let’s hear you say baby baby baby.“
Audience Members: “Baby baby baby!”
Frank: “A brief[?] response if ever I heard one. Baby baby baby. Repeat after me. One two! Baby baby baby. That’s it kids, you’re coming along swell. You’re back in high school now. Baby baby baby.”
[…]
Frank: “Twist? Do we have any other requests?”
[Audience members scream requests]
Frank: “[unintelligible] It all sounds like oink oink oink. You want to hear oink oink oink? [Romaloid RC?] Ramona? Ramona?“
[Crowd continues to scream, Don starts playing an unknown song]
Frank: “Play it anyway [unintelligible] Not even his best friend is evil[?]. Allow me to do it for ya [?]. There[?]. Somebody hum ‘Ramona’. I dare you. [Audience member: “la la la la la!”] La la la la la la la??“
After they finish up this teenage-material, Frank signals the start of “the world renowned Mothers Of Invention electric gotta gotta revue”, which means Ray will sing You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’, and Frank will force the captive audience to yell “gotta gotta gotta” and “baby baby baby” after. FZ and the crowd have a heated discussion as the tune tapers out (“The Twist?…. Ramona?”), and once he’s bored he cues the band to play America Drinks. It’s a nice take, but unsurprisingly Ray’s closing comments are very hard to hear.
Frank: “Bullshit”
Ray: [most of speech is totally unintelligible] “Louie Louie? [unintelligible] The Marine’s Hymn? [unintelligible] Caravan with a drum solo? [unintelligible]… Check Your Cheese”
Frank: [something unintelligible at end]
As the tune ends, a jungle-y vibe emerges and we get launched into an epic, sick, 25+ minute King Kong (“Here he is ladies and gentleman, the hardest working man in show business, Bing-A-Bongo!” [name uncertain]). There’s a short tape cut that takes out the main theme and brings us right into Bunk’s opening solo. Another cut loses the end of his solo, and brings us into Don’s. Ian and Frank each solo next (FZ drops a quote from Holst’s Jupiter at the start of his), and after about 15 minutes the whole band just kinda jams. A few more minutes go by and Frank cues some insane drum improv from Jimmy and Art. This morphs into some classic tweaky MOI sax improv, before a sudden return to the main theme (King Kong almost never has an ending theme). Frank simply says “intermission” and this closes out the main set. They return moments later for a final song, “a piece of teenage trivia called ‘Those Hungry Freaks Daddy’”.
Frank: [Fan yells] “C’mon up here [unintelligible] We’re waiting. [more yelling]. Still sounds like oink oink oink. [more yelling, then applause]. We realize some of you might be less enthused than others about what we do. We will play this song for the people who like what we do, the rest of you can fuck off. [applause] You see we’re quite unprepared for this, no one ever asks us to do encores. You must be a very masochistic lot. This piece of teenage trivia is called Those Hungry Freaks Daddy”.
[After Hungry Freaks]
Frank: “Thank you”
Bill Graham[?]: “Thank you all for coming. We’ve got another show outside. We hope to see you all next week for Traffic [unintelligible] Thank you again, good night”
It’s a quality version of the iconic rock song, and the concert ends with Bill Graham’s announcement for the following late show. This is a very fun show, but it’s not one I return to a lot, mainly because of the tape quality. If you can get over the muffled and distorted sound, this is a great concert worth checking out, but you have to be a pretty hardcore bootleg listener to get past that.
Late Show:
The late show at the Fillmore starts off with “The Mothers tuning up” (as covertly described by the taper), before Bill Graham returns to announce: “Having spent ten minutes trying to think of something clever to say…ladies and gentleman: The Mothers Of Invention”. They immediately dive into improvisation, starting with scant guitar and saxes, and quickly moving into some Stravinsky quotes (both The Rite Of Spring and Petrushka). This rapidly turns into a dumb little 50s Lawrence Welk-esque music parody, which then morphs into a fairly straight performance of Blue Moon (except they’re also playing the bridge to I’m In The Mood For Love in the middle of the tune).
Frank shouts out pop singer “Bobby Rydell!”, and then brings the music back to more scary improv, before moving into an early, instrumental version of Absolutely Free! It only lasts for about 40 seconds, but right as they start to dive back in similar improv, Frank starts to slowly play the Duke Of Prunes! Ray then comes in to sing over the beautiful melody, but they only make it through the first verse before Frank cues the ⅝ riff and sends the band back into chaos. This lasts for about a minute before calming down into weirdo piano and percussion improv (this whole section is frequently listed as “Amnesia Vivace”, but it really has nothing to do with the Absolutely Free track). They eventually move into a very long chunk of discordant improvisations, with waves of static, tweaky horns, tweaky keys, and tons of drumming/percussion. Around 11 minutes in, Ray starts his “sucks” bit, and at the end Frank comes in with some solo guitar improv. Honestly this big chunk of improv is way too long and unfocused for me. It has its moments, but I strongly prefer when the chaos is broken up more. They eventually slow to a lull, and Frank cues You Didn’t Try To Call Me, and in turn the rest of the goofy ‘67 medley. The Freak Out tune is followed by Petrushka, The Bristol Stomp, Baby Love and finally Big Leg Emma. It’s a great performance of the medley, and The Mothers pause for a bit (with some strange clanging noises going on while they rest). Frank says some non-sequiturs about fuzz tone and hippies, before Don starts to play some mellow lounge-type music.
“It’s much better with the fuzz tone… his hair is just getting good in the back… and they live together[?] [Lounge Music Starts] A few short weeks ago, Lamar Bruster… Lamar used to drive a truck for a florist. Las Vegas here we come. What do you think about the war in Vietnam? Look at the nose on that sucker”
Frank continues with some nonsense about “Lamar Bruster” and the horns start to play the old standard Easter Parade. It dies down after a couple minutes, and Frank then begins a quality version of Hungry Freaks Daddy. They then make a cool segue into another great King Kong, with long, fiery solos from Bunk, Frank and Ian (Ian comes in and solos along with the end of Bunks jam, then gets his own spot at the end of the tune). As Ian finishes his solo, Frank cues a couple “Yee!”s, a few vomit noises and then declares “Hawaiian Music!”. One of our drummers starts playing a steady, plodding drum beat, and after a few minutes Frank begins playing something the fans have dubbed the “Hula Lick” (a “standard hula turnaround lick” that Frank would occasionally employ throughout his career). He continues to repeat the lick, while Ray wordlessly moans over the pseudo-jam (and sings the theme to the 50s TV show Hawaiian Eye).
Frank continues to fuck around with the lick for a few more minutes, creating a really weird tropical hellscape kind of atmosphere, before suddenly delving back into abstraction, and the throwing us into the Junior Walker tune Shotgun! Ray and the boys play a shortened by faithful version of the RnB classic, and Frank throws in the Hawaiian Lick one more time as the tune ends (you can hear the crowd laugh at it too, which I love). Frank then makes a lovely segue into a loose early performance of Holiday In Berlin! It takes a sec for the full band to join in, and it’s fairly shaky when they do, but it’s still really fun to hear. Frank and Ian each play a pleasant solo, and after about eight minutes Frank counts the band into Cruising For Burgers! It’s a solid, instrumental take of the Uncle Meat classic. FZ ends the tune with a final Hula Lick, and Ray say goodnight to the audience. Frank comes back and says something like “we’re not going to play because most of you were asleep anyway. I’m sorry we woke you up by stopping” but there’s no encore captured on our tape. This is an excellent, wildly entertaining concert that makes a great pair with the early show. These aren’t my absolute favorite MOI shows, but they’re some of the most unique gigs we have, and a lot of fun is had on this stage. If you can handle sub-par sound quality, and consider yourself a fan of the early Mothers, check this one out.
1968 04 28 – Grande Ballroom, Detroit, MI (Stage A-)
This is an excellent recording, captured in lovely sound quality, documenting the Mothers at one of their chillest, most pleasant concerts of the year. The vocals are a little low in the mix, but there’s a great clarity between the instruments and that is really rare on these early bootlegs. There were two gigs on this night, but we only have the early show.
“..With a piece of music that is dedicated to a great American, a person who has done a lot to make you what you are today, a person who has done a lot to help Captain Kangaroo on television, a person that, oh he’s so wonderful, and he wears chartreuse… farmer’s pants. Let’s hear it for Mr. Green Genes!” [After Song] “Thank You. According to my ears it still doesn’t sound like we’re in tune, let’s do something about it”
This tape starts with FZ announcing “a piece of music that is dedicated to a great American”, none other than Mr. Green Genes from Captain Kangaroo! We get a lovely, instrumental take of the tune (much closer to Son Of Mr. Green Genes), with delightful solos from Bunk, Don, Ian, and finally Frank (who sneaks a Petrushka quote right at the end of his solo). After this FZ stops the band to tune up, and the tape cuts to the beginning of Hungry Freaks Daddy. It’s a standard take of the tune, and we get a smooth transition into an equally great America Drinks.
Frank: “Gogo”
Ray: “Well, you see the ol’ clock on the wall. It’s about time to hang up our ties[?] Golly I hope you had as much fun as we had, cause we certainly-. Hi nice to see ya. How’s yer mama been? check yer cheese. Double pump. How’s your sister? [unintelligible] Buy some[?] Furniture? Don’t forget Sunday’s a jam session. Monday night’s a twist contest. Tuesday we’re going topless. Wednesday’s ladies night. Thursday we’re going naked, Friday we’re going to jail, Saturday we’ll shoot up a Cantaloupe. Loue Louie? We’ll do that tomorrow night Marine Hymn? Get out. Caravan with a drum solo? Absolutely. Vo-do-de-oh. Scooby Doo. Sha-la-la-la. Sha-la-la-la. Bop.”
Ray’s ramblings are amusing like always, but kinda hard to make out (“check yer cheese?…Thursday we’re going naked, Friday we’re going to jail”). They finish this up and immediately begin “The Adventures Of King Kong, a gorilla by trade.” It’s a shorter take (about 9 minutes), but still loads of fun. Bunk and Frank each take a long solo, with both contestants jamming together in the middle. Bunk messes around with the Gardner Varieties, Frank kinda sorta quotes Little House, and the whole event leads into some crazed free improvisation. We get some classic ‘68 Mothers improv, with random horn noises, and wild conducted percussion. Frank comments on the Marine Corps, then announces “And now a word from the president of the United States”. Ray then proclaims “Fellow Americans… Detroit sucks… The Mothers suck… You suck…” This heads right into a quick ⅝ riff, with an assortment of tweaky keys, puke noises, and high pitched screams (“Hee!”).
Frank: “…And the marine corps can do that for you too! [More Improv] And now a word from the president of the United States”
Ray: “Fellow Americans….. [Sax honks] Detroit sucks… The Mothers suck… You suck… America…”
Ray [later on]: “No Buns….”
Don plays solo keys for a little bit, before quickly heading into a beautiful performance of the Handsome Cabin Boy and the Wedding Dress Song. Frank and Don play a very, chill rendition of the first tune, and after about 50 seconds the full band joins in for the latter. They then head into some great improv, starting with a lovely flute solo from Bunk. Ian then comes in on his sax, and part way through his jam, Frank begins to play the theme to Dog Breath on guitar! After a minute or so it morphs into the theme of Little House I Used To Live In! (well actually, this part is referred to as “The Duke Theme C”, see the song entry for more info). The full band actually joins in with Frank on Little House, and this brings the jam to an end. There’s a hard transition, and we’re thrown into a lovely version of Status Back Baby (a rare complete performance, don’t get used to it!). They stop to rest for a second, there’s some inaudible chatter, and Frank announces that they’re going to play “a tune known to the world as the Orange County Lumber Truck”.
“I’d like to play for you now, a tune known to the world as the Orange County Lumber Truck, which is in reality nothing more than an assemblage of instrumental themes from We’re Only In It For The Money and Lumpy Gravy. Tunes encompassed in this little piece of audio entertainment would be… Let’s Make The Water Turn Black, Harry You’re A Beast, and other stuff”
We get an absolutely lovely take of the theme, with vocals and solos in Oh No for the first recorded time. Ray sings the lyrics, he kinda bungles them but I’m just happy to hear them at all. Frank plays a fiery solo in Oh No, and both Ian and Bunk solo simultaneously after him. They return to the Orange County Lumber Truck proper, and then Don, Bunk and finally Frank solo. Frank’s final solo is short and mostly unaccompanied, but he manages to sneak a final Dog Breath quote in. After 17 minutes, the monster ends with a fantastic, goofy blues walkdown, and our tape comes to a close. This is one of the best documents of the Mother’s from the first half of 1968, and any self-respecting FZ fan should check this one out!
1968 05 03 – Family Dog, Denver, CO (Stage A-)
This is a great sounding stage tape full of lovely, spirited performances, but it’s unfortunately very fragmented. This was a frequently bootlegged show back in the day, and (a large part of it) was released as Electric Aunt Jemima on Beat the Boots Volume Two (with material from other later ‘68 shows, and a bunch of alternate titles). The recording cuts in on some classic Mothers improv including the ⅝ riff, horn squeaks, and other nonsense. They then transition to a much chiller vamp, and suddenly, Octandre appears! It’s a great performance, led by FZ’s guitar. They switch to a dumb little swing bit, then return to more scary Varese, followed by a long section of tweaky guitar and spacey keys.
Ray declares “AMERICA SUCKS”, and we get an insane transition into Louie Louie! Today though it’s staunchly Plastic People. Frank declares that “this is the rock n roll part of the program” before the “We see a neon” bit. They sing “you gotta go” for a little while before Frank brings back Octandre over the Louie Louie vamp. He talks to the band off mic, then the horns come in with the theme to King Kong over the same chords, and as they’re nailing this Frank starts the melody of America Drinks! After a little while, they return to Octandre once again, and just after we settle in to another frightening performance they switch to Wipe Out! (What is happening!) Things quickly settle down, and Frank announces “we’ll be back in a little while”, before our first tape cut of the program.
We return a few seconds into the first known standalone take of Little House I Used To Live In. They repeat the theme a few times (apparently known as The Duke Theme C – see song entry for more info), and Frank quotes Dog Breath on guitar right after they finish. This then leads into a quick Art Trip drum solo (on timpani, which can be heard throughout the show, and were most likely rented for this performance, as they were not part of Art’s normal setup). This is followed by a hard jump to a slow horn-led performance of the Dog Breath (“Bongos in the back…”), and a sudden return to the main theme on guitar. There’s a drum and bass break, then Frank plays a chill solo for a few minutes before switching to the 5⁄8 riff eight minutes in. FZ continues to solo, getting tweakier as the tune progresses. The vamp dies away after about ten minutes and we’re led into a barrage of freaky guitar and keys. Frank starts to play the jazz standard Coquette, and the full band joins in until it’s suddenly just Don and he morphs the tune into Tchaikovsky’s 6th. A horn player then immediately starts the Blue Danube, and FZ plays the Hungry Freaks Daddy melody on top of it. The whole thing then becomes a really loose, purposely sloppy, instrumental version of the Freak Out opener, and then Frank starts Funiculì Funiculà as the jam ends, turning this into a weirdo Italian number for a few seconds. There’s another drum break, and we get a nice transition into a rare Go Cry On Somebody Else’s Shoulder. This of course only lasts nine seconds (not exaggerating), before the tape cuts out once again.
We then return to the middle of a fun jam, right as Bunk is finishing up his solo. He hands it off to Don, who then switches to Frank, then Ian, and then Frank again. At the end a composed theme appears: It’s Khaki Sack! A very obscure FZ composition that only got an official release in 2023 (on the Funky Nothingness box). It’s a fun little number, and once it ends there’s another rough tape cut right into some sax improv over the 5⁄8 riff. After about 15 seconds of this we’re tossed into Status Back Baby, but another damn tape cut takes out the whole middle of the tune. We don’t even make it through the whole rest of the tune before another tape cut, this one throwing us into the tail end of a Trouble Every Day jam. We get to hear the very end of Frank’s solo, before a crash that leads into more guitar and horn improv. It’s dramatic and starts off surprisingly pretty. The horns play bits of The Rite Of Spring and Petrushka, and it leads to three minutes of drum tweakiness, with Ray moaning over sections and some violin-esque bass thrown in (it’s Roy playing with a bow). Suddenly Ray starts to sing a sloppy version of Duke Of Earl, and Frank joins in with his wonderful non-singing (“you’ll be my Duch-ess!”). The Mothers then make an excellent, subtle transition into King Kong.
The cymbals start to arise out of Frank and Ray’s dumb singing, and FZ comments something I don’t quite understand (“and then of course there’s a crystal song? swan?”). We get another excellent King Kong, clocking in around 16 minutes. Bunk, Don, Frank, and Ian all get a chance to stretch out. Partway through Ian’s solo, Frank cues most of the band (except for Jimmy) to drop out, but they come back in not too long thereafter. Jimmy and Art then play a simultaneous drum solo, Frank cues a crash and a “yee!”, and the tape cuts out a final time. This tape clearly has its recording flaws, there is still a ton of fantastic music to be found on this recording. Though we lose some of the context with all these annoying cuts, these are still some top tier Moments from the OG Mothers, and well worth a listen (It’s unfortunately some of the best we’ve got).
1968 05 18 – “The Miami Pop Festival” – Gulfstream Race Track, Hallandale, FL (Partial Official Release)
click here to listen to the one available track (from Uncle Meat)
Frank released one track from this historic performance as the finale for Uncle Meat: King Kong Part VI (AKA Live On A Flat Bed Diesel In The Middle Of A Race Track At A Miami Pop Festival… The Underwood Ramifications). The track includes the beginning of King Kong (the drum rolls and main theme) and Ian’s fantastic sax solo. As Ian goes on, Frank joins him on guitar and we get some delicious Zappa soloing, before a hard cut to live drum improvisations, and then some more studio King Kong nonsense to finish the album off. This live show was recorded by Eddie Kramer, soon to be a well known producer and engineer. FZ’s friend Jimi Hendrix performed at this festival, and burned another guitar, which ended up in Frank’s possession. In the late 70s Zappa had this “Hendrix Strat” rebuilt, and used it off and on for the rest of his career. Despite only having a 6-minute fragment of this show available, it’s obvious this was a really important concert, both musically and historically, and I would love an official release of the whole thing. [Additionally, Joe recently mentioned on Discord that another band canceled and the Mothers actually played two sets at this festival. More reasons we need an official release!”]
1968 06 25 – Steve Allen TV Show, Los Angeles (TV Recording C/A-)
“This is a pretty weird program today, right?” – Steve Allen. The Mothers Of Invention were the musical guests on this late 60s episode of the The Steve Allen Show (airdate: 1968 07 24), and Frank was interviewed along with two other guests (comedian Godfrey Cambridge and actor Ed Begley Sr). Steve Allen’s talk shows could run from 60 to 90 minutes in this era (including commercials), but we only have about 25 minutes of audio available from this show. There’s unfortunately no film recording of this program, but we do have two separate audio tapes, each covering a part of the show. The first recording lasts about 5 minutes, and sounds absolutely terrible. It features an abridged performance of Hungry Freaks Daddy, where right when they hit what’s normally the guitar solo section, Frank instead cues 20 seconds of snorks and horn insanity over the ⅝ riff. This then segues right into a shortened King Kong, featuring more chaotic improv, where seemingly every Mother plays whatever they want at the same time (and Bunk throws in the Gardner Varieties for good measure). After about a minute of jamming, Frank cues some drum madness and a big scream from the band ends the performance. This then cuts to the interview section, where FZ recites the lyrics to Hungry Freaks Daddy, and Steve and Frank briefly talk about them (“[It’s] a song about parents who don’t like the way their children look”).
As the (nearly unintelligible) conversation starts to get interesting, the first recording cuts out, and we’re thrown into the, actually quite listenable, second recording. This tape is mainly more interview segments from the show, but it unfortunately mainly features our other two guests for the evening. Godfrey Cambridge talks about race relations in America, and Steve tries to get Frank to talk about Hippies (FZ: “I’ll tell you what they need, they need some representation in government” [Steve: “Well that’s true…”]). There’s a commercial break, after which Steve has to bring Frank back on stage (he apparently left for coffee). Frank talks a little about the police (“They haven’t given me personally any trouble, but my day-to-day activities are not the activities of the ordinary person with hair”), and Ed Begley shows up to tell some dated jokes and recite some poetry. There’s another tape cut, and we thrown right into more ⅝ improvisations, that suddenly turn into a fantastic America Drinks.
Frank: “Television”
Ray: “Well, nice to see you again. See the ol’ clock on the wall? It’s about time we hang it up for tonight. God I hope you’ve had as much fun as we’ve had, because we’ve certainly had a lot of fun here. That’s why we’re here to entertain you. Louie Louie? We’ll get that tomorrow night. Caravan with a drum solo? Got’ch’ya covered. How’s your sister? Check your cheese? How’s your mama been? Nice to see ya again, ya think it’ll rain? Like your new hair do? Wonderful. Hi, How are ya? Wonderful. Vo-do-de-oh. Scooby doo. Sha-na-na…”
FZ comments “television”, and Ray responds to imaginary requests (“Louie Louie? We’ll get that tomorrow night. Caravan with a drum solo? We got that covered. Check yer cheese?…” ). Then, we get a rapid transition into a frantic, 30 second, slightly unhinged performance of Octandre to end the show (and the recording of course cuts out right before the last note). The musical performances on this show are very fun, but there’s less than 10 minutes available, and the interviews are neat but very low on Frank content. A historically interesting recording, that’s ultimately mainly for completionists.
Transcription of Interview [only Frank’s segments]:
Steve Allen: [unintelligible and incomplete question about Hungry Freaks Daddy]
Frank: “Hungry Freaks, Daddy is a song about parents who don’t like the way their children look”
Steve: “Could you give us some… a couple of lines so that we can see how the [?] is developed?”
Frank: “Mister America walk on by your schools that do not teach. Mister America walk on by the minds that won’t be reached.
Steve: “So far so good”
Frank: “Mister America try to hide the emptiness that’s you inside. When once you find that the way you lied and all those corny tricks you tried will not forestall the rising tide of Hungry Freaks, Daddy. They won’t go for no more great midwestern hardware store philosophy that turns away from those who aren’t afraid to say what’s on their minds the left-behinds of the Great Society.”
Steve: “That’s entirely reasonable. Thank you.”
Frank You’re welcome!
[recording cuts]
Steve: Many people fail, possibly even some young people fail, to appreciate the message in the lyrics of much of today’s music because they have some trouble hearing it I guess.
Frank: They have as much trouble hearing it as [unintelligible].
Steve: You mean the [younger?] they are the better they hear it?
Frank: That’s right.
Steve: [Other?] than the fact that they listen to it 19 times once they buy an album that has nothing to do with it. [You don’t?.. Stardust?] the first time you hear it either.
[This whole section is very difficult to make out, and cuts out again after this]
[Frank next talks after Godfrey Cambridge talks race relations]
Steve: “Frank, are there any, uh, strictly-speaking hippie comedians? I don’t really know of any. There are some guys who are amusing fellows but are any professional comedians out of the hippie culture?
Godfrey: ”Well when I say hippies, I just mean guys who do very in material”
Steve: “Inside things, yeah.”
Godfrey: “Y’know, cause I wanna be able to hit that cat in Iowa. Y’know sometimes I get the guys, like when I played the Fillmore in San Francisco, I get the guys off the Grey Line tours, you know, and I got to bring them in.”
Steve: “Oh, absolutely.”
Godfrey: “They’ll wear those satin shoes in, you know, and I go down and I talk to them.I say, hey baby, I know you from Iowa, it’s cool, you know. I know when you get back home, I can just hear the dialogue now. ‘Hey Clem! I saw one!’ You know, so you got to pull all those people in and mold them into one audience and let them know that you’re with them.
Steve: “You know, well I misunderstood you when you referred to the hip comedians, I thought you meant strictly hippie comedians.”
Godfrey: “No, no, I just mean the in.”
Steve: “My misunderstanding, nevertheless, does give rise, I think, to a moderately interesting question. Frank, do the hippies feel any need, to the extent that one, y’know one guy can answer for a million people, do you feel that you and your chums feel the need of any professional representatives to be funny, you know, the way people pay me to stand up and be funny or pay Godfrey to stand up and be funny as a specialty?”
Frank: “I’ll tell you what they need. They need some representation in government. Every young person needs a representative in government, not just hippies.”
Steve: “Oh, that’s true, but that’s…”
Frank: “They don’t need anybody to laugh.”
Steve: “You feel… Well, what do you laugh at then? Just the…”
Frank: “We watch regular movies on television.”
Steve: “You mean you laugh at the serious movies?”
Frank: “Sure, you ever seen a John Wayne war picture?”
Steve: “That is interesting, then, that the concentration creatively is mainly on the music and…”
Godfrey: “Well, no, to an alienated person, face it, a John Wayne movie is kind of funny, man, when we’re still beating all the Indians, you know, and you take a movie like, say, Zulu, you know, where, like, 200 cuts [music fades in] You going away to sell some grits? Bye baby!
Steve: “We’ll be right back.”
[They return from commercial, Godfrey talks about Zulu and Beverly Hills, and there’s another commercial break]
Steve: “Frank Zappa keeps disappearing. Could somebody go bring Frank back?”
Godfrey: “Bring Frank. Let’s hear it for Frank.”
Steve: “Let’s bring Frank back. [goofy music plays] And while they’re looking for Frank, we’ll also see if they can find our next guest, who certainly, to use the old line, needs no introduction. One of your real favorites, Mr. Ed Begley. [introductory music] Here we found Frank.”
[Frank says something off mic]
Godfrey: “Well, you know, it’s wild. Frank and I were talking while we were off-camera, you know. He said, man, I’m a minority group, too.I said, I’m hip, baby, you know, because we’re talking about fuzz, you know, because I drive through Beverly Hills. I walk through Beverly Hills, you know, and I’m…”
Steve: “It’s not easy to do.”
Godfrey: “Yeah, I’m a smartidy[?], man, you know, because, like, the cat stops me, and I say, what are you doing? And I say, I’m looking for a house to rob, you know, and I… You know, and he says, you think you’re a minority? I’m a minority, too. And it’s true, man, because we talk about basic freedoms, you know. Now, he has a right to wear his hair that way if he digs it, you know. It’s his scene, right? Yeah. But he gets stopped as much as I do, man. If he walks through Beverly Hills, man, they’ll shoot him.”
Steve: “Frank, seriously, I know this is sort of a truism, which a lot of people just take at face value. Is it true in your own personal experience?”
Frank: “That I get stopped a lot by police?”
Steve: “Just walking down the street, do the police bug you, or does anybody bug you?
Frank: “No, the police don’t give me any trouble. They haven’t given me personally any trouble, but my day-to-day activities are not the activities of the ordinary person with hair.”
Steve: “You mean with long hair?”
Frank: “Yeah. So, like, I’m not a representative case, but I have trouble with the normal citizenry, you know.”
[Steve then starts talking to Ed Begley, who tells a racist joke and speaks for the rest of the program]
1968 07 23 – Whisky-A-Go-Go, West Hollywood, CA (Officially Released)
This is a real special show. Just a few weeks before Ray’s final departure from the Mothers, the group played three fantastic sets at the Whisky-A-Go-Go on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood. The night was billed as a “Mothers Of Invention Recording Session”, and they treated it as such. The entire night was recorded, and parts of the show were even filmed! If a take fell apart Frank would stop the tune and the Mothers would try again, and in one case we actually get two complete takes of a single piece (A very early rendition of Little House I Used to Live In). Additionally, this unique experience was advertised as “five full hours of unprecedented merryment [sic]”, and featured guest performances from Kim Fowley, Alice Cooper, The GTOs, Wild Man Fisher, and even a mystery Elvis impersonator, Joseph Piresanti. There was also a strange encounter between Frank, a whip, and a fan named “Della”, but more on her (and he other acts) later. The Mothers had built up a uniquely strange underground following in LA at this time, and the very vocal audience adds a great layer of intimacy to these special performances.
Frank recorded the entire five hour event, but only released two short clips of this show in his lifetime, the hysterical God Bless America heard on Uncle Meat, and an 83 second chunk of improvisation titled Meow on the 5th You Can’t Do That On Stage Anymore Volume. Thankfully, Universal released the Mother’s entire performance 56 years after the fact in 2024! Technically speaking, this isn’t a truly complete version of the show, since many of the false starts and bad takes are edited out, but it would be totally nonsensical to hang on this point, since it’s certainly a better listening experience without the false starts (something 99% of people would skip on a relisten). One actual bummer is the missing sets from the other performers (Alice Cooper, Wild Man Fischer, & Joe Piresanti) but I assume this had more to do with licensing issues than anything else. What we do get is a fantastic presentation of every complete take from the Mother’s three sets, in what’s likely the best live sound quality we’ll ever heard from the original Mothers of Invention. The two drummers are wonderfully panned so you can tell them apart better than ever before (Jimmy is on the left and Art of the right), our horn players sound wonderfully crisp, and Ray’s beautiful vocals soar above the band. Simply put this is a fantastic three hour set, and probably the best example of what the Mothers were doing on stage in the Summer of ‘68.
Set 1:
The show begins with an abrupt, chaotic improvisation aptly titled “Whisky Improvisation: Episode 1”. Like nearly every 60s Mothers show, we get a lot of free form/conducted improvisations, and I think this is a great naming scheme for them (especially since it comes from Frank’s own mouth later). Drums, cymbals, squeaky toys, and all kinds of clacking percussion slowly build into a bigger cacophony throughout the opening piece. Art starts us off, and after about a minute the other drumset joins in, though I’m not sure if it’s Jimmy or Frank at first. At three minutes in we now definitely have Art and Jim at the kits, plus Don has joined in with the occasional synth noise, and Roy with some bass notes. At this point Frank seems to be conducting the whole affair, as more of the Mothers enter the frey. Ray comes in around four and a half minutes in with a quip (“Take your clothes off”), while Roy starts playing his bass with a bow, and the whole band continues with the growing cacophony. The saxes come in shortly after this with some atonal squeaking, Ray makes a big nasty vomit noise, and after six minutes of nonsense, Frank cues the ⅝ riff! This is still insane, but it finally feels like there’s a bit of direction amidst the madness. For a minute here Frank alternates between tweaky drum breaks and more ⅝ riff fuckery. Eventually he cues the swing ditty vamp and Bunk quotes Blue Moon amidst the chaos. Ray continues with his humorous rambling, and he ends up reciting an early version of the “what’s a girl like you” speech!
Ray: “Just one more drink. What’s a girl like you doing in a place like this? What’s your sign? What’s your rising sign? What’s your favorite color? When is your new album coming out? [Frank: “What’s the name of your group?”] How’d you get your mouth to go like that? Have another cigarette. Peace. Love. We want a piece.”
[…]
Ray: “Coca-Cola. RC. Umm… The Uncola. [FZ: “Marlboro.”] Tastee-Freez. I’m gonna have that. That enough for you, honey?”
Right when Ray finishes, Frank cues the ⅝ riff once again, which leads to more chaotic, eerie percussion/synth freak out music (with Roy screaming in the distance). Ray says “Why don’t you dance?” right as the band stops, and Motorhead poorly plays his kalimba during the lull (an African instrument he can be seen mangling in the Bitter End ‘67 footage). The Mothers return to the swing ditty vamp while Motorheads goes out, and Ray and FZ randomly list American products (see second half of quote above). This goes on until the band kinda falls apart, Ray makes another puke noise, and we get a wild transition into America Drinks! [I should note too, that this whole opening piece kinda acts as a walk on “song” for the band, you can hear the audience chatting throughout as they filter into the hall. It’s a great vibe.]
So after this the MOI burst into a lovely, largely sincere performance of America Drinks (& Goes Home). Roy sounds better than he ever has on this great recording, and Bunk’s soprano sax throughout is delightful. It’s really beautiful, and a definitive take in my book. As the tune ends we get the regular cavalcade of “closing” comments from Ray, which are very amusing (even though I don’t fully understand most of them). He really cracks Frank up with the “Volkswagen” line, which is a lot of fun, and afterwards Frank gives a storied introduction to their next tune, the one and only Help I’m A Rock.
Frank: “Chickens”
Ray: Well, I see by the old clock on the wall it’s about time we’re hanging up. Golly, I hope you had as much fun as we had, because we certainly had fun up here. Last call for alcohols. It’s motel time—motel spelled backwards is letom. Don’t forget, Sunday’s a jam session. Monday night’s twist contest. Tuesday we’re going topless. Wednesday we’re going naked. Thursday we’re going to jail. Friday we’re gonna shoot up a Volkswagen… [FZ Cackles] in the kneecap. Should be a lot of fun. Thank you for coming by. Nice to see you. Check your cheese. How’s your sister? How’s your mother?
Frank: A long time ago when we worked here, back in the olden days, we got fired from this club circuit for playing this song. It became very difficult for us to gain employment in the Los Angeles area because, against the wishes of the people who ran the whole organization that provided youth oriented entertainment to the people in this area, we went ahead and played a song called “Help, I’m A Rock,” on an evening where it was important that it appeared to the people coming in to the club that it was happening, you know? The way you make people know that your club is happening is by having people on the dance floor, see? And when we played this song nobody could dance to it. So the audience had requested this song and the people who ran the place said, “Oh, you’d better not do that.” And we played the song and, well, we starved for a long time—it was so difficult to get any work around here but, as a commemorative experience we’re gonna grind out a little ditty called “Help, I’m A Rock.”
After Frank’s hysterical intro on the multitude of issues that come when your band plays “Help I’m A Rock”, the Mothers play Help I’m A Rock (as a “commemorative experience”). This take is a bit less jammy than the other later takes we have, with more of an emphasis on freak vocals. This is the earliest known live performance, so it’s great to hear what Ray has to add to the Freak Out piece. We get a wonderful, hypnotic take, featuring the Mothers at their zanniest. Less than a minute into the tune, Frank asks for the location of producer/friend-of-the-band Kim Fowley, so that he can get “up here to sing Help, I’m A Rock”. Ray sings these beautiful vocalizations against the hypnotic Help I’m A Rock beat, but Fowley rambles wild nonsense syllables for minutes on end. It’s true craziness, but the two vocalists really do complement each other very well. Frank does his regular, “Help I’m A Cop” spiel, and makes a reference to the famous Canter’s Deli (“It’s a drag being a cop. I think I’d rather be the mayor. Heck, maybe I could get a job driving that bus that picks the kids up in front of Canter’s”). Fowley gets a chance to really go nuts after this, while a sax plays underneath him. Then the horn section, Ray’s croons and Frank’s beautiful rhythm guitar all come to a climax when FZ bursts into Transylvania Boogie around four minutes in. A truly transcendent moment. Fowley rambles/mumbles/stumbles throughout the theme, and Ian starts a sick sax solo while Kim continues. His cool sax provides the perfect accompaniment for this freak jam. Eventually Kim overtakes the modulated sax once again, and Frank quiets the MOI so Fowley can give a little rock ‘n roll rant.
Kim: Fowley: Shake your money maker. Bill Drake, ladies and gentlemen, started Ugly Radio many years ago. And in honor of rock & roll, we’d like you to remember a rock & roll song. Gonna hear it in a minute. Here it comes. Yeah! Uh! Get ready for it. Shhh… Shhh… Here it comes, the rock & roll song. Shhh… “Dip Dip.” Yeah yeah yeah. Hey, man, I’m an Italian vocal group from the Bronx. I listened to Alan Freed and he said, uh, “I want all the publishing rights on ‘Dip Dip Dip,’ and if you do ‘Dip Dip Dip’ good enough, I’ll put you on stage, the Bethlehem Paramount Theater.” So the Flying Spiders, formerly the Emerald Bulldogs [Frank cackles], re-recorded this song. Is everybody ready for “Dip Dip Dip”? “Dip Dip Dip.”
Fowley’s hysterical take on doo-wop mythos leads directly into a riotously funny version of the iconic My Boyfriend’s Back medley, the absolute perfect tune to transition to. I don’t imagine Fowley’s speech was composed in any way, so it’s really just a fantastic thing that they all knew to move into My Boyfriend’s Back. It’s so nice to finally hear this medley in high quality. Ray’s falsetto is so funny, and the horn riffs over both tunes are delightful. Fowley screams over the start (“Yeah! Come on, everybody twist!”), but is mostly silent during the two composed tunes (except for the occasional well timed grunt). Bust His Head is a wonderful conclusion to the little medley of two, and features more of Kim grunting over the end. The medley of two leads right into a very interesting and unique version of Tiny Sick Tears. There’s no “Cookie Lecture” in this version, but we instead get a fantastic, groovy little jam.
Fowley rambles off some amusing little parody “gotta gotta” vocals (“Sock it to me now! Oh! Baby!… Here comes her judge”), while Frank and the band create a great, poppy musical atmosphere. You can hear the GTOs going absolutely nuts in the audience too, which is a lovely little detail. After a couple minutes of vamping, Ian comes in with a delicious sax solo. The moment when Ian finally comes in and starts soloing over this bouncy fun vamp is just so good; easily one of my favorite moments of the whole show. It’s just so good. Frank’s rhythm guitar is just delightful through this jam, and after a couple of minutes of tasty sax Frank takes over and whips out a great solo. He kicks the fuzz tone on around four minutes in, and after going nuts he sorta duets with Fowley’s improvised ramblings (“Everybody clap your hands, just like on American Bandstand […] If you won’t clap your hands… we’re gonna come down off the stage… and give you some clap”). The GTOs scream at Fowley’s “clap” comments, and the horn section starts these cool, long held notes (which Frank’s beautiful rhythm guitar fits perfectly with). It can’t stay pretty for too long though, because out of this beauty Frank cues the cartoonishly ugly ⅝ riff. This leads into a crazy conducted section featuring loud horn honks and assorted drum madness. Ray thanks the audience during all this (“thank you very much. It’s a thrill being here tonight.”), and after a little while Frank cues a sudden ending to the spontaneous tweakiness (“That’d be what you call your Showmanship Routine #1.”)
I absolutely adore this opening half an hour of music and madness. It perfectly shows everything the Mothers were capable of, from wild free improv to soaring jazzy jams to songs that straddle the line between parody and sincerity. I could listen to this opening chunk on repeat and never get bored, man what a start to a concert, all without breaks! Anyway, once the music stops, all the Mothers talk over each other to, somewhat sarcastically, thank the audience [Jimmy: “Gee thanks guy!!”]. Frank once again asks “what’s the name of your group?”, and Motorhead says something unintelligible in his “dumb” voice. After a little while Frank steps up to deliver another little speech on “the purpose of this evening”.
FZ: The purpose of this evening is supposedly to make some recordings of The Mothers live in person someplace. It’s the first time we’re really recording anything live— No, second time. We did something in Miami. Yeah. That didn’t turn out too swift. And, uh— I knew I was blocking that for a reason. We hope that this turns out a little bit better. It’s pretty hard to record what we do ’cause it gets so loud and ugly. What we’re going to, uh— What will happen, probably, is, uh, while attempting to record some of our standard repertoire, in case something goes wrong or if it sounds like the take is coming out like shit, we’re gonna stop and go over it and do just like they would do at a normal recording session. This might— might get boring after a while but, from time to time there’ll be uh, interesting events taking place here in the arena to keep you occupied. We have some special guest artists who will be sitting in tonight to uh, entertain you. We have Wild Man Fischer… Mr. Dynamite himself, The Hardest Working Man In Show Business. Joseph Piresanti, who is new— a new talent on the Strip. You’ll enjoy what he does very much, I’m sure. [Ray: “Bro.”] Yeah! Gotta have Bro sit in tonight. [Tape Cuts In And Out] So hard to keep these teenagers happy. There’s no way for us to know whether or not they’re recording this at all. We’re gonna begin with ‘Episode #2.’ (Just start playing something nice. In G minor. Make it up.)”
Frank talks about the troubles recording the bombastic Mothers Of Invention, briefly mentions the earlier Miami Pop festival recordings, and talks about some of the guest artists who will take the later tonight. I love how he introduced Wild Man Fischer like James Brown, and some people actually applaud! “Bro” I believe refers to former Mother’s guitarist Elliot Ingbar, but he unfortunately never actually takes the stage. Anyway, “Episode II” starts off with some beautiful electric keyboards from Don. Frank tells the mad pianist to “just start playing something nice”, and Don does just that. After a bit Frank comes in with a neat, almost sea shanty-like guitar line, which the rhythm section quickly pick up on. The horns come in shortly after this, and boy do they just sound fantastic. This all builds into a very cool, mellow jam, which ends up pretty atypical of Zappa. There’s really not much out there to compare this too— closets I can think of would be some of the chiller Uncle Meat tracks, like Nine Types of Industrial Pollution. Frank and the horn section all solo over each other, creating a beautiful cacophony (He even plays around with a quote from Holst’s Jupiter). Around five minutes in, Ray begins to sing, and the instruments quiet in his presence, it’s just too beautiful. One of the keyboards plays a Petrushka-esque line, and Ray’s fantastic voice shines above the jangly band. After a couple of minutes the rest of the Mothers come back in, and we get a wonderful group improvisation showcasing Ray, Frank, Ian and Bunk. Things get a bit more uptempo here (around seven minutes in), and around eight minutes in the whole thing morphs into a boogie, over which Ian(?) plays another great, wah-wah sax solo. The jam just continues to ramp up in groovi-ness until Frank softens the sound and cues Status Back Baby! This is a truly wonderful improvisation, and one of the prettiest and most pleasant things I’ve heard from Frank.
We get a great performance of Status Back Baby, and it’s a treat to finally have a live performance of this tune officially released in great quality. Again, the separation of instruments is just wonderful, and the horns have never sounded better. When it ends Frank has to assure the audience they can applaud (“well, go on!”), and Ray opens the floor for requests. The crowd of course instantly starts going crazy, and Ray (misleadingly) says that they’ll “play all of them, right now”. Somebody asks for America Drinks, but FZ has to tell them they “already did that!”. My favorite part though is when someone asks for The Chords’ 1954 hit “Sh-Boom”, which leads to an amusing, exasperated “Sh-Boom??” from Frank (Sh-Boom is probably better known to younger audiences as the “Life Could Be A Dream” song). The raucous crowd wants Blue Suede Shoes and/or Louie Louie, and the GTOs really want something called “Wabalu”, but FZ has other ideas. Frank decides that “it’s oldies but goodies time”, and that they’re goin to play some old doo-wop tunes, starting with Memories of El Monte. (FZ: “Is everything hooked up back there? It’s a make-believe recording session”)
The Mothers burst into Memories Of El Monte so quickly that I have to assume there’s an edit right around there (maybe a false start got removed). The Zappa/Collins composition is a loving tribute to the doo-wop tunes that Ray and Frank grew up listening too. The song was actually first released as a single by the Penguins, well before the Mothers were founded back when Frank was working at Pal Studios (later known as Studio Z). Somebody in the audience cries out “Frankieeeee” about 30 seconds in, which is just such a great moment. Ray absolutely nails the vocals, never missing a beat, even when FZ starts to rattle off doo-wop groups for Ray to honor in song (Frank: “Because The Shields would sing…” Ray: “You cheated. You lied…”). When they run out of 50s inspiration to cover, Frank announces “The Paragons… singing “Oh! In The Sky” and the Mothers make a very smooth transition into this dumb-ass parody tune. They skip the silly little intro usually associated with this song, but this is it’s earliest known performance so maybe it just wasn’t added yet. Roy screams out this tune’s repetitive two lines, and we end up with a hysterical version. Something about this specific song emerging out of such a sincere tribute to doo-wop is so funny to me. It’s an interesting look into Frank’s perception of music. Anyway, the tune ends with the regular big RnB finale, and shortly after Frank starts the beautiful chords to Valarie. It’s a wonderful take of the classic Burnt Weeny Sandwich tune, led by a fantastic lead vocal performance from Frank (with additional doo-wop crying from Roy). It seems to be a very sincere performance, until Frank stops the tune two minutes in to give a hysterical little rant, from the point of view of a typical 50s teenager attending a junior prom.
Valarie, you pig… Let your mind drift back to that night of the prom, and there I was kneeling by your side with my hand reaching up in a gesture of supplication for the red rickrack around the bottom of your white party dress. Valarie, you and I had just finished drinking a pint and a half of Romilar and we were really ripped. Oh, Valarie, you and me, baby, tore to the core. You was my teen-age queen, and the idol of my dreams, and… and everything. And I wanted to make it with you. And I made it with you. And you gave me the clap.
I love this funny little speech, and I’m glad we finally have a quality live version of Valarie with one of these teenage breakdowns on an official release. After the speech we get a return to the “la la la la lala”s, and a quick blues walkdown ending, which brings the song and the first set to a close, and wow what a set. It’s easily one of my favorite sets from the original Mothers— just a fantastic time from beginning to end, really everything you could want from the band. If this release was only this set, it’d still be one of my favorite posthumous releases, and there’s still two more great sets after this!
Thank you, teenagers. Okay, right now we’re gonna have a special treat for you. The world famed Alice Cooper musical organization is going to, is going to come lunging up onto our bandstand and uh, plug into the amplifiers and do part of their amazing repertoire for you. For those of you who have not seen Alice Cooper before, you’ll have a rare treat in store—they’re really wonderful, they, they are very unusual, and some of the noises that they make— and pretty too, oh, are they pretty! Delightful. Pay close attention to what they do, they’re a very creative group, they’re gonna sock it towards you and everything. So if we can get them up here, we’re gonna take a little break for a while…
As the first set ends, Frank introduces a very, very young Alice Cooper. Frank only met Alice about a month or so before the show, and it’s rumored that he booked the group simply so he could hear them play live. This was only the band’s second LA show, and well before the group had any kind of notoriety; Frank’s “world famed” comment was very sarcastic. The band’s set isn’t included on the official Zappa release, but it was actually released in the early 90s, under the incorrect title “Live At The Whisky A-Go-Go 1969”. They played a tight 25 minute, eight-song set that was as follows: No Longer Umpire, Today Mueller, 10 Minutes Before The Worm, Levity Ball, Nobody Likes Me, B.B. On Mars, Sing Low, Sweet Cheerio and Changing Arranging. I personally don’t know much about Alice Cooper outside of Schools Out For Summer and his song for Friday The 13th Part VI, so this was an interesting listen and a nice accompaniment to the main set. You can hear The GTOs screaming all throughout the performance too, which is a ton of fun. [I’ve included their set at the end of the playlist linked above].
Set 2:
The second set starts with the Mother’s warming up, so we cut back in on some strange cooing noises and horn licks. You can hear their manager Herb Cohen talk while the saxes warm up, and then Frank introduces the second set, along with the upcoming guests for the night, and shouts out some local LA friends of the band. Vito Paulekas was a dancer and leader in the local Freak scene and a long time friend of the band. Phil Tanzini and Elmer Valentine were the co-owners of the Whisky, and Mr. Cowsill likely refers to one of the brothers from the 60s singing group “The Cowsills”, who were managed by Lenny Stogel. Neil Reshen was another LA music manager, who would later briefly manage FZ’s label Bizzare, and Ray Leong was the photographer of the cover of Freak Out.
Herb Cohen: Change that spot to yellow. Leave it up there. Yeah, leave it there.
Frank: Okay, I think we’re gettin’ about ready to begin. We’re about uh… Don’t forget that we’ve—we have lots of fun and merriment in store this evening. Vito’s dancers and freakers, Wild Man Fischer and Joseph Piresanti. Just watch out. And the GTO’s and the BTO’s! [GTO’s & BTO’s Cheer] And of course there’s always Phil and Elmer, and Mr. Cowsill and Lenny Stogel. To say nothing of Neil Reshen.
Ray: And Ray Leong. And Herbie Cohen. Herbie Cohen on direction.
Frank: Hungry Freaks!
Ray: This is an oldie but a goodie.
Set two starts off with a nice version of the tune that started it all, Hungry Freaks Daddy. While I do enjoy this take, it’s not a perfect version. Frank whips out a great little solo, but the two lead singers get a bit mixed up after this. They sing through the normally instrumental “great Midwestern hardware store” verse after the solo, but they then play the entire second “Mr. America” verse fully instrumental! The reason for this can be found on the film of the performance, where it’s clear that the GTOs were going so insane on stage that the Mothers lose focus! Ultimately it’s not a big deal, we have a ton of versions of this tune, so it’s actually pretty cool to hear it played differently. (FZ also prepared a single mix of this track that was never released, but is available at the end of the box set). Additionally, the take has a longer ending than usual. It’s a neat, almost Stravinsky-esque conclusion that provides a cool, epic segue into King Kong!
There was no doubt a 1968 show as monumental as this would have a King Kong, and if the previous set is any indication then it’s gonna be a good one. The band bursts into the iconic theme, and Motorhead starts us off with his usual out of control, insane, uneducated, free jazz baritone sax explosion. He whips out his regular craziness, and after a minute or so, the band segues into the Gardner Variations, one of the only times we get a full performance of this theme outside of the album. This transitions into a GREAT FZ solo. Minutes of fiery, ripping 60s guitar, interspersed with tasty horn riffs and other zany MOI activities. Just super cool. When this guitar event comes to a close, a few of the other Mothers seem to be stepping up for a solo at the same time. Don starts a cool keyboard event, while one of the saxes blows away, but Frank brings the band down with him and they jam together for a little bit. After a while the lead players fade away, and for a bit our two drummers get the spotlight while Frank sets up the next event. The Mothers scream, there’s a few odd sax honks and squeaks and then Frank proclaims “It’s so nice to have Carl Franzoni out of jail!” Then, out of the drum/horn madness, Frank restarts the King Kong vamp and we get what amounts to a theme-less reprise of the tune. Don plays a little bit before Ray triumphantly announces “and now! The GTO’s!”
While the girls take their places Frank whips out another sick ass guitar solo. This one is still fiery, but a tad mellower than the other, and leads into another, less intense Gardner Variations. After this Frank cues the ⅝ drum riff over which Don plays a rapid solo. It once again doesn’t last long, because the GTOs are now ready to do their thing! Frank tells the band to do Getting To Know You from The King and I, and the Mothers play a goofy instrumental verse before the GTOs join in (off mic) to scream/sing the jaunty musical theater lyrics. It’s a cute little performance, and ends with a complete stop and a brief pause for an applause break. They then segue right into This Is It, better known as the Theme Song to The Bugs Bunny Show. It’s an amusing little number, and it leads right back into the King Kong vamp with a perfect transition. The GTOs only sing for a couple of minutes, but they’re having a great time. The Mothers really ham it up with cheesy, swingin’ arrangements of these two tunes, and overall it’s a surprisingly fun, cute moment. Anyways, after we return to the gorilla, Ian(?) solos a bit before Frank takes the lead once again (though you could argue they’re just all jamming here). This doesn’t last for long though because the Mothers quickly transition into more tweaky drum and synth music, which lasts for the remainder of the tune. After a minute of this, Frank rips into a terrific minute long version of Varese’s Octandre, which acts as a great closer to this epic King Kong.
Octandre is not simply a finale to the story of a large gorilla, it’s also a transition into the third episode of Whisky Improvisation! After the horns screech out the final part of Varese’s disturbed melody, we return to the realm of tweaky drum improv. After about a minute Don comes in with some freaky synth noises, but before long Frank cues the bouncy, swing-ditty music theme, and Bunk starts to play There’s A Small Hotel (an old Richard Rogers standard). Frank then cues the ⅝ riff and brings the band back into chaos. This leads into a section where he cues single note crashes, followed by a mix of this and the goofy swingin’ theme. More full band chaos happens after here, including loud sax screeches, some vomit noises, and a brief but amusing section where Frank conducts some screams from the GTOs. This specific track ends with some angry horn improvisations over the ⅝ riff, followed by some cool, jazzy drum/keyboard licks from Don. The improv continues into a piece titled “Meow” (which is only made separate because Frank used a short segment on YCDTOSA5). Cymbals crash as Don plays the piano, and the band plays some long, eerie descending notes/riffs. Frank continues to slowly conduct creepiness from the Mothers, and on top of this Ray lets out a few strange Meows and other noises, hence the title. Frank goes wild with hand signals at the end of this piece, so we hear peeps, the ⅝ riffs, and tons of moving notes. Then suddenly, God Bless America appears on kazoo!!! What a moment! Yes this is the in context appearance of the iconic Uncle Meat track! The MOI quickly joins in with the gaudy, patriotic lyrics and they proceed to rip out a riotous 30 second performance of Irving Berlin’s wretched little tune. And just where it ends on the album, it ends on the stage and the MOI continues with more tweaky music. Though this only lasts for a few seconds before an unknown person comes on stage to present Frank with a pair of wings…
Unknown Girl: I would like to present you, Frank Zappa, with these wings! May the dearly beloved bless you!
FZ: Thank you! I hope they work. When we last left America…
The tweaky percussive music continues under this strange, somewhat awkward interaction, and Frank resumes his conducting after, but this doesn’t last for long. Someone (probably Motorhead) starts clinking bottles to a vaguely familiar rhythm, and Frank launches into the instantly recognizable Louie Louie chords! The Mothers play an excellent version of Plastic People, which is such a fun moment of pure rock n roll after nearly half an hour of wild free-wheeling improvisations. They go through all three corrupted verses, and Frank yells out some odd words throughout the tune (“Bullshit” before the third verse, and a flatly delivered “change” after every ending “you gotta go”). As the tune fades out, Frank decides that “the only logical thing to do is to bring up Wild Man Fischer”, and the band comes to a halt.
At this point I think the only logical thing to do is to bring up Wild Man Fischer. Now, he’s, he’s one of my favorite entertainers and I’m sure he’s one of yours. And I think it’s only fitting on this night of nights that he gets up here and rocks out for you. He has told me that he has some new material. He’s going to sing two new and unique songs, from which you may never recover. Meanwhile, we’re going to disappear from the bandstand, and after Wild Man’s immaculate teen-age performance, there’ll be a brief intermission, during which I believe that they are going to admit some of the people who are waiting in line and have been waiting in line outside for most of the evening. I’d like to thank you very much for coming down to our recording session, and I hope that you have enjoyed some of the stuff we have attempted to do for you. God love you, each and every one…. [Plastic People stops] Where’s that Wild Man Fischer?
Set 2? Set 3?:
This is another lovely little speech from Frank, and I especially adore his deadpan “God love you each and every one”. He introduces Wild Man Fischer, the local vagrant artist whom FZ was currently producing an album for, and the band leaves the stage so the wild man can come up and do his thing. Some sources note this as the start of the second set, and Frank does announce an intermission after, but the Vaultmeister confirmed on Discord that the Whip is the start of the third set, so I guess what he says goes (though it’s definitely possible he’s mistaken in this instance, he also says that each set starts with improv and this one definitely doesn’t). We don’t know what Fischer’s set consists of, but I’d hazard a guess that he’d sang one or two acapella tunes that would end up on the “An Evening With” album (though it’s possible that he had accompaniment from some of the MOI). It’s a bummer this set isn’t included with the rest, but Wild Man Fischer kinda freaks me out so I probably wouldn’t listen to it too much anyway. When the tape returns with what I guess is the rest of set two, Frank is addressing the audience:
Miss Della has asked to be beaten with this here belt. And, uh— So we will hope— oblige her later, just sort of, uh, beat the shit out of her a little bit later in the show. How about this, Della? [Della: No!] Too little, huh? You want a real belt. Belt you get. Reminds me of New York. All right, this is a song that— that we’ve been working on in secret for a while now. We’re gonna make an attempt to record it. If we mess it up, we’ll just stop and do it over again. It doesn’t have a name yet. But, uh, doesn’t really need one…
This is another classic little speech. Frank delivery is great, and it’s cool to get a prelude to the future iconic whipping event. The absurdity of this moment reminds Frank of his days at the Garrick, but they have a recording session to do, so they get back on track with a very new tune, one they’ve “been working on in secret”: A very early version of Little House I Used To Live In, when it was still known as The Duke! They launch right into “Theme C” of “The Duke”, which is the melodic section starting around 3 minutes into the Burnt Weeny Sandwich version (check out this graph for help understanding the various themes). They play about 90 seconds of Theme C with the guitar/sax bridge section but they skip the little reprise from Theme B (which probably wasn’t even written yet). This then leads into a long, tasty guitar solo with Art Tripp’s drumming as the sole accompaniment.It’s a cool, long exploratory solo, but it doesn’t quite reach the heights of Frank’s other solos this night. Art Tripp is one of my least favorite of FZ’s drummers, and his “percussionist playing a drumset feel” is very evident here. That being said it’s still a great time, with lots of creative playing, and a neat pseudo-Holst section around four and a half minutes in. The piece ends with a neat, corrupted-sounding repetition of the “main” Little House line (the same one that opens up this arrangement of the piece).
Interestingly, FZ tunes his guitar a bit, then goes right back into a second take of the Duke! Frank must have considered this a very important piece if he was willing to prioritize “studio” time for an entire second performance. The guitar/sax improv work on the head is a little nicer than on the first take, and Frank plays a sharper, more to the point solo. It’s at times mellower, and at other times angrier than the first. Overall it’s a very cool take, maybe a bit less groovin’ than the first, but I think I overall prefer how this version feels less meandering. Frank’s solo has a strong ending, and it leads into a nice little keyboard/percussion section not present on the first. Don plays some beautiful keyboards for a minute, before Frank counts off into the next tune, a riotous version of Khaki Sack! This is a fantastic, obscure little RnB number that shows up at the Denver show and was recorded professionally for the 1970 Hot Rats II sessions (see Funky Nothingness). The Mothers expertly play the bouncy theme, and Ian then launches into a terrific, angular, occasionally screechy alto sax solo. He kicks the wah on near the end, which takes us into a nice keyboard solo from Don. He plays a cool, jazzy solo that provides a mellower compliment to Ian’s. When he wraps up it’s Bunk’s turn for a bouncy RnB solo on tenor. This sax solo is more melodic than Ian’s, but still fits the tune very well. Frank follows Bunk with a tasty, playful guitar solo that acts as a great conclusion to this chill jam. Frank plays a quick lick, then cracks his knuckles into the mic, which is like seriously the coolest thing ever. His solo after is just delightful, and it caps off the 10 minute song perfectly. This is a really great performance of this rare tune, and it’s got to be my favorite of the three or four known versions.
After this riotous performance ends, Frank says “Thank you. You can change tapes now if you want, up there in the truck” and the recording cuts out here. Now according to the Vaultmeister this is the end of the second set. There’s no announcement or anything but I’m assuming this is where Joe Piresanti did his Elvis act backed up by the Mothers. It’s either here or after the Mother’s main set, and there’s no spoken introduction to Piresanti’s set from Frank (like we get for Alice Cooper and Wild Man Fischer) so it’s really anyone’s guess. Whatever the case, this second set was quite a blast, with some all time great MOI improvisation pieces (King Kong! The GTOs! God Bless America! The Duke! Khaki Sac!). Up next is another fantastic set (shocker), the nearly fully improvised set number three.
Set 3:
When the music returns, the Mothers have conjured up a plodding police-procedural type beat, over which Don plays a bit of the Grandfather Theme from Peter And The Wolf. This is the one and only piece known as The Whip, an improvised, eerie piece used as background music while Frank whips the crazed Della! (and we can actually see some clips of this in the film of the event!). There’s a cymbal hit about a minute and a half in, and that’s a good audial cue for when the actual whipping begins. Don plays a creepy keyboard solo over the tortured beat, and I think it’s his longest of the set. He really takes the opportunity to stretch out over this interesting, dark vamp. Around five minutes the beat gets heavier, and Frank returns to the aural scene with a terrific guitar solo. The two “talented” horn players come in with some tasty licks near the start, but Frank is the star of the show here. His energetic rock guitar provides a nice contrast to Don’s slow creeping piano, and brings a considerable amount of energy to the jam. He starts off in the dark and brooding vein, but as the jam goes on Frank ends up lightening the mood, and after a few minutes we’re back into regular MOI Boogie territory (which is never a bad thing). [I should also note here that prepared a few edits of This Whip event that never ending up on a release in his life time, a 12 minute version released as a bonus track on the Whisky Set, and a five minute version found on an early cut of Uncle Meat, released on Meat Light]
It’s around this point that we shift into the next track “Whisky Chouflée”, which is simply a gail-core name for the RnB shuffle jam that emerges from the ashes of the Whip. Frank continues with his tasty guitar solo, but over a more upbeat, jangly vamp. Around two minutes in, the band returns to a vamp very similar to the Khaki Sack solo vamp from the previous set. Frank plays the familiar rhythm and the horns join in, and the band jams and modulates this riff for a few minutes before Bunk takes over with a delightful bouncy, 50s-esque solo. His solo eventually morphs into what amounts to an instrumental version of Joe Huston’s All Night Long (which the MOI will play a ton the following year) [It’s also possible this is just a kinda basic RnB type-beat that they just accidentally landed on]. As this crescendos, Frank brings the band down behind him and makes an announcement that he’s got “some friends out in the audience” he’d like to bring up, including “The Turtles, John Mayall, Elliot Ingber, from the Fraternity Of Man, and I’d like to have the members of the Rolling Stones that are in the audience to come buffing up here too, so we can play ‘Be-Bop-A-Lula.’ So Cool! (Also the Be-Bop-A-Lulu reference always cracks me up).
“We have some friends out in the audience and we’d like to bring ’em up. If they feel like doing their— If they feel like doing their thing, it would be nice to have the uh, presence on stage of The Turtles, John Mayall, Elliot Ingber, from the Fraternity Of Man, and I’d like to have the members of the Rolling Stones that are in the audience to come buffing up here too, so we can play ‘Be-Bop-A-Lula.’
Immediately after this the RnB jam continues where it left off, and Ray starts to sing Bill Haley’s Crazy Man, Crazy! Frank helps him out with the lyrics, but they quickly transition into a cool version of Annie Had A Baby (originally recorded by The Midnighters, but later recorded by Don and Dewey). Right as Frank finishes the chorus, he tears into a smooth RnB guitar solo. This doesn’t last long though as the guitar kinda peters out as something visual clearly happens on stage (you can hear the GTOs losing their minds). We then get a quieter section of rapid, almost surf-rock like guitar and horn lines, which morph back into the ongoing RnB throwback tribute jam. They almost morph into “Shortnin’ Bread” near the end, but Ian stops this with a lovely little sax solo to end this section of the jam. The whole 20 minute event comes to a lovely guitar walkdown conclusion after this, though it doesn’t seem like anyone in the audience actually took Frank up on his offer to come up on stage. Frank and Ray banter about this for a little bit, but it’s now time for the big finale to the whole 5 hour event, the live debut of Brown Shoes Don’t Make It!
Frank: “Where’s— Mark? I know you’re out there. You frizzy-headed person.”
Ray: “Mark Turtle?”
Frank: “Yeah. Mark the Turtle.”
Ray: “The Turtles are coming. Elliot.”
Frank: “And John Mayall, where is he? Wedged in the crowd someplace? Where are they now? And whatever happened to those Rolling Stones?”
Ray: “Somebody throw ’em up here.”
Frank: “All right. Hold— Quiet for just a second. We’re gonna attempt something now that we’ve never performed on stage before. Might be a little raggedy in spots but, what the heck. Now, when we first recorded ‘Brown Shoes Don’t Make It,’ it was— it was pretty much of an ordeal, because some of the music, uh, was a little hard to play, and we were kept messing it up and all that stuff, and l— ’bout two years later we’ve finally got around to pretending like we learned it, and we have been rehearsing on it diligently for about a month now, and, uh, I don’t know what’s gonna happen, but this is the, the world premiere live of ‘Brown Shoes Don’t Make It.’”
Yes you heard right, the live premier of Brown Shoes! This perverted epic is a bit rough around the edges as Frank implies, but we got the whole thing going here! This is another piece where I strongly assume Joe cut out some false starts. It’s a great live performance, and though it’s a little barebones in instrumentation, it’s great to hear all the Mothers sing (especially Jimmy! – “Got another year of school….”) Frank has to count in the “world of secret hungers” bit, and he pretty instantly cracks up at Roy’s falsetto in this section. The “city hall” section features great disturbing, distorted keyboards, and this continues through the next through sections. We get a few more “baby baby” screams then on the album, and Frank has to count in the band again for the instrumental section after the “she digs it in bed” line. This instrumental section is pretty rough, but it’s still cool to hear, and by the end they handle it pretty well. It leads into a few seconds of jamming (unlike the album version) before quickly returning to normal with the “do it again and do it some more” bit (the way this section gets so cheery is just so cursed). An unknown woman, almost certainly one of the GTOs, provides the “what would you do daddy” lines, which makes Frank shudder with disgust before the iconic transition into the “smother my daughter in chocolate syrup” section. They continue through with the terrific end of the piece, and we get an additional 30 second instrumental coda! In place of the big crash out that ends the studio take (after two takes of the final chugging rock vamp with some brief horn soloing), we hear the neat, peaceful instrumental ending heard on Tinsel Town Rebellion 12 years later. This ending is a bit rough, but a great addition to the piece. I think it actually works better than the 60s freak out ending of the original. In fact I always forget that it’s not in the studio take! This is a great performance of this raw, edgy, uncompromising tune, and it’s so cool that they played it at such an important show.
But things get even cooler, because when the piece ends, Frank immediately comes back in with the original main “Brown Shoes” riff, and proceeds to solo over it. This is a track named “Brown Shoes Shuffle” and it’s simply sick as fuck. After Frank’s short solo, he hands the reins over to Bunk for a tasteful tenor sax jam. Bunky Gardner blows his horn for a while before the rest of the lead players slowly creep back in. After about five minutes the Brown Shoes vamp starts to fade, and both Ian and Bunk solo at once. The drum beat takes a turn towards the avant-garde, and the horns scream as tension builds up before Frank brings the band to a lull for more creepy keyboard sounds from Don over a strange, almost classical drum beat. The GTOs and the crowd scream while the tweaky weirdness happens onstage, and an unknown man announces “try to be soft with it girls” (Kim Fowley again?). Immediately following this strange comment the Mothers burst back into life and Frank whips out a fantastic guitar solo (with another sick ass knuckle crack). [Frank actually had a short edit of this ending solo on an early version of Uncle Meat – see Whisky Wah on Meat Light]. After a couple minutes of delicious wah-drenched guitar, FZ brings the band down behind him for a final amusing announcement that ends the show (see below). He conducts a massive crash, before playing a blues walkdown, followed by another blues walkdown, and another blues walkdown. In total he ends up playing like seven or eight of these before a final hysterical, seemingly neverending one concludes the jam. Frank gives a solemn “thank you” which brings this monumental night to an end.
“Gee, boys and girls, it sure has been swell having you over here to our teen-age recording session. And we hope you come back to the next one—if we can ever raise the money to have another one. Gee whiz, it has been delightful. We’ll see ya, good night!”
What a fantastic show. One of my favorite and most listened to posthumous releases. This night doesn’t have all the true chaotic energy of a regular MOI show, but it isn’t a regular MOI show. To be able to hear this early era of the Mothers in such fantastic quality is truly an eye opening event. With a few notable exceptions (like the The Orange County Lumber Truck Medley or Mr Green Genes), we get an excellent version of nearly every major piece performed by the Mothers in this era, all captured on a fantastic recording, wonderfully mixed and mastered by Joe Travers and the Universal team. I also have to mention the film of the event, which on its own is a fantastic piece of archival FZ media. The footage is silent and fragmented, but Mr. Travers was able to sync it up with the music and create a wonderful visual experience of the concert. The video is too short and fragmented to get its own release, so they threw it up on YouTube for all to enjoy! The video includes clips of Status Back Baby, Memories Of El Monte, Oh In The Sky, Hungry Freaks Daddy, King Kong (with some of the GTO’s performance), the third set of improvisations (including Meow and the Presentation Of Wings), Della’s Preamble, The Duke, Khaki Sack and The Whipping event itself! We also get some cool footage from outside the Whisky as the audience waits to enter (set to Khaki Sack), as well as tons of clips of the GTOs writhing around on stage. It’s also great to see Frank use his hand signals, and to see Ray use his strange props, the most notable being a baby doll with an black egg-shaped head. Additionally, Joe wasn’t able to find the pieces of film Frank used in his own videos (ex. Peaches In Regalia & the obscure Burnt Weeny Sandwich film), so those are missing from the recent official upload.
What more can I say? Wonderful song choice, great performances, and hours of fantastic spontaneity and improvisations from one of the most unique bands to ever exist. This is one of the best vault releases, and a high point of the original Mothers Of Invention. Listen to it right now!!!
1968 08 03 – Central Park, New York, NY (Two Shows – Audience B+ and Stage A-/C+)
click here to listen to the early show
click here to listen to the late show
Early Show:
We have two lovely recordings from this date, which have been painstakingly identified by the Zappa fan community. It’s apparently still up in the air if this is the right location and date, but this is the best guess we’ve got. The early show was captured on a slightly distorted but highly listenable audience tape. Frank walks on stage and tells the crowd: “I’d like to say it’s really wonderful to be back in New York, but…. It’s not. New York is no place for human beings to live in.” He acknowledges “a request for Hang On Sloopy” (“we’ll save that for later when we get to the heavy stuff”) and one for Trouble Every Day, and decides to start with the latter.
Frank: “Hey listen, it’s gonna take us a few minutes to set up, so you can sit around, pick your nose, or do whatever…. I got a lotta slides[?] to plug in, and stuff. I’d like to say it’s really wonderful to be back in New York, but…. It’s not. New York is no place for human beings to live in.”
Ray: “New York sucks”
Frank “[Cuts In]…a request for Hang On Sloopy… we’ll save that for later when we get to the heavy stuff [Fan: “Do Trouble Comin ‘Every Day!”]. We’ve also had a request for Trouble Every Day, and I think we’ll start with that.”
We get a sick take of the Watts riot song, with a fiery solo from Frank, followed by solid harmonica jam from Ray. Ian blows a modulated sax solo over the ending, which pretty quickly morphs into some classic OG Mothers improv with snorks, screeching sax, and other conducted madness (crashes, that goofy little upbeat swing ditty, the ⅝ riff, etc.). The chaos comes to an end when Frank rips into the intro to Hungry Freaks Daddy. Another fun, standard take, that has a great, cymbal-y transition into a hot King Kong. This is the first known take with Motorhead providing the opening solo! His raw, screeching jam leads into more hot solos from Don, Bunk, Don (again) and Frank. At the very end Frank cues the ⅝ riff for a sec, an we get two minutes of tweaky percussion improvisation from Jimmy and Art (FZ: “Isn’t this really psychedelic now?”). After about a minute and a half FZ comes in with low, droning guitar, then suddenly switches to the theme to Mr. Green Genes and the whole band quickly follows. It’s a great take, with fun solos from Ian, Don, Bunk, and Frank. This leads to their first full stop of the night, where FZ announces “now we’ll proceed with, uh, some bullshit!” and dives right into the absolutely unhinged My Boyfriend’s Back/I’m Gonna Bust His Head medley (“Aww, son of a gun, the boyfriend is coming home and he’s really pissed off”). This leads directly into Tiny Sick Tears, where Ray sings some made up “gotta gotta, baby baby” lyrics, and instead of heading into the cookie lecture Frank announces “We’ve had a request for Hang On Sloopy [Fan: “Yeah!”], are you the guy that asked for it? Come up here and sing it!”
Ray: Gotta! Gotta! Baby! Baby! Baby! In the midnight hour! Ah! Baby! Ah! Baby! Oh Baby I need your love [Another Mother: “Gotta gotta, yeah, yeah, yeah…”] Give me your love! Ah! [“Gotta gotta, yeah, yeah, yeah…”] Sha-na-na-na. It’s so groovy[?] being a rock n roll singer folks. Sha-na-na-na. Hey hey, okay, what’a’ya say? Rock n roll. Baby! Gimme your love, or at least make me a tuna fish sandwich”
Frank: “We’ve had a request for Hang On Sloopy [Yeah!], are you the guy that asked for it? Come up here and sing it! Somebody show him how to get up here- a new talent is born! [Crowd cheers] He’ll be right up ladies and gentleman, I know you’re all waiting! [More cheers] Hey! Ladies and gentleman here he is, Billy Velvet! Billy Velvet to sing Hang On Sloopy, what key you do it in Billy? [Billy: “C! Testing, testing…”] He’s dynamite isn’t he folks!”
[Mid-Hang On Sloopy]
“He’s dynamite folks!” [Billy yells something; More Sloopy] “Okay, that was the imitation white people soul version of Hang On Sloopy, now we’re gonna do the psychedelic version of Hang On Sloopy with Billy Velvet! As you all know, in order to perform Psychedelic music, you have to put fuzz tone on everything!”
The head Mother brings up “Billy Velvet” to sing Hang On Sloopy, in the key of C (“He’s dynamite isn’t he folks!”) and the band rips into the classic Louie Louie chords (because what is Hang On Sloopy but a low rent version of the Kingsman’s classic). Billy knows the chorus to the song, and like sorta remembers the verses. He croons for a little while (“He’s dynamite folks!”), and Frank comes back in to say: “Okay, that was the imitation white people soul version of Hang On Sloopy, now we’re gonna do the psychedelic version of Hang On Sloopy with Billy Velvet! As you all know, in order to perform psychedelic music, you have to put fuzz tone on everything!” He rips into a wildly entertaining, distorted, stupid version of the tune, and after a little while the jam comes to end, and the crowd freaks out (“You don’t like the psychedelic version of Hang On Sloopy featuring Billy Velvet? What aren’t you teenagers or something?). Frank comments that “Albert Grossman is signing [Billy] tomorrow”, and then fields audience requests for a few minutes (“Do we have a request for Lumpy Gravy!?…. Chapel of Love by the Dixie Cups?… The Bristol Stomp?”). Eventually someone asks for Wipe Out, and of course Frank goes for this.
“You don’t like the psychedelic version of Hang On Sloopy featuring Billy Velvet? What aren’t you teenagers or something? Let’s have a big hand for Billy Velvet, he did a swell job! I’m sure you’re all very happy to know that Albert Grossman is signing him tomorrow, and who knows next week… The Fillmore, maybe bigger and better places: The Scene.”
[People yell requests]
“Why, are we being besieged by a large number of requests? Alright wait a minute, do we have a request for Lumpy Gravy!? Okay we’ll play part of Lumpy Gravy for ya.” [More screams] “Chapel of Love by the Dixie Cups?… The Bristol Stomp?”
“Boy are you guys ever enthusiastic…. Wipe Out! Okay we offered you something better but here’s Wipe Out, followed by probably a lot of the requests you asked for, the only catch is… let’s say that if he’s playing, uh, one of the songs, and he’s playing another one of the songs, and he’s playing another one of the songs and we play them all at once, theoretically we will have played your requests, the only problem is that it’ll sound like the psychedelic version of Hang On Sloopy… Here’s Wipe Out!”
We get a very faithful version of the surf classic, about a minute long, complete with drum solo, and after this joyous performance, as the audience is dreading hearing eight different songs at once, Frank instead decides to lead into a lovely, straight performance of Go Cry On Somebody Else’s Shoulder (“Go lean on somebody else’s ‘47 Ford pickup”). This ends the main set, but Frank returns and tells us they’re “allowed to play 60 seconds of some other bullshit”, so they’ll perform the “mutilated fuzz tone version” of “a piece of music that was written by a composer named by Edgard Varese”; Octandre (“ just imagine this is Caravan with a drum solo“).
Frank: “We’ll be right back! Hey listen, understand we’re running this on a very ti-[Fans: “Caravan with a drum solo!”], okay wait a minute. We’re running this operation on a very tight schedule. We’re allowed to play 60 seconds of some other bullshit in the words of our man backstage. [Fan: “Caravan with a drum solo!”] That lasts more than 60 seconds, instead… Well just be quiet and we will! This is our mutilated version of a piece of music that was written by a composer named by Edgar Verese, the piece was called Octandre, in its original, uh, form. But now, in its mutilated fuzz tone version, we, uh, call it by a number of different names. To please those people back there, just imagine this is Caravan with a drum solo. Sing along…”
Emcee [After Octandre]: “Fantastic, fantastic, my god, music for a Sunday morning here! Hey don’t forget now, out this way and the people…..
We get a regular version of this Mothers Of Invention staple, and this lovely chaos brings the first show to an end (Emcee: “Fantastic, fantastic, my god, music for a Sunday morning here!”). This show may be my favorite Zappa performance from the 60s, and I highly recommend anyone reading to check it out.
Late Show:
The late show recording is a completely different beast. It’s captured on a (usually) solid stage tape that was circulating in four different parts for many years. Eventually it was determined that all the loose fragments came from the same show, and it’s been presented that way ever since. The unfortunate part of this recording is that when the full band joins in, the levels get too high and all we can hear is horribly distorted bass, making the composed themes on this tape frequently hard to listen to (hence the A-/C+ rating). Despite this, there are some really fun performances on this tape. We start off with flute improvisations from Bunk, which Frank describes as “jazz rock heavily Influenced by Al Kooper“. Frank and Bunk chat back and forth for a little, and the silver haired flutist plays bits of Varese’s Density 21.5, the last movement of Boulez’s Le Marteau Sans Maître and Moe Koffman’s Swingin’ Shepherd Blues (FZ: “I know you hippies, you’re all so funky”).
Frank: “He likes it a lot… How would Richard Goldstein interpret this performance? Obviously it’s jazz rock… Heavily Influenced by Al Kooper. Bunk has been very impressed by the viscosity of the environment. In his new album ‘New York And Why I Think It Is Bitchin’ Bunk Gardner, disguised as an elderly surf eunuch, c’mon play! Just look at the lips on that sucker! Here he is girls! Bunk, would you interpret this piece for the audience, would you explain to them exactly what you’re trying to accomplish in this particular…”
Bunk: “Certainly Frank, we’ll start with the viscosity of an F, you feel it?”
Frank: “He’s socking it to ya, c’mon”
Bunk: “That’s what I call 3.5 Frank”
Frank: “Density 3.5?”
Bunk: “That’s it. Yeah split that last one”
Frank: “Density 21.5” [Gong hit]
Bunk: “And then we wrote”
Frank: “You have just heard a piece of the last movement of Le Marteau Sans Maître by Pierre Boulez”
Bunk: “I’m glad you recognized it Frank”
Frank: “Everytime I hear a gong and a flute…”
Bunk: “This is many hairs[?]”
Frank: “Hey listen, we know where these people are at, play the Swinging Shepherd Blues”
Frank: “I know you hippies, you’re all so funky”
Frank: “Lurking in the background, we have Jimmy Carl Black, the indian of the group, with his newly painted fire engine red drum set. Jimmy Carl Black, is a, he’s an amazing person. Just look at his hair. If you didn’t know he was Jimmy Carl Black, the indian of the group, you’d think he was Susan Hayward. Ronda Fleming? Wanda Hendrix? Jimmy Carl Black thinks New York sucks. [Help I’m A Rock starts] That pulsating Cherokee Indian teenage rhythm… Arthur Tripp, our other boss teenage percussionist, seems to think New York leaves something to be desired.”
Frank then turns his attention to “Jimmy Carl Black, the Indian of the group, with his newly painted fire engine red drum set.” He compares Jimmy to three different golden age film actresses, and cues a segue into Help I’m A Rock (FZShows lists Transylvania Boogie with this performance, but I don’t hear it). He shouts out Art next (“our other boss teenage percussionist”), but when Roy’s bass line comes in the sound quality goes out the window. After an unlistenable minute or two, the levels sorta normalize, and Ray starts to sing the title lyric (FZ: “It’s just like Simon and Garfunkel…”). Frank begins a rocking guitar solo after this, but it’s way too low in the mix, losing most of its power. Don plays a freaky solo next, and Bunk and Ian continue the jam with concurrent solos. FZ comes in with Funiculi Funicula around 11 minutes, right before a tape cut. The recording returns to Ian soloing over the tail end of the jam (there’s a solid chance Transylvania Boogie was played during this cut), and it’s followed by a really funny smooth transition into Baby Love of all things. 50 seconds of dumb poppy RnB is followed by FZ penned dumb poppy RnB: Big Leg Emma. Both are really funny, but they also highlight the weird, non-ideal, lopsided mix of this recording (“Sock it to me….”). This leads to our first tuning break of the show. The band chats for a bit, until Frank announces a new tune: “Shortly”, which we all know as Holiday In Berlin
“The name of this piece is Shortly. [Tuning] This is a long complicated instrumental song with a bunch of little units to it. Sometimes we fuck it up. One, two, three, four…”
Unfortunately, the theme of the piece is wildly distorted and unlistenable to my ears, but once we get to Frank’s solo the levels normalize, and you can actually hear the guitar fairly well at this point. About six minutes in, Bunk (I think…) starts to solo with Frank, and by the last minute of the tune, Frank has finished, but Ian joins in and we get some tasty dual sax improv. Sadly the recording cuts out before the true end of the jam, and we’re thrown into the beginning of a nice Trouble Every Day, with a solid harmonica solo, and a long, jamming guitar solo from the head Mother. This ends the main set, but they return for a final number, a sick Orange County Lumber Truck medley.
“Thank you, that’s a very nice gesture. The name of this song is The Orange County Lumber Truck. Orange County Lumber Truck is a composite medley which encompasses instrumental versions of themes from We’re Only In It For The Money and Lumpy Gravy, and that’s about it boys and girls.”
The main theme is a little distorted, but nowhere near as bad as previous numbers. There’s a cut during the theme to Oh No, taking out a solid chunk of the tune, and sending us right into the solo section. The recording resumes part way through Bunk’s solo (at least I’m pretty sure it’s not Ian…), followed by Don, Roy (surprisingly), and finally a drum jam from Jimmy and Art. Once the jam wraps up, Frank returns with the ending theme of Oh No! Meaning all the improv actually was in said tune. They end tonight’s performance with the Orange County Lumber Truck proper, and instead of heading into more jamming we get a goofy blues walkdown to finish the performance. This is a fun, but seriously flawed recording. The occasional distortion hampers enjoyability, the mix leaves room for improvement, and the cuts are all pretty unfortunate. While there’s some excellent playing scattered through this tape, it still isn’t a bootleg I return to often. Check this one out if you want more OG Mothers, but there are a number of better shows to check out first.
1968 02-08 XX – Unknown Venue and Date (Stage A/A-)
For years this fun little 20 minute tape was known as Ann Arbor: December ‘67, but in 2021 the council of Zappateers noted Art Tripp is on the recording, therefore the earliest date this tape could be from is late February 1968. Additionally, since Ray Collins is present too, it can’t be any later than August ‘68. This gives us a rough time frame for this recording, but not much more than that (though see more on this later…) The tape starts part-way through some classic Mothers improv, with screeching saxes, high pitched mouth noises, and the ⅝ riff. Ray declares (to my ears) that “Anaheim sucks”, Motorhead starts to snork, and Frank yells “theoretically this is music for pigs!”. A few seconds later he announces “more pig music!”, and we’re launched into a great America Drinks.
Frank: “Welcome to the La Puente bowl!
Ray: “Well I see the ol’ clock on the wall it’s about time we [hang it?] up. Golly gee, hope you had as much fun as we’ve had, because we certainly had fun. That’s why we’re here. So again, Sunday’s a jam session, Saturday night’s a twist contest. Tuesday we’re going topless. Wednesday we’re going naked. Thursday we’re going to smoke Disneyland. [Crowd Laughs] Friday we’re going to jail. Saturday we’re going to shoot up some cantaloupe. And so on and so forth. Golly gee, nice to see you. Check your cheese, how’s your mama been? How’s your sister? If they get a rain[?], they got a good car [?]. How nice for you. Wonderful. Nice to see you again. Double pump. Vo-do-de-oh. Scooby-doo. Sha-la-la. De-ya-da-da-da-da-da……”
FZ shouts “Welcome to the La Puente Bowl” in the middle of the tune, and Ray says that “Friday we’re going to jail, Saturday we’ll shoot up some cantaloupe…” He scats for a little, and we get a hard transition to an excellent Hungry Freaks Daddy. It’s a regular, energetic performance that makes a smooth transition into the following tune: King Kong. It’s a great, 15+ minute take with hot solos from Don, Bunk and Ian, and two great jams from Frank! It eventually devolves into chaotic screams and scary keyboards (with the ⅝ riff thrown in for good measure). There is then a sudden transition into Status Back Baby, but we unfortunately only have the first 50 seconds, and the recording ends immediately after this. This tape was originally presented with two additional tracks (a recording of Big Leg Emma and a King Kong fragment), but these were realized to be from a different recording (best guess is 1969 08 08 Framingham). There are no confirmed locations for this recording, but due to Ray’s announcement in the improvisations (and Frank’s “La Puente Bowl” comment in America Drinks), my best guess is that this tape comes from the 1968 06 15 Anaheim, CA show. Ray even mentions Disneyland in America Drinks! The setlist is similar to what they play on the Steve Allen show a week and a half later, but this could totally just be a coincidence. Anyway, no matter where the recording originates, this is an excellent sounding tape, and a lovely document of this band. It’s not the single most exciting moment in The Mother’s history, but it’s well worth a listen.
The Songs Played:
Absolutely Free – An early, instrumental version of the We’re Only In It For Money tune arises out of free improvisations at the second Fillmore show. Frank starts by playing a very slow, embellished version of the title line of the tune (“You’ll be absolutely free/Only if you want to be”). He repeats the phrase, and then heads into the chugging instrumental/scat section right before the end of the tune. After this Frank plays a much quicker, more put together take of the title line, which brings the tune to an end (just like on the studio album). Once they finish, they quickly delve back into more improv, and the show continues. A cool little oft-forgotten FZ melody that’s a joy to hear the handful of times it pops up live.
America Drinks – This Zappa classic is essentially performed as America Drink & Goes Home on Absolutely Free, including Bunk’s constant soprano sax and Ray’s improvised, “closing time” end-of-song bar announcements. A lovely tune, and a highlight of Ray’s time with The Mothers.
Baby Love – The Mothers do the Supremes (for about a minute). This song was typically played in a large medley introduced in ‘67, that went You Didn’t Try to Call Me>Petrushka>The Bristol Stomp>Baby Love>Big Leg Emma (though at the Central Park late show they only played the last two tunes). It is a pretty straight parody/tribute to the 1964 hit single. They play the tune way quicker than we’re used to, giving it a chaotic feel, and they sing it in a goofy falsetto, which is the cherry on top. They wrap up most of the lyrics and head right into Frank’s own doo-wop parody: Big Leg Emma.
Big Leg Emma – Frank described this tune as “an attempt to make dumb music to appeal to dumb teenagers”, and I think that’s pretty apt. This song was typically played in a large medley introduced in ‘67, that went You Didn’t Try to Call Me>Petrushka>The Bristol Stomp>Baby Love>Big Leg Emma (though at the Central Park late show they only played the last two tunes). The bulk of the song is there, but it’s a little faster than the studio take, it’s sung by Jim Black, and the lyrics are slightly tweaked. The chorus order on the single take goes “put on weight”, “face broke out” and then ends with a “face broke out” repetition, but the two takes we have from this era have seemingly random chorus orders (At the Fillmore it’s Weight>Face>Weight, and in Central Park it’s Face>Weight>Weight). They end each performance with a blues walkdown, as opposed to the fade out heard on the single (and Absolutely Free CD). Overall, this is one of my favorite purposely-dumb FZ tunes; It’s a great finale to this medley and I love hearing it whenever it pops up.
Bristol Stomp – The Mothers play 40 seconds of this 1961 hit by originally recorded by The Dovells in the middle of a large medley introduced in ‘67, that went You Didn’t Try to Call Me>Petrushka>The Bristol Stomp>Baby Love>Big Leg Emma (though at the Central Park late show they only played the last two tunes). Ray only sings some of the lyrics, and ends it with an amusing little pre-written speech on “woah woah”s (“You show me your woah woah and I’ll show you mine”). They play the tune faster than the Dovells did, and it leads directly into a similar parody of Baby Love. What’s not to like?
Brown Shoes Don’t Make It: This disturbed Absolutely Free epic made its live debut at the Whisky-A-Go-Go, and is surprisingly close to the album version, with a couple of minor deviations of course. The tune is a bit shaky due to its new-ness, and there’s a few spots where Frank has to count the band in between sections, but it’s overall an accurate performance. Roy sings some extra “Baby, Baby”s over the instrumental section of that chunk of the song (four times live vs two times on the album), there’s an extra little vamp right before the “do it again and do it some more” verse, and there’s a sick Ian Underwood(?) sax solo-ette over the post-“I run the world from city hall” instrumental section. And finally, in place of the orchestral chaos to finish the tune, we get a new, composed instrumental ending (much later heard on Tinseltown Rebellion). It’s a fairly peaceful addition to the song, and works well as a kind of contrasting ending to the vile tune. After the piece finishes, Frank starts playing the opening vamp and begins to solo! He plays a short solo, then passes it off to Bunk for a long tasty sax solo. Bunk and Ian then duet for a little, before the jam devolves into some classic MOI tweaky weirdness. Finally Frank comes back in for a fantastic, full-length solo, which ends in a hysterical cavalcade of blues walkdowns. This jam has been titled Brown Shoes Shuffle, and Frank actually considered releasing an edit of his solo as Whisky Wah on an early version of Uncle Meat. We only have two other live performances of this song from the original Mothers, so it’s well worth checking this one out. It’s a bit shakier than the other performances, but the sound quality is fantastic!
Cruising For Burgers – This Uncle Meat tune was played at least once, as a closing number for the second Fillmore show. The song is played as an instrumental (I’m assuming Frank hadn’t written lyrics yet), and the intro is a little different (it’s basically always changing). On the studio album we get that short, synth-y introduction, but at the Fillmore the tune starts off with two bars of steady drumming. Frank plays guitar throughout, and in this specific performance he plays the hula lick to end the tune. A nice little melody, one of my favorites from this period.
Dead Air – This “song” is exactly what it sounds like. Frank talks to the audience for a bit at the first Fillmore show, then loudly announces “DEAD AIR!” before ceasing all on-stage entertainment. This riles the audience up, so Frank eventually tells the band to play some “concerto shit”, which leads Don to start playing a little bit of Brahms’ Lullaby while the rest of The Mothers continue to mess around on stage (I could arguably give this its own entry or include it with improvisations, but It feels like an extension of Dead Air to me). An amusing “performance”, and a classic example of The Mothers fucking with their listeners.
Duke of Earl – The Mother’s break out into a demented version of this 1962 Gene Chandler classic at the Denver show. As they wind down some improvisations, Ray starts to slowly chant the opening of the tune, and Frank comes in to talk-sing a good chunk of the lyrics (“You’ll be my Duch-ess, my Du-chess of Earl!”). The gag performance ends with a marvelous transition into King Kong.
Duke of Prunes – This Absolutely Free tune appears out of some improv at the second Fillmore show. Frank starts by calmly playing the opening chords, and after about 30 seconds Ray comes in to beautifully sing the opening verse. He yells “new cheese!”, and FZ quickly delves the band back into improvisational chaos (This following section is usually listed as Amnesia Vivace, but really it’s just free improv with no relation to the studio track). Overall a nice performance and a fun moment in the show, but I wish we got the full tune.
Go Cry on Somebody Else’s Shoulder – This Freak Out song was only ever played live a handful of times, but it was played at least twice in 1968, in Denver and Central Park (though the Denver performance unfortunately cuts out after about 9 seconds). The arrangement is largely the same as on the studio album, but with a standard handful of differences. The tune is sung by Frank and Ray, with FZ providing dumb low doo-wop vocals. Frank decided to omit the improvised, spoken teenage ending, so the tune ends with a walkdown after “I don’t love you anymore”. FZ also says “I don’t need you, I don’t want you” as the tune finishes, foreshadowing “Little Rubber Girl” 10 years later! Additionally, Frank also changed the fourth line from “And you say you’re back to stay” to “And you say you wanna buy some acid”, which was a regular part of the 60s live arrangement. A very nice tune, showcasing the beauty that Ray brought to the original Mothers.
God Bless America – This gaudy, patriotic, Irving Berlin number pops up amidst a long improvisation during the second set of the July Whisky-A-Go-Go show. Frank cues the tune out of the typical tweaky MOI madness, and someone (Motorhead? Ray?) starts to play the melody on kazoo. After 15 seconds of kazoo, Frank belts out the first half of the first verse, then shouts as the band returns to more tweaky improv. Frank of course excised this entire 34 second performance for that classic moment on Uncle Meat. I’ve always wanted to hear this track in its full context, and it’s great we finally get to on the full Whisky box set.
Handsome Cabin Boy/Wedding Dress Song – These are two traditional songs that Frank worked into a medley and played around with off and on throughout the 60s (a studio version can be heard on The Lost Episodes, but in reverse order). We have one performance of this medley from this era, from the Detroit show. Frank cues the Don to play Handsome Cabin Boy, and the two of them perform a very mellow, beautiful take of the tune. After about 50 seconds the full band comes in as they switch to The Wedding Dress Song (with the melody played primarily on flute and sax). Bunk plays a flute solo immediately following the theme, and Ian whips out a sax solo after him. Meanwhile, Frank starts playing the themes to Dog Breath and (later on) Little House I Used To Live In during Ian’s solo. Eventually the band joins in with the theme to Little House, and this brings the jam to an end. A lovely, beautiful medley, and another major reason to check out the Detroit gig.
Hang On Sloopy – Audience member Billy Velvet requested this 1964 McCoys tune at the Central Park early show. Billy screams for the song early on in the concert, FZ tells him that he can come up and sing it later, and he sticks to his word. The Mothers start Tiny Sick Tears, but partway through Frank remembers that “We’ve had a request for Hang On Sloopy”, and brings Billy on stage to sing it. They kick into Louie Louie (because it’s basically the same song), and we get an absolutely ridiculous performance, with Billy screaming and slurring all the words he can remember. Eventually Frank announces that we’ve just heard “the imitation white people soul version of Hang On Sloopy” and that we’re now gonna hear “the psychedelic version of Hang On Sloopy” (which means FZ turns on the Fuzz tone). The psychedelic version of Hang On Sloopy is a hysterical chaotic mess, and I love everything about it. If you’re a fan of dumb things like me I’d check out the Central Park early show for this moment alone.
Help I’m a Rock/Transylvania Boogie – This Freak Out classic is, surprisingly, a regular number in the latter half of 1968, usually connected with the Chunga’s Revenge track Transylvania Boogie. The medley first pops up at the Whisky show and then appears one more time in Central Park before Ray leaves for good. Frank and Ray “sing” Help I’m A Rock over the simple, creepy beat, and then veer into some classic freak-vocalizations. Frank would then typically play around with the lyrics for a bit (“help I’m a cop”, “help I’m the mayor”, etc.), before eventually playing the theme to Transylvania Boogie over the Help I’m A Rock backing beat. The theme to Transylvania Boogie is actually a bit longer than what’s heard in the middle of the released Chunga’s Revenge track, which is an edit of a much larger jam. Anyway, after they play Transylvania Boogie they launch into a fantastic middle-eastern style jam, with soloing from Frank, Don, Bunk and/or Ian. Kim Fowley provides guest vocalizations during the Whisky performance, and thus this version is more freak-vocal oriented than future performances (though we still get some great full band jamming under the atmospheric ramblings). Kim ends the tune with an amusing doo-wop speach which provides a fantastic transition to the Boyfreind’s Back medley. The Central Park performance lacks Frank’s usual “Help I’m A Cop” Spiel and misses Transylvania Boogie entirely, and we instead get a long fiery jam that emerges from Help I’m A Rock proper (including a bit of Funiculì, Funiculà on guitar over the sax solos). There is a cut about 10 minutes into the jam, so it’s possible that this could explain the discrepancies in this specific performance, but it’s unusual they would appear this late into the jam. In any case, Help I’m A Rock is always a delight whenever it pops up, with or without the lovely Transylvania Boogie. An easy highlight of the 60s for me.
Holiday in Berlin – This beautiful melody from Burnt Weeny Sandwich first appears on this tour, and was originally known by the title Shortly. The tune was played live at least twice, and our earliest performance is from the Fillmore East late show. Frank begins by playing theme B of the piece (click here for a table breaking down the segments), and the rest of the band (or possibly just Ian) joins in to complete the tune. They actually don’t even play what I consider the main theme of the tune (the first 45 seconds of the studio take) or the repeat of theme B. The individual sections of the piece are all spaced apart, like the musicians are unsure what comes next. It’s a slow, shaky, barebones performance, but still enjoyable. Following the theme, Frank plays a lengthy, restrained solo, and Ian follows it up with some beautiful sax playing, and after about 8 minutes FZ counts us off into the next piece. The song reappears at the Central Park late show in a much more confident and complete performance. All the parts are there, but the intro (Theme A1) is a little less embellished and there’s some weird percussion riffs over it too. Also, the repeat of Theme B is played straight, not in an exaggerated RnB style like on the studio album, and in both performances from this era, the final written line is performed much, much quicker (AKA the last line of Theme D, which is actually played twice in its entirety). After the theme, Frank plays a tasty solo over a proto-version of the Inca Roads vamp, and once he finishes Bunk and Ian round out the tune. These are very enjoyable performances of a too infrequently played tune. I think Frank perfected this song with the studio version, but if you’re a fan of that performance, you’ll enjoy these live takes.
Hungry Freaks Daddy – This classic Mothers tune continues to delight in ‘68, and was essentially performed as on Freak Out. The big exception being that the “great midwestern headwear store” verse is played like a swinging lounge tune and the second part of the guitar solo is replaced by an instrumental take of the lounge version verse. [Interestingly, the Whisky show actually features a unique performance, where they sing through the normally instrumental “great midwestern hardware store” verse after the solo, and then play the second “Mr. America” verse instrumentally in response]. Frank replicates the lick in the middle of his solo from the studio take (heard about 1:35 into the song) in every performance. Finally, the live ending is a little more fanfare-y then the album, with three dramatic repetitions of the ending phrase instead of one standard one. A very cool version of one of my favorite of FZ’s more straightforward rock tunes.
Improvisations/Jam – “Improvisations” refers to the weird, creepy and perturbed improv The Mothers could burst into at any moment. “Jam”, typically refers to more structured, but still improvised, jazz-rock jams (for lack of a better word), that aren’t connected to any larger song or composition. The 60s were fantastic years for structured and unstructured improv, with regular calamity occurring in nearly every show, possibly connecting any two songs. There’s often screeching sax noises, tweaky keyboards, snorks, and wild drum rhythms that could change at any moment with hand signals. FZ could also cue a number of different musical ideas with these hand signals at any time, like the ⅝ riff later heard on Didja Get Any Onya off of Weasels Ripped My Flesh, a number of different vocal cues (high pitched peeps, vomit noises, etc.) or that goofy swing ditty frequently heard on these tapes. The Mothers would also frequently reference or quote other tunes in these larger jams/improvisations, most frequently Edgard Varese’s Octandre or Stravinsky’s Rite Of Spring (some of FZ’s favorites). These improvisations were often instrumental, though Ray would sometimes start saying ”[Insert city] sucks… America sucks… The Mothers suck…” and on and on to my delight.
I’ll break down some of the most interesting free improv moments here. The Fillmore shows are full of wild free improv, and the eerie opening improv from the early show includes a chunk of Octandre, and the chords to the ending of Twinkle Tits (previously known as “Interlude”). Then at the following show, they open with a fun little pseudo-jam that starts with quotes of Stravinsky’s Rite Of Spring and Petrushka, before moving into a micro-performance of the Rodgers and Hart standard Blue Moon (with the bridge to I’m In The Mood For Love in the middle). Later in the show is a 15+ minute long, crazed, atonal piece of improvisations (that I see listed as a jam frequently for some reason), and a little while after that we get some Mellow Lounge Music, which consists of Frank saying non-sequiturs as they play some (you guessed it), mellow lounge music, and slowly morph into the Irving Berlin song Easter Parade. Not long after this, Frank says “Hawaiian Music” and they start playing something sorta resembling Hawaiian music, kinda. It’s some ethereal, evil, synth-wavey sounding music with a very steady drum beat. Ray then starts to moan and sing a bit of the theme song to the 50s TV show Hawaiian Eye, and FZ starts to repeatedly play what fans have dubbed the “Hula Lick”, a short Hula turnaround lick that Frank used throughout the 60s and 70s (formerly known as the “mystery tune”; this is actually its first known appearance in FZ’s work).
The Whisky show in July had a ton of fun improv too. Individual pieces were titled Whisky Improvisations Episode I, II, & III. Additionally, the third episodes leads into some tweaky improv titled Meow (which Frank released part of on YCDTOSAV), God Bless America (which Frank released on Uncle Meat) and the Presentation Of Wings, which is a strange moment of fan interaction set to classic tweaky MOI improv. Additionally the third set starts with The Whip, which is a dark plodding, Dragnet-type vamp played while Frank whips a crazed audience member with a belt. Don plays while Frank whips and Frank takes a solo when he’s finished with her (Frank prepared an edit of his guitar solo for an early version of Uncle Meat – see Meat Light). This dark jam eventually morphs into a great RnB shuffle titled Whisky Chouflee which includes solos from Frank, Bunk and Ian. It even features chunks of Bill Haley’s Crazy Man Crazy and The Midnighters’ Annie Had A Baby sung by Ray and Frank! The final big notable chunk of improv from this era comes from the Central Park late show, which starts with some long, unaccompanied Bunk Gardner flute improv that FZ dubs “Jazz-Rock Heavily Influenced By Al Kooper”. Frank and Bunk chat throughout the performance, leading to quotes from Varese’s Density 21.5, Boulez’s Le Marteau Sans Maître, and of course the Swingin’ Shepherd Blues. Overall, this is a tremendous tour for improvisations, so much so that it’s easily one of the defining features of this band and era of Frank’s work.
Khaki Sack – This fun, previously unreleased, little RnB instrumental shows up twice in this era, in Denver and at the Whisky. This tune was a mystery to fans for a long time, until a studio take from 1970 was finally released on the fantastic Funky Nothingness box set. Frank retitled the piece as Whät when it was released on the Beat the Boots series, but Khaki Sack was the working title for the majority of the tune’s life. The bouncy, angular tune is played in the classic head-solo-head structure, with a variety of soloists (Bunk, Don, Ian and Frank in Denver, and Ian, Don, Bunk and Frank at the Whiskey). The Denver tape cuts in on the middle of the long jam, missing the head of the tune, and the beginning of the first solo. Frank never actually finished the studio version of the tune, so the ending theme to the piece is actually somewhat unique to this live version. It’s still just the same as the opening theme but with a big flourish-y conclusion. Overall, this is a really fun little tune, and it’s a shame Frank never released it in his lifetime (but at least we have a real studio version now, 50+ years later).
King Kong – “The Adventures Of King Kong, a gorilla by trade”. This Uncle Meat classic returns on this tour, and makes a fantastic vehicle for extended jams. The Mothers play the perfectly composed intro and follow it with a long jazz-rock jam where really anything can happen. Various band members solo depending on the performance, with the rhythm section providing a very steady beat and FZ conducting the band along the way [See the solo chart below for a breakdown on the individual takes]. Each performance starts with some fantastic jungle-y percussion (cymbals, big drums, a gong, etc.) before crashing into the iconic main theme. This always creates a fantastic segue from the previous tune and sets the perfect tone for the long jam. There are no secondary themes to King Kong just yet, but Frank will introduce one before their European tour in September. The frantic sax riff from the “Gardner Varieties” can be heard on a couple performances from this era, and will continue to occasionally pop up in King Kong (and other tunes) over the next year and a half. Most performances eventually dwindle off into tweakier improvisations, but the early show at the Fillmore actually features a rare closing theme. It’s really just a reprise of the main theme, but with a cool dramatic ending featuring multiple repeats of the final sax line and some sick ascending guitar chords. The Whiskey show’s King Kong is split into two sections. Frank restarts the vamp eight minutes in, making it kind of like two takes of the song (just that the second time doesn’t have a theme). The second “take” features guest performances by the GTOs singing Getting To Know You (from The King and I) and the Theme to the Bugs Bunny Show (AKA This Is It). Each performance of this classic tune is uniquely terrific, and just one of the many reasons to collect as many tapes as possible from the 60s.
Little House I Used To Live In – This Burnt Weeny Sandwich masterpiece was still very much in progress in 1968. Frank hadn’t named the piece as of the Whiskey gig, but before it got the Little House title (which most likely referred to the opening piano piece), it went by a variety of names including The Duke, The Hunchback Duke, The Return Of The Hunch-Back Duke or The Return Of The Son Of The Hunch-Back Duke. The original Mothers never played the intro piano solo live, but they would play the rock theme(s) on occasion. The tune was played on at least three occasions this year, all with this band, each time notably different from the last. At this point in time the piece consisted of the portion from 2:50-5:13 in the Burnt Weeny Sandwich version, but without the reprise of theme B, so just theme C, the bridges and Frank’s guitar solo (you’re gonna need this graph to understand this paragraph, just use the first two columns).
The rock theme first appears in a jam arising from The Handsome Cabin Boy/Wedding Dress Song medley. As the saxes jam, Frank starts to play theme C and the bridges of the piece in the background, and after a little while the rest of the band joins him to cap off the jam. At the Denver show a week later we get a full performance of the piece, which still mainly consists of theme C and the bridges, but interestingly enough they play a segment of Dog Breath between repetitions of the composed themes (along with a few drum solos). They then return to the Little House themes, and when Frank has decided they’ve played enough he rips into a long, hot guitar solo with only drum accompaniment. Additionally, Frank plays Dog Breath before Little House in the Detroit Wedding Dress Song jam, so it’s possible he was floating the idea of combining the two (or he just liked and was working on both melodies at the time). After Frank’s solo in Denver they veer into a long improvised jam, which includes chunks of the jazz standard Coquette, The Blue Danube, Hungry Freaks Daddy and micro-performances of Tchaikovsky’s 6th and Funiculì, Funiculà. The next time Little House pops up is at the July Whisky-A-Go-Go gig, in a much more put together form. The piece still consists of just theme C, the bridges and Frank’s sick guitar solo, but it’s much more confident and familiar sounding. Frank must have really valued this piece at the time, because we actually get two complete performances from the single show. The first take ends with a corrupted, dissonant version of the first line of theme C, but the second just segues out of the guitar solo into the next tune via some keyboard noodling. This is a really cool year for Little House, because with these tapes we get to see the early stages of the evolution of the piece. It’s one of my favorite FZ compositions and I would recommend listening to every available performance.
Louie Louie/Plastic People – “Here it is! The moment you’ve been waiting for!” FZ and the Mothers could (and would) burst into Louie Louie at any moment. Frank (from what I can infer), had a career-long, love-hate relationship with Richard Berry’s famous tune, and every permutation is sorta halfway between a tribute and a parody (The song was a regular request from drunk patrons in the MOI’s early bar-band days, along with Caravan with a drum solo). We have three performances of this tune from this era, each a unique experience.
At the Fillmore East, Frank shouts out the title of the tune and the band gets into it. They perform a pretty straight take for less than a minute, before FZ says “Here’s the real words to this song” and switches to the lyrics of Plastic People. It’s important to note that the Absolutely Free version of Plastic People is a completely different beast, that has very little connection to how the tune was normally performed, because the live version of Plastic People is a direct parody of Louie Louie. The only thing distinguishing the two songs are Frank’s lyrics. Anyway, after they finish the lyrics, Frank announces “the world renowned Mothers Of Invention electric gotta gotta revue”, which means we get a goofy parody of 60s pop music, while Frank forces the crowd to chant “gotta gotta gotta” and “baby baby baby”. Ray starts to sing The Righteous Brothers’ 1964 tune You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ over the sturdy Louie Louie vamp, and Don plays an unidentified, possibly improvised RnB keyboard lick while our lead vocalist sings. Eventually this segment devolves into audience requests, and the Fillmore ‘68 Louie Louie event comes to an end.
They whip out the tune again two weeks later in Denver, and we get a slightly simpler take here. It’s a pretty straight ahead version of Plastic People (no Louie Louie lyrics this time), but once they finish up the final ‘you gotta go”s, Frank quickly dives into Varese’s Octandre over the regular beat. After that the horns start to play the theme of King Kong, then Frank begins to play America Drinks, which of course brings us back to Octandre. Eventually The Mothers jump into a quick, impromptu Wipe Out, which brings the jam to a close. The third and final performance we have comes from the Whisky-A-Go-Go. This version is the simplest of the three, just a regular performance of the Plastic People lyrics as a parody of Louie Louie. It appears out of the crazed improv of the second set, and fades out as Frank introduces Wild Man Fischer. Louie Louie is an absolute staple of Frank Zappa’s work as a whole, and these 60s shows have some of the best available examples.
Memories of El Monte – A song originally recorded by The Penguins in 1963, but written by Ray Collins and Frank Zappa. We have one known performance of this tune, from the July Whisky-A-Go-Go show. It’s a beautiful love letter to doo-wop that paints a nostalgic view of a bygone era, with numerous direct references to classic doo-wop and RnB tunes, including In The Still Of The Night, You Cheated (You Lied), A Thousand Miles Away, Heaven And Paradise, Nite Owl, The Way You Look Tonight, and Why Don’t You Write Me?. Heaven And Paradise, The Way You Look Tonight, and Why Don’t You Write Me? are unique to this live version, and The Letter, Cherry Pie, and Earth Angel are all only referenced on the Penguins single. The original single has an additional ending verse and a second reference to Earth Angel, but this live version leads directly into Frank’s take-down of doo-wop: Oh, In The Sky.
Mr. Green Genes – Frank announces this tune by its name on Uncle Meat, but in reality these are actually performances of Son of Mr. Green Genes from Hot Rats, as there are no vocals and these takes always contain a long improvised jam in the middle. In Detroit and Central Park, The Mothers play a lively version of the theme, solo for a while, and then return to the theme to close us off. Ian, Don and Bunk (in some order) would solo first, and Frank would finish off the jam with a mean guitar solo. These are always very spirited performances and just might be my favorite live version of this song. Seek these out if you consider yourself a fan of Hot Rats.
My Boyfriend’s Back/Bust His Head – “And now… some bullshit!” Frank and the boys would play this ridiculously dumb doo-wop parody medley in 1968, and it can be heard at the Whisky and in Central Park. Ray starts by belting out My Boyfriend’s Back (originally released by the Angels in 1963), singing the tune in a hysterical falsetto. He sings the first verse, the chorus, and the fifth verse before the tune completely falls apart and Frank announces “Aww, son of a gun, the boyfriend is coming home and he’s really pissed off”. They then switch to an FZ composition titled (I’m Gonna) Bust His Head. This second tune starts with Ray slowly singing as the boyfriend, before switching to an uptempo boogie. Finally Ray sings the title phrase, and the tune comes to a raucous conclusion, before segueing into Tiny Sick Tears (which, as far as we know, was always paired with this medley). The lyrics to the second tune can be found here.
Octandre – The “mutilated fuzz tone” version of the Edgard Varese classic. Frank and the boys play the first 16 bars or so of this piece that heavily inspired Frank. After playing the theme the band would usually play variations on the theme at various tempos and/or kinda fall apart, otherwise they would just end the piece. Octandre was frequently quoted in improv and jams by Frank and to a lesser extent the rest of the band. A defining tune from the original Mothers, and one of my favorites.
Oh, In The Sky – Here we have yet another doo-wop parody, but this one is an FZ original, featuring Roy Estrada on lead vocals. The only words to this little ditty are “oh, in the sky” in the first half and “190” in the second half (sung as “one-nine-oh”). I always heard him singing “Oh Nite Owl” and assumed they were referencing the famous Tony Allen song, but according to Dweezil it’s actually a reference to Roy’s goal weight. [“My dad had apparently told him that he needed to establish his weight at least at 190. He couldn’t go above 190 because it wasn’t going to work out too well for him. So he was whining about 190.” Link to interview here] Roy screams the lines out over a simplistic doo-wop progression for a couple minutes to the horror of the audience (but to my demented delight). This tune pops up a single time in this era, segueing out of a performance of Memories of El Monte at the Whisky show. Don attempts to play the regular intro here (based on the intro to Let’s Start All Over Again by The Paragons), but it seems like Roy starts singing earlier than expected and it gets cut short. A surreal but hysterical moment whenever it shows up.
The Orange County Lumber Truck Medley – The classic instrumental medley returns in ‘68, popping up at least twice, in Detroit and Central Park. The songs featured in the medley, in order, are Let’s Make The Water Turn Black, Harry, You’re A Beast, The Orange County Lumber Truck, Oh No and The Orange County Lumber Truck again. The horns carry the melody for all four pieces, and Ray sings the first set of Oh No lyrics, but not the “and in your dreams” section, meaning they probably weren’t written yet (Ray sings the lyrics in Detroit, but the Central Park recording is missing most of Oh No, so it’s unknown if it was played with lyrics there). In Detroit, between repetitions of the ending “dreams” section of Oh No, Frank plays a tasty guitar solo and Bunk and Ian solo simultaneously once he finishes. After this they head into a reprise of the Orange County Lumber Truck, and following the reprise the band goes into a long jam with a number of other solos until Frank decides the tune is over. The Central Park performance is a little different though; the Oh No jam just keeps going for about 15 minutes, and after a series of solos they play the repetition of the Oh No ending and the Orange County Lumber Truck proper to finish the tune. Despite the differences, both takes end with a blues walkdown. No matter the performance, this is an excellent arrangement of some of Zappa’s most celebrated compositions, and a treat for years to come.
Petrushka – Frank declares “Petrushka!” and The Mother’s launch into 45 seconds of the Russian Dance from the First Tableau of Igor Stravinsky’s ballet. This song was played in a large medley introduced in ‘67, that went You Didn’t Try to Call Me>Petrushka>The Bristol Stomp>Baby Love>Big Leg Emma (though at the Central Park late show they only played the last two tunes). It’s a straight performance, and it perfectly segues into the ridiculous Bristol Stomp. Excellent!
Shotgun – The Mothers rip into a straight cover of the 1965 Junior Walker song at the second Fillmore show, emerging out of the Hawaiian improvisations. It’s a shortened take (only about 90 seconds), but it’s still a fun little jam. Worth checking out, along with the whole finale of the Fillmore late show.
Status Back Baby – This fun tune is pretty much played as on Absolutely Free, except Frank added this awesome sax riff between lines in the verses. That and the extra energy that comes with live performance make these late sixties versions of this song my absolute favorite. At the Fillmore East, Ray sings along with the end of the regular Petrushka quote, but not on any of the other takes. There are five known performances of this song from this era, but unfortunately the Denver and “unknown venue” takes are missing at least half of the tune, and the Fillmore tapes sound pretty cruddy. The Detroit version has always sounded nice, but thankfully, we now have an excellent version on the fantastic Whisky-A-Go-Go set. A great song, it’s just a bummer most 60s recordings of it are sub-par. (For another cursed song, see Eat That Question in ‘73 and ‘74).
Tiny Sick Tears -“Gimme your love, or at least make me a tuna fish sandwich” This amusing song serves as a parody of 96 Tears by ? & The Mysterians, and “gotta gotta” 60s teen music in general. We’ve got two recordings from late in the era (one at The Whisky and one at Central Park), and as far as we know, this tune was always preceded by My Boyfriend’s Back and I’m Gonna Bust His Head (except in 1971, but that’s its own thing). At its core it’s a pretty simple number; The Mothers play a very 96 Tears-esque riff, and Ray shouts out a litany of cliched rock n roll expressions (“Gotta! Gotta! Baby! Baby! Baby!”). Most future performances of this song include a speech from Frank parodying The End by The Doors entitled “The Cookie Jar Lecture” (see YCDTOSA#4), but as far as we know this lecture first shows up in 1969. The Whisky performance features Kim Fowley as a guest vocalist, who provides the “gotta gotta” parody lyrics along with Ray (Kim: Everybody clap your hands, just like on American Bandstand”). This performance then morphs into an excellent jam over the faux-96 Tears vamp, featuring sick solos from Ian and Frank. The Central Park performance starts out in the same “gotta gotta” parody vein, but ends early when Frank decides to bring up a fan on stage to sing Hang On Sloopy instead. I absolutely love the Tiny Sick Tears Jam from the Whisky, and while the Central Park version isn’t too notable on its own, it leads into Sloopy so it still gets a thumbs up from me.
Trouble Every Day – This Freak Out classic shows up a few times on this tour, basically in the same arrangement as on the album, but with significantly more soloing. Frank sings whatever lyrics he wants, rarely performing the whole thing. At the Fillmore he sings the entire tune, even the “I’m not Black” line (though it’s after the 4th verse, instead of before like in the studio), at the first Central Park show he omits the 4th verse, the “Black” line, and “Blow your harmonica, son!”, and at the late Central Park show he leaves out the 3rd and 4th verse, as well as the “I’m not black” line. The tune was played in Denver, but only the very end of Frank’s guitar solo was recorded. There’s tasty bursts of guitar and/or harmonica after every chorus, and each performance ends with a guitar solo from Frank and a harmonica solo from Ray. If FZ ends the lyrics with “Blow your harmonica, son!”, the solo order goes Ray then Frank, but Frank goes first if he leaves off the exclamation. No matter the performance, this song has exceptional lyrics (some of Frank’s best and most poignant), and always produces a worthwhile blues jam.
Valarie: The MOI perform this doo-wop classic (originally released by Jackie and The Starlights in 1960; alternatively titled “Valerie”) at least once at The Whisky-A-Go-Go. It’s a mostly sincere take, and is pretty similar to the Burnt Weeny Sandwich version, but with a handful of key differences. It’s played a little faster live, and we get an instrumental verse before the “la la la la lala”s kick in. Frank shouts for Valarie after the chorus (“come on home!”), and slightly amends the second verse (“I’m on your door” instead of “all right with me”). The biggest difference though, is Frank’s long, highly amusing teenage monologue in the middle of the tune. He stops the band completely to say “Valarie you pig…..”, and proceeds to give a long, funny speech about going to the drugstore to get “tore to the core”, taking Valarie to the prom and other everyday 50s experiences. Frank ends with something obscene (at the Whisky it’s “and you gave me the clap”), before suddenly going back to the “la la” intro, and ending the event with a big blues walkdown. Future live performances will feature backing vocals from Roy borrowed from Deserie by The Charts (unrelated to the Ruben and The Jets tune), but this part is not heard at the Whisky. Overall we get an equally beautiful and hilarious performance, so just another day for The Mothers Of Invention.
Wipe Out – Yes, on at least two occasions, The Mothers play this classic surf rock song (originally released by The Surfaris in 1963). In Denver the main theme erupts out of the end of the Plastic People jam, and Frank ends the set right after one repetition. In New York, a fan requests the tune, and The Mothers perform a full standalone take, complete with a sick drum solo. They return to the main theme after Jimmy’s jam, and finish the performance straight (somewhat surprisingly). A fun, goofy cover, perfect for this era of the Mothers.
You Didn’t Try To Call Me – This Freak Out tune was played as the first song of an insane medley introduced in ‘67, that went You Didn’t Try to Call Me>Petrushka>The Bristol Stomp>Baby Love>Big Leg Emma (though at the Central Park late show they only played the last two tunes). The song has been “changed to a waltz for live performance” (FZ in Stockholm ‘67), and it’s significantly faster than the studio version. It’s definitely based on the Freak Out arrangement too, not the later Ruben and the Jets version (which Frank seemed to prefer once he re-arranged it). The tune stops cold after the “I’m all alone at my place!” line (skipping Frank’s improvised “teen-age thrill” ramblings), FZ says “Well, let’s roll along now…”, the band plays the instrumental introduction to Call Me again, and then heads into Petrushka.
Solo Table:
Life On The Road 