Overview:
After about eight months of playing with other groups and messing around with the idea of a Hot Rats band, Frank returned his focus to “serious” classical music. At some point in late 1969, he had a chance encounter with Zubin Mehta, the conductor and musical director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. The two met during a panel discussion on classical music for KPFK Radio, and with the help of Ernest Fleischmann (the director of the Hollywood Bowl), Frank somehow ended up getting his work-in-progress score to 200 Motels performed by the LA Philharmonic at the massive Pauley Pavilion at UCLA. There’s a catch though. During the panel discussion, Zubin implied that modern teens aren’t interested in classical music, and they would need to be coaxed into seeing an orchestral concert using a rock band as a lure. An orchestra can’t simply perform music by a rock n roll musician, they need to embrace the spectacle of such an abnormality, and actually play side by side with a rock n roll band. Basically, they wouldn’t play 200 Motels without The Mothers Of Invention. The big issue here is that the Mothers ceased to exist in August 1969. So in a long side-quest-y sorta story, Frank had to cobble together an “interim one-shot ‘Mothers-Of-Invention-Sort-Of-Group’” (as he put it in his autobiography). This band of makeshift Mothers would play a week of warm up concerts in early May leading up to the big finale concert with the LA Philharmonic, before disappearing forever.
This hastily thrown together micro tour is frequently referred to as the “Mothers Of Invention reunion tour”, but it’s really not much of a reunion in the regular sense, it’s more so its own weird thing. Frank pissed off the large majority of the 1969 Mothers when he coldly ended the group over a phone call, so not many were willing to return. FZ contacted many of them in late March 1970 to attempt to finish the infamous Uncle Meat movie, but most of them were unwilling to do more unpaid work for Frank. Motorhead Sherwood, Don Preston, Billy Mundi and Ray Collins were the only ones willing to come back for the movie, and they also make up the majority of the original Mothers present in this reformed makeshift MOI. Billy and Ray quit long before Frank broke up the group, so they didn’t have the same hard feelings as the ‘69 Mothers, and Motorhead and Don knew Frank from before the Mothers were even formed, so it’s possible (I’m guessing) that their relationships were less frayed than the rest. Despite continuing to work with Frank after the breakup, Ian Underwood strangely has nothing to do with the Uncle Meat movie. Nevertheless, he wasn’t “fired” like the rest of the band; he’s an integral part of the first few of Frank’s post-MOI bands, and of course participates in this mini-tour. This strange lineup is rounded out with musicians who entered Zappa’s orbit after the demise of the original Mothers. The cobbled together remnants of the 60s Mothers are joined by Anysley Dunbar on drums and Jeff “Swoovette” Simmons on bass, who would in a month’s time make up the rhythm section for the “new” Mothers Of Invention with Flo and Eddie.
The makeshift Mothers only played about a week of dates in early May, which primarily served as a necessary warm-up tour leading up the main event: the premier of 200 Motels in LA. They started in Appleton, Wisconsin (due to the positive audience response in May ‘69), then played Chicago, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, and New York, before returning home to Los Angeles for the big orchestral extravaganza. We only have two shows from this warm-up run, both from the Fillmore East in New York, but we thankfully have a mostly complete tape of the LA show at the Pauley Pavillion. It’s hard to get a fully formed grasp on this short-lived group with only three recordings, a new recording could pop up and totally change how we see this band, but based on what we have available I would describe this band as historically important and incredibly interesting, while at the same time largely musically unessential. This group has some really cool and unique things happening, but they never truly can escape the fact that this is a weird slapdash band, without much of an identity, that Frank is pretty apathetic toward.
So, we have this really neat Dunbar-Mundi double drummer line-up, we have the mad Dom DeWilde on keyboards, we have the hysterical Jeff Simmons on bass and vocals, and we even have the return of the wonderful Ray Collins with his final tour playing with Frank, but there’s just something missing. I don’t imagine many of the returning Mothers were particularly jazzed to be working with Frank again, so there’s not a sense of camaraderie on stage really. Additionally, with such a small number of shows (nine total), there’s no chance they could have gelled like the best incarnations of the MOI. That being said, the makeshift Mothers all do very well with the conditions they have to work with, the biggest issue with these warm-up shows is Frank. His heart just isn’t in it. He disbanded the Mothers for a multitude of reasons, so being forced to reform a group like this was probably difficult for him. He still has his moments of greatness, but the available warm-up shows have some of the most half-hearted performances I’ve ever heard on a Zappa recording. His “conducting the audience” routine from the Fillmore shows has no life to it whatsoever, unlike the highly amusing takes from the previous year, and there’s a moment from the where he starts a performance of Tiny Sick Tears, but doesn’t finish because he’s “tired of saying it anyway.” There are new interesting arrangements, but no new songs premier on this tour. Frank even uses a setlist for the first time in his career! This is really the only time Frank ever regresses and goes back a stage in his musical journey. He’ll have throwback numbers of course, and there’s things like the “10-years of the Mothers tour” in ‘74, but these all feature heavily inspired, rearranged versions of previous work. We never get a straight “reunion” tour with “moldly” old arrangements for any of Frank’s future bands. It’s obviously tongue-in-cheek, but I think there’s a bit of truth when Frank says at the Fillmore “the other thing that’s new and unique about this Mothers of Invention ensemble is we gave up on trying to be creative on stage”
There are of course great moments and highlights during this tour, this is a Zappa tour. The sound of this band is very unique, as it’s a neat cross between the old MOI and the Flo and Eddie Mothers. It’s fantastic to hear Ray with the Mothers one last time, and though he’s not always perfectly reliable, he’s got some great performances in the Boyfriend’s Back Medley, the rearranged Call Any Vegetable and in a rare vocal arrangement of Son Of Mr. Green Genes. Speaking of neat arrangements, we get a ton on this tour, including the birth of the reworked, rock and roll Call Any Vegetable, the new King Kong/Igor’s Boogie medley, The new “Duke” medley featuring Little House I Used To Live In and Holiday In Berlin, and the wonderful instrumental Who Needs The Peace Corps/Duke of Prunes. Most of these arrangements reappear in more fleshed out states with the Flo & Eddie MOI, so it’s super interesting to hear them in early development, and sometimes instrumental! This band excels with the jammier songs like King Kong and Chunga’s Revenge, where our great soloists like Ian, Don and Frank get a chance to stretch out instrumentally. The highlight of the era is of course the riotous debut of 200 Motels in LA, which is an entirely unique beast that should be heard by every serious Zappa fan. It’s totally different from the soundtrack to the movie or any other known version of the piece, and is simply a ton of fun. Frank put a ton of time and effort into 200 Motels, and it comes through during the LA gig, which is the best show of the tour by miles. Frank clearly wanted the LA show to happen, but I’m not really sure he wanted to be at the Fillmore.
After the LA performance, Frank was approached by Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan of the recently disbanded Turtles. He had met the two while on the road in the 60s, and as he put it in his autobiography “they came backstage after the show, said they liked it, and told me that the Turtles had split up and they were looking for something to do. The rest is history.” This moment ends the long unfocused period in FZ’s career following the breakup of the Mothers, and sets Frank’s career trajectory until his tragic assault at the Rainbow in December 1971. Though these “MOI Reunion” shows are generally overlooked, they’re incredibly important as a stepping stone in Zappa’s career. It’s his first tour after breaking up with the Mothers, and at the same time kind of the last tour with The Mothers. It’s also Frank’s biggest orchestral achievement up to that point, and the experience taught him a lot about working with large classical ensembles. And of course without these shows we might not have had the Flo and Eddie Mothers! So In the end, while this is far from Frank’s best musical moment, there’s still a lot to appreciate here. The weird band, the interesting arrangements, and of course 200 Motels. We even get the first recorded “bring the band down behind me boys” during these shows! In a way this era acts as both a finale to the original Mothers of Invention, and a beginning to the upcoming “vaudeville” Mothers, which despite the occasional lackluster performance, makes for a series of incredibly interesting listens.
The Band:
Frank Zappa – Guitar, Vocals, Serious Compositions
Ray Collins – Vocals, Fart Noises
Don Preston – Keyboards, Synths, Vomit
Ian Underwood – Alto Sax, Keyboards, Staying Power
Motorhead Sherwood – Baritone Sax, High School Friend
Billy Mundi – Drums, Return from Rhinoceros
Aynsley Dunbar – Drums, Pure English Energy
Jeff Simmons – Bass, Vocals, Wine
Recordings Available:
1970 05 08 or 09 – Fillmore East, New York, NY (Audience B+/B)
The first recording we have from this band comes from one of the New York City gigs near the end of the week-long tour. This tape originates from a set of four shows over Mother’s Day weekend at the legendary Fillmore East in New York, and the date of this particular recording is actually a bit uncertain. It’s clearly this unique band, and it’s obviously the Fillmore based on FZ’s many comments, but apart from those facts it’s impossible to tell which of the four shows it is. We have two recordings from this New York run, and both recordings have the same issue with dating, so even if it’s not particularly accurate, I’m going to call this the “former” of “first” Fillmore show just because I need some sort of shorthand to distinguish these two gigs (my gut tells me this is the early show on the 8th, but this is a purely vibes-based claim). And before I can get to the actual review I have to say that there’s actually two recordings of this show, one in full, and one that sounds a little better but misses the amusing between-song banter. I unfortunately only have the worse sounding recording, but it’s still a solid listen (I’m surprised there’s not an edited version on Zappateers).
Anyway, this “first” Fillmore gig is captured on a solid “good not great” recording, perfectly listenable but not anything to write home about. It’s muddy, and there’s some tape defects here and there, but ultimately I’m just happy to have any recordings from the short lived group. The show itself is a bit of a mixed bag. The audience is absolutely teeming with rambunctious New York energy, and the band is definitely feeding off them, but Frank doesn’t always seem to have his heart in it. When he’s having a good time we get some of the most amusing moments of the tour, but other parts of this show come off a little forced (which makes sense given the context of the tour). This is my least favorite recording of this band, but there are still some definite A-tier moments throughout the tape that FZ fans will love. Ray and Frank playfully interact with the crowd the entire night, leading to some of the most memorable moments of the tour, and we get a few exciting musical moments here and there, it’s just that the other two tapes have even better moments. The night begins with an amusing intro from who I can only assume is Bill Graham, followed by an amusing few minutes of classic New York audience involvement (shenanigans).
Bill Graham?: “There are mothers and there are Mothers. Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention.”
FZ: “Hello. [Fan 1: “Louie Louie!” Fan 2: “Don’t play Louie Louie!”] You sure you don’t want us to play Louie Louie? [Crowd yells] Now listen, we don’t mind prostituting ourselves. You know how we are. Hey, listen. Guess what we’re going to do. [“Louie Louie!”] No, you’re wrong. We’re going to tune up, children.
Ray: “Speaking of tuning up, about every other person I’ve talked to in these New York audiences has said how the audience doesn’t understand what’s going on up here on stage. And each of those people are from the audience…. What?”
[Tuning]
FZ: “Well, as soon as we become organized here, [“Louder!”] Doesn’t make any difference… [“Louie Louie!”]
Ray: “Curb your dog.”
FZ: “Listen, the next time somebody famous like Jimi Hendrix or Eric Clapton and all those important people come up here, you tell them to play Louie Louie. [To Band: “Wonderful Wino!”]
I absolutely love the start of this show. This has to be the most persistent demand for Louie Louie that I’ve ever heard from a crowd, and Frank and Ray’s responses are perfect (“Curb your dog”!!). But more on Louie later, because our show begins with a lively take of the great Zappa/Simmons tune Wonderful Wino. Like with many of the arrangements on this tour, this take feels like a proto-version of the song the Flo and Eddie Mothers will soon make their own. We get a slower, bluesier arrangement (which is of course extremely unlike the Zoot Allures track), sung primarily by Jeff Simmons, just like on his solo album where the tune originated. This is a great version; I’ve always loved Jeff’s singing, we get a tasty sax riff over the composed sections, we get an additional verse, and we get two FZ solos! Frank plays a nice, short solo in the middle of the tune, but he really goes crazy during the outro! After the “five bucks and an overcoat too” ending Frank just keeps going and whips out a few minutes of fantastic guitar, almost like a little mini Willie The Pimp. I wish he stuck with this arrangement, it’s one of my faves! But anyway, after this great opener, we enter the weird part of tonight’s program. The audience immediately resumes the calls for Louie Louie once Wonderful Wino finishes, which leads us to more fun shenanigans.
Fan #1: “Louis Louie!”
Fan #2: “Fuck Off!”
Ray: “Cum”
Frank: “Cum
Ray: “Conga. Clean.”
Frank: “Ha Simba!”
Ray: “Jizz”
Jeff: “Fon-du-la!”
Frank [singing]: “Follow the snake to the lake”
[They sorta play a skeletal Big Leg Emma]
Frank (or Ray?): “That as good as Louie Louie for ya?”
[Fan: “Wowie Zowie!]
[Fan: “Louie Louie!!!”]
Frank: “Okay, Louie Louie [90% of crowd cries out] Just a little bittie, little bittie Louie Louie. [More yells] Listen! I don’t want that boy to be unhappy [Fan: “It’s a girl!”] I know he’s only fucking with me, but y’know… There’s nothing really wrong with Louie Louie. It’s a great piece of music. Richard Berry when he wrote that thing, he was heavy into it. Just a little bit of it, okay? In G…..”
FZ, Ray and Jeff fuck around, Frank makes his first reference to The End by The Doors, and for one reason or another the band plays 30 seconds of spontaneous instrumental doo-wop, that kinda sorta sounds like the chorus to Big Leg Emma. An amusing little oddity, but not really a song. Frank (or maybe Ray?) poses the question “that as good as Louie Louie for ya?”, which only reminds the raucous crowd that they still haven’t heard Louie Louie. FZ finally gives into the desires (to the dismay of most of the crowd), because “he doesn’t want that boy to be unhappy”. He then quips a few amusing lines about the tune and Richard Berry, and brings the band bursting into the familiar garage classic. Ray starts off singing Plastic People but Frank quickly tells him to do Louie Louie. It’s instantly clear Ray doesn’t remember the original lyrics, so we end up with a comical 60 second mishmash of the two tunes (two choruses and a failed verse). The performance ends with a fun, quick, squealing crash out ending, which brings the weirdo-section of the night to a close.
Frank: “Ladies and gentleman, would you please applaud one more time very loud for the light show that caught that cue. [Applause] The heavy business light show. Okay, now for the mediocre entertainment that we had planned to give you. The name of this song is Who Needs The Peace Corps. And the answer to that question is: your guess is as good as mine.”
Yes you heard right, a live version of Who Needs The Peace Corps! Frank cooked up a uniquely cool instrumental version of the tune for this tour, and interestingly enough snuck an instrumental Duke Of Prunes in the middle, which technically made the tune a medley. They breeze through a neat take of the We’re Only In It For The Money tune, that’s all instrumental except for when Ray sings “move to San Francisco!” The audience cracks up at something visual during the following drum break, and this takes us right into an instrumental laid back version of the Duke Of Prunes. After about a half a minute of this jazzy arrangement we get a cool transition into a fantastic synth solo from Don. After the transcendent keyboard section ends, Frank comes in with a great guitar solo. It’s very melodic, and fits the chill vibe well. He ends his solo with a plucky version of the “how I love ya Frisco” bit which leads us back into a reprise of the main Peace Corps theme, and the whole event ends with a snork and cough. Overall just a really great rearrangement of one of my favorite Mothers’ tunes, and an easy highlight of the show. After this the audience continues to freak out, and Frank then decides to do his old conduct-the-audience-with-hang-signals bit, but you can tell his heart’s just not into it. I’m sure he was getting bored of doing it with the old MOI and he’s like “God I have to continue to do this….”
[Audience Screams]
Jeff: “Very Interesting”
Ray: *fart noise*
Frank: “Okay here’s the deal. [Fan: Louie Louie!!] See this signal? Alright, when I make this signal it sounds like this. [Vomit noise] Now, I’d like to have all of you vomit when I, uh, go across like this. It’ll make it go stereo, y’see. It’ll travel across here, and zip back and forth across from, all the way, the vomit will go all the way up in the balcony, and back down. That’s signal number one, you wanna try it once? [Crowd vomits] You people aren’t very much into audience participation, don’t you have any soul? Let’s hear the upstairs vomiting [Upstairs vomits] That’s more like it! [Lots of vomiting from the whole theater] Faster! [More vomit] Louie Louie! [More vomits, laughter] I dedicate this song to you, it’s called How Could I Be Such A Fool?”
After this perfunctory audience conducting segment, we get a solid version of the Freak Out arrangement of How Could I Be Such A Fool?, but the tape unfortunately cuts out in the middle and we miss the whole second half of the tune. It’s always nice to hear Ray sing, but I don’t really like this slow, sparse arrangement, and with it being incomplete I can’t exactly recommend this performance. The recording resumes a few seconds into what I’m assuming is the next tune: (Son of) Mr. Green Genes. We yet again get another interesting arrangement, because this is basically the fiery Hot Rats version, but with the creepy Uncle Meat lyrics. The head of the tune is pretty similar to the live 60s versions, but we get Ray’s lovely voice on top. It’s not his strongest performance ever, but it’s still nice to hear. After the main theme we get three entertaining, jazzy solos from Don, Ian (on sax) and FZ. Frank plays a good chunk of his solo from the Hot Rats album verbatim, which is really neat because he almost never replicates a studio solo on stage. The tune ends quickly after the solos with a simplified variation on the ending of the Hot Rats version (meaning they skip the theme reprise). This isn’t my favorite take of this Mr. Green Genes but it’s still a very nice, lively performance, and really unique to boot. Immediately following this tune the audience resumes their requests, and we get another short bit of crowd interaction.
[Audience screams requests]
Frank: “Lets do that”
Jeff: “Could you eat it now?”
Frank: “Fon-Du-La?… A hush fell over the audience”
[Crowd shouts song requests]
Frank: “In that order? [Crowd continues shouting] Purple Haze! Peg of my Heart! My Boyfriend’s Back and Call Any Vegetable….”
After fucking around for a bit Frank actually announces the real upcoming songs, and leads us into the always amusing My Boyfriend’s Back medley. This medley consists of two (or arguably three) parody tunes that the ‘68 Mothers with Ray would regularly play. The first part of the medley consists of My Boyfriend’ Back (a hysterical cover of the Angels 1963’s song) and I’m Gonna Bust His Head (a FZ composition written from the Boyfriend’s perspective). Ray’s a little sloppy in spots but overall kills it, and we get a solid, amusing performance of this dumb R’n’B duet. And just like in the good old days, this two-fer leads right into Tiny Sick Tears, Frank’s take on 96 Tears by ? & the Mysterions and The Door’s The End. Ray sings some funny riffs on the inane “gotta gotta” 96 Tears lyrics, and Frank conducts a crash from the band before starting his normal cookie monologue, which is a long mostly pre-written parody of Jim Morrison’s oedipal dialog from The End. This performance is unique though, because he only gets about a minute into his speech before getting distracted by Jeff’s over-the-top bass playing. He stops his monologue and commands Simmons to play a bass solo, in a spot fans have labeled “Jeff Simmons Whips It Out”
Ray: “Baby! Ninety-Six Tears! Gotta! I need a few more beers. Till my complexion clears. I buy my clothes at Sears. Baby, Baby, Baby, Baby […] Gotta Gotta….”
Frank: “Bring the band on down behind me, boys. You know, sometimes, in the middle of the night, you get to feeling uptight, and you wish that you were feeling all right, because you are lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, and you’re in your little teenage room, with the posters, and the incense, and the hot red bulb, and there you are in your teenage pajamas, little flannel ones, with zany prints of rabbits, small lavender sheep, clouds, little five-pointed stars, with green edging, the usual pajama. Your body is in the pajama, and the pajama is sandwiched between two teenage sheets… Not so elaborate on the baseline, Jeff Simmons. Swoovette. No, let’s have a bass solo.
Jeff whips out a nice little groovy solo over the Tiny Sick vamp, and after his spotlight ends Frank decides to skip the rest of the monologue since he’s “tired of saying it anyway”. He takes this opportunity to go right into the next tune: Call Any Vegetable. The tune has an update for the new decade, which is that Frank has tacked a bit of Igor Stravinsky’s Agon onto the start (he also radically rearranged the whole tune for this new band, but why mention that). The Agon section is a tad slow and shakey, but overall pretty well performed, and it leads right into Frank’s spoken vegetable intro.
Frank: “I’m gonna skip the rest of the monologue, because I’m tired of saying it anyway. And now we’re going to play Call Any Vegetable, with its new unique feature: The introduction which in effect is nothing more than the first few bars of Agon by Igor Stravinsky converted to electronic music by a careful process of breaking down the score into its little component parts and bastardizing it. So we can play it for you so that you wouldn’t know what it was when you heard it.”
[…]
Ray: “Say Frank”
Frank: “Yes Ray”
Ray: “How do you call your love a vegetable?”
Frank: “Play Louie Louie”
Ray: “And if they don’t come?”
Frank: “I suggest either Wipe Out or Wild Thing”
Ray: “And if they do come?”
Frank: “Well I consider it for a moment then think about Little House I Used To Live In or– oh I think about Duke of Prunes or– My mind drifts back across the mystic pages of rock n roll history to… Motherly Love and… Wowie Zowie and all those other songs we didn’t practice. But in general I simply say: a lot of people don’t bother about their friends in the vegetable kingdom. They say: what can I say? What can a person like myself say to a vegetable, outside of play Louie Louie. But the answer is simple my friends. Just call… and tell ‘em how you feel.”
If this show is indeed the “first” Fillmore show, then it includes the earliest known performance of the new 1970 rearranged Call Any Vegetable, the basis of one later made famous by Flo and Eddie on Just Another Band From LA. It’s really cool to hear it performed by Frank and Ray, because it’s a completely different vibe vocally, but still quite entertaining. In some ways it feels like the missing link between the studio take and the 1971 live versions (probably because it is!) Ray deadpans “Artichokes” after the rutabaga yodel, the Jupiter Holst quote remains in place from the original album, and we get a nice guitar solo from FZ in the middle. It starts off a bit noodle-y, but he eventually kicks it into high gear and pulls out a nice rockin’ solo in the back half. When the whole band gets loud Frank’s guitar unfortunately gets a little lost in the mix, so this really isn’t the easiest listen, but it’s hard not to enjoy a Call Any Vegetable. The transition out of the solo back into song is abrupt, but Ray and Frank’s funny banter about the incipient song requests totally makes up for it (see above). Frank yells for the vegetables to “c’mere” as the tune concludes, and he ends the main set with a quick “Thank you, and we’ll see you later”
“Because you’ve been such a good audience… What we’re gonna do is take one of your long elaborate teenage numbers and wheedle it down to a respectable encore type length [Ray: “That about wraps it up”] and we’ll give you the sort of entertainment that I think you’ll really identify with. By the way, a brief note to the person that threw the apple, uh, bit onto the stage: That’s how snipers get their training. And the CIA is taking job applications right now.”
After a short intermission Frank gives an amusing little talk about not throwing objects on the stage (it’s apparently how snipers get their training), then goes right into a vocal performance of Oh No. Ray misses the first note, and I can’t say he sings the tune perfectly, but it’s just always nice to hear his beautiful voice. He even sings the “such a fool” ending, which I wasn’t expecting for some reason (I think this may be the only live recording we have of Ray singing the whole tune). Frank takes a guitar solo in his standard spot, and it’s arguably his most inspired of the show. He really hits all the right spots in this tune and delivers a delicious wah-drenched solo. There’s an unfortunate tape cut right in the middle, and there’s a huge drop out near the end of the tune but neither flaw ruins the listening experience. When the piece finishes, Frank leads us right into a strange take of The Orange County Lumber Truck! This is a very unique, tweaked version of the tune, because right as they start the theme, Frank has inserted about 20 seconds of the 50s R’n’B song Linda Lu (originally performed by Ray Sharpe) Ray sings the tune in place of the normal guitar break, and the tune seems to proceed like normal until the theme ends with this unique organ riff, followed by a weird repeating drum riff. This leads us into a loooooong drum battle between our two drummers. Now I like a drum solo, but I can’t say I prefer it to the normal cavalcade of solos that’d usually cap off this tune. There’s nearly 10 minutes(!) of drumming that make up the bulk of this encore performance, and I don’t really think the average person needs to hear this. I really enjoy the changes to the main theme, but man I wish we got some kind of jam with Frank, Ian and Don, that was capped off with a drum duet. The drummers play a cool riff used in the 70/71 arrangement of Little House at nine and a half minutes in, and not long after this the tune ends with a slow breakdown of the main theme, which brings the show to an unsatisfying end (though the crowd loved it).
This is a solid show, and I believe probably a good representation of what this band sounded like. We can never know for sure without more recordings, but we get Frank half-heartily attempting to bring back the energy of the original Mothers eight months after he disbanded them. Most of the between-song banter with the audience is super amusing, and the song choice is pretty great, but I don’t think Frank is playing at his peak here (and I mean who can blame him, he’s really only got this band so he can get 200 Motels performed). All that being said, this is still a very enjoyable listen from a weird, rare era in Frank-dom. We get a bunch of cool unique performances, and most of it is in pretty good quality. I find the other Fillmore show to be a bit more interesting instrumentally, but this one has a much funnier vibe, so listen to the two shows as a pair and you’ll have a great time. This show does have some great highlights that the other show misses, like the Louie Louie fiasco, the enjoyable Son of Mr. Green Genes, the Tiny Sick Tears bass solo and the Oh No/Orange County event. The opening Wino Man is also a fantastic highlight, as are the Peace Corp and Boyfriend’s Back Medleys, but all these tunes can also be found in equal or better performances on the other Fillmore recording. I usually listen to this one together with the other New York show to get a more balanced lyrical and instrumental experience from this group, and I do like this show, but I consider it the lesser of the two gigs. An easy recommendation for the superfan, but most casual listeners can skip this one.
1970 05 09 – Fillmore East, New York, NY (Audience B+)
Our second Fillmore gig is also a bit of a mystery. Zappateers claims this show is from the 9th due to a “Happy Mother’s Day!” comment FZ makes near the end, but that’s not really enough proof for me. Mother’s Day in 1970 actually fell on May 10th, and I think it’s totally possible Frank just announced it since it was coming up, like he would do with Halloween (though it’s also equally possible this is the final show of the run and ended after midnight on the 10th, we just really don’t know). The mystery is enhanced by the fact that like 90% of the banter between songs is missing, so there’s really no clues to go off of except for the aforementioned Mother’s Day comment. Even though it’s not the most accurate label, I’m going to call this the “second” or “latter” Fillmore show, just because I need some sort of shorthand when I mention this show.
Anyway, despite the missing/cut dialog, this is a pretty great show. The sound is a bit better than the other show (a little more muffled but less distorted), and in general the performances are more inspired. The set list is a bit better too; The repeat songs are livelier, and we get a few more unique arrangements with opportunities for the full band to jam out. While the previous show exudes character with all the audience interactions, this show fills a more musical role. Frank’s guitar playing is tastier at this gig, and he overall just seems more enthused (maybe because there’s 200% less demand for Louie Louie). Overall I find this to be the stronger of the two New York shows, with a better, more instrumental setlist, more enjoyable sound, and a more engaged FZ. The tape does lack the amusing audience interactions from the “first” show, but thankfully the taper did record Frank’s opening introduction, which is a delight.
“[I don’t want to] ….get you upset, but I think we’re ready to play. Now, this is a new kind of Mothers of Invention ensemble. It has different personnel than the other Mothers of Invention ensemble. I’ll introduce these members of the ensemble to you now: Motorhead. Don Preston. Ian Underwood. Billy Mundi. Jeff Simmons. (Is that his real hair?) Aynsley Dunbar. And we are thrilled and delighted to have with us in the bandstand, once again, none other than the dynamic Mr. Raymond Eugene Collins. [Fan screams something like “what about you?”] That’s none of your business, child. Alright, and the other thing that’s new and unique about this Mothers of Invention ensemble is we gave up on trying to be creative on stage, especially in a place like this. So we do all of our sets by a little song list, you know. There’s no more just walking on stage and just improvising music out of thin air because that didn’t go. So what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna play some of our hits. [huge laugh] And here’s one of them from the We’re Only In It For The Money album. It’s a nice audience warm-up tune. It’s called Who Needs the Peace Corps? Ready? Okay, grind it out!”
Frank’s dry delivery is everything here. I love his comment on giving up on “trying to be creative on stage”; You can tell he’s just so not into the old Mothers anymore, I mean they have a setlist for Christ’s sake! It’s also neat to hear him introduce the band members, which I don’t believe he ever did in the 60s. The show begins with the excellent Who Needs The Peace Corps/Duke Of Prunes medley of two. It’s such a lovely piece of music it’s hard to believe Frank never played it outside of this measly tour. After the cool instrumental themes, Don plays a nice solo to kick off the middle improvisation, and Frank follows it up with an excellent, thoughtful solo. Compared to the “first” fillmore show, I think this performance is slightly weaker, but both takes have their benefits. This take is a good minute shorter than the other one, and I think Don’s performance was a little better on the other night, but FZ’s guitar is stronger at this gig. Frank really has a better idea for his solo this time around and the whole thing just flows really well. Whatever the case is, I enjoy any performance of this unique medley. The composed parts are lovely as always, and like usual the crowd cracks up at something funny onstage right before The Duke Of Prunes comes in.
When the performance is over the tape cuts out, and the show resumes at the very start of Wonderful Wino. It’s a really great take showcasing Jeff’s underrated vocals, and Frank once again whips out two excellent solos: a shorter one in the middle, and a long extended one at the end. On this tour this tune is simply a great Hot Rats style rocker, with a great deadpan ending too. This is such an awesome song which really doesn’t get enough love from the Zappa community writ large. Both Fillmore shows have a take of this tune, and they’re both fantastic. After Wino Man the tape cuts in and out again, and we return right at the start of How Could I Be Such A Fool? There was a huge laugh from the crowd near the start, so I’m assuming something funny happened on stage, but from an audio perspective we simply get a solid take of the tune, based on the Freak Out arrangement. Honestly, this isn’t an amazing arrangement. It’s very slow, this band isn’t really tight enough to get into a groove, and it doesn’t have that upbeat, funky Ruben ending. The choruses are nice and epic and Ray’s vocals are pretty lovely, but still, not my favorite. This show does have the only complete take of this tune, but again it’s not great so do whatever you want with that info.
One more inter-song tape cut and the Mothers launch into a sick take of Chunga’s Revenge! This tune pretty much always kicks ass, and this tour’s take is no exception. Interestingly, this is the one tune from the Hot Rats era that made its way into this band’s setlists, pretty much every other rock song was an MOI throwback (not counting rearrangements of course). Simmons messes up the bassline at first, but the band carries on and we end up with a nice take of the theme. The improvisations begin with an excellent, thoughtful sax solo from Ian, featuring a partial quote of Holst’s Jupiter in the middle. There’s unfortunately two separate tape cuts during Ian’s solo, one around three minutes in, and another shortly after that misses the end of Ian’s solo and the start of Don’s. It’s a bummer, but what are you gonna do? Anyway, after Ian finishes Don plays a really nice, emotional synth solo that perfectly fits the dark Chunga’s mood, and after Don comes Frank, with a fantastic, passionate, angry guitar solo that wraps up the moody affair. There’s yet another small cut during FZ’s solo (around eight and a half minutes in), which is another bummer but still not a huge deterrent. Once Frank wraps up his tasty solo, we get a reprise of the main theme and the jam ends with a nice little guitar coda. Despite all the cuts this is still a great jam, and an easy instrumental highlight of the tour. Frank rarely played this tune in 1970 and 71, but every time he did it was a delight.
“[cuts in] …there came a time… [cuts in and out] There’s one of those guys at every show… [cuts in and out] Boy oh boy, now that we’re all tuned up and ready to tear ass, here it is. The world-renowned My Boyfriend’s Back medley. Followed shortly thereafter by none other than Call Any Vegetable. And the hits just keep coming at you at the Fillmore East.”
The taper starts and stops a few more times, clearly missing some audience interaction, but we at least get an amusing snippet of Frank announcing that they’re “ready to tear ass” into the “world-renowned My Boyfriend’s Back medley”. The 50s/60s parody medley is, as always, a total riot, and this is one of my favorite versions. Our two drummers go surprisingly hard on tonight’s take, and maybe it’s just the sound quality but I definitely prefer this version to the other Fillmore show. Frank is clearly tired of the comedy number, as is evident in his transitional dialog between tunes, but with songs as silly as these I think his apathy actually makes it a bit funnier. [“Oh son of a gun the boyfriend is still coming home and he’s pissed off year after year when we do this routine…”] And despite his comments, FZ does not seem bothered to cap off the medley with another Tiny Sick Tears, cause after a rockin Bust His Head, we get the longest Cookie Story known to modern man (nearly 9 minutes!).
Ray: “Baby! Ninety-Six Tears! I need a few more beers. Till my complexion clears. Oh it’s so great to be a rock n roll singer! It’s just wonderful. Baby, Baby, here my plea! I’m down on my knee! Baby do you please […] Baby, Baby I need your Hamburgers, baby….. Gotta Gotta… Good God…”
Frank: “Bring the band on down behind me boys. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, you get to feeling uptight, and wish you were feeling alright. Because you’re lonely, lonely, lonely. Oh, so lonely. In your dingy, putrescent, teenage bedroom. With the incense, the posters, and the hot red bulb. And you feel deep down inside. That you gotta gotta… get your cookies. How many say amen to it? [Amen!”] You cats are out of sight. You gotta gotta, you gotta gotta, you gotta ga-gotta ga-gotta get your cookies. And if you can’t get your cookies, the least you can do is [sung] follow the snake to the lake. Thank you. That’s one of the reasons I like to play the Fillmore East because I know you people go for soul music. So here’s the deal. In lieu of following the snake to the aforementioned lake, you, as a teenage person, clad in flannel pajamas, with little imprints of the Fisk tire ad all over them, stuffed between two dingy gray teenage sheets with pecker tracks on them. Little tell-tale reminders of pubertyyyy. Ooh, it’s such a horrible word. The time when the hair grows on your legs and stuff, and the little girls go on the rag. Big deal.
Anyway, you gotta gotta, you gotta go down, you gotta get out of your teenage sheets and your little teenage pajamas. You gotta go out of your room, down the hall *bzzt* down the stairs *bzzt* into the living room *bzzzt* through the living room into the kitchen *ttttt*. There you are in the kitchen, moonlight streaming gloriously through the kitchen window, forming a halo around the cookie jar. There it is. Live in person. the teenage cookie jar. You, being a somewhat horny teenage person, and you gotta gotta, are going to get into the oral gratification bag with a, uh, oatmeal cookie with raisins. So you take the top off, hand into the receptacle, fumbling around, [Sung like Morrison] fumbling around the cookie jar. Ah da da da da da doo.
And there you have it, you’ve got the cookie. It’s a real nice cookie too. It’ll do you proud. It’s not too stiff and it’s not too flabby. It’s a resilient oatmeal cookie. Little bumps and ridges, just like your complexion all over the top of it. It’s a cookie you can identify with. It’s got little brown nuggets of raisin in it, still moist and sort of, oh, you can just hardly wait to jam it in your mouth. You caress the cookie briefly, then whip it out of the jar, just stuff it in your mouth and scarf it all up. Then you go over to the icebox. You open the icebox door. You stick your hand in the icebox. You pull out a box of milk. You make a beak on the box like that. You lift the box up to your drinking hole. You pour the white fluid from the box into your drinking hole. You close the beak. You stuff the box back in the icebox and close the icebox door. Now you’re ready. You go out of the kitchen, through the living room, up the stairs. You take a mask from the ancient hallway, go down the hall, past your sister’s room, past your brother’s room, all the way down to your mother’s room. And she’s sitting in there at a vanity table with doilies, and huge mountains of unguents and ointments and oink-a-ments and stuff to put on her face. And she’s getting beautiful. Little stuff to put in the corner of the eye to cover up those little things. Things for her warts and things for her moles. She’s getting in shape for a busy day shopping downtown. You walk in and you say, mother, I want to kill you. She’s sure- she peeps at you in the corner of her wrinkled little eye. She can’t identify with it. And you’re a little tired after all that oral satisfaction downstairs. So you shrug your teenage shoulders and trot out the door down to your father’s room. And you go down there, and your father’s sitting on the edge of a bed beating his meat to a Playboy magazine. Oh, we’ve heard this so many times before. It’s disgusting. He’s got- he’s got it open to the centerfold where the tits are real big. Big ones! Chibungees[?]. With a nipple that looks like a fried egg. Or, if you prefer, as if a camel had stepped on her chest. And she’s been airbrushed so that she looks more rounded, more alluring. There she is Miss January with a brown background. [Frank Laughs something I can’t make out – “She’s mature” maybe?] He takes the Playboy magazine and he has it rolled into a tube of sorts which he has placed against his member. He has encased his member in the Playboy tube. And he’s ripping it off. Don’t come! Don’t come! And you look at your father and you say, Father, I want to kill you. And he says, Not now, son! Not now! You ready?”
This is simply one of the best versions of the Tiny Sick Tears cookie lecture out there. Frank sings like Jim Morrison a few times, the audience eats it up, and the shock ending delivers. If you haven’t heard the lecture before, it’s a long parody of The End by The Doors, featuring a tale of 60s teenage rebellion, sexuality and a lust for cookies, all from a very Zappa perspective. Frank uses the terms “pecker tracks”, “oink-a-ments” and “chibungees”, which are all high quality Zappa-isms, so even though the story goes on a little long, it’s a fun time throughout. The moment Frank wraps up his pseudo-erotic tale, he brings the band right into Stravinsky’s Agon, which is the new 1970 intro to Call Any Vegetable. It’s a really rough and sloppy version of Agon, but it leads into a nice, if somewhat standard Call Any Vegetable. The reworked 70/71 Rock N Roll Vegetable is always a delight, and Frank cranks out a good rocking guitar solo in the middle (though there is a small tape glitch during the solo sadly). Then right after the jam Frank and Ray have a cute but uneventful little dialog in the regular place. Neither the solo, nor the dialog are as good as the previous show, but without a doubt it’s still a fun time (it’s just hard not to compare the two shows).
Ray: “Hey Frankie”
Frank: “Yes Raymond Eugene?”
Ray: “How do you call your love a vegetable?”
Frank: “I say ‘come here vegetable’”
Ray: “And if they don’t come?”
Frank: “I keep saying ‘come here vegetable’ until it becomes darn near redundant”
Ray: “And if they still don’t come”
Frank: Well then I simply say a lot of people don’t bother about their friends in the vegetable kingdom….”
[…]
Frank: “And now boys and girls, [to unearth?] another old tune from our moldy Mothers Of Invention repertoire.. We have this item, which, uh, occupied side number four of the Uncle Meat album called… King Kong”
And finally to close out the main set we get the revival of King Kong, possibly the original Mothers most iconic tune. Frank gives a very cool intro to this “moldy” old Mother’s tune which “occupied side number four of the Uncle Meat album”, and then there’s one more tape cut that brings us right to the start of the ferocious instrumental. FZ has of course revamped the tune a bit for this ensemble, and similar to a few other old “moldy” MOI tunes we get the 1970 Flo and Eddie arrangement! This is an excellent version, and an easy highlight of these Fillmore tapes. We start with the main theme, followed by the new third theme played on guitar. This is a short bouncy little guitar line that leads into King Kong’s opening solo, which just like in the good ol’ days is played by Motorhead! He whips out one of his classic, atonal, screeching solos, and Frank conducts the rest of the band a bit while he blows his horn. When the mad sax player finishes Frank plays the third theme again, and immediately follows it with the second theme (the theme regularly played after Motorhead’s solos in the 60s).
Then out of nowhere, they play Phase One of Igor’s Boogie! What a trip! This was a regular feature of King Kong in 1970, and it’s always a weird-ass super fun delight. When they finish the tweaky little medley (which is a fairly representative of the album performance, but on electric instruments) they head into another cool bit of music, which can either be thought of as a fourth(!) Kong Kong theme, or as a variation on the first line of Igor’s Boogie. It’s really crazy just how much music Frank threw into King Kong in 1970. Anyway, during the fourth theme Ray starts to sing along, and this leads into an absolutely beautiful vocal solo. It’s truly lovely, and features some great rhythm guitar from Frank as well. After a couple minutes the tune dives right into a drum battle featuring Billy and Aynsley. There’s a cut that seems to take out a good chunk near the start of the drum solo, but I’d personally rather lose that than anything from the encore, so it’s an acceptable loss (plus there’s like 10 minutes of uninterrupted drumming on the last tape). When the drum duet ends the makeshift Mothers jam for a minute or so before Frank brings the band down behind him. He gives a totally amusing outro where he wishes us a happy Mothers’s Day, and tells the audience “I hope you win the revolution”. He then cues a slowed down ending version of the main King Kong theme which brings this set at the Fillmore to an end. This is a really great King Kong, and though we don’t get a guitar solo, we do get a sick-ass vocal solo and the first known version of the Igor’s Boogie Infused King Kong, which is more than worth the price of admission.
“Bring the band down behind me boys. It’s been lovely tonight boys and girls. We must leave you now. I’d like to wish you all a very happy Mother’s Day, and I hope you win the revolution”
[Encore Break]
“Okay, here’s the deal. [“What’s the deal?”] The deal is, ordinarily at the Fillmore East, if the audience claps for you, you come back and play something else. If you’re the Mothers of Invention, you’re bound by oath to perform Valerie or some other piece of shit. [Cheers] However, tonight we’re weird, and we’re going to play some stuff off the Burnt Money Sandwich album. You’ll hear part of Little House I Used to Live In, and also part of Holiday in Berlin, Full Blown. And if the good lord willith and the creeks don’t rise, you’re going to hear Cruising for Burgers on the end of it. And that’s the program for our Mothers of Invention Teenage Encore. […] Ready? The Duke!”
Tonight’s big Fillmore East teenage encore extravaganza isn’t Valarie, but the monster conglomerate piece known as “The Duke”, which at this time consists primarily of Little House I Used To Live In, Holiday In Berlin and Cruising For Burgers (all great tunes!). The big medley starts off with a unique take of Little House I Used To Live In! It’s the same as the future 1970 takes, but completely instrumental, which is a massive plus (the 1970 Little House lyrics are some of the worst of Frank’s career, in my opinion). The tune begins with a cool, short chugging electric intro unique to the year, and while there’s a few minor differences with transitions and tempo here and there, it’s overall very similar to the future performances. FZ says “not too fast now” during a break around two and a half minutes in, and there’s a small cut about 30 seconds later. When the excellent instrumental wraps up we get a neat segue into an extremely early version of the Mud Shark, which at this point in time is simply a little instrumental blues vamp meant to transition us into the next section of the Duke. It only lasts about 20 seconds before we hear the plucky percussion/guitar riff to take us into Holiday In Berlin (a regular part of the live arrangement).
Like with Little House, this performance of Holiday in Berlin has basically the same arrangement as the more famous Flo and Eddie version, but without vocals. Though there is a neat jazzy section around 1:45 (“Wait for a night in Berlin…..”), that’s way lounge-ier than any other take I’ve ever heard. There’s another annoying cut before Frank starts soloing, but we luckily only miss the first few notes of his fantastic solo. This just might be Frank’s best solo of the tour, which isn’t too surprising since Holiday In Berlin never fails to amaze. FZ whips out a great, inspiring, emotional solo, which of course points to future Inca Roads greatness (though the Inca Roads post-solo theme is missing from this performance, and it’s unclear if the tape cut missed it or it just wasn’t included yet). The jam is very Frank, and well worth checking out. There’s some tape errors near the end, but it almost feels like the recording can’t handle how monstrous this guitar playing is. I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say this is one of my favorite performances of this tune. Anyway, when he finally winds down FZ cues the band to head right into the live guitar intro to Cruising For Burgers. They play through the tune once instrumentally, slowing down some parts to make the tune surprisingly heavy, and then for the reprise Ray comes in to sing the lyrics! Frank sings the low part (“gotta do a few things…”), while Ray soars with the rest of the tune, and the song ends with a big instrumental crescendo featuring a little FZ guitar. The ends “The Duke” and brings the “latter” Fillmore show to a close (“Thank you and goodnight”).
This is definitely my preferred Fillmore show, but they both have their strong suits. The unique tunes here are way more up my alley (Chunga’s, King Kong, and the Duke are all excellent), but the previous show has more character with all the audience interaction, plus some of the repeated tunes are more fun at the other show. The previous shows’ Peace Corps and Vegetable I think slightly eke past tonight’s, but I prefer this shows’ Boyfriend’s Back and Tiny Sick Tears. I think someone could make an excellent compilation that distills the best of these two shows into one hybrid concert, but it probably won’t be me. This show probably won’t change anyone’s opinion on this tour, but it’s still a good ‘ol time. It’s the best “regular” show that we have, and a worthwhile listen for most hardcore FZ fans.
1970 05 15 – “Contempo ’70” – Pauley Pavilion, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA (Audience B/A-)
The weird reunion micro-tour ends with an all time monumental Zappa show. This final night at UCLA is the sole reason this band exists: for Frank to debut his orchestral work 200 Motels. The maestro had been working on the music that would become the score of 200 Motels throughout the second half of the 60s, and had even played parts on stage, most notably at the Royal Festival Hall in London in 1968 (as heard on Ahead of Our Time), but this specific project first came about sometime in 1969, when Frank first met Zubin Mehta by chance at a panel discussion for KPFK radio. Zubin was the musical director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, and was a bit of a conducting prodigy (when he was appointed musical director in 1962, he was only 26, making him the youngest person to hold the chair!). The two icons talked about the state of classic music, how it compares to rock, and what the young people of the time wanted to listen to. The exact proceedings after this meeting are a bit unclear, but Frank must have brought up the series of musical sketches he’d been working on, and this must have eventually made its way to the right people because Zubin agreed to conduct the debut of 200 Motels for the Contempo ‘70 program in LA, a series of shows highlighting contemporary 20th century music. The LA Phil didn’t just want a normal orchestral show though, they wanted an “event” (in Frank’s words). There was a desire to fuse the rock and classical worlds and play with a rock band, specifically the Mothers, even though Frank disbanded the group last year. So if Frank wanted to hear his “serious” compositions played by a “serious” ensemble, then he would have to throw together a makeshift “reunited” Mothers of Invention, which is exactly what he did. Additionally, FZ also invited a few other friends/collaborators to perform with the Mothers and the LA Philharmonic, which is why George Duke and Ernie Watts make uncredited appearances!
The concert took place at the famous Pauley Pavilion on the third of four days of music spread throughout May 1970. There were a few other pieces performed on FZ’s night but 200 Motels, along with the MOI’s performance, was the highlight of the festival. This concert itself is a bit of a hybrid show. Roughly speaking, the first 20 minutes consists of this band’s regular rock material, then the LA Philharmonic Orchestra joins the Mothers for the premier of 200 Motels, which runs just under an hour, and another 20 minutes of rock material end the show. Despite this, there are references to classical pieces throughout the “rock material”, and some members of the orchestra stick around after the main event and play with the MOI in the second half of the show. This version of 200 Motels is a totally different beast, and only resembles the finalized score in a few places, but more on that later. The bulk of the show is captured on a solid B/B+ audience recording, but we fortunately have the main feature (200 Motels) available on a very nice A- recording, which is just a treat. Frank wanted to record this show in some way, but union fees prevented him, so it’s incredibly fortunate there was a taper somewhere out there in the audience. But enough background, onto the show, which begins with a long amusing introduction from Frank, setting up this unique night of music.
“….Girls, here’s the deal. Now, a few of us up here are just a bit tense. Y’know, we’re under pressure. We’re going to try and do a good job for you. There’s no way to tell exactly what’s going to happen. First, the tape recorder breaks down. You just don’t know. When you play music in a hall designed for basketball, you take your chances. If, at some time in the future, music becomes competitive, aggressive, violent, or more involved with physical action, perhaps buildings of this size designed for music will be constructed. Oh, one other thing. Would Don Preston, our organist, please stop vomiting and come up onto the stage. It’s really tense. Where is he? Look out in the trailer, Herbie! Well, we’ll check our tuning. [Tuning] We figured that the best thing to do when we came on after the orchestra was to play something contrasting, you know, something that was a little bit more easy to assimilate or identify with. So we’re going to do one of our rigid stereotype routines, which has a certain amount of humorous content. And then in the middle of it, there’ll be a surprise, where we’ll play our version of Integrals, the hot number that you just heard. I hate to do it but we’re going to start without Donny. Bop, bop.”
The show starts off with an iconic Frank spiel. I love his comments on the sports setting, and the fact that Don is puking backstage and has to miss the very start of the show. The “tape recorder breaks down” line refers to a piece by Mel Powell titled Immobiles, that was attempted but suddenly withdrawn by the composer earlier in the program. Frank begins the show with the Boyfriend’s Back medley, which is simply the most terrific troll move to open up this night of “serious” music with one of the dumbest bits of his career. Absolutely hysterical, and a great take too (one of the best we have). The doo wop tunes of course head into Tiny Sick Tears, which contains another set of funny 96 Tears parody lyrics, and a long, amusing “cookie lecture”.
Ray: “Baby! Ninety-Six Tears! Gotta Gotta Gotta! I need a few more beers. Till my complexion clears. Gotta Gotta Pimple![?] I buy my clothes at Sears. Oh Baby, Baby…”
Frank: “You know, sometimes in the middle of the night, you get to feeling uptight and wish you were feeling all right, because you’re lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely. Sitting alone at home in your little teenage bedroom with the posters and the incense and the hot red bulb, and you’ve gotta ga-otta gotta ga-gotta get your cookies. It’s putting you uptight, on a glandular level, that you can’t get your cookies because you’re a teenager at home. Oh, what do you do? There you are in your flannel pajamas with the little imprints of the sailing boats, lambs, little Bo Peep, the boy with the tire over his shoulder, the whole bit. You have your pajamas on, you’re stuffed in between your teenage sheets. They’re graying old sheets with the yellow and brown stains on them in strategic areas. Those are teenage sheets, and every mother knows what I’m talking about. You don’t have to laugh, just let your eyebrows go up and down. And there you are with your pajamas, and your body is stuffed in between the teenage sheets and you’ve gotta gotta.So what you do is you get out of your bed, you go out into the hall, down the steps, through the living room, into the kitchen, seeking out the fountain of youth. Yes, it’s the cookie jar. The Aunt Jemima cookie jar, $4.98, white front[?], and it’s loaded and bulging with your favorite oral gratification, oatmeal raisin cookies.
With a very carefully calculated gesture, you rip the head off the Aunt Jemima cookie jar, set it aside, and stuff your sweaty teenage hand into the body of the Jemima, and buckle around within it to find exactly the one, the cookie of the world, the Lord God King of oatmeal cookies. With moist, tempting raisins, a fascinating tactile sensation, something that you know you’re going to get off on it when you stick it in your mouth. Oh, you’ve got the cookie. You’re a teenager with a cookie in your hand, and you pull the cookie out of the jar, look around and see if anybody’s watching you, and you just jam it into your mouth and scarf it right up. That doesn’t quite do it. You have to go over to the icebox. You open the door on the icebox, you reach your hand into the icebox, you pull out a box of milk. You open the box of milk and make a beak on it like that. You take the box of milk and put it up to your drinking hole. You pour the white fluid from the box of milk into your drinking hole. You close the beak, you stuff the box back into the icebox, and close the icebox door. You still haven’t got off yet. It’s so hard being a teenager. Oh, those sheets, oh, those sheets. Through the living room, up the stairway, down the hallway, you take a mask from the ancient hallway. You go down past your brother’s room, past your sister’s room, down to your mother’s room where she is anointing the crow’s feet around her eyes with some youthening, vitalizing, gum-goo, pinkish turquoise and lavender preparation that’s gonna make her look hot and alluring. She’s putting it all over the side of her face. You walk in and you say, Mother, I want to kill you. She pays no attention to you whatsoever. Completely alienated. She’s got no time for things like that. She’s seen your poster collection. She’s smelled your incense, and he’s washed your sheets, and she knows where you’re at. Out the door, down the hall, to your father’s room. Your father is sitting on the edge of the bed, and let’s be frank about it, ladies and gentlemen, he’s beating his meat to a Playboy magazine. He’s got the centerfold opened up and it’s Miss January with a brown background, huge, voluminous tits. Big ones, nipples that look like fried eggs. Or, if you prefer, as if a camel had stepped on her chest. And she’s been airbrushed to make her look robust and mature. And he’s got it rolled into a tube. And he’s inserted his member into the tube and he’s throttling it vigorously. And you walk in and you say, Father, I want to kill you. And he says, Not now, son, not now.”
Frank delivers a great version of the speech, only rivaled by the later Fillmore show (though the two performances are very similar). I think the Fillmore version has a bit more of a unique character to it with Frank’s strange word choice, but this lecture is extremely amusing as well. When he finishes the perverted story the band makes a direct transition into the Stravinsky intro to Call Any Vegetable. This performance of the Agon intro is weird though, as the members of the MOI slip in some quips during the breaks. A few people (though primarily Jeff) in unison say “I take my life, and leave this note”, and then after another ten seconds of Agon Ray croaks “gimmie a quarter for a pizza”. Not sure if this is a reference to something or just a straight non-sequiter, but my gut says the first line might be a reference to an old R’n’B tune.
A tight Call Any Vegetable follows this up, but in place of an improvised guitar solo, Frank and the Mothers play a cool electric version of Edgar Verese’s Integrales! This avant-garde work was performed by the LA Phil earlier in the night so I imagine the audience would have easily recognized it, assuming they saw the opening performances. Varese was also a massive influence for Frank, so it makes perfect sense he’d include something like this for his first major classical performance. The “solo section” starts with the regular vamp, but Frank comes in with the melody to Integrales and over the course of a minute or so the vibe gets heavier and heavier until all memories of Vegetables are forgotten. The ragtag MOI deftly accompany their lead guitarist and we end up with a really cool, chaotic, and heavy version of the influential abstract composition. Eventually Don takes over the eerie melody, but shortly after this something funny must have happened on stage because the audience erupts into laughter. Ian then slowly ekes the theme out on sax, before Frank returns to sing the tune! (“sing along with Edgar Varese! Don’t be shy he’d love it if you would sing it”). After a little bit of classical karaoke, somebody in the audience whistles and Frank responds with a hysterical “shut up you idiot”. “He then confusingly says “alright now the beginning” before cuing the dissonant ending to the piece and segueing directly back into the post-solo theme of Call Any Vegetable. Frank and Ray’s post-solo dialog is pretty stock, though FZ does reference the cookie jar speech (“I keep saying ‘come here vegetable’ until they either buy a playboy magazine or come over to my house and see what’s happening”), and the rest of the rocking tune concludes as expected. This is not a normal Call Any Vegetable by any standards, and I’d usually say it’s a bummer to not get an improvised solo, but the Integrales performance in the middle is extremely cool, and an easy highlight of the tour!
As soon as the Mothers finish their opening set, the LA Philharmonic begins to play (they must have come on stage at some point during Call Any Vegetable). This section is listed on most sources as “Blowing Discordant Sounds”, which isn’t a Zappa-penned title but still a perfect description. I imagine the orchestra is mainly tuning, but in a neat, improvised chaotic way (kind of like the Zanti Serenades that will pop up the following year, but on a much grander scale). Frank is maybe conducting them? I’m not sure, but after about 80 seconds of crazed strings and woodwinds, the tape cuts out and we return to the Mothers tuning. FZ then takes the mic and announces that Mr. Powell (the composer of the aforementioned Immobiles) has left the building, and that it is time for the main event: 200 Motels. This introduction to the premier of 200 Motels is another classic little bit of dialog from FZ. I love how hesitant he is here. Frank comments on all the “horrible errors” in his music that he made, which is something we rarely see from him in the future when he’s more secure as a composer.
“Hello? Okay, I would like to make an announcement about this orchestra piece that the Los Angeles Philharmonic is going to crank off for you now. First of all, I’ll tell you about the one that they aren’t going to crank off for you now. It seems that Mr. Powell has left and he took the tape with him- [crowd laughs] And, uh, so they aren’t going to play Immobiles four. However, they are going to play 200 Motels and the story on that is: it’s a collection of sketches that was orchestrated, uh, recently. The sketches have been written over a period of years when I thought it would be fun to be a composer, and then during the past week I got to listen to them playing this stuff here at rehearsals and, uh, I saw all the horrible errors that I made. Too late to change them! You get to hear all the mistakes too! It’s not really a great piece of music but we might be able to get off a couple of times in it. All right Zubin, hit it!
[…]
Now do you know where- what the cue is to come in? [Crowd laughs] we have to start it. 10 minutes? Okay. Ready?”
The head Mother utters the iconic “All right Zubin, hit it!” and shortly thereafter begins the piece (though not before double checking with Zubin on when the orchestra will come in). Like I mentioned above, this is not the 200 Motels we’re used to. This early version of the work is clearly before the story of the film was fully developed, and before the original pieces from the movie were fully cemented. The version of 200 Motels performed on this day in May 1970 consists of a number of independent Zappa themes mixed in with chunks of music that would end up in the official score of 200 Motels in 1971. Some of this music had been released on previous Zappa albums, some would be released on future albums, and some even still has not seen an official release. There’s parts that Frank seemingly never used again in any other contexts, and there’s even improvised sections! Additionally, Zappa also said in interviews and press releases that they would be playing the first, third and fourth movements of the piece, so who knows which sections start and end where, and what was left out. [In an interview conducted shortly before the performance Frank said “The second movement is this big dramatic movement with a chorus and the dancers and vacuum cleaner and all that stuff. That was too expensive to do, so they couldn’t put that in.”] Just like the official soundtrack album, the 1970 200 Motels is a hybrid work featuring a rock band along with an orchestra, and for tonight’s performance the rock band starts us off (despite Frank’s “hit it!” comment).
Surprisingly, the piece begins with a fairly regular rock band performance of A Pound For A Brown. A keyboardist, either Don or Ian (or potentially even George Duke?) whiffs the hard part of the song in the middle, but it’s still a good performance overall. After the theme FZ takes a really nice solo, which I imagine was a ridiculously cool sight to behold from the audience’s view (seeing Frank rip on guitar while the entire orchestra sits behind him). Once he wraps up the rock band fades out and the orchestra appears with some unique music. They begin with variations on the Pound For A Brown theme, before heading into a minute of unidentified, likely unique music. Then out of nowhere Oh No appears! The main theme is played on a keyboard for about 45 seconds, while unique, chaotic orchestral accompaniment underscores, but just as the surprise of Oh No wears off, the ensemble switches to a section of Envelopes! This only lasts for about half a minute before we get our first real piece associated with 200 Motels, a section of Bogus Pomp known as either Like It Or Not or Redneck Eats (depending on the performance). They play the entire Ahead of Their Time arrangement (which makes it “Like It Or Not”), but with an obviously larger sound, and with an added 40 seconds of percussion craziness a minute in.
After this fleeting moment of recognizability we enter into another mish-mosh section. The orchestra plays a minute of Undaunted, The Band Plays On, but I believe it’s slowed down? Then suddenly it’s a fully orchestrated version of the Little House I Used To Live In intro!! Absolute madness! The LA phil plays the first half of the intro piece (about the first 50 seconds), then moves into a short chunk later found in Centerville. This is then followed by two minutes of beautiful, unidentified music. Lots of calming, plucky strings and piano, really cool. Because this is Zappa things of course get weird for a minute and we get a freaky woodwind line played over a pseudo-funky drum beat after the calm section. This reaches a crescendo of sorts before slowing back down for the second half of the Little House Intro! This time it’s played only on electric piano, so it’s very similar to the released version (though the orchestra plays the little “main theme” reprise at the end). Following this they segue directly into music from the score of The World’s Greatest Sinner (A low-budget movie Frank scored before the Mothers of Invention). The orchestra plays a lovely version of the film’s final theme, parts of which showed up in Lumpy Gravy (I think…. I could be wrong on this one). It’s a nice, triumphant piece of music, and actually lasts for a sizable, cohesive two minute chunk.
As the music from the World’s Greatest Sinner ends, the orchestra makes an excellent transition back to the Mothers for a performance of Holiday In Berlin! This transition is probably not a coincidence because Holiday in Berlin actually first appeared in the original World’s Greatest Sinner score! This version of the tune is largely similar to what the Mothers had been playing on the warm-up tour, but in LA they skip right to the bouncy section about a minute into the piece (meaning they skip the first, moodier take of the main theme with the percussive backing). It’s a lovely performance that gets even better when they reach the solo section and the Orchestra comes back in! There’s an annoying tape glitch right as the orchestra comes back in, but it’s easily ignorable. Hearing the Mothers and the entire LA Phil play the beautiful Holiday In Berlin chords (later made doubly iconic with Inca Roads) is just transcendent. To add to the epic intensity, the musicians start singing along with backing, and to get the crowd involved Frank yells “50,000 people should sing louder than that!” He then starts to play the amazing Inca Roads post-solo theme, and it gives me chills every time I listen. He plays his guitar with the might of the entire orchestra behind him, and after a bit an unknown trumpet player starts to solo underneath Frank (some neat accompanying marimba lines pop up too). This moment only lasts a couple minutes, but it is extremely cool, and probably my favorite moment of the whole piece. Eventually our soloists wind down, and we get a moment to spotlight Simmons’ Bass playing before the orchestra launches into a section of Strictly Genteel!!!! It’s a 30-second part near the end, immediately following the piece’s own Inca Roads-esque bit (what an awesome little example of conceptual continuity). Then right when we expect them to transition to the ”lord have mercy on the hippies…” line, they orchestra kinda crashes out, and we get a unique, weird dissonant section, with plodding jungle-y drums, which is an extreme vibe shit from what I would usually expect from Strictly Genteel, one of Frank’s most pleasant pieces.
Next comes another “oh what the fuck?” moment when the entire ensemble drops to a whisper and the piano begins the haunting backing line to Duke of Prunes! The orchestra triumphantly comes in with the lovely melody, and Ray sings the ridiculous lyrics! He either misses the cue to come in, or his mic wasn’t turned on quick enough, because the first audible line is “reveals your neck”. We don’t get a complete performance of the Absolutely Free tune, because after the first “the cheese I have for you is real and very new!” The Mothers take over once again with the 1970 Who Needs the Peace Corps arrangement! This chunk is played exactly as it is on the other recordings we have on this tour, and it’s great to have it in such good sound quality. The performance of the theme is lovely, and just like on the other performances we get a goofy little drum riff during the “move to San Francisco bit” and a transition to the instrumental Duke Of Prunes, which is especially cool here after hearing the orchestral version. Following the composed medley Don plays a lovely, shimmering keyboard solo. He builds up to a nice frenzy before quieting down again and passing the torch to our lead guitarist. Frank plays some plucky notes as they transition, quotes the opening to Integrales and proceeds to whip out a fantastic, tasteful guitar solo. Frank doesn’t play for very long before returning to the Peace Corps theme, but what he does play perfectly fits the environment. I still prefer the Fillmore takes of this medley, but this is also a lovely performance, and a great addition to this orchestral event.
The Mothers end this section with the regular crash and snork, which cracks the audience up as the LA Phil makes a great transition into a fully orchestrated Pound For A Brown. This is the second time Pound has appeared in the piece, miming the rock band performance that started us off. This is honestly a pretty bad performance, the percussionists get totally lost during the fast part, but it doesn’t fall apart completely and after about a minute and a half they move into music from an obscure FZ piece called “What’s The Name Of Your Group?” This piece includes Pound For A Brown in full and was recorded during the filming of 200 Motels but not released in full until the 200 Motels 50th boxset. (Though part is featured in the movie). They play about 30 seconds of the piece (which seems to mainly act tonight as an ending for Pound For A Brown), and continue with music from 200 Motels for the next seven-eight minutes. We get a minute from Dance Of The Rock & Roll Interviewers (with some cool sax sax improvisations over the end), and it’s capped off with 50 seconds of tweaky mystery percussive music over the end (very typical of FZ’s style at the time). This leads into what (I believe…) is a complete performance of Touring Can Make You Go Crazy. Near the end of this section members of the orchestra start to mumble and yell “Ha! Simba!” and “Blorp!” in unison, to which Ray replies “Bullshit….” This happens concurrently with a proto-version of The Lad Searches The Night For His Newts (about 30 seconds), and it’s followed by 90 seconds of unreleased music (with a very short section later used in Lucy’s Seduction Of A Bored Violinist right in the middle). This is followed by a minute and a half section of a piece titled I Have Seen The Pleated Gazelle, which like What’s The Name Of Your Group, was recorded for 200 motels but not utilized in full. It’s a cacophonic section again very typical of Zappa’s early orchestral works. Finally, this segment of the piece ends with what will become the closing seconds of “Tuna Fish Promenade” (the “just a tuna sandwich from another catering service” part).
Then suddenly, we have the orchestral reappearance of Oh No! This I believe is the original Lumpy Gravy arrangement (or it at least feels very similar). Unfortunately, just as Oh No reaches its big climatic conclusion we get a major bummer of a tape cut that takes out an unknown amount of music. We return to a unique chugging rock vamp from the Mothers, which starts off really rockin’ but quickly gets peaceful and keyboard driven, before getting real ugly for a sec. This whole rock band chunk only lasts for a minute before a tiny bit of transitional music from the original Capital Lumpy Gravy takes us to a fully orchestrated version of The Eric Dolphy Memorial Barbecue of all things!!!!! This is so cool, and a very faithful rendition of the Weasels tune. It lasts for about two minutes and acts as the grand finale to the monstrous work. The event ends with a massive swell and a final conducted “peep!” from the Mothers. What a fuckin’ piece of music!!! This first performance of 200 Motels is truly a beautiful celebration of Frank’s work as a composer up to this point in time. The ending especially makes it feel like a coda to the original Mothers of Invention, and a celebration of all Franks’ musical experiments throughout the 60s. The piece gets a massive ovation, but Frank doesn’t linger on the emotion for too long, because he wants to get some members of the orchestra to play with him on a crazed, orchestraly-tinged version of King Kong!
“I’d like to try something, um, partially crazed. Here’s the deal. All members of the orchestra who might be interested in playing with us on this little tune that we’re gonna to do right now. Remember, you’re not getting overtime for this. Those who will dare to play without getting overtime can come up these little steps over here and group themselves around these microphones so everybody can hear you, and we’re going to play our version of King Kong. Zubin? Would you come up here too? You can conduct it. Okay.. Any percussionists? You can drag it up down here.
I would like to explain the way we’re going to coordinate all this because this is not rehearsed. There are some signals that I’ll give the horn players to help coordinate the backgrounds for the solos. Otherwise, we might have a disaster. Besides the possibility of the stage caving in. Okay, when I go like this… Watch, horn players, please. If I go like this, you go like this, and pull. Pick any note at random, attack it, and swell it up. So we get these random chords. And, uh, [unintelligible – I think the name of a musician, maybe Kurt?] wanna play? Give me a microphone to yourself, we can get in the corner… We need a cello. Every rock n roll group needs a cello. I don’t think the signals really matter so long as we have a cello. Very well, then. This piece is real simple to understand. It’s just the key of E flat minor for as long as you can take it.”
We return to the world of Mothers with another special performance, a unique version of King Kong featuring select volunteers from the orchestra. They’re not mentioned on the tape, but Zappa scholar Charles Ulrich has determined some of the guest musicians who played on this specific performance, and they are Roger Bobo on tuba, Mario Guarneri on trumpet, Michele Zukovsky on clarinet and Kurt Reher on cello. Interestingly Kurt played on Freak Out, along with fellow LA Phil player John Rotella (the latter of whom played on 200 Motels but not King Kong). There’s certainly more than just these four musicians on stage with the MOI, contemporary reviews say 8-10 musicians joined including a bassoonist, and I can certainly hear a violin in there. Anyway, we get a ridiculously cool version of King Kong, with a tiny bit of added instrumentation over the main theme (mainly on the “third theme”). The improvisations begin with Motorhead cranking out a great free jazz sax solo, while the two conductors cue some of the aforementioned swells of random chords. Then as Motorhead reaches his chaotic conclusion an unknown violin player takes over the solo spot. He only goes for a few bars though before handing things back over to Motorhead (two musicians with extremely different backgrounds sharing a spotlight). Around three minutes in the beat shifts to a bouncier feel, and the crowd laughs at something while the violinist continues. The crowd is likely laughing at clarinetist Michele Zukovsky, because it’s been confirmed that she shoved a stuffed Giraffe up her skirt during the middle of this performance! After this we then shift (via a weird-tuba transition) to some strange tweaky classic MOI “flopsmashmusic”, but this only lasts a few seconds before the whole group erupts into a monstrous boogie. The boogie starts off funny and dissonant, but quickly evolves into a riotous performance with a great little FZ guitar solo. There’s another little horn solo in there after this, but the boogie doesn’t last long before Frank starts Varese’s Integrales again! The reappearance of the dissonant piece brings this little bonus performance to a sudden end. This is a terrific King Kong, which actually reminds me of the ‘67 improvisation titled In Memory of Hieronymus Bosch, because of the way the music constantly shifts around in such a short amount of time. Another easy tour highlight. The tape cuts out right after the music ends, and my guess is that this was the actual end of the performances, and the end of the main set.
When the recording returns the band is tuning up (Ray: “Test…ticles”) and the audience starts to ask for Louie Louie (seemingly the only thing crowds on this tour can do). Frank, knowing this could be the very last Mothers performance, gleefully satisfies the crowd (“Sure you want Louie Louie? Okay here it is, the piece you’ve all been waiting for!”). They whip out a great 60 second version of the Richard Berry Tune, and Frank and Ray lovingly sing the first verse and a couple choruses of Plastic People. A great little surprise performance and a very amusing song for this specific show. The tune doesn’t overstay its welcome, and Frank then announces the next song over the famous three note beat.
“Alright, bring the band down behind me boys. At this point we’re gonna make a segue to the residue of Lumpy Gravy, which will conclude with an abstruse drum solo performed with toilet brushes.”
Our real encore begins with an extremely smooth segue into the “dreams” section of Oh No! Frank plays the fast part right before the solo as an instrumental (skipping the main bulk of the song), then proceeds to crank out a nice two minute rock n roll solo. Nothing mind-blowing, just some great guitar playing. The neat 1970 arrangement of the Orange County Lumber Truck (Ray: “horse hock”) comes next, with the fun Linda Lu quote, and the long, long toilet brush drum solo. Aynsley starts his solo with the same break heard in the ‘71 versions of Little House I Used To Live In (and repeats it a few times throughout). Ray talks over a couple parts, but is pretty much incomprehensible (he says something like ‘Hello? It’s still horseshit” around six minutes). Anysley (I think?) plays a fun solo and a slow version of the Orange County main theme brings the night to a close. Ray yells “Well, it’s still Bullshit”, and the tape cuts out. I’m still not a big fan of this arrangement of the OCLT, but I enjoy this performance way more than the Fillmore take.
What an exceptionally cool fuckin’ concert. Everything here (with the possible exception of the opening two tunes) is incredibly unique and interesting, and a wonderful time capsule of this specific weird little time in FZ’s career. This concert is so important to Zappa-dom it can’t really be understated. The whole band is in a great mood so the playing is all fantastic, and the orchestra is simply a delight. The show has a wonderful choice of songs for such an event, and features a bunch of weird stuff that would never show up in this particular arrangement again. The performance of 200 Motels is enough to make this concert famous, but we also get the wild King King, and the crazy Call Any Vegetable, as well as great performances of the Boyfriend/Tiny Sick Tears medley and the rare 1970 Orange County Lumber Truck. I mean Varese’s Integrales is almost like a secret word for this show, where else can you find that! As I touched on earlier, this show feels like a finale of sorts to the original Mothers of Invention, and a culmination of Frank’s artistic work throughout the 60s. After building up his repertoire with the Mothers for half a decade, he’s made another major step on his path to being a “serious” classical composer, while also celebrating his collection of satirical and “poppier” pieces made famous with the Mothers. This show is obviously an easy recommendation, and something any budding Zappa fan should make sure to check out.
The Songs Played:
200 Motels (incl. a ton of other Zappa tunes) – This crazed composition is the entire reason for this band’s existence. It’s the main attraction for the final show of the tour at the Pauley Pavilion in Los Angeles, and it’s a joint performance between the makeshift Mothers of Invention and the LA Philharmonic Orchestra led by Zubin Mehta. Some parts are performed by the rock band alone, some only by the orchestra and some are played by both groups together. The interesting thing about this composition is that it’s completely different from any other known versions of 200 Motels. This unique performance contains a good chunk of music from the finished version of 200 Motels, but what’s interesting is that it’s also got a ton of music not associated with any other known version of 200 Motels, including a number of other Zappa compositions and about eight minutes of music unique to the performance (or at least unidentified). And there’s even improvised chunks! (Though these are all from the Mothers). According to FZ, they were only able to perform the first, third and fourth movements of the suite because the second is a “big dramatic movement with a chorus and the dancers and vacuum cleaner and all that stuff” and was too expensive to put on.
I described the 50 minute monster in gruesome detail during the main show review, so I’ll give a more condensed summary here. The piece begins with a standard-for-the-era rock performance of Pound For A Brown from the Mothers, ending with a sick guitar solo from FZ. This leads into the first orchestral chunk, starting with a minute of unique cacophonic music, which in turn leads into a brief, creepy, keyboard-led arrangement of Oh No, and 30 seconds of music that will later end up in Envelopes! This quickly segues directly into Like It Or Not (from the 1968 musical event Progress? heard on Ahead of Our Time) and Redneck Eats from the final 200 Motels (which is technically part of Like It Or Not). There’s 30 seconds of unique music stuck in the middle of the recognizable Like It Or Not, and after the chaotic Redneck East we get 30 seconds from Undaunted, The Band Plays On (also from Progress?). Next is another delightfully weird section where we get a full orchestral arrangement of the opening piano section of Little House I Used To Live In! They play the first half or so of the piece, before smoothly transitioning into 30 seconds of music from Centerville (from the final 200 Motels), and then into 2 and a half minutes of unique, (mostly) beautiful, yet haunting orchestral score. Then, just when you least expect it, the Little House intro returns right where it left off! This half is played on electric piano though, so it’s much closer to the album version. After this the orchestra plays music from a score to a low budget film Frank composed before Freak Out called The World’s Greatest Sinner. They’re specifically playing the final theme, which is a lovely piece that never evolved past this form of 200 Motels.
As this piece fades out so does the orchestra, and the Mothers return to the forefront playing Holiday in Berlin! They start about a minute into the stand-alone arrangement of the tune, and continue into the heavenly solo section. The orchestra joins the Mothers as they start the triumphant vamp, and Frank gets the audience to sing along with the chords. This builds up for a little, before Frank comes in with a primordial version of the Inca Roads post-solo theme and plays a short but powerful solo. There’s also a horn player somewhere soloing underneath him, adding to the majesty. Then as an additional surprise for us future listeners, they move into a chunk of the ending of Strictly Genteel! This whole Holiday in Berlin section is ridiculously cool, and my personal favorite moment from the monster composition (it also shows how all three of these pieces are connected by the “Inca Roads” solo chords, which is sick as fuck). A minute of unique scary music takes us away from the brief snippet of Strictly Genteel into a gentle version of the Duke Of Prunes from the orchestra complete with sung lyrics from Ray! Very neat (and very true!) It only lasts for about a minute before heading into a complete rendition of this tour’s fabulous Who Needs The Peace Corps/Duke Of Prunes Medley. It’s performed by the Mothers alone, and is a regular performance complete with keyboard and guitar solos. What a treat!
Next up is the second long, purely orchestral chunk of the 1970 200 Motels, which begins with an orchestral reprise of A Pound For A Brown. This leads into music from the obscure FZ composition What’s The Name Of Your Group?, followed by Dance Of The Rock ‘n’ Roll Interviewers. [What’s The Name Of Your Group is an obscure piece not released in full until 2015’s 200 Motels the Suites, and 2021’s 200 Motels 50th, and includes Dance Of The Rock ‘n’ Roll Interviewers, and themes from Pound For A Brown. FZ recorded it in full during the filming of 200 Motels but only released segments in the movie and soundtrack album.] This is capped off by about a minute of unique unsettling percussion music that leads us into a complete(?) performance of Touring Can Make You Crazy. This is followed by an early version of The Lad Searches The Night For His Newts (without the title phrase, but with Ray saying “bullshit”), and 90 seconds of dissonant unreleased music. [There’s a very brief chunk within this minute and a half that was later used in “Lucy’s Seduction Of A Bored Violinist”] This leads right into a minute and a half of music later incorporated into I Have Seen The Pleated Gazelle, which like What’s The Name Of Your Group, is another complicated and confusing piece that wasn’t released in full on 200 Motels, but instead split up into a number of pieces featured on the 200 Motels soundtrack [these pieces are: A Nun Suit Painted On Some Old Boxes, Motorhead’s Midnight Ranch, Dew On The Newts We Got, The Lad Searches The Night For His Newts, The Girl Wants To Fix Him Some Broth, The Girl’s Dream and Little Green Scratchy Sweaters & Courduroy Ponce]. This section featured in the 1970 200 Motels is the very end of The Pleated Gazelle suite, which wasn’t recorded during the 200 Motels sessions in 1971, but it does appear on 2015’s 200 Motels The Suites, and it was incorporated into the final section of Bogus Pomp, as played by the LSO). Getting close to the end! So following The Pleated Gazelle there’s a short snippet of Tuna Fish Promenade (the “just a tuna sandwich from another catering service” section), before an abrupt transition to a majestic version of Oh No! I believe it’s the same arrangement heard on Lumpy Gravy, though I’m not entirely certain on that. There’s an unfortunate tape cut as Oh No seems to conclude, and the tape returns for a minute of unique music from the Mothers. It’s very typical of FZ’s rock writing from the era, with a chugging start, a slow almost calming keyboard middle section, and a cool dissonant, almost frightening ending. It ends abruptly with a transition back to the orchestra, where they play a short cue from Lumpy Gravy (the Oh No variations section heard about seven and a half minutes onto side one), which moves us right into the big finale to the piece, a completely orchestrated version of the theme of The Eric Dolphy Memorial Barbecue! This is a totally whacked thing to hear, and it’s an amazing end to the piece. There’s a huge chaotic swell when the composed head ends, and 200 Motels ends with a conducted “peep!”
Just a wild piece of music. This breakdown of the separate components of this performance couldn’t have been done without the fantastic IINK, which has a chart that does a better job analyzing this monster than I possibly could (link here). If you’ve made it this far and haven’t heard the LA Show, what are you doing? Go listen!
Blowing Discordant Sounds – So right before the LA Phil play 200 Motels, they tune-up/warm-up in a neat, chaotic, free-improv-y kinda cacophony. It starts with some eerie woodwinds, before the horns come in and things really get crazy. It unfortunately only lasts for about a minute and a half before the tape cuts out, and when we return we hear the Mothers tuning up. I’m pretty sure “Blowing Discordant Sounds” is a fan named title, but it’s an accurate one. Not really a song per se, but an interesting part of the LA show.
Big Leg Emma (Sorta) – This goofy Absolutely Free era tune isn’t really played by this band, but a half-assed impromtu doo-wop amalgamation that sorta resembles Big Leg Emma appears near the start of the “first” Fillmore show. In response to fervent requests for Louie Louie, one of our drummers starts a plodding drum beat and Don then plays the “ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma Emma” keyboard part on top. It only lasts for about 30-40 seconds (“That as good as Louie Louie for ya?”), and it does nothing to sate the lunatic in the audience who demands to hear Louie Louie.
Call Any Vegetable (incl. Agon) – One of the most special things about this micro-tour is that it features the debut of the reworked, rock ‘n’ roll Call Any Vegetable! This tour’s arrangement of the Absolutely Free classic is the basis for the Flo and Eddie version played throughout 1970 and 1971 and eventually released on Just Another Band From LA (JABFLA). So we get the fully rock-ified, amped up JABFLA version, but with Ray and Frank covering the vocals. Additionally, there’s a handful of sections in this early arrangement that would get dropped by the time of the JABFLA take next year. Most of these dropped sections originate from the Absolutely Free version, which actually makes this tour’s version a little closer to the studio take than we’re used to with this crazy arrangement. If you’re reading this and somehow only familiar with the Absolutely Free version, this is a significantly altered, hyped up rock n roll version of the Call Any Vegetable suite (so this arrangement includes the titular song, as well as Invocation And Ritual Dance Of The Young Pumpkin and the Soft-Sell Conclusion). I’ll break down the differences between this version and the studio take, while also commenting on the differences between this and the JABFLA take when they arise
The first song of the suite is the most different, with all the creaky woodwind lines replaced by killer guitar and/or keyboards. Every performance begins with Frank’s deadpan introduction from the album (“This is a song about vegetables. They keep you regular. They’re real good for ya.”), which leads into the new sick, chugging guitar intro. The main staccato woodwind riff from the studio take is played on the keyboards, and Frank and Ray belt out the main “Call Any Vegetable” verses. There’s no second spoken part in the live arrangement (“Some people don’t go for prunes”), the two opening verses simply flow into each other. The “chances are good” section has the same buildup into the “vegetable will respond to you” part, but the “respond to you” section is really expanded. The band moves into this new section where Frank and Ray sing “Yeaaaaah, the vegetable will respond to you” twice over a cool, dramatic backing. Ray does the “Rutabaga” call over a drum beat, but doesn’t really lean into the yodel like Jimmy Call Black and The Turtles did. And after this we get a new bouncy guitar/keyboard riff that takes us into the “no one will know” section [which actually first popped up in the tune “Love Will Make Your Mind Go Wild” during the Funky Nothingness sessions!]
The “no one will know” section is definitely the part that changed the most. The only connecting tissue is the lyrics, and there’s even a little difference there (for whatever reason the “holding your hand” line has been changed to “holding your joint” for live performance). The original is sung in a goofy dramatic voice over an eerie piano/woodwind backing; the rearrangement couldn’t be more different. It’s got a super fun piano riff and a jaunty bassline under the whole thing, and our drummers really add to intensity. It’s really a rockin’ affair. The “vegetables dream of responding to you” bit is elongated into its own unique, rollicking section, and it acts as a nice lead up to the big boisterous “why is a vegetable something to hide” ending. It’s hard to compare this section because it’s just so different from the original, it’s practically its own composition! Anyway, this takes us into the quote of Holst’s Jupiter from his Planets suite that begins the great “Invocation” solo section [this specific quote gets dropped before the 1971 tours, and isn’t found on JABFLA] In place of a guitar/sax duet, we get a ripping guitar solo from FZ. It’s a pretty similar vamp (it’s got that same two note motif) but it’s of course played on a keyboard, and like on the studio take it usually fades away for a free-er rockin’ jam. The whole thing just feels jazzier and livelier here. Frank always whips out a great solo, except at the LA show where he instead plays a freaked rock band version of Varese’s Integrales! (see the Integrales song entry for more on that performance).
The “Soft Shell Conclusion” is also heavily modified of course. After the solos end, we get a unique section of dialog between Frank and Ray only found on this tour. Ray asks “How do you call your love a vegetable?” and the two talk for a little while (see below for an example from the LA show). This dialog is mostly scripted and doesn’t change much from show to show, but Frank always mixes it up a little, usually commenting on something from earlier in the night. The dialog always leads right into Frank’s little speech that starts the Soft Shell Conclusion (“a lot of people don’t bother about their friends in the vegetable kingdom”). This is all happening over a simple, bouncy keyboard, bass and cowbell part. The song erupts back into musical color when Frank starts listing “muffins, pumpkins, wax paper…”. The post-muffin section is actually pretty similar to the original version, but obviously electrified and amped up. There’s a fun little musical “pow” after each listed item too, where the Turtles will yell in just a few weeks. [The “muffins, pumpkins…” through “only in America” section was unfortunately edited out of the JABFLA take likely due to a barrage of local SoCal references. Additionally, the “where can I go?” section heard on JABFLA isn’t present on this tour, and it would not appear until August of the next year.] The “American” Ives-esque medley stays the same, and Ray croaks out the final “Call Any Vegetable” verse over an energetic soulful keyboard backing. After this the tune ends pretty much as it does on the album, with the slow buildup (over which Frank says ”c’mere vegetable”) followed by a fast quotation of the Royal March from Stravinsky’s L’histoire du soldat, some primal huffing from Ray and a deadpan “what a pumpkin” from Frank [The final Stravinsky quote and the “what a pumpkin” ending get dropped before the JABFLA take, and get replaced with a spoken transition into the next tune].
In addition to all this, every one of these May 1970 performances start with about 45 seconds of Agon by Igor Stravinsky! The band plays the first 15 seconds of the piece twice, before Frank gives the “they’re real good for ya” intro into the main song. The Agon quote is long enough that some sources consider it its own song, but since it’s always played before Call Any Vegetable I think it’s better considered as an introduction. Interestingly, At the LA show this quote is played a bit differently. It’s normally an instrumental, but in LA somebody (either Ray and/or Jeff) croaks out “I take my life, and leave this note” after the first run through, and “gimmie a quarter for a pizza” near the end of the second. Very weird. This Agon introduction gets dropped from setlists sometime in late summer/early fall 1970.
Okay did not expect to write this much! For the Flo and Eddie pages I’ll probably just compare each tour’s version with the JABFLA version, but I figured I should have at least one page where I do a full comparison between the two major arrangements of this tune (even though most people reading this probably are aware of the differences). I love both versions, and am very glad both exist. Ray does a fantastic job with the vocals on these performances, and I love that we have some live versions with him singing thanks to this strange tour, even though I prefer the Flo and Eddie takes (The Turtles add a ton of color to the tune with their numerous vocal additions throughout the song, both big and small). I’ve always been a big fan of this tune, especially the rockin’ revamped 70/71 version, so these neat versions with the one and only Raymond Eugene Collins get two thumbs up from me.
“Soft Shell Conclusion” Dialog from the 05 15 LA show:
Ray: “Hey Frank”
Frank: “Yes Ray?”
Ray: “How do you call your love a vegetable?”
Frank: “I say ‘come here vegetable’”
Ray: “And if they don’t come?”
Frank: “I keep saying ‘come here vegetable’ until they either buy a playboy magazine or come over to my house and see what’s happening”
Ray: “And if they still don’t come”
Frank: “Well generally I would say, a lot of people don’t bother about their friends in the vegetable kingdom….”
Chunga’s Revenge – The “latter” Fillmore show delivers an excellent version of Chunga’s Revenge, back when it was still likely planned for release on a potential Hot Rats “sequel”. The tune is played pretty much as on the Chunga’s Revenge album, but with a slightly extended solo section. We start off with an excellent Ian Underwood sax solo, which is followed by an emotional synth solo from Don, and the jam concludes with an angry, passionate guitar solo from Frank. Like on the album they repeat the intro guitar riff between each solo, but there’s a tape cut between Ian and Don’s solo on the one performance we have so we only hear it between Don and Frank. The tune ends with a reprise of the main theme and a nice little improvised guitar coda. Overall this is a good tour for Chunga’s, and a cool little throwback to the already bygone Hot Rats era.
Cruising For Burgers – This Uncle Meat tune returns on this tour, and finds itself as the finale of the 1970 version of The Return Of The Hunchback Duke (AKA “The Duke”), which is a medley consisting of Little House I Used To Live In, The Mud Shark, Holiday In Berlin and Cruising For Burgers. This song is always a bit modified live (compared to the studio take), and this micro-tour is no different. We get two repetitions of the theme like on the album, though unlike the album version we get the instrumental verse first, followed by a vocal verse sung by Ray and Frank. The intro is a little different here too (it’s basically always changing). On the studio album we get that short, synth-y introduction, but on this tour we get two bars of a cool, chugging guitar riff, the same basic intro heard on every Flo and Eddie live version (my personal favorite intro). The instrumental take of the “gotta do a few things” section is especially heavy and thunderous in this performance, which is a delight. Overall just a very nice version of the Uncle Meat classic.
Holiday In Berlin – The “second” Fillmore show features an excellent version of this Burnt Weeny Sandwich classic (specifically the “Full Blown” version). The live instrumentation on this tour is much more “normal” compared to the studio version, but pretty much all the component parts are in the right place. The melody is carried by the guitar and keyboards, unlike the variety of horns and strange percussion on the studio album. The woodwind intro (Theme A1) is significantly less embellished, played on the keys, and has some weird drum riffs thrown in too (click here for a table breaking down the segments). Theme C is super swingin’ and organ-jazzy (similar to the studio version), but there’s no RnB link heard about a minute and a half into the Full Blown “Weeny” version. In its place we get a short reprise of a segment of Theme B, just like on “Overture To Holiday In Berlin”. The piece is of course capped off with an outstanding proto-Inca Roads guitar solo from Frank, after which we get a hard segue into Cruising For Burgers. Interestingly, the song also appears in the middle of the Contempo ‘70 performance of 200 Motels! The Mothers start directly at Theme B (skipping what I consider the main theme), and they continue through the tune, with the orchestra joining them during the Inca Roads vamp. This performance features another fantastic Zappa solo, this time with some horn soloing underneath and the orchestra/audience singing along with the chords. Really a fantastic performance, and probably my favorite part of the entire performance. Frank plays an early variation on the Inca Roads post-solo theme in LA, but not at the Fillmore (though it’s possible it’s just missing on our recording due to a tape cut). During a normal show this piece was part three of 1970 version of “The Return Of The Hunchback Duke”, more frequently known as “The Duke”, which is a medley consisting of Little House I Used To Live In, The Mud Shark, Holiday in Berlin and Cruisin’ For Burgers. It’s super interesting to hear this tune on this tour, because it’s really the only normal live version without Flo and Eddie singing on top! (The 60s live versions are fun but a bit ragged) Holiday In Berlin is an all time great FZ melody with a showstopping guitar solo, which makes it an easy highlight of the tour (and 1970 in general).
How Could I Be Such A Fool? – This Freak Out tune returns to represent the early days of the Mothers on this throwback tour. This band’s version is extremely slow, and ends up nearly twice as long as the original studio version. Ray sings the lyrics beautifully and sincerely and Frank sings along with him during the chorus, but the tempo really hurts this arrangement; it’s a bit of a trudge. The backing is incredibly sparse and while it does lead up to a cool moody atmosphere during the chorus, there’s not much of a big RnB ending like on any of the studio versions, so overall the tune falls flat for me here. It provides a nice bit of contrast during the regular shows, but it’s definitely not a highlight. It’s interesting that Frank chose to return to the Freak Out arrangement, instead of the more recent Ruben and The Jets version (which I personally prefer). He almost never reverts arrangements like that, which I think points towards his general apathy towards this “reunited” MOI.
Integrales – This dark and moody 1925 piece by Edgar Varese shows up twice during the Mothers set in LA, almost hitting secret “word” territory. The LA Philharmonic played the eerie piece before the Mothers set, and it must have delighted Frank as a Varese fanboy. That night’s version of Call Any Vegetable features a shortened, four-minute rock band version of Integrales in place of the guitar solo, which is super fucking cool. Frank and the band don’t play a full version of the piece, but they instead play around with the scary melody mainly present in the first minutes of the tune. It starts off on guitar (with cacophonic accompaniment) before moving to a quieter keyboard section. There’s a bit of saxophone and then an amusing vocal “sing-along with Edgar Varese” section, before Frank cues the loud, dissonant ending section which takes us back to Call Any Vegetable. Frank says “alright now the beginning” before cueing what I believe is a sped up version of the ending, but I’m no Varese scholar so I could be wrong (it’s definitely NOT the beginning). Additionally, Frank also messes around with the theme during a performance of King Kong with some members of the orchestra later on in the program, but it’s not nearly as complete as the Call Any Vegetable segment. This tune is never played on its own, but an entire four-minute chunk is played during Vegetable, and it’s clearly rehearsed, so I think this can get its own song entry. Plus it’s just sick as fuck.
King Kong (incl. Igor’s Boogie) – The legendary Uncle Meat monster King Kong starts to change up a bit on this tour. We start out like normal with the regular jungly gong intro and a quick keyboard led version of the main theme. They play the main theme twice, but then before going into the solos we get a new, short, third theme to King Kong! Sounds like a big deal, but it’s really just a 20 second, repetitive bouncy guitar line that acts as a transition into the oncoming jam (still, it’s an enjoyable addition). Motorhead takes his traditional opening spot for his classic uneducated-free-jazz baritone sax solo. Frank conducts the band behind him while Motorhead plays, and when he wraps up we get a full repeat of the third theme, followed by a full take of the second theme! (the one typically heard after Motorhead’s solos in the late ‘68 and ‘69 performances). Now here’s where things get weird, after the second theme fades out the band comes to a complete stop, and then starts to play the first phase of Igor’s Boogie off the recently released Burnt Weeny Sandwich! The tune is played as a keyboard duet, but is otherwise a faithful recreation of the album version. Interestingly they play through the entire first phase twice, but ignore the second phase completely. When the tweaky little piece ends the full band busts back in with a rockin’ new composed addition to King Kong, which can either be thought of as a variation on the opening bars of Igor’s Boogie, or as a fourth theme to King Kong (both are equally accurate). It’s a sick little phrase, and after an instrumental verse, Ray starts to sing along with the melody! This then leads into a beautiful vocal solo from Ray! This is ridiculously cool, and I hope another one of these gets unearthed someday because I believe this is the only time we ever get something like this from Mr. Collins (email me if I’m wrong). As he winds down, Frank brings the energy back up with some nice rhythm guitar before we transition to a frantic drum battle (It could be a solo? It’s hard to tell because there’s a sizable tape cut in the middle). They jam for a few seconds after this, but before long Frank brings the band down behind him and gives the show closing announcements. He then signals an outro, which consists of a normal reprise of the main theme with a dramatic, slowed-down ending.
Additionally, we get a very unique version of King Kong that needs to be mentioned separately. At the Contempo ‘70 show in LA, a few members of the LA Philharmonic stuck around after 200 Motels to contribute to the story of the very large gorilla! It’s unclear exactly who joined the Mothers for this performance, but contemporary reviews say about 8-10 musicians stuck around. Zappa scholar Charles Ulrich has determined a few of the musicians who played on this specific performance, and they are Roger Bobo on tuba, Mario Guarneri on trumpet, Michele Zukovsky on clarinet and Kurt Reher on cello. Additionally, I can certainly hear a violin in there, and newspapers report there was a bassoonist on stage as well. They don’t contribute to the main theme, but I can hear some additional horns on the third theme, and they definitely play during the solo section! The sound gets a bit muddy here so it’s hard to tell, but I believe Motorhead starts us off while Frank conducts the guest performers. Mr. Sherwood freaks out for a bit, then suddenly we get a short violin solo! Motorhead then comes back in and sorta duets with the unknown string player! After this Frank shifts the beat to a bouncier feel and the crowd cheers while the violin continues to jam (I believe what happened here is that clarinetist Michele Zukovsky stuffed a toy Giraffe up under her skirt!). Then we get a weird horn-heavy transition into some classic MOI tweaky-ness, but this only lasts for a few seconds before the whole group shifts into a chaotic boogie, over which Frank whips out a terrific little guitar solo. I can hear at least one other horn player going crazy for a bit in there too, but this section also doesn’t last long because Frank starts to play Edgar Varese’s Integrales! This impromptu reprise (Frank played the piece during Call Any Vegetable earlier in the show) only lasts for a few seconds but it makes a mighty fine conclusion for this legendary take of King Kong. Even though not everyone solos, the orchestra members can be heard in the background throughout the entire jam, adding to the sense of calamity. This performance is wildly different from the “regular” take from the Fillmore, seeing as they skip the entire second theme, as well as the Igor’s Boogie interlude and the closing theme.
So overall, while very atypical, this is a pretty good era for King Kong. We don’t really get anything you’d come to expect from this tune, but we do get a great vocal solo from the Fillmore shows, the debut of the strange Igor’s Boogie medley and the iconic pseudo-orchestral version. Far from cream-of-the-crop in terms of this tune (sadly neither performance contains a full FZ guitar solo), but still a great time.
Little House I Used To Live In -Even though these shows take place mere months after Frank constructed the monster version of Little House heard on Burnt Weeny Sandwich, this tour’s version is closer to the Fillmore East ‘71 arrangement of the tune (meaning we lose the piano intro, the long guitar/violin jam and eclectic ending). It’s largely the same as the Fillmore ’71 take except it’s totally instrumental, and there’s a short unique-to-1970 intro. It’s a jaunty chugging keyboard heavy intro that only lasts about seven seconds before heading into the regular Fillmore-era intro. One other interesting detail I noticed was the quiet part where Flo and Eddie will later yell “Hoopla! Oink! Oink!” is filled with drum stick clicks, a very strange choice. This piece kicks off the 1970 version of “The Return Of The Hunchback Duke”, more frequently known as “The Duke”, which is a medley consisting of Little House I Used To Live In, The Mud Shark, Holiday in Berlin and Cruisin’ For Burgers. It’s unfortunate there’s no solo in this version, but it’s very cool to hear the 1970 arrangement with no vocals, and it leads into Holiday in Berlin so that more than makes up for it.
Louie Louie/Plastic People – Richard Berry’s iconic little ditty pops up twice on our available tapes from this little tour. It shows up at the “first” Fillmore show after a ridiculous number of requests from a singular deranged fan. The sax honks out the melody, and Ray starts to sing Plastic People but Frank tells him to do Louie Louie. Ray just barely remembers the actual lyrics, which makes the comical performance all the more enjoyable. They play just under a minute (Chorus-Verse 1-Chorus) before Frank cues an insane crash and “resumes the mediocre entertainment that [they] had planned to give [us]”. The tune reappears a few days later near the end of the Contempo ‘70 show in LA. This time multiple people shout for Louie Louie, but Frank lets Ray sing Plastic People this time. This performance feels much more put together, probably because Ray sings (and remembers) the choruses while Frank sings the first verse (this take is also just Chorus-1st Verse-Chorus). Like the earlier performance, the LA version also only lasts for about a minute before Frank introduces the next tune over the classic beat. Both performances are a ton of fun, and don’t overstay their welcome. A great addition to two thirds of our available shows.
The Mud Shark – This tour features the debut of the infamous Fillmore East ‘71 tune, but in an extremely early state. At this point in time it’s just a jazzy/rock-y thirty second vamp connecting the end of Little House I Used To Live In to the start of Holiday in Berlin. There’s no arpeggio, no rock n roll sex story and no dancing lesson. As implied above, at this point in time the “song” only exists to act as part two of the 1970 version of “The Return Of The Hunchback Duke”, more frequently known as “The Duke”, which is a medley of tunes consisting of Little House I Used To Live In, The Mud Shark, Holiday in Berlin and Cruisin’ For Burgers.
My Boyfriend’s Back/I’m Gonna Bust His Head – The original Mothers would play this ridiculously dumb doo-wop parody medley in 1968, and with Ray back in band it makes it’s triumphant return. 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 suddenly peters out and Frank announces something like ”Ohhh son of a gun, the boyfriend is coming home and he’s really pissed off”. They then switch to (what’s most likely) an amusing RnB FZ composition titled I’m Gonna Bust His Head. This second tune starts with Ray slowly singing as the returning boyfriend, before switching to an uptempo boogie when the boyfriend returns. Finally Ray sings the title phrase, and the tune comes to a raucous 50s conclusion, before segueing into Tiny Sick Tears (which was almost always paired with this medley). This little medley of two was played at every show on this tour, and remained unreleased for over 50 years before its inclusion on the fantastic Whisky-A-Go-Go set.
Oh No – This Weasels tune reappears as an encore at two of our available shows, but it’s only played in full at the Fillmore. It’s basically structured the same as on the studio album, but a bit slower and with a kick-ass guitar solo. Ray sings the entire tune, and his voice is beautiful as always, but he does seem a bit uncertain of when he should come in. The tune has a fairly scant arrangement until the second chorus when Frank comes in on guitar, and from that point on it’s a bit more lively. There’s an instrumental reprise of the “in your dreams” section after the guitar solo, which acts as a transition to The Orange County Lumber Truck. [This is the first tour where these two tunes are played independently of Let’s Make The Water Turn Black & Harry You’re a Beast.] For the encore at the final show in LA Frank decides to skip the entire main body of the song, and starts with the “in your dreams” section. The tune is played instrumentally here, but luckily still includes a guitar solo. Not an all time great tour for this tune, but definitely not a bad one either.
The Orange County Lumber Truck – This little tour has the strangest version of this classic Weasels Ripped My Flesh tune. It immediately starts off with very staccato guitar playing the medley, with improvised comments from Frank and/or Ray between the instrumental lines (“Horsehock”). After the opening, instead of the usual guitar break, we get a long quote of Linda Lu by Ray Sharpe! They play like the first 15 seconds of the tune, before returning to the regularly scheduled programming (so weird!). After this we get a more normal, but still very staccato, performance with the second of the regular guitar breaks still intact. Following the standard Harry You’re A Beast quote, where we’d normally get the cool horn transition to the guitar solo, we instead get a new chugging organ-heavy vamp that leads us into a looooooong drum battle. And unfortunately that’s all the improvisations we get in this song on this tour, which is such a major bummer. I’m sure one can use these to compare Aynsley’s style to Billy’s, but I’ve never been able to tell where one drummer stops and the other starts (the two drummers have a fairly similar style). I don’t know who plays it (maybe they both do), but the neat drum fill heard in the 70/71 Little House I used to Live In is played multiple times in the two known performances from this band. After 8-10 minutes of drumming, the band comes back in with a dramatic and slow version of the main theme to end us off. At the LA show Frank mentions that this tune will contain a drum solo with “toilet brushes”, which I believe is what actually happens on stage (I think this is a reference to the Uncle Meat film which I actually haven’t subjected myself to yet). These performances are really unique and I love the quote from Linda Lu, but the lack of a real jazz-rock jam keeps me from coming back. Possibly one of the most disappointing FZ rearrangements ever (up there with the 1981 I’m The Slime).
A Pound For A Brown On The Bus – This Uncle Meat classic doesn’t appear on any tapes from this tour on its own, but the Mothers play the tune in its entirety to kick off 200 Motels. They also play Holiday In Berlin and the Who Needs The Peace Corps medley during 200 Motels, and both of these tunes were played on their own during other shows on the tour, so I think it’s very likely Pound For A Brown was played during one of the shows lost to time (likely with Sleeping In A Jar attached to the end). This is a very pleasant, keyboard-led arrangement of the tune, and compared to the 68/69 versions it’s pretty straight forward. After the theme is played once, the band heads right into a fiery FZ guitar solo. A great way to kick off 200 Motels, and potentially a good addition to a regular show on the tour??? Maybe???
Son of Mr. Green Genes – On this tour we actually get a unique version of this classic Zappa tune that’s an interesting mix of the original Mr. Green Genes off of Uncle Meat and the revamped Son of Mr. Green Genes off Hot Rats. The tune starts off as an instrumental a la Hot Rats, but after an instrumental verse or two (the one available recording is unfortunately missing the start of the tune) Ray comes in to sing the entire song! Ray’s vocals are great, and we get this really cool transition from the ending “worthlessness!” to the jazzy solo section. The tempo is kind of in the middle between the two studio versions, and it’s really neat to hear the usually creepy lyrical-version juxtaposed with the raucous Hot Rats jazz-y Son-Of style. In the middle of the tune we three hot solos from Don, Ian (on sax) and Frank. Each solo is better than the last, and Frank even quotes his own solo from Hot Rats, which is ridiculously cool. There’s also a short section during his solo where he plays the backing piano riff from the end of the Hot Rats version on guitar, mimicking the kinda structured-via-overdubs nature of the Hot Rats track. After Frank concludes his fiery solo, the tune ends with a simplified variation of the final seconds of the Hot Rats take (meaning they skip pretty much all of the theme reprise). It’s played pretty similarly to the takes from the original Mothers in ‘68 & ‘69, but with lyrics and a slightly more Hot Rats-y feel (though the original live versions are already closer to the Hot Rats version than the Uncle Meat take). Overall this tour has a really cool, rare arrangement, and it’s an easy highlight of the tour for me, an avid Hot Rats fan.
Tiny Sick Tears – This funny little number is a parody of 96 Tears by ? and the Mysterians, and also The End by the Doors. Ray sings a couple corrupted verses of 96 Tears while the Makeshift Mothers play a very 96 Tears-esque riff. He throws in a few “baby”s and “gotta”s before Frank takes over with a long story known as “The Cookie Jar Lecture”, a semi-improvised monologue about a lonely teen and parental rebellion performed over the same “dit dit dit dit” riff. It’s an amusing, vile parody of The End, and hits a similar climactic “father, I want to kill you.” moment. The tune was played at every available show, and was always preceded by the My Boyfriend’s Back/I’m Gonna Bust His Head medley. At the “earlier” of the Fillmore shows FZ starts the monologue but quickly gets distracted by Jeff Simmons’ “elaborate” bass playing and tells him to take a solo, which was dubbed by tape traders as Jeff Simmons Whips It Out. Frank doesn’t give his monologue after this; he says he’s tired of it. A fun parody tune, with a fun parody speech. Not something I return to often, but something I look forward to when I listen to the shows in full.
Who Needs The Peace Corps? (incl. Duke of Prunes) – This tour’s most interesting and unique arrangement has to be the extremely cool instrumental medley of We’re Only In It For The Money’s Who Needs The Peace Corps and Absolutely Free’s Duke Of Prunes! This strange arrangement was played at every show, and while technically a medley, it really like 80% Peace Corps, 20% Prune. The beast starts with a plodding, almost royal-sounding, drum/keyboard intro before launching into the main Peace Corps melody lead on plucky guitar and keys. It’s extremely neat to hear this tune as an instrumental, and a bit hard to describe in detail, but I’ll try my best. The “I’ll stay a week and get the crabs and take a bus back home” has a patriotic fake-flute-synth kinda line to it, and the following connecting bit is amended with a heavy, groovy guitar riff. After this we get another instrumental verse, then Ray sings “go to San Francisco!” the only vocals in the piece) and we get four repetitions of the drum riff that follows, each amended with this neat drum stick riff and some funny onstage antics we can’t see (I know something weird is going on because the crowd always laughs during this part).
Then suddenly, we’re led into a beautiful instrumental Duke Of Prunes verse! So cool! The tempo really slows down for this verse, and the whole vibe gets more serious and emotional. After this brief interlude from the Duke we head into a great solo section featuring Don and Frank. Don plays a lovely, moody keyboard solo, and Frank follows it with an equally awe-inspiring guitar solo. To conclude his solo, Frank plays a cool variation on the “how I love ya, how I love ya how I love ya, how I love ya Frisco” line, which takes us back into the main Peace Corps theme. There’s unfortunately no direct recreation of the “oh my hair is getting good in the back” line (FZ plays the guitar part from the album, which is the same as the think “I’ll just drop out” from the previous verses), but we still get a recreation of the great angular horn riff that follows (the same heard in 1967 performances of Gee). Ray sings the “San Fransisco” line again, we get one more repetition of drum stick riff from earlier, and a final instrumental verse. The monster tune ends with three repetitions of that crazy angular riff, and a hack-snork kinda noise (so there’s no effort to replicate the “first I’ll buy some beads” ending).
This arrangement also shows up in full during the performance of 200 Motels on the final show of the tour. It was performed exactly as it was during a normal show, except the piece opens with a verse of Duke Of Prunes played by the orchestra with Ray singing! Pretty cool! This tour is the only time we get a performance of Peace Corps before 1988, and the only time it’s ever played as an instrumental or as a medley with The Duke Of Prunes, or with solos! These versions are a delight, and an easy highlight of this strange little tour. I wish Frank kept this arrangement around for longer, can you imagine a Flo and Eddie version?
Wonderful Wino – It’d take over six years before this Simmons/Zappa rockin’ classic finally made an appearance on a Zappa album (1976’s Zoot Allures), but it was actually first released on Jeff Simmons’ 1970 debut album Lucille Has Messed My Mind Up, and was a regular MOI staple in 1970 and 1971. This tune will go through a myriad of re-arrangements, but this little weirdo tour marks its Mothers Of Invention premier. The version that ends up on Zoot Allures has a completely different vibe due to Frank’s whisper-singing and the heavy production, and the Jeff Simmons’ original take has a psychedelic almost reversed-guitar sound to it, but the live versions from this era have a more traditional in-your-face rock power to them. Like on every FZ-performed version, this band’s arrangement begins with a quote from the 19th century gospel song Bringing in the Sheaves (played on the guitar and saxes). After the goofy introduction we get some sick guitar work that leads us into the funky verses. Jeff sings most of the tune on his own, but he and Frank seem to duet the intro verse and a few other lines throughout. Jeff belts out the middle “I went to the country” verse, and Frank follows it up with a short but fiery guitar solo. After this solo we get an additional set of amusing lyrics left off the post-1971 takes [“My saxophone playing/And my wino career are in a slump/’Cause I find myself now living/In a cardboard refrigerator box down by the Houston dump/And I’m so ashamed”]. I really like this bridge, so I always miss it when listening to the later takes. FZ also censors himself on Zoot Allures, because the original lyrics include “jam down the road, you funky-ass bum”. But anyway, they get through the lyrics, and as Jeff kills the “Give me five bucks and a hot meal” section, Frank begins a sick, jammy second guitar solo which absolutely slays. It’s really fantastic to get so much guitar in this song! After this second solo Frank brings the tune to a comically abrupt end with a deadpan reading of “gimme five bucks for a hot meal and maybe an old overcoat or two”. This is a fantastic arrangement of this song, and actually one of my favorite versions period. I love Jeff’s vocals (I think it’s his strongest contribution to FZ’s music), I love how much guitar we get in this performance, and I also love how much of Ian’s sax we get throughout the entire tune! (something sadly missing from future performance when he has to take over some keyboard duties). A great arrangement, and a highlight of both Fillmore shows. [Sidenote: Does anyone else always want to call this song ‘Wino Man” or is it just me?]
Life On The Road 