Introduction

I am a massive Frank Zappa fan. I’m only 22 as of writing this and I think it’s safe to say I’m one of the youngest people to know this much about the man’s life and music. I discovered the music through my dad. Though he didn’t play his music around the house much while I was growing up, I knew that my dad used to be, and to a lesser extent still is, a huge fan and had been to many Zappa concerts in his youth. I first listened to FZ in June 2013, right after my freshman year of high school. My dad had mentioned something about hearing “Don’t Eat The Yellow Snow” on the local classic rock station, and I finally decided to check out the suite on YouTube after hearing my dad sing it on occasion for years. I loved everything about it but I was blown away by the end of “St. Alfonzo’s”. I had just never heard anything like it . The only music I’d listened to up to that point was video game music and the jazz and rock my parents played. I had to hear more. I listened to Apostrophe, then Overnight Sensation, then Hot Rats and One Size Fits All and on and on loving each album. Eventually I decided I’d listen to every official album he released in his life, mostly while taking the train to and from high school. After listening to all 60ish albums from his lifetimes, I started listening to the posthumous albums and found myself loving the full concert live releases. I’ve found I really prefer the stripped down, natural live sound compared to the overdubs and tape tricks found all over his studio work. After that I started delving into the bootlegs and recordings of independent origin available on Zappateers. I adore Zappa’s chaotic approach to live shows. I just couldn’t get enough.

And now I’m truly obsessed. I love all the online resources available and how easy it is to find information on such an interesting person, but what I noticed was that except for Information Is Not Knowledge (IINK) and Zappateers, most of the websites about Frank Zappa’s live shows have been long ago abandoned. The websites that are still up, while still being great resources, often have information that’s incorrect and/or doesn’t refer to newly discovered tapes or officially released shows. A lot of them point to the Beat the Boots series as reference, but that series is long out of print, and due to the internet and availability of bootlegs, obsolete.

This website aims to be an accurate and mostly objective guide to all the live recordings of Frank Zappa. Sorta like a combination of We’re Only in it for The Touring and The Tape Reviewer Society, with bits of IINK and my opinions on songs and obviously heavily inspired by all of them. Just like WOIIFTT, I’ll break the site up into pages based on tours or groups of similar tours. Each tour or era will have a short overview of the band, the music and history as well as a list of the available recordings, or for larger tours a selection of highlights. Following the recordings is the “the songs played”, the bulk of the site, where I try to write a description of every song played live on all the available official and unofficial live recordings. I want to paint as clear a picture of each of these touring ensemble’s as possible. I hope this website makes it easier for more people, especially younger people, to find and experience the amazing things that happened when Frank took his rocking teenage combo on the road.