Sunday, June 24, 2007

fz & the moi on bbc-tv, etc.

this clip of frank zappa and the original mothers of invention playing "king kong" on bbc-tv appeared on youtube a few months ago, then abruptly disappeared, so enjoy it while you can.



my sweetie also gifted me fz's dub room special dvd, which i'd previously been warned off by damien stewart, but then again, sticky d's fave zappa band was the flo and eddie edition, so i figured it might be worth a look. i like the parts with the '74 band with george duke, ruth underwood, and napoleon murphy brock, which was the first one i saw live, real much. in the fullness of time, they sound more like a jazz group when frank's not actually playing than later zappa units would, which is not necessarily a bad thing. it's nice to have the vid to go with the tracks "florentine pogen" and "inca roads" that later appeared (the latter with a different gtr solo) on one size fits all. they also play the same arrangement of "dog breath"/"uncle meat" that the ensemble modern did on the yellow shark. the silly shit seems more _organic_ somehow in a live sitch than it did on the rekkids starting with overnite sensation. the stuff from the '82 steve vai-ray white-chad wackerman band is somewhat less cosmic. the version of "stevie's spanking" pales next to the one from italian tv that i believe is still floating around out there in youtubeland, but it's hard not to be overwhelmed by the extreme euroclassicism (scabrous lyrics aside) of "easy meat." it ain't baby snakes, but it's still nice to have around.

after watching dub room special, i had to throw on zoot allures, which is teague's fave fz alb and contains the two songs that the zappa family trust inexplicably asks cover bands not to play: "black napkins" and "zoot allures" itself. i remember being really flustered by this alb's metallic gtrissimo when it was new back in the bicentennial yr, but now it just seems like the logical place for frank to go once he had his gtr tone sorted out.

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