Month: December 2008

Thursday Mix: Frank In Memoriam

Another December 4th has rolled around and as usual my thoughts are filled with thoughts of Frank Zappa on this, the 15th anniversary of his passing. Just a couple of weeks ago I was in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, to attend the funeral of my last surviving uncle (as you might have guessed, it was cancer that took him in the end), leaving myself and my own son as the only surviving male representatives of our family (at least my father’s side of it, that is). One thing my family is known for, though, are it’s wakes. Being Irish, we spent all of the day, and most of the evening after his internment at my late uncle’s favorite Tavern toasting to his life and celebrating our experiences of the man. I think we should all treat the anniversary of FZ’s passing the very same way. This isn’t a day to mourn, but to celebrate an incredible individual. I, for one, will spend this day listening to FZ with friends who share my love of the man’s music and vision. To this end, I have put together the following KUR Mixtape of some of my favorite FZ bootleg tracks, entitled, Thursday Mix: Frank In Memoriam.

Click here to listen to the mixtape.

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Wolfgang’s Vault: The Tubes @ Winterland (1975)

This show, staged at Winterland in the band’s hometown of San Francisco, on February 21st, 1975, a few months before the release of their self-titled debut album in June of that year, clearly shows the great energy that the Tubes had at this early point in their career. This short set, clocks in at just under 30 minutes. Listen for yourself by clicking here. Then compare the energy of that ensemble of the Tubes with the one that released Genius of America in 1996:

[audio:http://www.killuglyradio.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/10-who-names-the-hurricanes.mp3]

Note: If anything in this post interferes with the rights of the copyright holder, please contact us and we will kindly remove it.

Randomnicity

While I’m mainly reading up on unrelated topics these days, you may find the following of interest:

  • Duncan tells me that Zappa will be the featured article on the front page of Wikipedia on Thursday December 4th.
  • Morgan Holt sends in this nice article on the prophetic nature of Joe’s Garage.
  • Check out Frank Zappa’s Revenge, rather indepth reviews and commentary on FZ’s body of work.
  • SOFA informs me of a new DVD entitled “Frank Zappa & the Mothers of Invention In The 1960s”: “This film reviews the true story of The Mothers of Invention and the music they made during the first incarnation of the band. With group members Jimmy Carl Black, Bunk Gardner, Don Preston and Art Tripp taking up the tale and revealing – often for the first time – what the real Frank Zappa was all about […] Also features rare footage of Frank and The Mothers from throughout the 1960s, archive interviews, seldom seen live performances, and a host of other features.
  • If you’re at all into contemporary Brazilian bossa and jazz, be sure to give Marcio Faraco a listen — a pleasant recent discovery, carried by sweet melodies and a wonderful voice akin to Caetano Veloso.

Alice Cooper Group — Sun Arise (Live) & Black JuJu (Studio)


Some music listeners (born after the 1970s) don’t understand the early appeal of the original Alice Cooper Group. They had a unique sound and image (which like all great rock ‘n roll mortified our parents) that was very appealing to those of us born in the 1960s and were obviously quite cynical about just about everything that came out of that decade (hippies metamorphosing into yuppies). Yet listening to Love It To Death (first issued on Straight Records), one can still hear the sound of the band which Frank Zappa originally signed before Warner Brothers completely morphed them into the mainstream (leading to the original band’s eventual demise). The first clip, Sun Arise (Live), is somewhat choppy, but rare footage. The second, Black JuJu (Studio Version) is the one track I always recommend to anyone wanting to explore the true, real sound of The Alice Cooper Group (before Vincent Damon Furnier took on the band’s nom de plume as his own, and the self-parodying that followed the band’s break up).