Vai Contest, Return Of

The jury has done its business, the winners have been notified, and will be receiving their copy of “Western Vacation” shortly! Those of you who didn’t enter: buy the album via these handy links: iTunes | Amazon.

And now for the correct answers…
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The Rondo Hatton Report #3

A new issue of The Rondo Hatton Report is out, featuring the following contributions:

  • The Origins Of IINK / Román García Albertos
  • Cruisin’ For A Ruben / Sue Barashy
  • Zappa’s Music Is A Time Machine / Guillaume Dauzou & Sabrina Bergamin
  • Nostalgia For The Old Folks? / Tom Demonay
  • I’m A Bandleader / Richard Hemmings
  • Ten (Zen) Commendments / Simon Prentis
  • Pourquoi Vouloir Mettre Un Caniche Dans Un Bocal? / John Raby
  • A View From India / Mahesh Ramchandani
  • There Is Such A Thing As Progress / Hugo Vanneck
  • One More Time For The World / English Versions

The free download is available here for your reading pleasure.

Steve Vai’s Western Vacation: Free Copies To Win!

Steve Vai‘s record label has a new album coming out next Tuesday June 22nd (more info here):

Steve Vai - Western Vacation

To celebrate the release, the Favored Nations label has generously offered KUR five free copies to distribute among you! Obviously, merely handing them out to the first five who comment on this post is a tad bit boring, so we decided on a little contest

Update: the contest is now closed! Thanks to all who played along. Some patience please as the jury sorts through the entries…

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Sieg Zappanale!

Remember a certain lawsuit issued by a certain dead rockstar‘s widow against a certain fan-organized tribute festival? As it turns out, said widow just lost the appeal. Robert who mailed in the story, says:

Sorry, currently only available in german. But the message is simple: GZ had appealed against the negative decision from some time ago, this appeal has now been denied, which completes the lawsuit in favor of Zappanale.

From my understanding, the Zappanale festival even retains the right to use FZ’s trademark imperial in its promotional material.

Immaculate Voodoo Butter Mix – Part IV

It’s that time of the month, fellow KUR-Meisters, when I dip into my personal, not-so-mythic, vault of Zappa field recordings to compile the latest KUR mix: the “Immaculate Voodoo Butter Mix – Part IV“. What is Part IV? Part IV is 200 tracks from the maestro’s last two touring bands, ’84 and ’88, beginning with a Rehearsal session from December 23rd, 1987. Why 200 tracks? 200 allows for the best performances of each respective tour to shine through…

Click here to listen to the mixtape. Enjoy!

Note: In the tradition of leaving the best for last, the fifth and final installment of the Immaculate Voodoo Butter Mix will arrive on July 15th, 2010.

Best FZ Covers – DZPZ & Eric Johnson’s “Carolina Hardcore Ecstasy” & “Muffin Man”

For those who think Dweezil Zappa Plays Zappa is a cold, “note-by-note” band, incapable of improvisation, I’m obviously not going to alter your view with a few posts, and neither would I endeavour to try. For those willing to look past original preconceptions, though, might be pleasantly surprised, as I was, when I dug deeper into this band.
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Dust Radio – A Film About Chris Whitley

As a fan of the music of the late Chris Whitley, I was excited to learn that the documentary about his life and music, Dust Radio, had gone into post-production (view trailer above).
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Best FZ Covers – Sandro Oliva’s “Watermelon In Easter Hay”

Sandro Oliva – former member of The Grandmothers, and one of my favourite guitarists – has been torturing Italian eardrums with his own band, The Blue Pampurio’s, since 1974.

Sandro Oliva‘s cover of FZ’s “Watermelon In Easter Hay” (one of the very best covers of that particular song I’ve heard, I might add) from the above clip is from the 2005 4CD private release, “NEVER COVERED” (for family and friends).

Long before making “NEVER COVERED” I recorded “LOVES OF MY LIFE”, a collection of FZ songs sang in Italian, along with a few instrumentals.

This is one of them.

The project has never been put out for copyright reasons, but I still have fun listening to “BROWN SHOES DON’T MAKE IT”, “JOE’S GARAGE/PEE”, “HELP I’M A ROCK”, “GO CRY..”, “CAMARILLO BRILLO” and “TURNING AGAIN”, the Italian Way!

I’m sure Frank would have appreciated it.

Unfortunally he got ill and after that more shit happened, so that I never asked the ZFT permission for releasing the italian translations.

Oh, well… maybe now that I’m not a Grandmother anymore…

But no, never mind.

I’m too busy with MY OWN MUSIC!!

~Sandro

Sandro Oliva – Guitar, Bass, Electric Sitar, Keyboards, Percussion, Sequencing.

The Grande Mothers Re:Invented – Viva Brazil, 2010

KUR recently received an email from The Grande Mothers Re:Invented thanking “the fans, the promoters, the crews, and everyone behind the scenes who support their performances, making these concerts and tours possible.”

THE POWER OF THE FANS

The GMSRI receive many letters from fans, many of them asking: “When are the GMSRI coming to “fill in your choice of city,state, country here.”

The standard reply is: “They would love to perform there, they just need the following logistics taken care of – airfare, ground transportation, promotion, instruments etc., etc., etc.”
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CACA: Pierre Vervloesem Whips It Out

CACA

Pierre Vervloesem (previously) writes:

I have recorded and mixed a CACA cd, i don’t know when it’s gonna be released and on wich label etc… simply because that doesn’t interest me at all. I “compose”, play the guitar, planned one (1) rehearsal, record and mix, other than that i just don’t feel it’s my business, i could be perfectely happy doing cd’s just for 2,3 friends and play gigs at their anniversary.

Somebody convince this man he needs to get his music outthere!
Luckily the band does have a website where you can listen to three of their tunes – “ZGROL” for one, is quite a delightful Zappaesque treat.