Cheaper the Better – Lyrically Zappa

While many focus on Frank Zappa, the composer, so very often Zappa, the songwriter, is overlooked. Perhaps due to the nature of Zappa’s lyrics, themselves, which often take direct aim at human sexuality, and sexual mores in 20th Century American culture – satirizing its norms, its values, its purported virtues of family, of home, of church. From the release of Freak Out onward, Zappa took direct aim with his songs, and his lyrics, at the foibles he saw and witnessed about him. No one and no thing was beyond the scope of his sardonic eyebrow.
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Grab Bag

Band From Utopia @ Cologne’s Tanzbrunnen, 1994

While initially invited to perform at the Jazz Open Stuttgart in Liederhalle, Stuttgart, Germany on July 1st, 1994, Band From Utopia also had one other gig two days after Stuttgart at Cologne’s Tanzbrunnen on July 3rd, 1994. Watch these recently posted videos of Band From Utopia’s Cologne (courtesy of TheCaveStudioFilms) performances of “Tink / 13” (above) and “Village of the Sun / Echidna’s Arf (of You) / Don’t You Ever Wash That Thing?” (below):
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Zappa Jam Site Re-opens on Facebook

The old Zappa Internet Jam has a new address on Facebook, here.

The old Zappa Internet Jam was a great place, but times change. Much has happened in the last few weeks and well so it looks we have done a job on our new site on Facebook. It is finally up and going to the point where it is now operational. Check it out.

We would love to hear responses, what you think.

A lot of great old stuff will be posted there soon and we encourage you to post new ones. Download the tunes, add your comments, ask questions or share advice with our musicians community and also, this is your new chance to submit your music for feedback straight to the people that matter, and you can interact on comments and more.

To upload your music first time to the new system: please login with your Facebook account, or register a Facebook-less account. You can upload a maximum of three tracks in any 30 day period. When you upload a track to us, it will be online automatically. Anyone can share your music with friends on and outside Facebook, but only the best ones will be posted to our Zappa community wall.

We will now be welcoming you back.

-Zappa Internet Jam Team


As always, the Zappa Jam Site is a wonderful source of excellent new Zappa covers. I give their new FB Jam Site a thundering endorsement!

The ESO plays Zappa

Almost eight weeks ago I learnt that one of The Edmonton Symphony Orchestra‘s 2010-11 Symphony Specials would be a performance of Frank Zappa compositions by a rock group fronted by two Zappa alumni – Ed Mann and Ike Willis – and backed by the ESO on Tuesday, March 15th, 2011 at 7:30pm at Edmonton’s Enmax Hall in the Winspear Centre (see above).
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Space Brothers and Mike Keneally @ Red Dock Saloon, 2009

I’d like to dedicate this particular post to my friend, and fellow KUR-Meister, Balint, who recently reminded so well that sometimes it’s worthwhile just to post just for the fun of it all, and for the love of the music, itself. Nothing could come closer to that description than the few videos I recently discovered while surfing about the internet of The Space Brothers and Mike Keneally (also featuring Bryan Beller) performing on August 16th, 2009, at the Red Dock Saloon in Saugatuck/Douglas, Michigan, on the lakeshore of Lake Michigan – a venue well known for it’s good food, cold beer, loud music, and nasty bathrooms. Although the audio is somewhat muddy at times, the guitar work in these videos is often absolutely sublime – especially the guitar work in their cover of Frank Zappa‘s “My Guitar Wants To Kill Your Mama” (above). There are instances I am reminded how much I miss FZ’s live guitar improvisation, and why Keneally is considered “the leading progressive rock genius of the post-Zappa era”. Listen to their cover of “Cosmik Debris” as well as a riff from “Inca Roads” (both below) and decide.
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Le Concert Impromptu plays Zappa

The wind quintet Le Concert Impromptu perform Frank Zappa compositions “King Kong” (above) and “Peaches en Regalia” (below) in these extracts from Jean-François Zygel‘s series ‘The Music Box’ with additional guest Didier Lockwood. The theme is on “Bach to the Future”, the concert impromptu interpreter of works by Bach, Reicha, Zappa and other improvisations. Originally broadcast on France 2 on August 26th, 2010.
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