Exclusive FZ-Audio at Rolling Stone Dot Com

An exclusive Audio feature from the Rolling Stone:

…his estate is releasing a three CD concert set taped at London’s Hammersmith Odeon in 1978. The shows were the source of some tracks on 1979s Sheik Yerbouti, but the complete unedited show hasn’t been available until now. Click here to hear an exclusive version of “City of Tiny Lites” from the new collection.

Not exactly: the song is different from the one on Hammersmith Odeon, so it’s probably from the new Birthday Bundle, recording date: 26. january 1978 (one month before HO). Sounds better to me than Odeon (Thinman? What do you say?), with more organic sound and more cimbals – and a much better solo. (Source: Zappa in France)

The Frank Zappa AAAFNRAAAA Birthday Bundle

By now you may have read about this elsewhere: the ZFT yesterday released another Birthday Bundle. It’s a digital-download compilation album featuring various artists including Macy Gray, Holland Greco and of course FZ himself. Full tracklist here, a bit more info over at the wiki and zappa.com.

Q&A: Scott Thunes

Above Mr Thunes talks about his audition at the Zappa at the Roundhouse event. Below: still him on a) Ike Willis, b) Valley Girl, c) Solitude. Mr Thunes is a Great Guy.

For the hardcore fans: the whole Q&A in 11 parts (!), with Gail, Dweezil, Scott Thunes, Joe Travers, Todd Yvega, Ali N Askin.

I´M Using A Chicken To Measure It – A Tribute To Frank Zappa

To celebrate the 70th birthday of Frank Zappa, Hunchentoot presents a group show featuring the work of Pit Noack, Stefan Roigk, Heidrun Schramm, Oliver Schmidt and Nicolas Wiese. All of whom are working with sound installation. Like Zappa they use eclectic assemblage and deconstruction to develop an open form of individual references to Zappa and his multifarious work. Using comic, collage, diapositive projectors and sounds the artists create a joint collage of five individual positions. In the tradition of Frank Zappa they create a situation, in which bicycle sounds, grotesque laughter, guitar solos, notation and utopian ideas combine to an oeuvre between composition and improvisation.

All this happens in Berlin (I love it, I love it!) this december at Galerie Hunchentoot (as I see it this program is not yet on their homepage). Otherwise it opens right before FZ’s birthday:

Group Show 04.12.2010 – 12.02.2011
Opening 03.12.2010 19 – 22 Uhr