ZW made a beautiful cover of Republicans. I’m just gazing out of my head of amazement. Beautiful. Well, “we” have a tribute-band also (btw: do you like them?), but this is something different. I HAD TO write a few words on it. Simply fantastic.
Month: May 2005
Louie Louie Again
Frank, if you’re upthere, you just have to read this.
(Thanks, SOFA!)
Big Plans
“We have a really big plan for this year, something that we’ve never done before.” Dweezil says. “We’re going to put a band together and play only Frank’s music. We’re going to start in Europe then come back to the states and then go to Japan. We’re going to start in October, so we’re going to rehearse the band for three months in order to learn close to fifty songs, including a lot of the very difficult instrumentals. I’m learning a lot of stuff on guitar that was never meant to be played on guitar. For me, it will be like training for the Guitar Olympics. We are going to create a core band of people that haven’t played with Frank, and then we will have some special guests and Ahmet is going to sing. We want to have our own thing that we do that is free from interpretations of other people’s expectations.
Let’s Move To Stockholm
With the news of an upcoming Zappa tribute concert in Stockholm, I figured let’s have a look at the gigs FZ played there. This one seemed more than nice enough: Johanneshovs Isstadion, 3 march 1979. Gilles told me it had been around for quite a while, but only recently did a much better audience recording pop up — which is the one we’re featuring here. Enjoy!
Cucamonga Revisited
More information about the upcoming Cucamonga Years documentary:
By the end of 2005, filmmaker Fiorenza of Pasadena and producer Miley of Whittier plan to wrap up two years of exhaustive research, culminating in a documentary that celebrates the artists and bands that passed through the Pal studio during its heyday.[…]
In the end, Fiorenza said he hoped the documentary would leave a sense of artistic culture, a source of pride for the community of Rancho Cucamonga.
“If you’ve grown up in a town like this, it’s really lame as far as culture,” he said. “For kids that want to do more arts and theater, it’s not the place to be. … There’s no sense of history, and that kind of bothers me. No sense of self.”
Pulp Fiction
Judge a book… by its cover — a big and fabulous collection of 70s pulp book covers.
Insightful Svendsen
Today is apparently turning into Swedish Day here at KUR. One Kim Svendsen has been stomping through the Zappa Albums section like the proverbial elephant in the porcelain shop, making such insightful comments as “SO FUCK YA ALL RIGHT UP YA STINKY FAT ASSES!!”
Correct me if I’m wrong but: I do not think this constitutes an exciting, hitherto unknown Clue of Conceptual Continuity.
So Miss or Mr Svendsen: since you didn’t even put in a valid email address where I might have contacted you, you are as of now IP-banned.
Skol!
Stockholm ’05
According to a press release from Ema Telstar (a big Swedish concert promotor) published in yesterday’s Sundsvalls Tidning, there will be a big Zappa tribute concert in Stockholm this fall (see KUR’s earlier coverage). Gail, Dweezil and Ahmet are coming to Stockholm May 24 to announce it.
“We will probably be able to reveal the names of the musicians in a week, says Catarina Oscarsson at Ema Telstar. Some of the musicians played with Zappa – and the idea is to give you a feeling that he is present.”
And before you ask “Since when does Barry speak fluent Swedish”: all the above courtesy of Frippe. (Thanks Frippe!)
Petulant
Anybody know Petulant Frenzy? It’s an Australian FZ tribute group. They have a couple of cool downloads on their site, as well as a very promising history page. (via Dawayne)
A Jolly Good Doctor
Happy Birthday, Doctor Sharleena!!
D’you think she’d like this as a present?