Back on Friday, March 28th, 2008 I published the post, Live Albums — Dead or Alive? in which I listed many of my favourite live albums: Zappa In New York (1978); Super Session (1968) with Mike Bloomfield, Al Kooper, Stephen Stills; and Warren Zevon’s Stand In The Fire (1980/2007) just to name a few. Among them, though, was also an absolute favourite live album of mine which has long stood the test of time. That artist and album being John Mayall’s 1969 live release The Turning Point.
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Tag: 1970
Sunday Big Note – Listening Session #15
I still recall with great fondness the day I discovered Traffic’s 1967 debut album, Mr. Fantasy and their psychedelic tour de force, “Heaven Is In Your Mind”. Unlike many psychedelic groups of the era, Traffic had the special ability to combine elements from various musical genres – progressive rock, jazz fusion, psychedelic rock, and blues – into a unique sound which would reach it’s creative zenith on their 1970 release, John Barleycorn Must Die.
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Frank’s Little Houses
For the Frank Zappa and Mothers of Invention fan, there is almost always a particular album which they refer to as that album which “hooked” them as long-term fans. For me, that album was the 1970 release, ‘Burnt Weeny Sandwich‘, and in particular the more than 18 minute composition, “The Little House I Used To Live In” which functioned as the centerpiece of that album. Zappa’s 1969 solo release ‘Hot Rats‘ might have ensured my long-term Zappa fanaticism, yet ‘Burnt Weeny Sandwich‘ solidified it. When I first heard the movements and compound meters of “Little House“, my musical universe was never quite the same ever again.
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Sunday Big Note – Listening Session #8
For as long as I have been a Zappa/Mother‘s freak – going four decades strong and showing no evidence of slowing down – almost every fan of Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention I’ve encountered has also been a fan of Ian Anderson and Jethro Tull. Odd, since in the 1970s Frank Zappa, himself, stated in the press that he didn’t care for the music of Jethro Tull. In a Montreal Mirror interview, Ian Anderson was asked about this:
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Call Any Vegetable – 1970 versus 2006
One of the fantastic advantages of the advent of current technologies such as YouTube and the Internet, is it allows one to compare and contrast particular songs – in this case, Frank Zappa‘s “Call Any Vegetable” – with particular groups and bands of completely different eras: FZ‘s 2nd MOI band’s vaudeville-style with that of Dweezil’s Zappa Plays Zappa. Merely just a cover? Or an improvement on the original? Zappa Plays Zappa‘s clip is from their DVD/CD released in 2006 of two shows filmed and recorded in Portland, OR and Seattle, WA, respectively. While the two Vaudeville Mothers clips (the complete audio) and the edited version, both from the “Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA, 6 Nov 1970” show. Personally, I’ll always have a bias toward the earlier versions. Still, Napoleon Murphy Brock does one hell of a rendition.
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Frank Zappa on KPFA-FM, Los Angeles, circa 1970
I recently came into possession of an audio clip of Frank Zappa as special guest on “The Johnny Otis Show” which ran on KPFA-FM, Los Angeles, circa 1970. During most of hour they spun old records, yet in this clip, a live-in-the-studio performance, Ray Agee is backed by Frank Zappa and Shuggie Otis on guitars. Frank tells a little story to start, then Johnny Otis urges Shuggie to lend Frank a guitar and they launch into an impromptu blues piece. A nice bit of audio history.
Leave Me Alone – Ray Agee, Frank Zappa, Shuggie Otis
[audio:http://www.killuglyradio.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/01-Leave-Me-Alone.mp3]
Holiday In Berlin, 1970
Another appealing aspect of Frank Zappa’s music was his ability to self mythologize what occurred in his life into his music. This is seen quite a lot in literature, but rarely in music (which, I might add, is part of Zappa’s unique genius). Zappa’s composition, “Holiday In Berlin” is an excellent example.
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Jethro Tull @ Fillmore East 1970
Let’s all climb aboard the YouTube time machine and trip back to the year 1970 at the Fillmore East where Jethro Tull is captured performing two tracks from their 1969 release, Stand Up: “A New Day Yesterday” and “For A Thousand Mothers”. Got to love the energy and enthusiasm in these videos. Well worth the trip.
Need A Bath?
Our pal Magic Fingers writes in to say:
You might like to tell the boys and girls at KUL about this page of my second favourite website.
… and then tell them to check out the rest of the site.
Consider it done, good Sir! Aside: when do you reckon The Big Note will be back on the airwaves in full force?