Category: Music

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 Tubes – Re Styles, Then & Now

From the very beginning of The Tubes, I was always taken with the vocal and performance style of band member Re Styles – born Shirley Marie MacLeod (certainly being a teenage boy at the time didn’t hurt my infatuation very much). Watch Styles in her role as Patty Hearst, live at California Hall in 1974, as The Tubes perform “Whiz Quiz” and “Crime Medley” (above), then 35 years later as she makes a one night only appearance with the band doing exactly what made her a natural member of the band as the band performs “Smoke” (below).
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Sunday Big Note – Listening Session #18

Unlike many of their contemporaries, British group Gentle Giant‘s classical influences ranged beyond the Romantic to incorporate elements of mediaeval, baroque, and modernist chamber music. Undoubtedly, this was what drew Frank Zappa to their music – that, and their elaborate arrangements, complex instrumental parts, and odd meters, too. I know, that was certainly what drew me to the music of Gentle Giant, too: a band made up of multi-instrumentalists who combined diverse elements from rock, classical, jazz, soul, blues, and the avante-garde, playing more than thirty instruments.
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The Scott Thunes Effect Reloaded

Ever since The Scott Thunes Effect (later known as Bass Notation), went offline, I’ve received numerous requests of people asking if I or anyone else could provide them with Thunes’ bass transcriptions for many of the ’88 band’s tunes, as they were originally listed there.

Today I’m happy to report that we’ve managed to salvage 44 pages of transcripts (with a couple more to follow). A huge thank you goes out to Stewart Cable, who had downloaded the transcripts back when they were still available. He was more than happy to email them to me, so that I could share them with you – so cheers Stewart!

Without further ado, here’s where you can now once again view and/or download these files:

Note: by putting this material online, I am not claiming any authorship and/or copyright. If not for Steve D who did the original transcripts, these files would not even exist.

And finally, as Steve noted in this AFFZ thread with regard to Scott Thunes:

… He’s a big scary man who shouts at people who displease him, so I don’t want him thinking i’m a stalker or anything…

Mr Thunes, if you’re reading this: I second that emotion…

Kentucky Fried Dupree

Brandon Coleman writes:

I just graduated with my bachelors in Jazz Guitar from Morehead State University in Kentucky. Wonderful music program there, with lots of great musicians to play with. For the guitar ensemble, I arranged one of my all-time favorite Zappa tunes, “Dupree’s Paradise”. We even opened up the middle section with some free improvisation. This video is from our Fall 2008 concert, a lot of the guys you see have graduated and went on to make great music.

Varèse: Poême électronique 1958

First presented at the 1958 Brussels Worlds Fair with 425 speakers placed throughout the famous Philips pavilion, the placement of the speakers and design of the building gave the spectators a feeling of being housed within a concrete, silver seashell. A giant model of the atom hung from the ceiling and the sound & imagery premiered to standing room only crowds and I can only imagine was a complete mind-blower to all who witnessed the spectacle. Varese is considered to be the “father of electronic music”, Henry Miller described him as the “stratospheric colossus of sound.” When Philips (Philips electronic company) approached Le Corbusier to design a building for the fair, Le Corbusier said, “I will not make a pavilion for you (Philips) but an Electronic Poem and a vessel containing the poem; light, color, image, rhythm and sound joined together in an organic synthesis.”

The Philips Pavilion was designed by Le Corbusier and  (the architect – later composer) Iannis Xenakis. Modernizm!

Frank Zappa – Penguins In Bondage, 73-74

Ah, the memories, Barry. Especially from the 8th November 1974 WXRT radio broadcast of “Penguin In Bondage” from Frank Zappa’s performance at the Roxy on December 1973 (above) with various visual memories added later. Then a soundboard recording of “Penguin In Bondage” from St.Paul, Civic Center Arena on November 27th, 1974. Followed by a November 15th, 1974 performance of “Penguin In Bondage” at Memorial Auditorium in Buffalo, New York. And lastly, “Stockholm In Bondage” in Stockholm, Sweden on August 21st, 1973 for the Swedish program ‘Opopoppa Special’ (below).
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Sunday Big Note – Listening Session #17

Of all the live concerts in my music collection, today’s particular show had proved to be one of the most difficult to find because of it’s uniqueness and it’s rarity among live show collectors. It had been on my most wanted search list for a very, very long time. Of course, I’m talking about the group known as Mallard, formed in 1974 by Bill Harkleroad (Zoot Horn Rollo), Mark Boston (Rockette Morton) and Art Tripp III (Ed Marimba) after leaving Captain Beefheart‘s Magic Band. It was during Mallard’s European tour in 1976 that they performed the German TV Show ‘Rockpalast’ on September 7th, 1976.
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