YCTOSA 2 – DISC ONE
- Tush Tush Tush (A Token Of My Extreme)
- Stinkfoot
- Inca Roads
- RDNZL
- Village Of The Sun
- Echidna’s Arf (Of You)
- Don’t You Ever Wash That Thing?
- Pygmy Twylyte
- Room Service
- The Idiot Bastard Son
- Cheepnis
YCDTOSA 2 – DISC TWO
- Approximate
- Dupree’s Paradise
- Satumaa (Finnish Tango)
- T’Mershi Duween
- The Dog Breath Variations
- Uncle Meat
- Building A Girl
- Montana (Whipping Floss)
- Big Swifty
Probably my favorite from the Stage series. I saw this particular band in concert in Little Rock, Arkansas, and they were awesome! I like this because it is a complete concert of one particular band, not a bunch of different bands edited together like the rest of the series. This is my favorite period for Zappa touring groups, funky, swinging, loose and jazzy.
probaply the ultimatr FZ-album:the greatest band,great songs…and it was recorded in my own country-Finland! 5/5
My favorite set from this series, at the very least. Of course, great band and great material.
Particularly notable (to me):
1.) Thanks to the magic of Stage Fabricles (actually, sample triggering) we get to really hear the kick drum part in Inca Roads as the arrangement had finally evolved. Thanks to Balint and KUR, we heard an earlier version of this song on a Friday Boot several weeks ago which was much slower and had a slightly boring constant sixteenth note drum/percussion part underneath the whole song (the song actually sounds sort of tango-ish when you think about it!). In this final arrangement (the one on OSFA, natch), it has become FUNKY, the way things usually become funky – by leaving strategic space: the opening marimba lick of two sixteenths is followed by two sixteenths on the kick. If you think of them together, it’s a still constant sixteenths, but broken up between two instruments. Very cool. You can feel this groove on the OSFA version, but it’s really in your face and fabulous on this live/triggered version.
2.) A new, quintessentially (which just means it smells like him!) Zappa lick which, unusually, is never recycled or makes another appearence anywhere else: the one shortly before the improvised comedy of ‘Room Service’ (the one in between the ‘Honey..honey’ stuff). It’s not an archetypal lick like King Kong or one of the blues-based ones, but I like it, and it’s fun to hear.
Oh boy, good album all around!
Highly recommended. Great performances, great songs. Only thing lacking is the visuals!
I love this release just as much as Vol. I, even though it is of one single concert. It is this fan’s strong opinion that one of Frank Zappa’s weaknesses (and there were scant few) was one of obession with always changing and tweaking everything, as if EVER restoring or repeating the same act twice was some sort of mortal sin. Many times in his body of work, this results in some wonderful and amazing amalgams of music (xenochrony, “Joe’s Garage’s overlaid guitar solos, etc….), but it also resulted in some overworked messes (the digital reverb remasters to CD, “We’re Only In It For the Money” bass and drum tracks, etc…..). The only weak point in the “…Stage…” series are in a few places where Frank just got off on having edit fever, insisting on slamming different bands from different eras into one collaged piece of “new” patchwork music. I think it is cool on more experiemental work-outs like “King Kong”, but in more through-composed vocal and instrumental pieces, it can come off un-musical and sounds like a composer restless to always move on to something else.
But anyway, I LOVE Vol. II, even if I lost my CD of it awhile ago. I adore the ’73-’74 Mothers, feel that they represent arguably the most proficient overall group of players Frank ever had, and I salivate over every single recorded minute of playing that George Duke ever did for Frank anywhere. I know that I am sounding like a billion other Frank fans, but let’s put it on the line: if one had to compile the greatest instrumentalists that played for Frank ever, one would have to put George Duke on keys, Vinnie Colaiuta on drums, Steve Vai on guitar, etc…. This band literally BREATHED together, and just listening to Frank put them through their paces is BREATHTAKING. I cannot imagine a more committed group of amazing players that ever existed on a rock stage EVER.
PLEASE get this CD and listen to it over and over again. It will stand the test of time as a recorded document of just what can be done when someone as visionary as Frank Zappa pushes the boundaries of music and players to their unimaginable limit.
What a band, what a concert. I am SO HAPPY that Frank didn’t dare slice and edit this one up.