If you’ve ever wanted to be present at a Zappa rehearsal, to hear the in-jokes, the rough versions of songs, the relentless perfectionism of one merciless BandLeader – well, we’ve got something for you: a day of rehearsals at UMRK, August 12 1981.
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Meta
Wow, Lisa Popeil? Interesting – I’ll listen to it in the weekend, thanks, Barry, thanks, Gilles. One note: something wrong with track 4, didn’t come: “hotcha_page_not_found.php”
Ugh, The LowerCase Devil Strikes Again! It’s been fixed Balint, thanks for noting.
Thanks Barry!
Some more corrections in the tracklist:
1. Portuguese Lunar Landing
2. Bamboozled By Love
3. I’m The Slime
4. The Illinois Enema Bandit
5. Zoot Allures with Lisa Popeil singing!!!!
6. Camarillo Brillo, Muffin Man
7. Theme from Mr Rogers’ Neighbourhood
8. Tryin’ To Grow A Chin
9. Dancin’ Fool
10. Flakes, Montana
11. Drowning Witch 01
12. Drowning Witch 02
LOL thanks Balint (i have made your suggested mods)! Guess I better stop copy/pasting the tracklist from the accompanying textfile :) Truth be told, I’m a bit lazy when it comes to double-checking whether what I’m hearing corresponds to what’s in the tracklist… Mea Maxima Culpa!
Do you know who did the recording? It sounds like it was made from a rather cheapo tape recorder. This document is really fun though. It really sounds like any band rehearsing except that there are so many hot shots in the same room!!!
Thanks again for the fun!
Better watch out…the ZFT will wanna release this material as their next “Vault” find! First they’ll steal the mp3’s, then they’ll sue you ;).
Seriously, it’s really great to hear these rehearsals…especially “Portuguese Lunar Landing”, which I only heard rehearsed once or twice, and very rudimentarily, by the ’74 version of the band. Too bad Frank never saw fit to release it, it’s a great song!
On the same note, it’s fascinating to hear the amount of detail that went into these “on the spot” arrangements…detail that never quite seemed to make it onto the stage and especially not onto the released recordings. Really revelatory.
I don’t know who recorded this one (even Zappa Patio doesn’t list it!) Maybe Gilles can shed a little light on this… ?
From Arthur Barrow’s website about being the clonemeister: “It was a quite a difficult job, especially when I first took over. I had a portable cassette recorder and taped the parts of rehearsal when Frank was there. At night, after rehearsal, I would listen to the tapes and make notes or transciptions of what Frank had come up with that day. The next day I would drill the band on the previous day’s changes and additions…”
Then maybe these tapes were made by the 81 band clonemeister? Who was it a the time, Ed Mann or Scott Thunes?
I think still Barrow – he said he quit the band because he was tired, but remember, he even worked on The Band From Utopia – so he was the clonemeister till then (I think…)
hi,
this is mike from munich,germany.
how or where can i watch the rehearsels?
on this page it doesnt work.
my other question: do you know the adress of the house the zappas lived in lancaster?
i wanna visit it.
thanx.mike
Hi Mike. If you’re looking for the rehearsals, they have been taken off-line because of bandwidth concerns. As for the lancaster house: can’t help you there, I’m afraid.
Hi Mike – for these kind of recordings also see the forum, the Uncle Beat section! Read, ask, offer – join!
hi mike check out that website.
there is the address of the house. http://users.cableaz.com/~lantz/lancaster.html