Here it is my fellow KUR-Meisters — “Friday Mix: Tweezer Glint (Studio-ized Concert Versions) Part IV” — the last in the series. I have endeavoured to leave some of the best tracks for last. Fifty of them in their full unedited glory.
Go ahead. Dig in. Enjoy.
Click here to listen to the mixtape.
Warning/Guarantee: the first five tracks just might lift you into spheres of utter Zappa ecstasy.
I had nearly forgotten about Capt. Cheese Beard & The 7 Sisters Of Prevention after Barry first posted their video of “Black Napkins” here at KUR back in 2007. Frankly, this ten piece band blows me away with their musicianship and their enthusiasm for the material they are playing (just check out the first two clips from their performance at Atelier210 – the aforementioned “Black Napkins” and “More Trouble Every Day”).
Captain Cheese Beard & the 7 Sisters of Prevention are a ten piece fusion band from Brussels, Belgium, formed by Johan De Coninck in May of 2006 after a year of pondering whether the whole project was actually feasible and worth all the trouble of managing a production of its size.
About three years ago, after riding pygmy ponies for many hours at the Pygmy Pony Riding club and smoking a whole pack of Wellfields (these are very dodgy Togolese cigarettes, by the way) Capt. Cheese-Beard went into a trance and had a vision in which he was visited by his long-time idol Frank Zappa who died in 1993. The great man himself told the captain that it was clear that his oeuvre was at risk of being lost, as it was not being exposed to the music listening youth of today. This was of course totally unacceptable. Maybe it was the side-effects of the Wellfields, temporally disabling the captain’s sense of reason, but during that cerebral meltdown he swore as a proud member of the pygmy pony riding club that he would do everything within his power to bring Zappa’s music back to life. Of course this was easier said than done. The media, regulated for many years now by the central scrutinizer, the sort of person who smells of cabbage, hired by so-called friends of the music biz, wasn’t going to be very receptive to the idea of putting the great composer’s “subversive” music back on the air. To make things worse, the central scrutinizer’s roll consists in making sure that the minds of our young consumers are continuously bombarded with tasteless, lukewarm, prefab pop. The captain, who by now had come back to his senses, realized he had to come up with a different, more daring plan. He decided he would find 9 other crazy musicians (preferably with prior pygmy pony experience) who would join him on a quest to go out there and attempt to play Zappa’s music themselves. He scratched his beard, put his fingers up his nose and smelled that it was good.
The Band:
Didier Demeestere – drums
Pascal Hauben – bass
Sara Corsius – keyboard
Johan De Coninck Corsius – guitar & voice
Rojah Lao – vocals (first 2 gigs only)
Abil Khazzaka – vocals
Vanessa Spy 007 – lead vocals
Katja Maes – melodic percussion
Ansje De Groef – flute
Thomas Van Gelder – alto & soprano sax
Kristof Kerremans – sax
Ludovic Jean-Mart – sax
This band certainly does have it’s groove down. From “Sofa #1” and “Sofa #2” (in German) to such Zappa classics as “Cosmic Debris“, “Inca Roads“, “Yo Mama“, “Andy“, “Pygmy Twylyte” and “Peaches En Regalia“.
The following rehearsals of “Cosmic Debris” and “Peaches En Regalia” show the band at work (and having fun):
Capt. Cheese Beard & The 7 Sisters Of Prevention will perform on Zappanale 20’s Main Stage on Friday, 14. August 2009.
Before you vote comment on the Ben Thomas rendition of Inca Roads with ZPZ, I suggest you watch these two clips: the first has Mike Keneally performing Inca Roads in Swindon, UK, in October of 2008; the second clip is an acoustic cover of Inca Roads (with Brian Beller) performed at Guitar Center, Seattle, Washington, October 7th, 2002.
Posting this here now for later viewing (work etc): Ben Thomas and ZPZ perform Inca Roads at l’Olympia, Paris, 18/05/09:
(via)
Thomas Brünnich, Thomas Käckenmeister and Michael Käckenmeister had already made music together while attending the conservatoire in Rostock in the mid-1980s, before ever conceiving of forming a band together. In the autumn of 1990, the three musicians again became active, playing in Blues and Rock bands surrounding Doberan. Around approximately 1996, was when the lasting foundation was forged to what would eventually constitute the main character of Jazzprojekt Hundehagen.
Michael Käckenmeister emerged as the group’s musical head. The group’s inspirations were rooted in interaction with his brother Thomas Käckenmeister and the musician companion Thomas Brünnich. Thomas Käckenmeister brought the experienced Guitarist Harald Werner into the group, along with the Quintet’s only woman, Pianist Katrin Werner.
The band took their name from the village they rehearsed in – an interim solution for several gigs at first – but the name stuck and it seemed like nonsense to change it.
Jazzprojekt Hundehagen play successfully in the northern part of Germany. They do standards as well as own compositions and themes of Frank Zappa.
Click here to listen (or download) various mp3’s at Jazzprojekt Hundehagen website, including “Black Napkin” “Zoot Allures”.
Jazzprojekt Hundehagen have performed at the 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th edition of the Zappanale festival. They are scheduled to appear at Zappanale 20.
Note: Many of the webpages are in German. Use Babelfish to translate.
… that will get you a hit! With a bullet! Behold:
For those interested, my ears tell me they are, in order:
Go ye and make ye hits!
In France:
[audio:http://www.killuglyradio.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/frank-zappa-in-france2.mp3]
Mystery Song #4:
[audio:http://www.killuglyradio.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/frank-zappa-mystery-song-4.mp3]
Approximate/Tinseltown:
[audio:http://www.killuglyradio.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/frank-zappa-approximate-tinseltown.mp3]
All the tunes above from a rehearsal in 1982 (04 06). I had to make a few cuts, because of the tape stops and restarts and laughters. But I hope it cannot be noticed (too much). 🙂 Enjoy! (infos about the Mystery Song #4 here!)
Warren Zevon was already a ten-year music industry veteran who had written songs for the Turtles, backed up Phil Everly, done years of session work and been befriended by Jackson Browne by the time he cut this self-titled album for Asylum Records in 1976.
Even though Warren Zevon was on good terms with L.A.’s Mellow Mafia (The Eagles and Fleetwood Mac most notably of these), his songs were quite unlike any of them. Zevon’s music was full of blood, bile, and mean-spirited irony which even Jackson Browne’s production values were unable to disguise. Zevon’s songs were a rogue’s gallery of reckless souls: thieves and gunfighters, ambitious pimps, lonesome junkies, hard-living lunatics, and dastardly womanizers. For all their darkness, Zevon’s songs also possessed a steely intelligence, a sardonic wit, and a sophisticated melodic sense, made certain by the high-priced help who backed him on the album (members of the Eagles and Fleetwood Mac).
In late 2008, Rhino Records released a remastered and expanded version of Warren Zevon accompanied by a bonus disc of 15 demos, alternate takes, and live performances of every song from the original release. These early demos confirm that Zevon’s creative vision was clearly evident long before he had the budget to make a “real” album. The 1974 recording of “Carmelita” boasts an extra verse which didn’t make it to its “official” recording. Otherwise, the alternate material is often rougher and less precise than the final cut, which sometimes works in its favor and occasionally does not (yet even the weakest of the archival performances are still quite intriguing).
Of the demos, alternate takes, and live performances, these are indeed newfound treasures:
Carmelita (1974 Demo)
[audio:http://www.killuglyradio.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/2-15-carmelita-1974-demo.mp3]
Join Me In L.A. (Take 2, 11-20-75)
[audio:http://www.killuglyradio.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/2-18-join-me-in-la-take-2-11-20-75.mp3]
Poor Poor Pitiful Me (Alternate Version)
[audio:http://www.killuglyradio.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/2-19-poor-poor-pitiful-me-alternate-version.mp3]
For general interest concerning the relationship between the young Warren Zevon and Howard Kaylan of the Turtles, visit Crystal Zevon’s blog for March 29, 2007.
Why would a successful group like the Turtles grant the B-Side of their single, “Happy Together” to a young upstart like Zevon?
Welcome to the third KUR mix of four, presented on four consecutive Fridays in May, entitled “Friday Mix: Tweezer Glint (Studio-ized Concert Versions) Part III“. As with the two prior Tweezer Glint mixes, this week’s mix is full of tracks from various FZ live concerts before they were edited into albums of his official catalogue.
Click here to listen to the mixtape. Enjoy.
The Fourth and last part of “Tweezer Glint” will be posted next Friday, May 29th.
Available only from Amazon for now, Beat The Boots III, a six disc continuation of the original Beat The Boot series, is confusing the heck out of just about everybody. Official? ZFT endorsed? Zappa.com is not helping much as it’s currently down. Andrew says: “Back in 2003, Gail said we “can expect a new batch” of Beat The Boots. And here they finally are.”
