Excerpt from The Black Page, 1988

A tiny snipplet from an interview, and a bit of The Black page, possibly from the Milan show (not the best audio quality, though).

“The bad businessmen may save the world, by accident!…” 🙂

Posted in Frank Zappa, Interview, Music, Politics, Religion | Tagged , | 2 Comments

¡Hola Lucas!

Some nine months ago, Dr Sharleena and I hatched a cunning plan. It looked something like this:

lucas echo

As of yesterday morning at 9:42 am, upon some seven hours of labour, here’s what our plan looks like:

lucas newborn

World: meet Lucas! More pictures here.

Mother and child are doing fine. The father is dog tired and will probably not be posting as frequently as he’s used to, for the time being…

Posted in Personal | Tagged , , , | 32 Comments

Monty Python Channel on Youtube

Monty Python announces its decision to launch its YouTube channel (24 quality videos so far). Hey, and hey again!
Posted in Heh Heh, Pop Cult, YouTubery | Tagged | 6 Comments

Persona Non Grata: Adrian Belew Weighs In

With regard to this, here’s what Adrian Belew has to say:

I told dweezil I would try my best to insure he would not see andre. but I put it off and put it off and I want to make this clear: I did not say anything to andre. andre had no idea that he should keep out of dweezil’s sight.

why did I not keep my word to dweezil? andre is a valued member of my crew and a friend. I know how much he loves frank’s music. I could not bring myself to hurt andre’s feeling.

Be sure to read the whole post. Thanks to Joe Crawford for the head’s up.

Posted in In The News, In Writing, Music, Zappa Plays Zappa | Tagged , , | 104 Comments

As The ZFT vs Zappanale Soap Continues

I received Zappanale‘s 19th newsletter yesterday, which talks mainly about the ZFT vs Zappanale trial. Remember that one? Back in August, there was talk of an out-of-court settlement:

The Zappa Family Trust may be willing to compromise. ZFT lawyers now say that the Zappanale can use the Zappa name if they brand the festival as “Zappa music and more.”

Now, my German is as rusty as an early 90s Russian submarine but as I understand it, here’s how things appear to have evolved since then from the ZFT claim’s perspective: if the festival’s organizers wish to keep the festival going, they are to report — at the earliest occasion — name and location of any artists playing, as well as any (FZ) tunes on their playlist.

It would then be GZ’s deity-given, exclusive prerogative to veto any artists she feels “violate the integrity and intentions” of FZ, from playing at Zappanale.

A hostile take-over, if you will.
Nennt man solch eine Forderung vielleicht Zensur? Ist das nicht unheimlich? (Yes Bob Again, I’m way ahead of you!)

The Zappanale guys beg to differ, and so yet another court meeting is scheduled at the Düsseldorf Landgericht where, as Thomas Dippel puts it, “things are in good hands”.

On a completely off-topic note: yes, I’ve been out of the loop lately and yes, there’s a very good reason for this.

“Oh, do tell Barry!”

Any day now, any day now…

Posted in Frank Zappa, In The News, Personal, Zappanale | Tagged , , , , | 9 Comments

Slow Day At Work?

The Black Page Hole:

Posted in Bizarre, Movies, Visual Arts | Tagged | 5 Comments

Ann Wilson — Hope & Glory

Another CD which I recently picked up was Ann Wilson’s first-ever solo effort ‘Hope & Glory,’ from Zoë/ Rounder Records. Produced by Ben Mink, Hope & Glory features appearances from such artists as Elton John, Gretchen Wilson, Alison Krauss, Rufus Wainwright, Ann’s sister Nancy Wilson and others on unique renditions of songs made famous by Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Neil Young and more. In these two videos, Ann Wilson performs unique covers of Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant song” (Track 5) and Pink Floyd’s “Goodbye Blue Sky” (Track 1).

Posted in Music, Pop Cult, YouTubery | Tagged , , , , , | 9 Comments

One Man Rock’n’Roll Band

Roy Harper. The song is from 1971 (Stormcock), the performance from 1986. Amazingly strong guitar playing. Hey.

Posted in Music, YouTubery | Tagged , | 6 Comments

Montreux: Fire!

Exclusive pictures of the remainings of the Montreux Casino taken on the next day of the fire (december 1971) at montreuxmusic.com; with comments by the Deep Purple and FZ, plus 2 videos. Found on the Idiot Bastard’s page.

Posted in Frank Zappa, Pop Cult | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

A Concert For Jimmy

This just in from The Idiot Bastard — the schedule for tomorrow’s Jimmy Carl Black tribute concert:

  • 17:30 – Doors open
  • 18:00 – Introduction by MC Ben Watson
  • 18:15 – The Muffin Men
  • 19:15 – The Thurston Lava Tube
  • 20:00 – premiere of Jimmy & Candy Zappa’s Stolen Cadillac
  • 20:15 – Fraz Knapp jam session (with surprise special guest stunt guitarist)
  • 21:00 – premiere of Evil Dick’s The Horrors Of Local Government with film
  • 21:15 – That Legendary Wooden Lion
  • 22:00 – disco with DJ Chilli until chucking out

There will also be a raffle in there somewhere, with some very nice prizes… All proceeds from this event will go to the family of JCB. Tickets here.

Posted in Community, Frank Zappa, In The News, Music | Tagged , , | Comments Off on A Concert For Jimmy