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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Le Concert Impromptu plays Zappa

The wind quintet Le Concert Impromptu perform Frank Zappa compositions “King Kong” (above) and “Peaches en Regalia” (below) in these extracts from Jean-François Zygel‘s series ‘The Music Box’ with additional guest Didier Lockwood. The theme is on “Bach to the Future”, the concert impromptu interpreter of works by Bach, Reicha, Zappa and other improvisations. Originally broadcast on France 2 on August 26th, 2010.
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ZAPPATiKA! – Strictly Frankly

Everyone knows I’m always game for fresh new covers of Frank Zappa music, no matter the source, so when Zap Mcinnes of ZAPPATiKA! sent KUR an edited mix (ready for streaming) as a sort of belated Xmas present of their December 18th, 2010 performance at the QBUS Concert Hall, in Leiden, Holland, The Netherlands, where they headlined an event called The Ultimate Rock Party – along with Okham’s Razor who tackled the Stones catalog and Bald As Love, a no-hair Hendrix tribute act – performing 100% Zappa, I was thrilled to hear it.
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Yugen & Rock In Opposition

For as long as I have been a music listener, it has very often perplexed me that the music, and the artists, with which I listened to on an increasingly regular basis, and increasingly over the years and decades – artists such as Zappa, Beefheart, Henry Cow, Univers Zero, The Cardiacs, The Residents, etc. – never got radio play, or if they did, very little, and quite often outside the mainstream media of the time. So, it came as little surprise, at least to me, when a movement, Rock In Opposition, emerged in the late 70s promoting these elements:
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George Duke Band plays Zappa

For as long as I’ve been a fan of Frank Zappa‘s music, I’ve also been a fan of the music of George Duke. Indeed, both musicians have taken me on musical trips I could never have imagined going on.
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FZ’s Them or Us – Rereleased, 2010/12/1

In 1984 Frank Zappa self-published Them or Us, created with a dot matrix printer. A new facsimile edition – published by Pinter & Martin Ltd of the United Kingdom (which means they can only ship this book to the UK & Commonwealth; everyone else should check Zappa.com and Barfko-Swill after the rerelease date of December 1st, 2010) – brings this seminal work on conceptual continuity to a new generation of fans. Continue reading “FZ’s Them or Us – Rereleased, 2010/12/1”

Sore TappaZ Plays Zappa – Amsterdam Blue Note, June 2010

Based in Leverkusen, Amsterdam – band leader and vocalist Christopher Klassen‘s home town – Sore TappaZ plays Klassen‘s original compositions as well as and the music of Frank Zappa.
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Ensemble Modern on BBC Radio 3

Our good friend Xorg, a KUR regular and frequent mixer of the sardonic lipids, informs us that BBC Radio 3 is currently broadcasting (probably for only a few more days) via the BBC iPlayer – the Ensemble Modern performing Arnold Schoenberg‘s Pierrot Lunaire, recorded in May at the Sounds New Festival in Canterbury, UK.

Click here to go to the iPlayer.
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Arthur Jarvinen – In Memoriam (1956-2010)

Arthur Jarvinen, musician, composer, founder of the California E.A.R. Unit, and music copyist for the late Frank Zappa, himself passed away on October 4th, 2010.
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In the Beginning…

In the beginning there was a word, and the word was secret, and the secret word was…Mudshark! And for fifty years the Mudshark ruled supremely as the only secret word on the planet Earth, but one day the Mudshark became older, and began to turn yellow, and decided to go onward and upward into the cosmos as a Yellow Shark…But, in his wake, he left a void…filled by MTV and Supermarket Shopping Musik! And the family of the Mudshark became so bloated that they didn’t know what to do anymore with the legacy which the Mudshark had left behind him…They became concerned with the question of whether or not a Fish, or a beard Fish, or a Zappatika or a Central Scrutinizer Band could be a Mudshark! And how we can stop them swimming in the waters of the ocean! And the Mudshark looked on from high, and scratched his head, and scratched his beard, and he picked something living out of it, and he ate it. Then he pondered the question…”I wonder if there’ll ever be a new secret word?”

“The Secret Word”, ZAPPATiKA! Live at Zappanale #21

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