Although Manassas only released two albums in their brief history as a band – the double album, Manassas, released on April 12th, 1972, and Down The Road on April 23rd, 1973 – the impact of these two albums is really quite undeniable. There are many who consider Manassas’ debut album somewhat of a masterpiece, and even though I wouldn’t go quite that far with that assumption, myself, Manassas were a very unique ensemble to say the least. As Stephen Stills comments in the above interview, he and his assembled musicians were able to accomplish a lot musically under the banner of Manassas.
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Tag: Amsterdam
Raging Slab @ De Melkweg, Amsterdam, 1993
Everyone has a secret musical pleasure. One of mine has been the music of Raging Slab. Anyone who knows me, knows I have a definite soft spot for southern rock. Perhaps what I like about Raging Slab is the unique manner in which they combine such seeming contrasting musical influences (punk, progressive, roots, metal, southern rock, country) to create their own sound.
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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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Tunes, Treats & Torrents – The Grandmothers
The first version of The Grandmothers came into being in 1980, formed by original Mothers of Invention and Soul Giants alumni Don Preston, Jimmy Carl Black and Bunk Gardner. From almost the start, the group was a thorn in Zappa‘s side (who’d probably thought he’d seen the last of his former bandmates when he forced them into the cold when he disbanded the original Mothers in 1970) when Zappa himself became the target of the new band’s on-stage satire and was apparently particularly upset over a dummy of himself that was being used in various provocative ways. Thus began a pattern of the Zappa family and its legal minions fighting with various members of the Grandmothers over the right to perform and record original Mothers of Invention compositions. At one point in the early ’90s, the Zappa estate quashed a new recording deal for the Grandmothers with a major label that was unfortunately not interested in working with the band unless it was allowed to use the name of the Mothers of Invention.
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