“New York, New York” Zappa Style – KUR’s Halloween Mix

Christians have Christmas, Jews have Passover, and Muslims have the holy month of Ramadan. For a Zappa/Mothers freak like myself, though, no day in the calendar year is more important than Halloween. Frank Zappa and Halloween in New York City became a tradition onto itself in the 1970s and early 1980s. It’s no surprise that whenever he decided to release live albums and videos and DVDs, New York was the backdrop. If Los Angeles was his home, New York was his home away from home. It was where he seemed to let his hair down most, so to speak, and where he had the most fun with the freaks and denizens which were his fans.

To commemorate this particular Halloween, KUR-Meisters, I joined forces with the great Magic Fingers, and together we have compiled for you a massive Halloween mix entitled: “New York, New York” Zappa Style – KUR’s Halloween Mix.

Click here to listen to the mix.

“Happy Halloween, everybody!”

Frank Zappa: New York & Elsewhere, 1980, Excerpts


In this 1980 Austrian TV Documentary, interviews with Frank Zappa are interspersed with concert footage from New York’s Mudd Club on May 8th, 1980 (“Mudd Club” and “Chunga’s Revenge“) and Upper Darby Township’s Tower Theatre on May 10th, 1980 (“Beauty Knows No Pain“) as well as an interview (of sorts) with hardcore fans (including Al Malkin) backstage at the Mudd Club. Despite poor video quality and bad overdubbing – it is still a great artifact of Zappa‘s 1980 tour and New York’s infamous Mudd Club which opened in October of 1978, quickly became a fixture in downtown Manhattan’s underground music and counterculture scene, until its closure in 1982.

Ed Palermo Big Band @ Southpaw (feat. Napoleon Murphy Brock)

southpawposter

If you are a fan of Ed Palermo‘s arrangements of Frank Zappa‘s compositions, and if you are in the New York area on Wednesday, September 9th, 2009, join Ed Palermo and his special guest, Napoleon Murphy Brock (on vocals and sax) at the Southpaw.
Continue reading “Ed Palermo Big Band @ Southpaw (feat. Napoleon Murphy Brock)”

Zappa Radio Interview, New York, 1978

Frank Zappa, on the air with Mark Simone, October 30th, 1978, at WPIX-FM, New York, just prior to one of his annual (and albeit, infamous) Palladium concerts. It’s quite easy to see why these Palladium concerts were of the must see variety.

I wonder if the Warren that FZ is saying hello to “on air” is the same Warren Cuccurullo who later joined his band?

88BoaDrum in NYC and LA on 8.8.08

88BoaDrum – LA will start at exactly 8:08 PM PST the 88-minute experience at the historic La Brea Tar Pits will feature 88 drummers selected by Boredoms and 88Boadrum artistic director, Hisham Bharoocha of Soft Circle [formerly of Lightening Bolt, Black Dice].

88BoaDrum – NYC will start at exactly 8:08 PM EST in New York City, conducted on behalf of Boredoms and Nike Sportswear by Brooklyn’s Gang Gang Dance. Set on the Williamsburg Waterfront, 88 drummers will perform the same 88-minute piece, newly composed by Eye of Boredoms and interpreted by Gang Gang Dance.

Hey, sounds interesting! And here is how last years’ event looked like – of course called 77BoaDrum: