While in Stockholm, Sweden on December 4th, 1971 during a short European tour, Frank Zappa and The Mothers appeared on the Swedish TV show entitled “Spotlight“. The 34 minute broadcast had interviews with Zappa mingled with music clips from 200 Motels [“This Won’t Take Long”, “The Final Solution”, “Centerville”] and included performances of “The Air”, “Dog Breath”, “Mother People”, “You Didn’t Try To Call Me”, “King Kong”, and “Who Are The Brain Police?” from Palais Gaumont, Paris, France on December 15th, 1970.
Continue reading “Spotlight, Swedish TV, 1971”
Tag: paris
Zappanale (Then & Now) — DBRK
From the DBRK MySpace page:
DBRK is a Parisian collective of obedience “Fun First” composed of amateurs and professionals musicians. Real Cover Band, DBRK revisits the work of artists from the sixties to the eighties according to a basic principle: to explore each title must seduce each of the 9 members of the collective. It’s repertoire ranges from David Bowie to Frank Zappa, through Patti Smith, Bob Marley, Roxy Music, Pink Floyd, King Crimson, Joy Division, Jimi Hendrix, The Fall, The Wolfgang Press, Brian Eno, Neil Young, Lou Reed, Talking Heads, Wire, Robert Wyatt, Martin Circus, Cream, John Lennon, Genesis, Nick Cave, etc… The commercial potential is not the main objective of DBRK, so do not you cross animating a wedding or a bar mitzvah, though… In a wink to Zappa, DBRK means: Delicious Band Research Kitchen.
In the first clip, DBRK performs a fantastic jazz-infused version of “Uncle Remus” live in Paris at the “Les Fils de l’Invention” FZ festival on July 5, 2008 (now my favorite version of this Zappa/Duke composition). In the second clip, they perform “Wino Man”.
Click here to catch up on the other goings on in Paris, in general, and in France, in particular (a pretty lively bunch of Zappa freaks, I must say). It’s entirely in French, so you’ll need to translate the page (use babelfish)
DBRK performed at ZAPPANALE 19.
Zappa, Palais des Sports, Paris, 1980
This particular concert took place at the Palais des Sports, Paris, France on June 11th, 1980 and was first broadcast on France’s Antenne 2 in late 1980, and later rebroadcast on Europe2 TV on May 10, 2007.
It features Zappa’s Rockin’ Teenage Combo:
Frank Zappa–lead guitar, vocals
Ike Willis–guitar, vocals
Ray White–guitar, vocals
Tommy Mars–keyboards, vocals
Arthur Barrow–bass, keyboards, vocals
David Logeman–drums
Besides the three clips posted above — “Chunga’s Revenge”, “Outside Now” and “Pound For A Brown”, respectively — I have endeavoured to link the following setlist to available videos from that concert:
• Chunga’s Revenge
• Keep It Greasey
• Outside Now
• City Of Tiny Lites
• Pound For A Brown
• Cosmik Debris
• You Didn’t Try To Call Me
• Ain’t Got No Heart
• Love Of My Life
• You Are What You Is
• Easy Meat
• Mudd Club
• The Meek Shall Inherit Nothing/Heavenly Bank Account
• Suicide Chump/Jumbo Go Away
• If Only She Woulda (Pt 1)
• If Only She Woulda (Pt 2)
• I Don’t Wanna Get Drafted
• Joe’s Garage/Why Does It Hurt When I Pee?
• Dancin’ Fool/Bobby Brown/Ms Pinky
• Stick It Out
• Illinois Enema Bandit
Information Is Not Knowledge identifies many highlights in this concert, one of which:
There’s a lot of guitar in this concert.. nearly every song has an extended guitar solo, so if you like that sort of thing you’re definitely in luck. Ike sang really well on Outside Now, and then Ray did his usual fantastic singing of City of Tiny Lites. John Smothers runs out a couple of times and shines his flashlight into the crowd. Then something curious happens. In the middle of Pound For A Brown, Frank “brings the band on down” and says that he’s going to give a demonstration to a mystery guest… this would be Pierre Boulez, whom both Frank and Tommy Mars got to meet personally and show off their electronic effects, which Boulez seemed to enjoy.
Much thanks to “YourArf”, “bongolampo”, “zw”, “berthy75”, and “justanotherbrick” for posting all these videos.
French FZ-Fans To Boycott ZPZ’s Paris Concert
This just in via Uni-Muta: French FZ fansite Les Fils de l’Invention are calling for a boycott of the upcoming ZPZ Concert in Paris. Translation:
Just after last month’s dismissal of the case of the ZFT against the Arf Society, the ZFT is back with a new complaint against the organisers of the Zappanale Festival. In order to:
- react against this unreasonable juridical harassment
- show solidarity with our friends
- make it clear that we are determined to protect the works realised by organisations, artists and writers, who make sure that the works of Frank Zappa will not be forgotten,
we ask you TO BOYCOT the concert that Dweezil Zappa and his band ZpZ will be doing on the 18th of May at the ‘Olympia’ in Paris.
Wow… Meanwhile, this year’s edition of Zappanale is already starting to take shape.
La Grande Freak Out!
Next July 5 & 6 ’08. Organized by Les Fils De L’Invention.
After London & Rome, Paris welcomes the third international conference dedicated to Frank Zappa. A great weekend of debates, spectacle and concerts (special things will happen)
Will have to see if we can make it there! Oh, and I have it on good authority that Thomas Dippel of the Arf Society will be present “to discuss Gail’s actions” — wearing one of these.
While we’re in Sarko-county: props to Zappa In France webmaster Francis Hérard who was present at the first ZFT vs Arf Society hearing and wrote about it here. In French, obviously!