Best FZ Covers – Sandro Oliva’s “Watermelon In Easter Hay”

Sandro Oliva – former member of The Grandmothers, and one of my favourite guitarists – has been torturing Italian eardrums with his own band, The Blue Pampurio’s, since 1974.

Sandro Oliva‘s cover of FZ’s “Watermelon In Easter Hay” (one of the very best covers of that particular song I’ve heard, I might add) from the above clip is from the 2005 4CD private release, “NEVER COVERED” (for family and friends).

Long before making “NEVER COVERED” I recorded “LOVES OF MY LIFE”, a collection of FZ songs sang in Italian, along with a few instrumentals.

This is one of them.

The project has never been put out for copyright reasons, but I still have fun listening to “BROWN SHOES DON’T MAKE IT”, “JOE’S GARAGE/PEE”, “HELP I’M A ROCK”, “GO CRY..”, “CAMARILLO BRILLO” and “TURNING AGAIN”, the Italian Way!

I’m sure Frank would have appreciated it.

Unfortunally he got ill and after that more shit happened, so that I never asked the ZFT permission for releasing the italian translations.

Oh, well… maybe now that I’m not a Grandmother anymore…

But no, never mind.

I’m too busy with MY OWN MUSIC!!

~Sandro

Sandro Oliva – Guitar, Bass, Electric Sitar, Keyboards, Percussion, Sequencing.

When Do We Get Paid? – Jimmy Carl Black

Since Jimmy Carl Black‘s passing, I have had the great opportunity to listen to much of the man’s post-Mothers of Invention recordings. Agree with me or not, JCB was a very unique musician in his own right. Many of his talents, I fear, were unfairly overlooked by a Frank Zappa wishing to distance himself from the original Mothers. Whether they are blues standards, or eclectic cover versions of Mothers of Invention or Zappa songs, JCB stamped them with his own unique identity. Along the way, he played with some of the greatest musicians you’ve probably never heard of (yet should). Now’s your chance (for at least a taste).
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The Indian of the Group – Jimmy Carl Black

It was a year ago today (well, okay, a year and a month less two days)…

Born in El Paso, Texas, of Cheyenne heritage, Jimmy Carl Black‘s trademark line, “Hi Boys and Girls, I’m Jimmy Carl Black, and I’m the Indian of the group” followed him throughout his music career. On several Mothers albums he was credited as playing “drums, vocals, and poverty”. The last credit, “poverty” seemed to follow Black’s career as it did many bluesmen of his day like a curse.
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Who Do You Think You Arf?!? – The European Grandmothers

I have always been intrigued by the D.I.Y. (Do It Yourself) ethic among bands who cover and interpret Zappa’s music. True, few of these acts have any hope of actually being signed by today’s youth driven music business. In many cases, Demo CDs are given away free of charge through websites, or produced in limited runs by independent labels. In either case, it’s often up to the fan to track down these CDs and order them (if possible).

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