True, this album hasn't been released yet. It's scheduled to be released in a couple of months on the Cordelia label.
It's just that I was able to give it a 'pre-release listening' last week and it's so good that I can't wait to tell you about it.
Z.E.R.O. or the Zappa Early Renaissance Orchestra is a bunch of excellent musicians from the U.S. of A. "Z.E.R.O. Tolerance" is their second album and the band is scheduled to perform at the next edition of Zappanale !!
"Z.E.R.O. Tolerance" has it all. Top musicians, Motheresque humor, musical puns and references, and superb arrangements and performances of classic Zappa material. It even features Ike Willis on one track.
This is going to be a lot of fun at Zappanale.
Here's the tracklist:
my dog has fleas
who are the brain police?
montana
son of mr.green genes
my dog has fleas #2
little house i used to live in - solo piano intro (revised)
Composer and guitar player Kevin Kastning has just released "Skyfields". On this brand-new release, Kevin presents 5 pieces, 'Skyfield I' up to 'Skyfield V'. The compositions are performed on a 36-string double contraguitar and on a 15-string extended classical guitar. The result is astonishing. Solo guitar soundscapes but with an enormous range and depth. An exploration of sounds.
This is nice. Very nice.
March 2014, Zjakki Willems organised the two-day Arf! Arf! Arf! happening at 'De Singel' in Antwerp, Belgium. The festival featured concerts by Captain Cheese-Beard, The Wrong Object, The Brussels Philharmonic (with Robert Martin), and by Flat Earth Society.
Flat Earth Society had prepared a special program for the occasion: "Terms Of Embarrassment". The concert included Zappa pieces next to compositions that had been written by Peter Vermeersch and by Pierre Vervloesem. And to add a bit of extra spice, FES had invited Mauro Pawlowski as a reinforcement.
The concert was quite good and, fortunately, the band got the possibility to take "Terms Of Embarrassment" on the road for a series of concerts in Belgium, The Netherlands and Japan.
The results of this tour can be found on this brand-new album. Recorded in concert in Ghent, Mechelen, Rotterdam, Sint-Niklaas and Breda, "Terms Of Embarrassment" presents 7 amazing pieces.
Me Standard, You Poor (Peter Vermeersch)
Random Riffs (Frank Zappa) = some sort of mash-up of different licks from various Zappa tunes !!
Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance (Frank Zappa)
Abracadabra (Pierre Vervloesem) including various Frank Zappa vamps and typical chord changes
Solitude (Frank Zappa) the infamous song that Frank wrote for Gail but that never got performed live. There's a tape circulating from the Zappa Universe rehearsals where this track got performed, and Ed Palermo has performed it with his big band as well. Vocals by Mauro Pawlowski and Berlinde Deman.
Ahmad & Juan (Peter Vermeersch) Beautiful. Just beautiful.
City Of Tiny Lites (Frank Zappa)
Add vocals by Mauro Pawlowski, the typical FES sound and arrangements, exceptional guitar solos by Pierre Vervloesem, one kg of humor per square meter, and you might be able to imagine what you could expect.
This is a must-hear ! Essential listening !!
February 24, the Adrian Belew Trio played a fabulous show at the Paradox club in Tilburg (NL).
Next to Adrian, the band featured Julie Slick on bass and Tobias Ralph on drums and they rocked.
After the concert, I picked up Julie Slick's "Terroir" album. To be honest, I didn't even know that Julie had released a solo album. Anyway, I'm glad that I brought a copy home. Actually, I'm very glad that I brought a copy home.
The album is a sort of compilation of different tracks in different settings. Almost every track has a completely different line-up. The nice thing about this is that you get a lot of variety. It's not just different pieces, there's also the different guests adding their own particular sound to the compositions.
"Terroir" is a fine album and the title is well chosen. You get an insight into Julie Slick's musical world (and it's a beautiful one).
The list of the musicians that participated to "Terroir" is quite exceptional: David Torn, Pat Mastelotto, Eric Slick, Robbie 'Seahag' Mangano, Marco Minnemann, Adrian Belew, ...
Instrumental, contemporary progressive rock.
I love it.
Essential food for melomaniacs !!
About a month ago, the UK-based Gonzo Multimedia record label re-released Wild Man Fischer's "An Evening With Wild Man Fischer".
Originally released in 1969, produced by Frank Zappa and featuring FZ, various Mothers and even the GTO's.
Oddly enough, no data of the release can be found on the Gonzo Multimedia website... Might the album have been withdrawn?
German guitar player Uwe Kropinski released "American Dream" in 2005.
A remarkable album. Not in the least because Uwe Kropinski mixes jazz and classical guitar, creates beautiful original pieces and performs incredible arrangements of compostions by Frank Zappa, John Coltrane, Bill Evans and Oscar Hammerstein.
Uwe's seven-plus-minute reworking of Frank Zappa's 'King Kong' had me (almost) holding my breath during the entire piece.
Highly recommended !!
Here's Uwe Kropinski with Joe Sachse :
Somewhere around 1994, Ian Shirley saw his "Meet The Residents" book published by SAF Publishing. It got a revised edition in 1996.
We're twenty years later now, and Ian Shirley completely rewrote (and retitled) his book. As he says in the opening "Author's Notes": '...this new edition was written from scratch."
Ian did a lot of interviews for this book. He talked to almost everyone who worked with and for The Residents.
"Never Known Questions" follows The Residents chronologically. From their move to San Francisco in the early seventies to the very recent 'touring retirement' of Chuck.
Well written, entertaining and enlightening.
A must-read for everyone who wants to learn more about The Residents.
Here's another release that I found while browsing the internet for bands that recorded the music of Frank Zappa.
Finnish prog rock banc Tasavallan Presidentti recorded FZ's 'King Kong' for their 'Six + Live" DVD.
Recorded in concert in 2006.
Tasavallan Presidentti was founded in 1969. The band made five albums between 1969 and 1974.
The band reunited in 2005 and did some concerts in 2006.
Nice concert. They played 'King Kong' as the encore.
Sounds pretty good to me.
I saw Guillaume Perret in concert at the Zappanale festival in 2014. An amazing concert.
He also performed as special guest with Le Bocal at the same festival. Another highlight.
During his recent appearance at the Vrije Geluiden tv-show, Guillaume said that he's working on a solo album. He performed one of the pieces that will be on the album. With lots of loops and effects... Have to keep an eye out for that one.
His most recent release dates from 2014. Entitled "Open Me", it's the second album by Guillaume Perret & The Electric Epic.
Electric sax, electric guitar, electric bass and drums.
Pure energy.
Added the data to the United Mutations Archives earlier today, while the album blasted through the house...
Gary Lucas does his own thing. Whether it is playing experimental acoustic or rock music, making electronic soundscapes or providing soundtracks to movies, Gary Lucas does it without taking into account if it is the popular thing to do. He's never been part of a hype or a scene. He creates them.
Gary's latest project is a tribute to the music from the Max Fleischer cartoons.
Max Fleischer was the animation pioneer who created Betty Boop and Popeye. In the liner notes of the album, Gary Lucas recalls watching these cartoons in the early sixties.
For his Fleischerei project, Gary recruted vocalist Sarah Stiles and longtime collaborator and trombone player Joe Fiedler (Fast 'N' Bulbous !!).
The sexted was completed by adding Michael Bates (double bass), Jeff Lederer (woodwinds) and Rob Garcia (drums).
The result does sound rather special. I like the music and the arrangements. I would have loved it if it had included animated movies. It would have been perfect if the songs would have been sung by the animated Betty Boop (or Olive for that matter).
Still, a nice project.
Corrie van Binsbergen's latest project is called Van Binsbergen Playstation. The project took a start in March 2014 at the Brokkenbal, a one-day festival that Corrie van Binsbergen organises once a year in Amsterdam, NL.
For Van Binsbergen Playstation, composer and guitar player Corrie van Binsbergen gathered an exquisite sample of the Dutch jazz scene: Morris Kliphuis (french horn, cornet), Joost Buis (trombone, lapsteel), Mete Erker (tenor sax, bass clarinet), Miguel Boelens (soprano and alto sax), Yonga Sun (drums), Dion Nijland (double bass) and Albert van Veenendaal (prepared piano).
May 2015, the project got a sequel with a second concert in Den Bosch, NL, soon followed by a live album (recorded at the first two concerts).
"Live" is an excellent album. It presents 11 tracks, 9 of which were composed by Corrie van Binsbergen. Beautiful compositions / stories.
Check out 'The Magic Sock part 5' !!
The two other composers are Joost Buis with 'Basil Outside' (check out Joost Buis' Astronotes albums !!) and Billy Strayhorn with 'A Flower Is A Lovesomething'.
Van Binsbergen Playstation is doing concerts, just not that often. So check out http://corrievanbinsbergen.com/ and try to catch them live.
I saw them at the Paradox club in Tilburg, NL, recently and they rocked (or jazzed).
My search for bands that record the music of Frank Zappa, took me to The Charades.
Finnish surf band The Charades recorded an instrumental version of Frank Zappa's 'Bobby Brown (Goes Down)' and released it on their "All Around The World With The Charades" album.
Brand-new movie "Belgica" by Felix Van Groeningen has a soundtrack by Soulwax (= Stephen and David Dewaele).
15 bands were created for the occasion. Each band recorded one track (written by Stephen and David).
Here's The Shitz (with Boris Van Severen and Hong Kong Dong's Boris and Sarah Yu Zeebroek) with 'How Long'.
Love it.
Ed Palermo did it again.
With "One Child Left Behind", The Ed Palermo Big Band delivered another extraordinary album.
On this brand-new album, the band performs some classic Zappa tunes, a few jazz standards (Moroder; Meober/Stoller) and a couple of Palermo originals.
The Zappa pieces sound superb. We're treated to astonishing arrangements and performances of 'Cleetus Awreetus Awrightus', 'Spider Of Destiny', 'Grand Wazoo', 'Fifty-Fifty', 'Pygmy Twylyte', 'Po-Jama People', 'Evelyn, A Modified Dog', 'Village Of The Sun'and 'Andy'.
A couple of these feature the inimitable Napoleon Murphy Brock who sounds as good as he ever did. Wow !!
Candy Zappa also guests on two songs, the first one being the Hidalgo / Perez penned 'Kiko And The Lavender Moon', and the second one her brother Frank's 'Evelyn, A Modified Dog'.
The mixture of Zappa compositions, jazz pieces and originals works fine. Ed Palermo's 'Dirty White Bucks', Vengeance' and 'The Goat Patrol' fit in perfectly.
My favourite tracks on the album are the jazzed up version of Neil Young's 'Harvest Moon' and the excellent 'Village Of The Sun' (sung by Jenna McSwain).
A great selection of tunes, fine arrangements, excellent soloing.
We're being spoiled. Essential listening !!
Frank Zappa - C Instruments - 2016 - Unpublished Song
On August 25 1999, Craig Jones posted a piece of Zappa music called "C Instruments" to alt.binaries.fz in the form of scans of sheet music (in David Ocker's hand) and a MIDI adaption. You don't get to hear new Zappa music every day, so this was quite sensational for many people, myself included. It's a transcription of a guitar solo that later went into the first movement of the "Sinister Footwear" ballet, but with a lot of changes. (The first movement is unreleased, but there's an orchestral recording of it on the bootlegs Serious Music and Apocrypha.)
From Bill Lantz's interview with David Ocker, supplied by Charles Ulrich:
There was a discussion of a piece called "C Instruments". That was a guitar solo that Steve Vai had transcribed and Frank gave it to me to make a copy for people (including myself) to play - so I had to make two versions: one in the key of C (for everyone else) and one in Bb for me.
Usually there are three bits of information on the top of a piece of music:
a) the intended instruments—in this case "C Instruments" or "Bb" since lots of different instruments would be attempting it,
b) the title—there was none so this was blank, and
c) the composer—Frank Zappa. When the music got passed around no one knew what to call it—and they mistook "C Instruments" for the title. In effect for a short period of time I had named this piece. Later, reason prevailed, and Frank made it part of Sinister Footwear.
And Art Jarvinen's comments, from the same interview:
I still have my copy. I got it from David, I'm sure. The Antenna Repairmen did a concert at The House in Santa Monica on November 30, 1981, on which we played it. Bob and I did the melody on marimba and vibes, and M.B. Gordy made up a drum set part.
I had asked Frank if it was okay that we perform the piece and he said yes, but wanted to know how we were approaching it. At that time everyone was playing "The Black Page", and there were other works of that ilk going around - "Manx Needs Women" was one - but usually only the melody parts.
Frank said that "all those polyrhythms don't mean anything unless they're in reference to something". So he suggested we use a drum machine or drum set, to give the melodic line rhythmic meaning. So that's what we did. Melody and drums, no bass line. I do have a copy of the bass part, but we never used it. Maybe I didn't have that at the time.
Frank was still working on "Sinister Footwear". It was obvious that the piece was not called "C Instruments", so I asked Frank what we should list as the title. He said "The Melody from Sinister Footwear". It eventually became a big part of the first movement, but with a lot of changes. Mostly, easy stuff became easier - elongated. All the really hard shit (the tuplets over bars of 5 or nine) stayed in.
So, The Antenna Repairmen actually premiered part of "Sinister Footwear" in a working version. Frank, of course, was not there. David probably was though.
A digital audio workstation (D.A.W.) is an electronic device or computer software application for recording, editing and producing audio files such as songs, musical pieces, human speech or sound effects. DAWs come in a wide variety of configurations from a single software program on a laptop, to an integrated stand-alone unit, all the way to a highly complex configuration of numerous components controlled by a central computer. Regardless of configuration, modern DAWs have a central interface that allows the user to alter and mix multiple recordings and tracks into a final produced piece.
Zappatika, with special guests Ike Willis, Jeff Hollie and Twister Steward.
Performing the music of Frank Zappa
Germany
17 March – The Big Buttinsky, Osnabruck, Germany (+.CHATO)
U.K.
19 March – Corn Exchange,Stamford,England (+ Acton Zappa)
20 March – Roadhouse, Birmingham
21 March – FAT LIL’S – Oxford (Witney)
22 March – The Scene Club – Swansea, Wales
23 March – Talking Heads, Southampton (+.Acton Zappa)
24 March – The Zanzibar Club, Liverpool,(+ Charlies Gorilla)
25 March – Arden Social Club, Halifax,England
26 March – Under The Bridge, London, England (+ Acton Zappa)
Germany
28 March – Grammatikof – Duisburg, Germany
29 March – Das Bett – Frankfurt – Germany
30 March – Objekt5 – HALLE- Germany
31 March – Tante JU – Dresden – Germany
Netherlands
01 April – QBUS Muziekhuis – Leiden – The Netherlands
Hello again! We thought that this was deserving of a separate, special announcement:
The Aristocrats will be touring Asia and Australia in September and October!
The details are still coming together, but here's what we can tell you right now:
Sept 5, 2016 - Fukuoka, JAPAN - Gate’s 7
Sept 6, 2016 - Osaka, JAPAN - BigCat
Sept 7, 2016 - Nagoya, JAPAN - The Bottom Line
Sept 8, 2016 - Kawasaki, JAPAN - Club Citta
Additionally in September, dates TBA: Nepal, Taiwan, Thailand + more
October 1-10: AUSTRALIA (Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, exact dates TBA)
We had a great time touring Asia in 2014, and we're really excited to be able to come back to places like Japan, Thailand and Taiwan. And we're also thrilled to be reaching new places for the first time, like Australia, Nepal and…some more to be announced soon. :-)
Thanks again to our fans around the world for making it possible for us to do this, and we'll keep you informed when more details are available!
Guillaume Perret has performed with LeBocal. He also has his own band: Guillaume Perret and the Electric Epic.
I was one of the lucky people to see him at Zappanale in 2014. Blew me away.
Yesterday evening, Dutch radio 4 did a special on Guillaume Perret on their 'Vrije Geluiden' radio show.
The Flashback record label is re-releasing "Songs The Bonzo Dog Band Taught Us", a compilation of tracks that inspired, influenced and got performed by the Bonzo Dog Band. These are dance band recordings from the 1930's, taken from 78 rpm albums. Original release of this compilation : 2007.
Various Artists: Songs the Bonzo Dog Band Taught Us: A Pre History of the Bonzos (2016, cd, uk, flashback records flash 1003cd)
In 1970, Sun Ra and his Arkestra got invited to two German jazz festivals: the Donaueschinger Jazz Days and the Berlin Jazz Festival.
This MPS album was produced from recordings from these sessions and initially got released one year later, in 1971.
Over the years, it has received various re-issues, one of the most recent ones being a CD that got released by Edel / MPS. Comes in a slipcase. Data has been added to the United Mutations Archives.
One year after presenting and distributing "Montevideo Jazz", the MoonJune Record label is releasing Beledo's "Dreamland Mechanism".
Beledo, who lives and works in New York City, was born and raised in Montevideo, Uruguay. A classically trained multi-instrumentalist, Beledo's main instrument is the guitar.
Influenced by the likes of Chick Corea, Weather Report and John McLaughlin, Beledo's music is a beautiful mix of melodic jazz-rock and Latin American rhythms and sounds.
"DreamLand Mechanism" is an excellent album. It is very versatile and it's an incredible showcase for the talents of Beledo.
Icing on the cake is the contribution by Dewa Budjana on 'Budjanaji'. A superb composition with a melody that'll be inside of your head for the rest of the day.
The Essener Songtage festival took place in Essen, next to the western boarder of Germany (and close to The Netherlands and Belgium) in 1968.
The festival featured Frank Zappa and The Mothers Of Invention.
The Essen library is scheduling an exhibit on the festival, entitled 'Von Amon Düül bis Zappa'.
Charles 'Chuck' Bobuck, composer for The Residents, recently released "What Was Left Of Grandpa" on the Klang Galerie record label.
The album has also been made available as a digital download through Bandcamp.
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