Showing posts with label Captain Beefheart. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Captain Beefheart. Show all posts

Friday, April 16, 2021

Frank Zappa & The Mothers Of Invention featuring Capatin Beefheart - Guitarist In Bondage (1975)

I recently found a Frank Zappa/Captain Beefheart bootleg titled 'Improvisations', which looked so intriguing that I had to download it. On listening to it, and doing some online research, it turned out to be just the second disc of a 2CD bootleg of Zappa and The Mothers 1975 concert at Providence, Rhode Island, and so logically the next step was to download the whole concert rather than just hear half of it. Of all the Frank Zappa tours, the spring of 1975 is the most unusual and frustrating, as the performances could range from absolutely exhilarating to rather drab, with sloppy renditions of composed core pieces like 'Advance Romance' and 'Willie The Pimp' played in the midst of brilliant improvisations by both Zappa and Captain Beefheart and the other musicians in the band. Add to this the paucity of really good recordings, and the frustration is obvious, but luckily Zappa's April 26th show in Providence was taped by legendary bootlegger Dan Lampinski, and not only is it arguably the best sounding show from the tour, it’s a tight and enjoyable performance. It is an amazing sounding document which captures the chaotic, eclectic turns in the set starting off with an atonal cacophony of noise in the beginning improvisation, leading into 'Muffin Man', which is played as an instrumental but contains Zappa’s band introduction, and is followed by the song that they usually start off the show with, 'Stinkfoot'. Mothers classics like 'I’m Not Satisfied' and 'Pound For A Brown' are scattered throughout the set, alongside Beefheart collaborations such as 'Poofter’s Froth Wyoming Plans Ahead'. For me, the best thing about the recording was the superb lengthy instrumental portions of the songs, often featuring some stunning guitar-work from Zappa, and so as I'd been persuaded to listen to this expecting some intriguing improvisations from the band, I thought that I'd carry that to it's logical conclusion, and pick out my favourite instrumental sections and combine them together to make up over an hour of the very best of Zappa/Beefheart and the Mothers improvisational skills. If you want to hear the whole concert then it's here on Soulseek, but for me this selection condenses the whole thing down into an hour of the Mothers finest.  


01 Why Doesn't Someone Give Him A Pepsi (a.k.a. The Torture Never Stops)
02 Montana
03 Penguin In Bondage
04 Carolina Hard-Core Ecstasy
05 Willie The Pimp
06 Advance Romance 

Sunday, December 27, 2020

Frank Zappa & Captain Beefheart - Beef Zap (1998)

Following my recent Captain Beefheart post, Craig Cobalt commented that he was also a fan, and had complied his own album made up of Frank Zappa songs which feature the good Captain on vocals. I knew about 'Willie The Pimp' and the 'Bongo Fury' collaboration, but I hadn't heard Zappa's 'Lost Episodes' or 'Mystery Disc' albums, and so I thought that it was worth putting it together to see how it sounded. The answer is 'pretty damn good', and so Chris has given me permission to post it here. He titled it 'Beef Zap', and so I've gone literal with the cover, and the only thing Chris wanted was the first 30 seconds of 'Poofter's Froth Wyoming...' to be cut so that it flowed better, so having done that the result is another fine record from two of rock music's most visionary mavericks. 



Track listing

01 The Birth Of Captain Beefheart
02 Willie The Pimp
03 Sam With The Showing Scalp Flat Top
04 Debra Kadabra
05 Man With The Woman Head
06 200 Years Old
07 I'm A Band Leader
08 Alley Cat
09 Metal Man Has Won His Wings
10 Lost In A Whirlpool
11 Tiger Roach
12 I Was A Teenage Malt Shop
13 Poofter's Froth Wyoming Plans Ahead
14 The Grand Wazoo