The Mothers - Just Another Band From L.A. (1972)

When Frank Zappa started to put together the live tapes that the Mothers Of Invention had recorded in 1971 for their proposed live release, he originally envisioned it as a vinyl double album, and acetates were even pressed and given to the band members, with a track listing of:
Side One:
Call Any Vegetable 
Eddie, Are You Kidding? 
Magdalena
Dog Breath
Side Two:
Billy The Mountain (Part 1)
     - Introduction
     - Phase I (The Royalties Arrive)
     - Phase II And Newscast
     - The Legendary Low Budget Hero
     - The Flies
Side Three:
Billy The Mountain (Part 2) 
     - Studebacher Hoch
     - The Conclusion
The Subcutaneous Peril 
Side Four:
An Easy Substitute For Eternity Itself
     - Don's Solo
     - Ian's Solo
     - Aynsley's Solo
     - Frank's Solo

For unknown reasons, plans for the double set were abandoned and the album was released in the single record format that we know today. Originally 'Billy The Mountain' was much longer, and was on two sides of the record, but in order to fit it onto one side of the single album version Zappa removed an 8'51 min section from the second half of the track, reducing it down to a more manageable 24 minutes. For this reconstruction I've located the missing section and I've slotted it back into the original recording, restoring it to the full 33 minutes take. Two of the other tracks that were originally earmarked for the record were collages that Zappa cut and pasted from the 'A Pound For A Brown On The Bus' and 'King Kong' solos from a 1971 concert at Carnegie Hall, and Zappa aficionado br1tag has re-composed the original sequences, including Don Preston's full solo which was abbreviated to fit onto a single side of the vinyl album. So for fans who love the original record and want hear more, here is the reconstructed double album version for your enjoyment. 

Track listing 

01 Call Any Vegetable
02 Eddie, Are You Kidding?
03 Magdalena
04 Dog Breath
05 Billy The Mountain
06 The Subcutaneous Peril
07 An Easy Substitute For Eternity Itself

Frank Zappa & The Mothers Of Invention featuring Captain 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.  

Track listing

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 

The Mothers Of Invention - Red Tubular Lighter (1970)

The 1970 line-up of the Mother Of Invention is rightly regarded as one of the best there has been, consisting as it did of Aynsley Dunbar (drums), George Duke (piano/keys/trombone), Ian Underwood (organ/keys/guitar), Jeff Simmons (bass/vocals) and Flo & Eddie aka Howard Kaylan (vocals), and Mark Volman (vocals/percussion). Flo & Eddie were still part of The Turtles, and so performed under aliases to skirt contractual limitations of performing under their own names. This version of The Mothers came to an end in January 1971 when Simmons quit the band during the making of the '200 Motels' movie. While this line-up toured extensively, they only recorded one album, 'Chunga's Revenge', although they did visit London-based Trident Studios on June 21-22 1970 with a young, unknown engineer by the name of Roy Thomas Baker, several years before he’d go on to have massive success working with Queen, The Cars and Alice Cooper. Here they recorded a number of mostly instrumental pieces, some of which were later used on other albums, but most of which have remained unreleased until they surfaced on the recent 'Mothers 1970' archive release. Two months later they reconvened at Whitney Studios in Glendale, and laid down some vocals tracks, which would later be used as part of their live shows under the collective name of 'The Opera', with Flo & Eddie performing skits as well as singing (three of these later turned up on the '200 Motels' soundtrack album). By taking  the best of both recording sessions we can make up an album of great music recorded by this stellar line-up of the band in 1970. I've made a few edits, such as combining 'Lola Steponsky' and 'Giraffe', as they both used the same melody, and trimming some of the longer tracks which went on a bit too long, as I felt that there was an overabundance of drum solos on the London recordings. These instrumental pieces now slot very nicely between the 'Opera' tracks from Glendale, making a remarkably cohesive album considering the different style of music recorded at each studio.    

Track listing

01 What Will This Morning Bring Me This Evening?
02 Red Tubular Lighter
03 What Kind Of Girl Do You Think We Are?
04 B'Wana Dik
05 Item 1
06 Envelopes
07 Latex Solar Beef
08 Daddy, Daddy, Daddy    
09 Lola Steponsky's Giraffe
10 Magic Fingers               
11 Wonderful Wino
12 What Will This Evening Bring Me This Morning?       

For anyone who wants to burn this collection to a CD, SmithWorksGrafx has designed some groovy artwork for the back cover.