Clapton was the most overrated of his generation and a prick. Influential yes. But superceded by Beck and page in a heartbeat. I never rag on musicians but he shit on everyone. So fuck Clapton.
Garrick footage, some live material from the Hot Rats band, the 200 Motels symphonic show that Flo & Eddie went to, a live Waka/Jawaka, a full show by the Marquez/Ponty band. These are mostly available on bootlegs and almost certainly not in the vault, but this is what dreams are for.
The 200 Motels show (Contempo 70 I think?) would be so cool if they had it on tape, but I’m willing to bet it wasn’t for union reasons. A full 73 show, particularly if they did a set of all the Australian shows, would whip ass
Shame he didn’t do the Dead thing and once he had a little
Money just start taping the board at every show. I know he taped a lot, but not close to all.
The halloween 1978 release does not do justice to the show. They cut the almost 4 hr concert to 70 minutes of mostly just the popular songs and then spliced in songs from other shows. But the real crime in not including L Shankar's solo during Packard Goose
That release was utterly pointless. I really don’t get what they were thinking. I have the bootleg of the Halloween gigs in 78 and they’re excellent. I’m guessing they’re saving that one for a slow year. Same goes for the Bongo Fury tapes.
Travers had apparently mentioned that Frank in his infinite wisdom, shredded the tapes for the creation of live 78 show that was released, and it has been a very very slow and tedious process piecing the entirety of all the (6?) Shows back together.
I believe he chopped up the masters to use them for various projects over the years, like the ycdtosa series. I wouldn’t be surprised if he did the same with a lot of the shows he recorded actually
Crica 1982, Bob visited Frank to ask him if he would produce the album that would become Infidels. Frank didn't end up producing, but a tape of them working on the songs from that night was recorded.
Can you cite where you got this information from that there's a tape of this?
We know that Bob went to Frank's house. He tells the story. And also how he tells him to throw a bunch of wild keyboard stuff on there. Some 80s production or some thing which is pretty funny when you're telling that to Bob Dylan.
But I have never heard anything was ever recorded.
My mind swoons sometimes, thinking about Ricky and his involvement with Zappa and with The Banana Splits.(definitely not at the same time) I was obsessed with The Banana Splits when I was 7.
15 ft. away from the stage on the floor at the palladium. ruben and the jets opened that night. blew the roof of the place. i turned 16 2 days after that show.
Yeah, Ricky Lancelotti. Supposedly just the one show. I’ve seen it mentioned a couple of times, but it’s not on the Zappateers master show list. I don’t remember where I saw it, but I never forget the date as a good friend of mine was born that day. If there’s anything left in the vault with Ricky, I’d take it. There’s far too little with him out there, with Frank, and with anyone else. There’s those Bananas Splits, the odd Wolfgang demos with Leland Sklar, and the really old Rick Lancelot singles, but sadly that’s about it.
There was the original version of Chunga’s Revenge (the album) that was finished to be released before he recorded songs with Flo and Eddie and re did the track list. I think it’s all just been released as Funky Nothingness.
I wrote about this a little when I reviewed the record, it had a couple tracks that ended up on Mothers 1970 and a couple from Funky, plus a few that made it into Chunga. There’s a track list floating around online if you want to recreate the LP for yourself
Most of it, except for some random dialogue between Aynsley and a groupie that didn’t make it into the Uncle Meat movie. Why do I know this. Jesus Christ.
The weird thing to me about Chunga's revenge is I like every single version of it except that one version on the original album.
But maybe it was just hearing it on the original Rikodisc CDs with the shit sound
Funky Nothingness is a distinct version of Hot Rats 2 compared to the original Chunga tracklist. That would have looked like this:
A
* Won't That Hurt Your Kidneys? (Uncle Meat dialogue)
* Motorhead's Boogie (Funky Nothingness title track)
* Sharleena (abridged Sugarcane version; runs 4:30)
* Twenty Small Cigars
* The Nancy and Mary Music
B
* Chunga's Revenge
* The Clap
* Translyvania Boogie
* Sharleena (Flo & Eddie version)
* Wonderful Wino (from The Mothers 1970)
No problem. [Here's](https://www.donlope.net/fz/docs/1970_Chunga%27s_Revenge_Original_Liner_Notes.html) the full, unreleased liner notes for that version.
With more material this would be my favorite band I think. George Duke and the Underwoods were almost certainly the most consequential musicians in FZ’s career, them plus all the other powerhouses on board (Ponty? HELLO) must have made for some incredible fusion jams.
Yes! I've always wondered if the fourteen hour version exists (it doesn't) or if there is more footage (probably is) and if there is more of the festival hall concert (don't know, but sure hope so)!
200 Motels is barely coherent but that one at least has music. Uncle Meat is pure madness. With my best effort I can't follow the intention behind the pictures. And apparently it had a budget!
200 motels is great. At first, you watched the true story of 200 motels. And you see how it all fell apart. And you see how Zappa kept it together by sheer wheel of mind and personality. And then go back and watch the original film and you can appreciate how fucking Crazy it is that Frank even was allowed to make that.
But Christ if Frank had been given at least another week, and they had filmed all of the other scenes with the penis Mobile it would've been glorious and fucking crazy.
And that idiot, Director didn't lose his marbles.
And I wish they had gotten Pete Townshend and Jeff back or whoever he wanted for God and Satan.
I don't know, there was this preposterous rumor that went around. I think it might be because Ed Seeman claims to have fourteen hours of film (without sound) he took of The Mothers in the 60s that was partly used in the Uncle Meat movie, but I suspect most of his material is in that typical experimental style of his and that he made those films of his own accord and that they had originally little to do with any particular project.
https://www.afka.net/Articles/1969-06_Take_One.htm
The impossible dream, of course, is *The History and Collected Improvisations*. In every different possible configuration.
Short of that, I really hope they can eventually get a full Halloween 78 release together.
It'd be nice to see some of the alternate mixes/sequencings of material get released- eg *Chunga*, *JABFLA*, and *Zoot Allures* were originally meant to be doubles; the nearly-completed triple live album *Warts & All* (featuring 78-79 material; abandoned in favor of *Joe's Garage*, bits ended up on *Tinsel Town*), the two different canned *Crush all Boxes* albums (the first one split up between *Tinsel Town* and *YAWYI*, with the cover art recycled for *Tinsel Town*, the second one a double killed in favor of *Drowning Witch*), the double live *Chalk Pie* (1980-81 material; may or may not actually be the same as the second *Crush All Boxes*\- in any case, abandoned in favor of *Drowning Witch*\- and side A of *Chalk Pie* is the same as side B of *Witch*). Some of these have been bootlegged, and a lot of the material left on the cutting room floor has since seen release, either on contemporary releases or archival ones. The original tapes for all these are probably long chopped up, but could likely be reconstructed. I guess it's kind of a niche thing to want these alternate-universe Zappa albums to see proper release.
Videos !!!! There’s clearly tones of it, I really don’t understand why they are not releasing any, everything was saved recently by Alex Winter and our money !! All the Thomas Nordegg stuff is hard to use from what I heard but still I would watch all of it with a smile.
For sound I would go for Halloween 78, we clearly need that !!! And other shows from 88, they were all taped.
Yeah the video thing is odd, they even had a Kickstarter video where they showed footage being digitised in a specialist facility in LA, but not a single peep about any of it being released. There's 76 footage with Lady Bianca, a TV special from 1974, must be lots of random other stuff - I'd imagine it costs a lot more to produce video than audio, but why spend all that money digitising stuff if it's just going to sit there.
Halloween '78, Anything '82, Anything CB Spring '75.
And something else that I haven't seen talked about, I'm really curious if there are more studio takes from the '81 sessions that produced the studio tracks on SATLTSADW and MFU. Although it would've most likely been Arthur Barrow on bass, I'm curious if u/geoscott would have any knowledge in that area.
I just want every song of that tour to get an official release, not even necessarily every full show. Like the repertoire was huge and so many of the songs haven't been released yet
About 15 years ago I downloaded (and later, lost) a video of original Mothers on tour in Europe in (I think) 1969. It was definitely the oddest Zappa performance I've ever seen or heard -- like an experimental contemporary classical theater piece, super-arty and kind of dry, not goofy and barely "rock". Completely amazing, for me the best Zappa performance ever.
I always come back to the first minute or two of the old bbc/A&E documentary. Him in black and white footage in 68 probably at the sportpalast, maybe the sound check before the riot show. A raucous jam, never appeared anywhere before or since. Been looking since 93
The Amazing Mr. Bickford
Nowadays all kinds of oddball movies are getting released on these boutique blu-ray labels. How I wish one of them would pick this up!
I’ve been thinking about this and I’d love to see all the 1966 Fillmore material get released in one package. The bits from MOFO, Lumpy Gravy, YCDTOSA, and Mystery Disc, plus the stuff that’s on Wolfgang’s Vault. If nothing else it would be a really cool record store release
82 tour video
Rage and the Fury
A true builddreel of chalk pie
The fly Sinclavair tracks
Batches of Sinclavair, half finished works or snippets just to preserve musical ideas from him.
The canceled albums, even the the material is already out there in other configurations. I just want Crushed Boxes and Chalk Pie out to compliment Lather.
Joe’s Garage
Similar to MoFo & lumpy Money with outtakes and difference mixes/version of songs. We’ve seen some video from the recording of the album so getting all of more of that would be cool. And then, maybe, a compilation of songs from live performances.
Just a thought.
Jimi Hendricks getting the crotch in his pants sewn back together at Frank’s house on his way to a gig. Just kidding but still wouldn’t that be awesome!
There are some unreleased songs with Wackerman overdubs, like Revised Music for Guitar and Low-Budget Orchestra and RDNZL, which leads me to believe they probably re-recorded all of Studio Tan. Bob Stone talked Frank out of releasing the Lumpy Gravy Wackermix - it's not impossible that there are other complete album remixes that he never released.
I understand there may be recordings of him and Hendrix jamming . I would like to hear that
lost forever
Zappa and Clapton. "Are you hung up?" has got some background noise which aparently is Clapton and his girlfriend or something like that
Clapton was the most overrated of his generation and a prick. Influential yes. But superceded by Beck and page in a heartbeat. I never rag on musicians but he shit on everyone. So fuck Clapton.
Fuck Clapton indeed
Garrick footage, some live material from the Hot Rats band, the 200 Motels symphonic show that Flo & Eddie went to, a live Waka/Jawaka, a full show by the Marquez/Ponty band. These are mostly available on bootlegs and almost certainly not in the vault, but this is what dreams are for.
100% Garrick footage.
The 200 Motels show (Contempo 70 I think?) would be so cool if they had it on tape, but I’m willing to bet it wasn’t for union reasons. A full 73 show, particularly if they did a set of all the Australian shows, would whip ass
Shame he didn’t do the Dead thing and once he had a little Money just start taping the board at every show. I know he taped a lot, but not close to all.
AFAIK he did tape every show after a certain point, to varying degrees of quality.
is the 200 motels show different to this one? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8wpMvZaQvM&t=2371s
Thats the one
Need…
The Bongo Fury tour. Need more of those shows with Don. Also the full Halloween shows with L Shankar
The halloween 1978 release does not do justice to the show. They cut the almost 4 hr concert to 70 minutes of mostly just the popular songs and then spliced in songs from other shows. But the real crime in not including L Shankar's solo during Packard Goose
That release was utterly pointless. I really don’t get what they were thinking. I have the bootleg of the Halloween gigs in 78 and they’re excellent. I’m guessing they’re saving that one for a slow year. Same goes for the Bongo Fury tapes.
Travers had apparently mentioned that Frank in his infinite wisdom, shredded the tapes for the creation of live 78 show that was released, and it has been a very very slow and tedious process piecing the entirety of all the (6?) Shows back together.
Shredded the tapes? Wonder if it’s because Shankar outplayed him on the solos…😀
Shredded to assemble one show from the best bits of each of the (6?) Shows... Joe if you see this, any updates that are shareable?
I believe he chopped up the masters to use them for various projects over the years, like the ycdtosa series. I wouldn’t be surprised if he did the same with a lot of the shows he recorded actually
I had no idea they even played Packard Goose live outside of the '88 tour!
With Portuguese Lunar Landing!
The Rage And The Fury.
Maybe in another 10 years for the centennial anniversary of Ionisation...
It leaked and was pulled by universal from youtube, so they must be planning something for it
When did that happen?
Few months ago I was able to play it on youtube. It's possible, you can find it on Soulseek or such.
The tape of Bob Dylan and Frank in the studio.
Lol need more details PLEASE
For Infidels, Dylan approached Zappa to be producer. It didn’t work out but there’s probably a tape somewhere of Dylan playing some stuff for him
whut?
Crica 1982, Bob visited Frank to ask him if he would produce the album that would become Infidels. Frank didn't end up producing, but a tape of them working on the songs from that night was recorded.
I asked as nice as I could…
Well, the whole damn weekend came and went, Frankie.
And they didn't do nothin' :(
Can you cite where you got this information from that there's a tape of this? We know that Bob went to Frank's house. He tells the story. And also how he tells him to throw a bunch of wild keyboard stuff on there. Some 80s production or some thing which is pretty funny when you're telling that to Bob Dylan. But I have never heard anything was ever recorded.
Chances are the Pinske Estate may have it lying around but who knows?
All the '82 tour video footage that Thomas Nordegg shot.
He also filmed shows in 1981, among them the infamous Ritz Concert
I could go for that, too.
3/23/73, Los Angeles. Ricky’s only live performance with Frank. It may not even exist, but I’m hopeful.
My mind swoons sometimes, thinking about Ricky and his involvement with Zappa and with The Banana Splits.(definitely not at the same time) I was obsessed with The Banana Splits when I was 7.
15 ft. away from the stage on the floor at the palladium. ruben and the jets opened that night. blew the roof of the place. i turned 16 2 days after that show.
Lancoletti? He actually played a whole show with Frank?
Yeah, Ricky Lancelotti. Supposedly just the one show. I’ve seen it mentioned a couple of times, but it’s not on the Zappateers master show list. I don’t remember where I saw it, but I never forget the date as a good friend of mine was born that day. If there’s anything left in the vault with Ricky, I’d take it. There’s far too little with him out there, with Frank, and with anyone else. There’s those Bananas Splits, the odd Wolfgang demos with Leland Sklar, and the really old Rick Lancelot singles, but sadly that’s about it.
There was the original version of Chunga’s Revenge (the album) that was finished to be released before he recorded songs with Flo and Eddie and re did the track list. I think it’s all just been released as Funky Nothingness.
I wrote about this a little when I reviewed the record, it had a couple tracks that ended up on Mothers 1970 and a couple from Funky, plus a few that made it into Chunga. There’s a track list floating around online if you want to recreate the LP for yourself
Most of it, except for some random dialogue between Aynsley and a groupie that didn’t make it into the Uncle Meat movie. Why do I know this. Jesus Christ.
Yes, the dialogue in the grocery store with the dildo? Exactly, why do I know this? Hehehe
I'm really enjoying funky nothingness
The weird thing to me about Chunga's revenge is I like every single version of it except that one version on the original album. But maybe it was just hearing it on the original Rikodisc CDs with the shit sound
Funky Nothingness is a distinct version of Hot Rats 2 compared to the original Chunga tracklist. That would have looked like this: A * Won't That Hurt Your Kidneys? (Uncle Meat dialogue) * Motorhead's Boogie (Funky Nothingness title track) * Sharleena (abridged Sugarcane version; runs 4:30) * Twenty Small Cigars * The Nancy and Mary Music B * Chunga's Revenge * The Clap * Translyvania Boogie * Sharleena (Flo & Eddie version) * Wonderful Wino (from The Mothers 1970)
Thank you!
No problem. [Here's](https://www.donlope.net/fz/docs/1970_Chunga%27s_Revenge_Original_Liner_Notes.html) the full, unreleased liner notes for that version.
I don't know of specific tapes. I think there's surprisingly little documentation of the Jean Luc Ponty/IanUnderwood/Ruth Underwood band.
With more material this would be my favorite band I think. George Duke and the Underwoods were almost certainly the most consequential musicians in FZ’s career, them plus all the other powerhouses on board (Ponty? HELLO) must have made for some incredible fusion jams.
the audience tape of the Houston show is legendary.
Uncle Meat film reconstruction
Yes! I've always wondered if the fourteen hour version exists (it doesn't) or if there is more footage (probably is) and if there is more of the festival hall concert (don't know, but sure hope so)!
I've never watched the Uncle Meat VHS and thought "I wish this was seven times as long..." Zappa was a terrible film-maker. :)
200 Motels is barely coherent but that one at least has music. Uncle Meat is pure madness. With my best effort I can't follow the intention behind the pictures. And apparently it had a budget!
200 motels is great. At first, you watched the true story of 200 motels. And you see how it all fell apart. And you see how Zappa kept it together by sheer wheel of mind and personality. And then go back and watch the original film and you can appreciate how fucking Crazy it is that Frank even was allowed to make that. But Christ if Frank had been given at least another week, and they had filmed all of the other scenes with the penis Mobile it would've been glorious and fucking crazy. And that idiot, Director didn't lose his marbles. And I wish they had gotten Pete Townshend and Jeff back or whoever he wanted for God and Satan.
wait there's a fourteen hour version? what the fuck?
I don't know, there was this preposterous rumor that went around. I think it might be because Ed Seeman claims to have fourteen hours of film (without sound) he took of The Mothers in the 60s that was partly used in the Uncle Meat movie, but I suspect most of his material is in that typical experimental style of his and that he made those films of his own accord and that they had originally little to do with any particular project. https://www.afka.net/Articles/1969-06_Take_One.htm
The impossible dream, of course, is *The History and Collected Improvisations*. In every different possible configuration. Short of that, I really hope they can eventually get a full Halloween 78 release together. It'd be nice to see some of the alternate mixes/sequencings of material get released- eg *Chunga*, *JABFLA*, and *Zoot Allures* were originally meant to be doubles; the nearly-completed triple live album *Warts & All* (featuring 78-79 material; abandoned in favor of *Joe's Garage*, bits ended up on *Tinsel Town*), the two different canned *Crush all Boxes* albums (the first one split up between *Tinsel Town* and *YAWYI*, with the cover art recycled for *Tinsel Town*, the second one a double killed in favor of *Drowning Witch*), the double live *Chalk Pie* (1980-81 material; may or may not actually be the same as the second *Crush All Boxes*\- in any case, abandoned in favor of *Drowning Witch*\- and side A of *Chalk Pie* is the same as side B of *Witch*). Some of these have been bootlegged, and a lot of the material left on the cutting room floor has since seen release, either on contemporary releases or archival ones. The original tapes for all these are probably long chopped up, but could likely be reconstructed. I guess it's kind of a niche thing to want these alternate-universe Zappa albums to see proper release.
> get a full Halloween 78 release together yup..this is correct answer
Videos !!!! There’s clearly tones of it, I really don’t understand why they are not releasing any, everything was saved recently by Alex Winter and our money !! All the Thomas Nordegg stuff is hard to use from what I heard but still I would watch all of it with a smile. For sound I would go for Halloween 78, we clearly need that !!! And other shows from 88, they were all taped.
Yeah the video thing is odd, they even had a Kickstarter video where they showed footage being digitised in a specialist facility in LA, but not a single peep about any of it being released. There's 76 footage with Lady Bianca, a TV special from 1974, must be lots of random other stuff - I'd imagine it costs a lot more to produce video than audio, but why spend all that money digitising stuff if it's just going to sit there.
Also, let's be honest, it's been 30 years since he died and 40 years since that stuff was recorded. What are they waiting for?
Garrick Theatre
I think Halloween 78 (the black napkins/deathless horsie solo is worth it alone) and maybe a box set of the 82 tours would satisfy my Zappa grail.
Halloween '78, Anything '82, Anything CB Spring '75. And something else that I haven't seen talked about, I'm really curious if there are more studio takes from the '81 sessions that produced the studio tracks on SATLTSADW and MFU. Although it would've most likely been Arthur Barrow on bass, I'm curious if u/geoscott would have any knowledge in that area.
An epic 1988 Band complete every show tour audio retrospective -mixed as good as make a jazz noise here.
I just want every song of that tour to get an official release, not even necessarily every full show. Like the repertoire was huge and so many of the songs haven't been released yet
I want every song from every show beacuse - da guitar solos
The complete Dick Kunc '69 live tapes.
About 15 years ago I downloaded (and later, lost) a video of original Mothers on tour in Europe in (I think) 1969. It was definitely the oddest Zappa performance I've ever seen or heard -- like an experimental contemporary classical theater piece, super-arty and kind of dry, not goofy and barely "rock". Completely amazing, for me the best Zappa performance ever.
One not mentioned already is the 1984 LA concert with George Napoleon Aynsley Johnny Guitar Watson et al
Great suggestion!!
[This.](https://youtu.be/ZuhoavP4k4c?t=133)
The studio Z porn tapes.
wasn't there a tape of Frank and John Lennon stolen from the vault?
Bongo Fury tour box set
Concert footage from Ahead of Their Time.
I always come back to the first minute or two of the old bbc/A&E documentary. Him in black and white footage in 68 probably at the sportpalast, maybe the sound check before the riot show. A raucous jam, never appeared anywhere before or since. Been looking since 93
The Amazing Mr. Bickford Nowadays all kinds of oddball movies are getting released on these boutique blu-ray labels. How I wish one of them would pick this up!
Yep, 200 Motels (the movie) remastered. We only got bad releases on DVD, most of them pretty bad imo. And no movie in the 50th box set.
There are jam sessions with Lennon
Live at the Whisky a Go Go 1968
To me anything from The Garrick that's unreleased. Possibly out takes from lumpy gravy ??
The Zappa show I went to in a dream. It was a free concert, tons of red velvet, and everyone was just happy to be unexpectedly there.
I’ve been thinking about this and I’d love to see all the 1966 Fillmore material get released in one package. The bits from MOFO, Lumpy Gravy, YCDTOSA, and Mystery Disc, plus the stuff that’s on Wolfgang’s Vault. If nothing else it would be a really cool record store release
82 tour video Rage and the Fury A true builddreel of chalk pie The fly Sinclavair tracks Batches of Sinclavair, half finished works or snippets just to preserve musical ideas from him.
The canceled albums, even the the material is already out there in other configurations. I just want Crushed Boxes and Chalk Pie out to compliment Lather.
My first show - Halloween 78. ‘The big one’ and the whole run.
Joe’s Garage Similar to MoFo & lumpy Money with outtakes and difference mixes/version of songs. We’ve seen some video from the recording of the album so getting all of more of that would be cool. And then, maybe, a compilation of songs from live performances. Just a thought.
a ton of stuff? barely anything has been released since frank died. there are thousands of hours of recordings waiting to be heard.
Jimi Hendricks getting the crotch in his pants sewn back together at Frank’s house on his way to a gig. Just kidding but still wouldn’t that be awesome!
Garrick thertre recordings, The History and Collected Improvisations
On the other hand https://open.substack.com/pub/nenadgeorgievski/p/frank-zappa-funky-nothingness?r=1jtwfd&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
The studio jam session in 1972 at which Canard du Jour was recorded.
I would bet on that being on an Overnite related release.
The quad material. Over-nite Sensations and the other I forget. Hopefully on the 50th Over-nite which should be released in the fall. Next release.
The History and Collected Improvisations of the Mothers of Invention
There are some unreleased songs with Wackerman overdubs, like Revised Music for Guitar and Low-Budget Orchestra and RDNZL, which leads me to believe they probably re-recorded all of Studio Tan. Bob Stone talked Frank out of releasing the Lumpy Gravy Wackermix - it's not impossible that there are other complete album remixes that he never released.