scan: peccary
October 31, 1981
The Palladium, NYC
Broadcasted by MTV and Westwood One Radio simultaneously
Hosted by Nina Blackwood
FZ--lead guitar, vocals
Ray White--guitar, vocals
Steve Vai--guitar, vocals
Tommy Mars--keyboards, vocals
Bobby Martin--keyboards, vocals
Ed Mann--percussion, vocals
Scott Thunes--bass, vocals
Chad Wackerman--drums
Early show:
Late show:
The hardest and worst interview that I have ever done was with Frank Zappa. Ugh! It was a nightmare. I feel bad saying this because he is no longer with us, but he was a nightmare. I hope I never run into anything as terrible as that again. He was deliberately being Frank Zappa. It was the first live broadcast that MTV ever did. It was his yearly concert that he used to do from The Palladium on Halloween. I was the host. Even in rehearsals Frank was really obnoxious to me. Between my lack of experience and him being obnoxious, it was just a nightmare. Enough said. It was a very bad experience. (...) It was baptism by fire. Now, with the chip on my shoulder that I have developed, I wouldn't tolerate it. Back then, I was young and we were trying to do our best. I was an easy target. It was a cheap shot and he didn't have to do that. If Frank wanted to be smart then do it to Walter Cronkite or something, but not a twenty-something little girl doing her first live broadcast.
scan: peccary
Songs: Interview w/ignorant MTV VJ, Black Napkins, Montana, Easy Meat, Society Pages, I'm a Beautiful Guy, Beauty Knows No Pain, Charlie's Enormous Mouth, Fine Girl, Teenage Wind, Harder Than Your Husband, Bamboozled By Love, Sinister Footwear II, Stevie's Spanking, Cocaine Decisions, Nigger Bizniss, Doreen, Goblin Girl, Black Page #2, Tryin' To Grow a Chin, Strictly Genteel, The Torture Never Stops.
There are several versions of this show; here are a few of them:
- "Halloween Concert" (MTV, 88 min.)
2nd show, missing band introduction and Sinister Footwear
3rd rebroadcast by MTV, air date 10/31/82- "Dumb All Over" (LBS Video 47 min.)
Mixed footage of 1st & 2nd shows- "The Torture Never Stops" (LBS Video, 116 min.)
Mixed footage of 1st & 2nd shows- "You Are What You Is" (LBS Video, 58 min.)
Mixed footage of 1st & 2nd shows- "You Are What You Is" (Night Flight, 28 min.)
The first 7 songs of the early show
From Halloween, 1981 at the Palladium in NYC. MTV broadcast some of this show (or all of it?). It was subsequently spliced up and shown as various features such as Dumb All Over (45 minutes), You Are What You Is (45 minutes) and the Torture Never Stops (1 hour 50 minutes). Also parts are shown in Dub Room Special. Songs mainly consist of You Are What You Is plus songs from Sheik Yerbouti. Also has Strictly Genteel.
My Halloween '81 video, which I've been told was "The First Show", includes the following songs...
0:00 - Black Napkins
3:55 - Montana
7:45 - Easy Meat
14:30 - Society Pages
17:05 - I'm A Beautiful Guy
19:00 - Beauty Knows No Pain
21:55 - Charlie's Enormous Mouth
25:35 - Fine Girl
28:50 - Teenage Wind
31:50 - Harder Than Your Husband
34:25 - Bamboozled By Love
39:55 - Stevie's Spanking
45:50 - Cocaine Decisions
48:30 - Nig Biz
53:45 - Doreen
55:50 - Goblin Girl
57:40 - The Black Page
1:04:45 - Tryin' To Grow A Chin
1:07:15 - Strictly Genteel
1:14:10 - The Torture Never Stops
(End - 1:26:40)My question...what's in "The Second Show?"
Just got me this DVD-R that comes with what seems to be a mix of the two shows.
It's 1h 56 minutes, the "Torture Never Stops" intro (exactly as the screencap from your site), and the following songlist:
Black Napkins
Montana
Easy Meat
Beauty Know No Pain
I'm A Beautiful Guy
Charlie's Enormous Mouth
Fine Girl
Teenage Wind
Harder Than Your Husband
Bamboozled By Love
We're Turning Again
Alien Orifice
Flakes
Broken Hearts Are For Assholes
You Are What You Is
Mudd Club
The Meek Shall Inherit Nothing
Dumb All Over
Heavenly Bank Account
Suicide Chump
Jumbo Go Away
Stevie's Spanking
The Torture Never Stops
Strictly Genteel
The Illinois Enema Bandit
From comparing the lists of songs performed at the early and late shows, I think "The Torture Never Stops" goes like this, because almost all of these songs were performed at one show, but not the other.
Black Napkins (late show)
Montana (late show)
Easy Meat (late show)Beauty Know No Pain (late show)
I'm A Beautiful Guy (late show)
Charlie's Enormous Mouth (late show)
Fine Girl (late show)
Teenage Wind (late show)
Harder Than Your Husband (late show)
Bamboozled By Love (late show)(10 out of the first 11 songs from the late show.. for some reason, FZ left "Society Pages" out of this video version.)
We're Turning Again (early show)
Alien Orifice (early show)
Flakes (early show)
Broken Hearts Are For Assholes (early show)(From the approximate middle of the early show's set, though "Teenage Prostitute" was played before "Flakes" and left out of this sequence for the video release.)
You Are What You Is (early show)
Mudd Club (early show)
The Meek Shall Inherit Nothing (early show)
Dumb All Over (early show)
Heavenly Bank Account (early show)
Suicide Chump (early show)
Jumbo Go Away (early show)(The first 7 songs from the early show. "Dumb All Over" has the guitar solo which was edited out of the YCDTOSA Vol. 1 version.)
Stevie's Spanking (late show)
The Torture Never Stops (late show)
Strictly Genteel (*pretty* sure this is from the late show.. the YCDTOSA Vol. 6 version is actually edited together from both.)
The Illinois Enema Bandit (late show)
I just compared this 'Torture Never Stops' DVD with the DVD of the live MTV broadcast of the late show and it seems that Strictly Genteel on 'Torture' is an edit of the two shows, probably the same as YCDTOSA6 I would think. It starts with the early show and cuts to the late show just before the closing speech. (The camera angles on the two DVDs are different so it would have been hard to compare, but Tommy Mars has a silly mask on during the early show.)
Just noticed this thread...one additional bit of info: there were two MTV broadcasts of the late show, the live one and a slightly shortened and modified rebroadcast.
The rebroadcast had the following changes (perhaps among others):
- pre-show interview omitted
- edit in Black Napkins to disguise the botched transition from FZ's solos to the outro melody (this edited version appears on As An Am)
- intros omitted
- Sinister Footwear omitted
- radio station break after Stevie's Spanking omitted
- camera error in Tryin' To Grow A Chin fixed
- autographed freeze-frames of the sidemen shown as FZ introduces them during Genteel
It also had the flanged guitar.
The Palladium, NYC.
October 29, 1981There is a video of "Chunga's Revenge" with Frank playing guitar solo which it has been seen in big screen during ZPZ tour 2006 (See London, Paris, NY, Detroit, Chicago, Phoenix & San Francisco shows & set list themes, perhaps I left some place out).
As far I know there is a private video recording of the whole ZPZ show in Chicago which includes "Chunga's Revenge" & "Montana" from "The Roxy Performances".
YouTube: "Whipping Post" (Swedish broadcast) (06:48 min.)
This is the rarest Frank Zappa Video of all time. This one hour video is of Zappa's New York, HALLOWEEN appearance at The Palladium on October 31, 1981. This video was given to me personally by FZ and was lost until now. This is a multi-camera, superbly edited, commercial quality, final pre- release version. The digital sound quality and mixing is as good as any Zappa recording you'll ever hear. Sounds like a CD.
Originally produced for Intercontinental Absurdities (FZ's production company), and titled "You Are What You Is", this tape was never released. No one has it anywhere, except here. This video was copied from the actual 3/4 inch cassette Frank gave me. The video quality is good and the music is phenomenal. The musicians are Steve Vai, Chad Wackerman, Scott Thunes, Ike Willis, Tommy Mars, Ed Mann, Bobby Martin & FZ
…….SONGS: You Are What You Is, Mud Club, The Meek Shall Inherit Nothing, Dumb All Over, Heavenly Bank Account, Suicide Chump, Jumbo Go Away, Turn,Turn, Instrumental, Teenage Prostitute, Flakes, Broken Hearts Are For Assholes, Montana and an incredible Whippin' Post.
As a special bonus, there is a five minute segment with "Music For a Low Budget Orchestra" being performed by an orchestra. I have used scanned and reduced labels from the original FZ cassettes and pictured them below. I was Zappa's still photographer for many years and have thousands of original photos of FZ and his mothers.
Bean4Green is right about everything regarding the You Are What You Is video, except that it was broadcast at least once -on January 3, 1983 it was featured on USA Network's old show Night Flight. I know because I still have the (prized) videotape of that airing. My copy is mono but it's still very clear. It's 58 minutes long and does not contain the Music for Low Budget Orchestra section, but everything else he refers to is there. What Bean labels as "Instrumental" in his song list is "Alien Orifice".
Some cuts found on the video differ somewhat on the performances on the You Can't Do That series.
- On the CD Dumb All Over is missing Frank's guitar solo, which is on the video
- Heavenly Bank account seems complete on both sources
- On the CD Suicide Chump has a long instrumental jam in the middle that is missing from the video
- On the CD version of Alien Orifice Frank's guitar solo has been shortened, the song is about a minute longer in the video
Here is a bootleg version of this video which has been seen on Ebay:
Additional Informants: Brian Lagerman, Jon Naurin, Chris Rigas
Maintained by Román García Albertos