date: 1965 location: THE FILLMORE WEST, SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA
original recording medium: mono analog (7 1/2 ips) recording engineer: JOHN JUDNICH remote facility: AMPEX portable
The lyrics refer to the guys who used to spy on the Freaks in Hollywood in the early 1960's. We never knew if they were FBI, CIA, DEA or what, but they'd do stupid stuff like rush into restaurants (on one occasion I saw, it was Ben Frank's, on Sunset) and take 8mm movies of anybody who looked too weird, then rush out again to a waiting car. they'd also sneak around your house in the early morning hours, snooping. I found a pair of them (little suits & ties on) outside my door at 6:00AM once when we lived on Kirkwood.
The heat's out every night
[...]
The heat pulls on the scene
Blow your harmonica, son!
Some people might recognize the "CHARLES IVES' vamp section as the background to "THE BLIMP" on Beefheart's TROUT MASK REPLICA album. When it was included there, the recording was done in a unique manner—I was at Whitney Recorders in Glendale working on some M.O.I. material and a call came from Beefheart, excited about his new lyrics. Antenna Jimmy Semens was ordered to recite them to me over the phone. I recorded his recitation and superimposed it on the vamp. This strange sandwich was eventually used on the album.
date: 1969 location: COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, NEW YORK CITY
original recording medium: 2 track analog (15 ips) recording engineer: DICK KUNC
remote racility: SCULLY
"HERE LIES LOVE" was an old R&B tune (the flip side of "WPLJ") I used to like. When Lowell joined the band, it became a frequent item on the concert song list.
You'll be delighted to know, it you're nostalgic for that sort of material, that there are some tapes in pretty good condition from the Columbia University gig in '69 and also from a place in Miami. There's Lowell George performing "Here Lies Love," which was by Mr. Undertaker on the Music City label, and the B-side of "WPLJ." It's a minor key blues on which we did basically the same arrangement as the record. That's a pretty decent performance, so it'll probably be included on something.
Lowell George got to sing oldies like 'Here Lies Love'—"a minor-key blues on which we did basically the same arrangement as the record." The original by Mr. Undertaker was one side of the Music City single that featured 'WPLJ' by the Four Deuces.
"W-P-L-J" was released in July 1955, but the flip wasn't [...] by the 4 Deuces at all. It was "Here Lies My Love" by "Mr. Undertaker." This was actually a pretty nice ballad that was by Roy Hawkins (not by Ray Agee as I had previously thought), originally called "Here Lies Love" (although that wasn't as good a title for sales).
As [The 4 Deuces] had not worked up another song, Dobard issued "W.P.L.J." as the topside of "Here Lies My Love," a weeper cut by Roy Hawkins masquerading under the pseudonym Mr. Undertaker, as he was then under contract with Modern Records in Culver City.
Additional informant: Charles Ulrich.
date: 1969 location: THEE IMAGE, MIAMI, FLORIDA
original recording medium: 2 track analog (15 ips) recording engineer: DICK KUNC remote racility: SCULLY
These were themes (originally written in 1959) from a cowboy movie for which I did the music in 1962 or 1963, starring Mercedes McCambridge. The script was written by my high school English teacher, Don Cerveris. The plot had something to do with a bad ranch lady, a nymphomaniac cowgirl, and a hunch-back handy-man named Kirby who eventually winds up pooching the nympho in a barn, next to the rotting carcass of the family donkey.
date: 1969 location: COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, NEW YORK CITY
original recording medium: 2 track analog (15 ips) recording engineer: DICK KUNC remote facility: SCULLY
date: 1969 location: CRITERIA STUDIOS, MIAMI, FLORIDA
original recording medium: 8 track analog (15 ips) recording engineer: DICK KUNC
[...]The tape in the background was recorded by Bunk and used in several live concerts during that tour. This performance begins on stage in Miami, dissolves into the recording studio, then back to the stage.
While in Columbus, Ohio and playing a club called the High Low Spot, I met a couple of young girls, Sandy and Peggy, and we became good friends. After I left Ohio, I found out Peggy was living in Florida. I don't remember how many times I went down there to see her. She was pretty vocal, and it was just a lark that I recorded it. Through the grapevine Frank heard about this, and he heard it and it cracked him up, and then he started using it on stage. Actually, she was good-natured about it. I didn't tell her I was going to do this. I still get a card from her every Christmas.
Roy really loved to hear that tape! Some of Roy's pet phrases were—"Got enough for you honey?" and "Can you get a stiffy in a jiffy?" He always wanted to know every detail of a sexual encounter—"How's she go Bunk?" he would ask. After that night of sex that I recorded, from then on Roy would bug me to listen to that tape and finally Frank heard it. Roy used a few of those phrases from that tape to make me and the rest of the group laugh. Sometimes on stage he would go into his routine, "Right there Bunk!," "Oh God right there, oh God Bunk! Yes! Yes!"
date: February 13, 1969 location: THE FACTORY, THE BRONX, NEW YORK original recording medium: 2 track analog (7 1/2 ips) recording engineer: DICK KUNC remote facility: UHER portable
date: 1969 location: COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, NEW YORK CITY
original recording medium: 2 track analog (15 ips) recording engineer: DICK KUNC remote facility: SCULLY
date: 1969 location: SUNSET SOUND STUDIOS, HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA
original recording medium: 2 track analog (15 ips) recording engineer: DICK KUNC[...] This was recorded during a photo shoot on the occasion of Art Tripp's birthday [September 10]. The commentary is the result of the M.O.I. attempting to assume some sort of mutant cluster-fuck pose—and enjoying it more than anyone would have suspected.
date: 1968 location: THE WHISKY-A-GO-GO, HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA original recording medium: 8 track analog (15 ips) recording engineer: WALLY HEIDER remote facility: HEIDER REMOTE TRUCK
date: 1967 location: THE FALKONER CENTER, COPENHAGEN, DENMARK
original recording medium: mono analog (15 ips) recording engineer: unknown remote facility: NAGRA portable remix engineer: BOB STONE remix facility: UTILITY MUFFIN RESEARCH KITCHEN
musicians: F.Z. (conductor) RAY COLLINS (tambourine) ROY ESTRADA (bass) DON PRESTON (piano) IAN UNDERWOOD (alto sax) BUNK GARDNER (tenor sax) MOTORHEAD SHERWOOD (baritone sax) JIMMY CARL BLACK (drums) BILLY MUNDI (drums)On the Scandinavian portion of our first Euro tour, several disasters occurred. On a side trip to Rome to visit the set of "Barbarella" (Roger Vadim was considering part of the FREAK OUT! album for the sound track), I made the error of drinking a minute amount of Italian tap water. By the time I had rejoined the tour in Stockholm I was stricken with a severe case of gastro-enteritis. The following day we were scheduled to make our first appearance in Copenhagen. The truck with all of our gear was delayed in a snow storm, forcing us to make our Danish debut as a "semi-acoustic" combo, with just a few amps borrowed from John Mayall. This tape was made by a Danish radio journalist who was following us around. (This bit was recorded in the dressing room, with his mike near the monitor speaker which allows waiting performers to hear what's happening on stage.)
The 'mono' track was processed through a cheesy Orban stereo synthesizer we had in the studio, as I recall, with a combination of setero reverb effects from the Lexicons and live chambers. The 'main' signal is indeed 'out of phase' in the convention sense. It should have a more interesting effect when listening through headphones because of the 'phase' relationship with respect to the reverb. UMRK product has been noted before as failing to follow conventionalism.
date: 1969 location: COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, NEW YORK CITY
original recording medium: 2 track analog (15 ips) recording engineer: DICK KUNC remote facility: SCULLY
| New York City, NY, February 21, 1969 (late show) | YCDTOSA Vol. 5 (1992) |
|---|---|
| 7. Drum Duet | FZ/JCB Drum Duet |
| 0:12-2:28 | 0:00-2:17 |
| 2:28-2:56 | |
| 2:56-5:04 | 2:17-4:26 |
date: 1969 location: THEE IMAGE, MIAMI, FLORIDA
original recording medium: 2 track analog (15 ips) recording engineer: DICK KUNC remote racility: SCULLY
They're really getting professional now in the dressing room, waiting for the Vanilla Fudge to go off.
date: 1969 location: THEE IMAGE, MIAMI, FLORIDA
original recording medium: 2 track analog (15 ips) recording engineer: DICK KUNC remote facility: EMI RECORDERS
Lowell: Who are you, what is your name, hand me your paper. Is your name Larry? Larry Fanoga?
Motorhead: Yezz.
Lowell: Larry Fanoga?
Motorhead: Larry Fanoga.
Now we got desperate a few months ago and uh, because we thought nobody liked us. And uh, we're also pissed off at the fact that people won't play our records on the radio, and we didn't know whether or not it was 'cause our music was crappy or because somebody really knew what the words to the songs meant. So they couldn't . . . So they wouldn't take a chance. So we came to the conclusion that actually all it was was a conspiracy against the Mothers Of Invention because we're supposedly so dirty, vile and crazy and also a threat to our great nation and all that it has stood for in the past and we hope it will not continue to stand for in the future . . . However boys and girls . . . The people who run the radio stations are on the watch, you know, for our records, when they come in as soon as somebody sends a single to the radio station with our name on it they either melt it, break it, stomp on it or send it in an envelope directly back to the record company from which it came with a threatening note. But we said, "What the heck? Why can't we be just like other teen-age rock & roll bands—outside of the fact that we're all over thirty—and go and cut a single record and try and get the sucker on the radio?" So what we did was we went into a professional recording studio in New York City in the middle of the night for two nights in a row and also a Saturday afternoon for mixing and cranked out two miserable teen-age type records with words that couldn't possibly offend anybody and uh they're reasonably singable—by any group other than the Mothers Of Invention—and uh, they're teen-age boy-girl type songs. And so they're being released this week. I would expect to be able to add these to our list of smash flops very shortly.
1982 07 01—Patinoire des Vernets, Genève, Switzerland
[...] Easy Meat [YCDTOSA5]
I was just listening to the 1982 05 29 Frejus audience recording, and I noticed that the intro to Easy Meat (before the song proper starts) on YCDTOSA 5 is from the crowd noise at the start of the Frejus concert (just before Zoot Allures).
Also, I believe the last verse of Easy Meat on the same album is from the Genoa show on 1982 07 05.
| Minute | Venue |
|---|---|
| 00:00-00:12 | May 29, 1982—Frejus, France |
| 00:12-05:27 | July 1, 1982—Geneva, Switzerland |
| (38 s. missing) | July 1, 1982—Geneva, Switzerland |
| 05:27-05:43 | July 1, 1982—Geneva, Switzerland |
| (7 s. missing) | July 1, 1982—Geneva, Switzerland |
| 05:43-06:25 | July 1, 1982—Geneva, Switzerland |
| (24 s. missing) | July 1, 1982—Geneva, Switzerland |
| 06:25-06:36 | July 1, 1982—Geneva, Switzerland |
| 06:36-07:27 | July 5, 1982—Genoa, Italy |
| 07:27-07:38 | July 1, 1982—Geneva, Switzerland |
Scott Thunes quotes Theme From The 3rd Movement Of Sinister Footwear (which he must have loved, cuz he quotes it in a lot of Frank's solos in a lot of places) on bass at 6:09 (in a wildly unrelated key). It would be two years later (Oscar Mayer Theatre, Madison, Wisconsin, August 11, 1984) that Frank would do a complete set of variations on Sinister #3 during an Easy Meat solo. And put it on an album!
Fritz Rau says
When we went to Berlin and played and we had the riot in 1968, I never wanted to go back to Germany again.
But I have to say, the guy that really made the most difference in convincing me to go back to Germany and play again and even to go back to Berlin was Fritz Rau. Because he did more to explain to me German history and German politics than anybody else . . . and I have to thank him because he gave me the basic information that I needed to have a better understanding of what was really going on in the country.
The last time we played here in Cologne, something happened after the show that was unbelievable. As you know, there is a company here in the fatherland, that promotes concerts all over the place. And the man, who runs this company, his name is Fritz Rau. We have know Fritz for a long time. But the last time we played here, he put on a performance, that was incredible. If you can imagine, grown man, sitting in the box office at 3 o'clock in the morning, argueing, because the roadies got to eat asparagus. Now, this was so amazing, that I had to write a song about it. Tonight, Peter is going to play the featured role of Fritz Rau. Now give'em the first part of Fritz's big speech.
0:00 6/19 London (late show)
2:14 5/30 Cap d'Agde
7:39 6/10 Essen
8:30 7/3 Bolzano
9:08 about six seconds of sax honks are edited out
9:29 about one second of silence is edited out
10:18 6/10 Essen
It was the third song of the set from the show in Geneva and Frank pointed to me, surprisingly, to do an ad lib guitar solo on the spot. I waited a long time for that moment. The band was grooving and I was gearing up. I had the "blow away factor" on ten. The "blow away factor" is a personal indicator of the forthcoming event, that reveals to you the inspiration and knowledge that you're gonna kick some major ass in the next few moments.
I played three notes and somebody threw a cigarette butt on the stage and Frank stopped the show. He then went up to the microphone and said something to the effect of . . . "Do not throw anything up on the stage and whoever threw that must come up and show themselves, and then be escorted out of the building and then we will continue the show."
We sat for a few moments in silence, then somebody threw something else on stage. I don't know if it was a coin or a bottle of water, but Frank abruptly got up said "Show's over", walked off the stage, got in a car and drove away. The band ran backstage and the audience proceeded to destroy the stage by throwing stuff at it and then finally attacking it. As we were driving away, we could hear them yelling, in broken English, "ZAPPA GO HOME!!!"
Oh, well. Farewell, Geneva.
Research, compilation and maintenance by Román García Albertos