Mothers of Invention Weasels Ripped My Flesh
Loud & in your face the more avanty rockin compi lp from just after the original Mothers of Invention split. Been really enjoying this.
Frank Zappa Hot Rats
Zappa's 2nd solo lp inspired by his dissatisfaction with the rhythm section of the recently split MOI. Largely instrumental except for the Don van Vliet sung Willie The Pimp.
Sound is great, & I don't know if I've actually heard the longer version of Gumbo Variations. Pretty satisfied with what's on here.
Zappa various live sets 69,71, 72 & 73
Checked the '71 because of the live sets on the Zappa reissue campaign and realise that I'm not missing anything by not grabbing them.
Don't think I'm that into the Flo and Eddie beginnings of Zappa smut. Do like the Turtles & the Crossfires though.
There si some pretty ok extended instrumental stuff on that set though.
'72 and '73 both have the liquid jazz influenced stuff featured largely. Zappa at his best to me is the Stravinsky/Gamelan/jazz influenced stuff or the earlier garagey Mothers stuff.
Not into the overly smutty stuff
The Pontiacs Bursting
great psych stuff from South America sounds very 60s influenced but does have bits where a more overt Spacemen 3 type influence appears.
Think this was a limited edition of 100 or thereabouts.Gets pretty sublime in places.
Cosmic Dead s/t
Heavy spacey psychy stuff, another limited edition that may be gone by now. Can get lost in those grooves.
Trying to work out if the first track, Black Rabbit has more than nominal connection with Skullflower's track of the same name. Here it's dragged out to 18 minutes in a way somewhat reminiscent of Loop or Spacemen 3 but more rocked up. Skullflower tried to beat it into the mud for 4 and a bit minutes but I think the central riff is somewhat similar.
worth checking out anyway, nice to know there is good stuff currently being made.
Grateful Dead 21/8/80
was struck by how good they sounded at this point. Energetic, could be seen as an update on something like the '68/'69 sound. Probably a bit more mature and less psychedelic than that but great nonetheless.
Neil Young & Crazy Horse 3/8/12
still bringing it on. Nice grungey stuff wish I was going to see this live.
Dead Meadow 12/11/11
Wombadelic heaviosity. I should listen to this band more.
Mothers of Invention Absolutely Free
Great sounding remaster of the Mothers 2nd lp. I can now get into the long instrumental which I don't think I could enjoy anywhere near as much on the old Ryko version.
Really getting into this record anyway.
" We're Only In It For The Money
the old Ryko version. It wasn't one of those remastered in this campaign. I guess it still sounds ok. Zappa was supposed to splash on the electronic reverb on all of the remasters of at least the 60s stuff he did before he died. But at least this no longer has the new rhythm section he grafted on in the mid 80s.
Graham Bond & Pete Brown 6/8/72
just been reading Pete Brown's autobio so heavily coincidental that this live set turns up at the same time. Though Brown has just been doing live readings from the book this week. None anywhere near here so finding this in my 2nd hand/remainder bookshop may or may not have something to do with more copies being circulated.
This was a coupe of years before Graham Bond fell under a train. I think it sounds pretty good. Heavy grooves with Brown singing and Bond playing organ.Last few songs on set get drawn out to around 10 minute + length.
Rotomagus The Sky Turns Red
largely 3 piece heavy stuff almost Stooges like intensity but can have more proggy complexity. This cd consists of a demo lp that the band cut in '71 as a 3 piece, hoping to get a contract to flesh it out properly that never came and it sounds great rough. The rest is singles and other demos.
When I say largely 3 piece, the first single is here and was recorded when the band still had several other members. They had started out as a harmony group an influence that shows here though the band had already begun to get a bit rougher and more complex musically. That first single was the only one recorded for their original label, after that they split up. Then the 2 brothers who had been central to the band returned along with a drummer and the band recorded another, heaver single for a different label CBS.
Anyway this is reccommended proto-punkyness. I think JC himself was extolling them last month.
Fugs Tenderness Junction
The first '68 lp by the East Village scatologists. I thought it sounded better as a psychedelic rock lp than its follow up It Crawled Into My Hand honest. I've just finished Fug You their singer Ed Sanders' 60s memoir which was a great read.
I love The Garden Is Open on here, a song about springtime frolics with youthful women I think.
The band they had at the time was pretty good anyway.
Henry Cow In Praise Of Learning
Love this record but found at least its lead off track War's percussiveness didn't lean too well to quiet listening as I went to sleep.
This is after the band had absorbed Dagmar Krause from Slapp Happy and her harsh teutonic vox are all over it. I really like her singing style but could see how other people might not fully appreciate it.
Lp is alot more avant than they started out being but I think is pretty essential possibly because of that.
some other stuff which will probably come back to me later
the usual surprises from my walkman. Still love the way this segues tracks but I'm now getting worried that the battery may be on its way out & it's supposed to be a tricky job replacing it while keeping the display working.
reading
Strontium Dog & related stories
read up to the death of Johnny Alpha, through the Grant Morrison stories following Feral & the Gronk after JA's death. & through the young Middenface McNulty stories.
Now reading the stories looking back at earlier events throughout JA's life from when the character was brought back later in 2000AD.
Flapper by Joshua Zeitz
the wayward female fashion type in jazz age America. This book has been criticised for being so focused on the white female to such an extent to the almost complete exclusion of other races. Black influence during the jazz age etc would have been interesting.
But it is an interesting read, so far it's been talking a lot about Zelda & Scott Fitzgerald.
Thought I'd missed this book after seeing it on the shelves a couple of weeks back but found a copy on the pile above the bookshelves and managed to get it down.
White Rooms and Imaginary Westerns: Ginsberg, Clapton and Cream an Anarchic Odyssey by Pete Brown
Autobio of 60s/70s poet/singer and Cream lyricist. Been very interesting so far. think I'm up to about 1973.
Started off with him talking about his Jewish upbringing from the 40s - the 60s before he started getting bohemian and hitching around the country. I hadn't realised he was pretty straight from drink/drugs throughout his time with Battered ornaments/Piblokto after stoner days to the mid 60s.
The travels of Ibn Battuta translated by Tim Hodgkinson Smith
the 14th century travels of a Moroccan throughout the known Islamic world. He traveled as far as China at the time and over the course of about 30 years. Hoping to get through the book this time, have been distracted every time I've picked it up over the last number of years.
Looks like he traveled several times as far as Marco Polo, who was the most exotically traveled Westerner in popular thought had done, so if I don't leave the book lying around again this should be very interesting
Stevo
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