April 14, 2012

Speaking of Any Way The Wind Blows

Original Freak Out Version

Reuben and the Jets version

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Note the fantastic Ray Collins vocals on both versions. Listen to "Anything" from Reuben and the Jets for more of Ray,

Flo and Eddie Mothers slow version

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I was present at this exact performance at Stony Brook University. This concert was my first exposure to Zappa live, and inspired me to go out and get Just Another Band from L.A. which had the same songs and personnel from this show. The rest is 41 years of my personal quest for Zappa Conceptual Continuity.

Sonics version




thanks for the wonderful and interesting responses.


-90% Jimmy

April 14, 2012

Captain Beefheart featured on Lawrence O'Donnel Thursday Night Romney coverage

Willard has to cope with the Republican's war on women. In Lawrence's segment about this, I was flabbergasted to hear this song in the background:

Which leads me to think somebody on Lawrence staff is a Beefheart fan, as I don't think you'd come up with this song without deep prior knowledge. It would have been the 3,896,786th hit on a google search, so it wasn't dumb luck that led to the selection.

Also on this album, Beefheart's first, is one of the most remarkable songs in rock history:

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Remarkable first for Beefheart's (Don Van Vliet) astounding voice and also one of the pioneering uses of the theremin in a rock song. (Beach Boys also used the theramin, particularly on "Good Vibrations", which may have predated this song?)

Beefheart's "big break" could have come from the revolutionary Monterrey Pop Festival that broke Hendrix and a lot of others. It wasn't meant to be, as Ry Cooder had been brought in to the group by the producer to contribute some musical discipline and chops. Cooder found Van Vliet so erratic and bizarre that he thought he would be risking his musical career if Don flubbed the performance. Don had stage fright issues at the time and Ry probably made the right call for his career, but the wrong call for what could have been another awe inspiring Monterrey breakout performance.

All part of the incredible Beefheart/Zappa folklore that make them such interesting people to know about in rock history.

-90% Jimmy

April 12, 2012

Interesting

Speaks strongly to the difference between reason and emotion.

I'm getting weary of our institutions playing fear on all of us, instead of paving the way for greater life, liberty and happiness pursuits.

For example, I'm a baby boomer and grew up during the cold war. I was trained as a first grader to survive a nuclear attack (the ole' duck and cover bullshit)

Mr. Gorbachev tore down that wall and whoopie, the threat of destroying every living thing on the planet has gone away.

BULLSHIT - now we got world leaders actively suggesting nuclear war as a means to solve the "Iran problem".

They talk like it's just another tool in their "diplomacy" arsenal when it's really something that should never ever be used again on this planet! They seem just too plain stupid to comprehend the misery and death such actions would cause.

All they do is give us shit to worry about. And we elected them!

Fuckers!

-90% Jimmy

April 9, 2012

Good post

I like to think of the root cause of stuff. The best definition of the root cause of our invisible glacier-like but accelerating into the reborn Dark Ages state of affairs is simply this classic George Carlin Video. Gets right to the nucleus of the problem in concise rapier-like keen intelligent reasoned fashion.

And here is my bumper sticker that attempts to capture the essence of George's message.

Our institutions are infested with corrupt sociopaths.

-90% Jimmy

PS - boy, that is so ironic that Warner Brothers seems to be getting all copyright bullying about this piece at youtube. ARE THEY TRYING TO RUB IT IN THAT WE ARE OWNED BY CORPORATIONS BY GETTING SO HEAVY HANDED??? Can't you just be generous and let us 99%'ers enjoy a few minutes with one of the most profound messages for our times, by a smart beloved talented comedian that never went stale. On his game probably until the end.


PPS - Frank Zappa sued Warner Brothers back in the late seventies AND WON! That's one Constitutional Fundamentalist you don't want to fuck with.