Inca Roads Scholarship

The fifth anniversary party concludes with the first post of Year Six.

This one is a first in itself, in that it features not one but two essential concerts recorded on the very same date -- today's -- five years apart.

I've blogged Frank Zappa probably more than any other artist in the half decade I've been doing this, but I've never done these shows so here we go.

The first one -- taped 50 years ago in the iconic Olympia in Paris -- is a vintage Mothers romp and finds the Jazz-Rock direction FZ would explore at the turn of the 1970s really starting to come to the fore.

The second set -- recorded five years to the day later -- comes from the equally-as-legendary Armadillo World Headquarters in Austin, Texas and chronicles the advent of the band that made Roxy & Elsewhere coming together and bubbling up.

I've zipped them up separately but you're welcome to get both, one or neither, which in and of itself is galaxies more democratic than the whole of US elections since Citizens' United.

Frank Zappa/Mothers

October 26

1968+1973

i.

L'Olympia

Paris, France

10.26.1968

01 Improvisations

02 King Kong

03 Plastic People

04 tune-up & Hungry Freaks preamble

05 Hungry Freaks, Daddy

06 Green Genes preamble

07 Son of Mr. Green Genes

Total time: 50:41

Frank Zappa - guitar & vocals

Roy Estrada - bass & vocals

Jimmy Carl Black - drums, percussion & vocals

Art Tripp - drums, percussion & vocals

Ian Underwood - alto saxophone, keyboards, percussion & vocals

Don Preston - synthesizer & keyboards

Bunk Gardner - reeds & woodwinds

Motorhead Sherwood - saxophones, percussion & vocals

1st gen cassette from the soundboard master

329 MB FLAC here

ii.

Armadillo World Headquarters 

Austin, TX 

10.26.1973

01 FZ introduction

02 Cosmik Debris

03 Inca Roads

04 Pygmy Twylyte 

05 The Idiot Bastard Son

06 Cheepnis

07 Big Swifty 

08 FZ introduction

09 Dickie’s Such an Asshole

10 Farther Oblivion 

11 Son of Mr. Green Genes/King Kong/Chunga’s Revenge medley

Total time 1:19:30

Frank Zappa - guitar & vocals 

Napoleon Murphy Brock - tenor saxophone, percussion & vocals

George Duke - keyboards, percussion & vocals

Ruth Underwood - marimba & percussion

Bruce Fowler - trombone

Tom Fowler - bass

Ralph Humphrey - drums & percussion

Chester Thompson - drums & percussion

2nd gen soundboard master cassette

tape flip smoothed and dead air trimmed slightly to fit a single CD by EN, October 2018
531 MB/October 2018 archive link

So there it is, the Five Years theme writ large. I shall return on Halloween with one last spooky blast for October.

I will post again at the start of Zappadan -- on the 25th anniversary of his passing-- in December. But for now, you can listen to your Mothers and enjoy these two ridiculously entertaining sets!--J.

12.21.1940 - 12.4.1993