Frank Zappa - 1975 - An Evening With FZ & Captain Beefheart

Evening

An Evening with ... Frank Zappa & Captain Beefheart (CD/CDR)


    * Radio-broadcast oldies and rarities


    Length: 67:27
    Label: HEAD, re-issued both by RXZ Records and by Blind Boy Grunt Records


Musicians: various


    1. Cucamonga [Bongo Fury version]
    2. Orange Claw Hammer [Don van Vliet]
    3. Debra Kadabra / Carolina Hard-Core Ecstasy [Bongo Fury versions]
    4. The Smegmates: Will You Drink My Water?
    5. Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band: Pachuco Cadaver [Don van Vliet] [Trout Mask Replica version]
    6. I Was a Teenage Maltshop
    7. Status Back Baby
    8. Ned the Mumbler [may or may not include "Ned Has a Brainstorm"]
    9. Toads of the Short Forest
    10. Charva [The Lost Episodes version]
    11. Speed-Freak Boogie [Mystery Disc version]
    12. Metal Man Has Won His Wings [Don van Vliet / Zappa] [Mystery Disc version]
    13. Instrumental
    14. Louisiana Blues [McKinley "Muddy Waters" Morganfield]
    15. Instrumental ["Party Scene from Mondo Hollywood" - Mystery Disc version]
    16. Studio Rehearsal ["Sandwich Song"]
    17. How Could I Be Such a Fool?
    18. Boogie for Berkeley
    19. Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band: Neon Meat Dream of a Octafish [Don van Vliet] [Trout Mask Replica version]
    20. Muffin Man [Bongo Fury version]
    21. 200 Years Old [extended version]


This is a recording of a radio show on KWST radio, 1-Nov-1975, where Zappa and Beefheart played oldies and oddities. (There is a completely unsubstantiated rumour that this radio show was actually a broadcast of a Warner Brothers promo record with these songs on it, which has never been found, and never been confirmed to have existed.)


Tracks 1, 3, 5, 10-12, 15, 19 & 20 have been officially released on Bongo Fury, The Lost Episodes, Mystery Disc and Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica. As for the other tracks:


    * Track 2 was performed live in the studio; the Captain sings the song to a simple guitar backing
    * Track 4 is a very strange track, announced as a recording of a group called "The Smegmates"
    * Tracks 6-8 are CBS demos from 1965 - track 6 has been officially released (approximately) on the Mystery Disc. Track 8 may or may not include "Ned Has a Brainstorm".
    * Track 9 recorded at Studio Z, Cucamonga, 1964
    * Track 13 is from 1964 (very informative, isn't it?)
    * Track 14 has been officially released (perhaps in a shorter edit) on the Mystery Disc (as "Original Mothers at the Broadside (Pomona)"); it is the first live recording of the Mothers, from 1965
    * Tracks 16-17 are from the first Mothers rehearsal in 1965; a small fragment of track 16 has been officially released on the Mystery Disc, as "Original Mothers Rehearsal"
    * Track 18 is a 1968 rehearsal
    * Track 21 is NOT directly from Bongo Fury, but a longer version from an acetate, clocking in at 07:55 instead of 04:31. What has been cut out on Bongo Fury is 39 seconds just before the guitar solo (a slide solo by Denny Walley), 2 minutes and 43 seconds just after the guitar solo (effectively a piano solo and one verse), and 2 seconds of the fade-out. It's a CD bonus track from another radio broadcast, on WPLR, New Haven, 18-Apr-1975, and it also appears on Chronicle and Bongo Fury El Paso TX.


Adding to this very impressive cast of characters, the album retains some radio-station chatter from Zappa and the Captain. From Patrick Neve:


    I think the Mystery Disc tracks sound A LOT better [here] than ... on the Mystery Disc.


The cover/"booklet" is a single sheet folded once; no staples. The front of it is a black & white image of a 1950s American suburban family of 12 gatherered around a TV set; the title is printed in colour. The back of it has a black & white photograph of Zappa and Captain Beefheart sitting at a table - the Captain is brushing his moustache and product-placing a Coca-Cola can on the table; Zappa is watching him, cigarette in hand, bemused (or slightly drunk). Back cover has a colour photograph of Zappa on stage playing his guitar. The inside picture is a black & white photo of Zappa on stage, with his guitar, but with one hand held high over his head; Captain Beefheart sits in a chair on stage, surrounded by some Mothers.


HK elaborates on the various editions of this title:


    "An Evening with ... FZ and Beefheart (CD)" only exists as CD-R if made by "HEAD"Label. The only existing silver version is made by "Chameleon." The HEAD-record is made on a gold-writable with only one word on it (direct printed on CD): "EVENING"