#Frank Zappa #The Mothers of Invention #Flo & Eddie #psychedelic rock #experimental rock #blues rock #art rock #jazz fusion #avant-garde #musique concrete #proto-prog #comedy rock #absurdist #1971 #live recording
That’s right, you heard right, the secret word for tonight is “Mud Shark.” But for this bawdy tale from the not-so-briny shoals of Seattle, Washington alone, this is required listening. Of course, instrumental fans who hunger for something more filling from Fillmore will find it in tracks like “Lonesome Electric Turkey” and the evergreen “Peaches En Regalia.” This live record (one of the last from the Fillmore East if memory serves) is one of my favorites from the Flo & Eddie experiment, showcasing their unique stage presence on the dialogue-driven “Do You Like My New Car?” and cascading into a delirious version of The Turtles’ “Happy Together.” Unlike some of Frank Zappa’s live releases, Fillmore East retains the atmosphere of a live show from beginning to end, with a minimum of post-doctoring and a maximum of spontaneous energy (or as spontaneous as a band playing a tortuous track like “Little House I Used To Live In” can get). Among the other Zappa/Mothers albums out there, Fillmore East reminds me most of the 200 Motels soundtrack, where a similar mix of complicated instrumentals and humorous dialogue songs co-existed happily (although I understand that Uncle Meat tasted about the same too). As an oral history of rock stars and the groupies who love them, Fillmore East puts Professors Flo & Eddie at the podium, overshadowing the rest of the band much of the time. Ordinarily, their monkeyshines steal the spotlight from the erstwhile top banana (Frank) and his phenomenal fretwork. But Fillmore East finds a better balance than Just Another Band From L.A., for example, alternating between the profane and the musically profound in a way that satisfies both camps. From: https://progrography.com/frank-zappa/mothers-fillmore-east-june-1971-1971/
The Mothers of Invention were an American band active from 1966 to 1969. Throughout, their output was primarily directed by composer and guitarist, Frank Zappa (1940–1993). Their albums combined a broad span of genres and utilised diverse instrumentation. Their lyrics were generally humorous, with frequent style-parodies of contemporary Pop music (with doo-wop love ballads endlessly lampooned), bountiful surreal imagery, cartoonish vocals and oblique, satirical protest songs. Their diversity and insincerity makes their classification difficult, but Zappa's increasingly ambitious and avant-garde compositions towards the end of the 1960s share many features of Free Jazz and 20th Century Classical music. The group's output, particularly Absolutely Free, also proved enormously influential on the then-nascent genre of progressive rock.
Zappa disbanded the original Mothers of Invention line-up in 1970 to create music under his own name, but shortly reformed an entirely new band sometimes known as "The Mothers." This new incarnation had a strong vaudeville style and were much bawdier than before, with new vocalists Flo & Eddie, previously of the Turtles, taking the lead. After Zappa was pushed offstage at the Rainbow Theatre in 1971, he broke up this second band and concentrated on a jazzier style with a short-lived big band called the Grand Wazoo, but returned with a third lineup of the Mothers in 1973. This reformed group retained musical similarities to the previous group and the chamber music of the late '60s Mothers, but with a tighter, funkier sound; George Duke's soulful vocals being perhaps the most memorable addition. From: https://www.last.fm/music/The+Mothers+of+Invention/+wiki
