With two concerts in Stockholm this week the Swedish capital is in sort of Springsteen fever. One can see fans in band t-shirts on the streets everywhere in the city. The first Stockholm concert on this week took place on Monday July 15. More than 53 000 people were in the audience at Strawberry Arena. Many concert-goers rates the show on social media as one of Bruce Springsteen's best Swedish concerts ever. Radio Dupree had one staff member present and can confirm that it was a really great show, three hours long. Bruce chose an unusual song for an opener: Into The Fire. And Bruce & The E Street band really were on fire that night. The 2nd Swedish show takes place on Thursday July 18.
American musician Ed Mann (b. 1954) has passed away. He played percussion in Frank Zappa's band for many years, making his debut there in fall 1977.
He continued touring with Zappa in 1978, 1979, 1981, 1982 and finally in 1988 which came to be Zappa's last tour. Ed Mann plays on numerous Zappa albums and can also be seen in the movie Baby Snakes which was filmed at The Palladium in New York City on Halloween 1977..
Whisky A Go Go, 1968 compiles everything The Mothers of Invention played across their three sets at the Whisky on July 23, 1968. This extensive collection is newly remixed on 5 LP, 2 LP and 3 CD.
FZ recorded the entire evening with the possibility of an album project. Although bits were released by Zappa over the years, a full live album never happened & the tapes sat in the Vault for 55 years.
In 2022 Joni Mitchell left the streaming platform Spotify in solidarity with Neil Young's protest over it hosting anti-vax content. Now both artist's music is back on Spotify.
The Doors’ two legendary sets in Stockholm, Sweden on September 20, 1968, will be officially released on Record Store Day 2024.
The recordings were made by Sveriges Radio and they are highly regarded by many fans and have been bootlegged many times. But now the recordings have been mixed and mastered from the original four-track tapes by Bruce Botnick, the band’s longtime engineer andmixer,.
Seems like we will now get the definitive version of these performances by Jim Morrison, Ray Manzarek, Robby Krieger, and John Densmore.
Frank Zappa fans can expect two interesting books to be released in the nearby future: Frank's daughter Moon Unit Zappa's "Earth to Moon – A Memoir" and Frank's brother in law John "Jay" Sloatman's "Frankly Zappa – An Unauthorized Biography".
"Yes, this is a book about growing up in the shadows of Frank Zappa, in a sexually free, but also dysfunctional world in 1970s LA."
"From Jay’s unwavering loyalty on the road to his invaluable role as a surrogate father to the Zappa children, get ready to be immersed in enthralling stories, pivotal moments, and the complex dynamics within the Zappa family." https://franklyzappa.com/
In the current season of Live From Daryl's House where Daryl Hall - formely of Hall &Oates - eats, talks and and plays with favourite artists, one episode features the living legend Robert Fripp. They seem to hit it off and one musical example is a version of King Crimson's Red.
Here it is! 4 hours and 45 minutes of Frank Zappa music featuring one of his best lineups ever.
The Over-Nite Sensation 50th Anniversary release is a tasty little sucker, to paraphrase the back cover of the Burnt Weeny Sandwich album released in 1970. But this new collection dates from 1973, one of Zappa's most productive years. It emphasises the instrumental side of Zappa's output. Lots of solos by several band members.
The set includes the original album (of course), odd edits, studio óuttakes, demo s and a bunch of live recordings. The musicianship is excellent. No one expects anything else with musicians as George Duke, Ruth Underwood, Jean-Luc Ponty and others. We would also like to mention Ralph Humphrey who seem to be a bit underrated and not as well known as Terry Bozzio and Vinnie Colaiuta. But Ralph is the perfect drummer for this group. All in all, this is a top release!
An unexpected edit of Dirty Love is the third song released for streaming from the upcoming Over-Nite Sensation 50th anniversary album. The other two songs released in advance are Fifty-Fifty (basic tracks) and I'm The Slime,(demo) both different than the album versions. Release date for the 5 disc album: November 17.
Release on November 17! Now this came as a surprise! Zappa Records/UMe has announced a super deluxe edition of Zappa's widely-acclaimed 1973 album Over-Nite Sensation. This 50th anniversary set includes way more than 50 previously unreleased tracks and mixes, both studio and live recordings. As a sneak preview one song is already now released on streaming services, a basic track recording of Fifty-Fifty (check above).
The band featured on this album is top notch! It includes George Duke, Jean-Luc Ponty and Ruth Underwood to name a few.
The music on the upcoming Frank Zappa release Funky Nothingness is what is believed to have been planned for a potential sequel to Zappa's iconic Hot Rats album. The recordings were made in 1970. The band consists of Don "Sugarcane" Harris (violin and vocals), Max Bennett (bass, Aynsley Dunbar (drums), Ian Underwood (keyboards and saxophone), Frank Zappa (guitar). One of the titles is Twinkle Tits, a previously unreleased instrumental that has only been available on the Hot Rats at the Olympic bootleg.
We also get to hear the basic tracks for Stink-Foot (Apostrophe) but in a different context:
Zappa takes lead vocals on the nearly 12-and-a-half-minute-long rendition of Lightnin’ Slim’s “I’m a Rollin’ Stone.” This recording would go on to serve as the genesis for the iconic “Stink-Foot” that closes Zappa’s 1974 album, Apostrophe(‘) as he would eventually wipe his vocals from the multi-track master, save the drum, violin and bass track, and overdub new guitars, vocals and sound effects to create something entirely different. (zappa.com)
Swedish artist Thomas Di Leva is touring Sweden again with Changes – his tribute show to David Bowie. The Radio Dupree staff has seen the show this spring and also in 2019. If you get the chance we can really recommend it. The band is great! Above video was released in 2019.
"Mudd Club/Munich '80" is a 3 CD set featuring Frank Zappa's band during the spring and summer of 1980, the band that featured the drummer David Logeman. This lineup is basically the You Are What You is band. But when it comes to live recordings it has been somewhat overlooked. This new release features two shows, one of them a rare club gig at the Mudd Club in New York City and the other one is a concert at Olympiahalle, Munich, Germany.
The Mudd Club gig is only one hour long. It is recorded with some microphones placed in front of the stage, not a line recording which is unusual. Another odd thing is that there are no microphones on the drums so they are not heard through the PA speakers. The overall sound of the recording is rather dry. This plus that one can clearly hear the audience's response gives this recording an intimate club athmosphere. There is an interesting thing about the two versions of City of Tiny Lites on this 3 CD release. On the Mudd Club show (where the song has a tape cut in the beginning) the guitar solo section has the same chord progression as on the Sheik Yerbouti version. But on the Munich show the band play that part as The Carlos Santana Secret Chord Progression (check out Shut Up'n Play Yer Guitar), an arrangement that bass player Arthur Barrow suggested to Zappa. That is an example of Zappa's ever ongoing development and change of his music, even during a tour.
The Munich show is a full concert (1 hour 45 minutes). Since parts of it was once released as a King Bisquit Flower Hour three sided (!) album for radio stations only it has been widely bootlegged. But here we get the entire show.
The Munich show of 1980 is Zappa's first ever live to 2-track stereo digital recording. It was recorded on a Sony PCM 1600 2-channel digital recording system. Zappa described it as "a live to 2-track original mix, executed from a makeshift 'instant studio' set up in the dressing room."
Drummer David Logeman adds a special flavor to the spring/summer band and also the album You Are What You Is that was recorded rinht after those tours. He had to rehearse and learn a lot of material in a very short time since Zappa's previous drummer Vince Colaiuta left shortly before the spring tour. There is an interesting interview with Logeman on the February 2023 episode of ZappaCast with Scott Parker, Joe Travers and Phil Surkis. (Check link below.)
It seems like Logeman has not been interviewed on his days with Zappa before but he has some good stories to tell and also seems to be a really nice guy. "Frank would like to tour with material and then record it. You know most artists that I'd ever worked with would record the stuff first and then they would go and tour. To me that was very unique and very interesting. He gave me a lot of artistic freedom to come up with drumfills and parts that obviously he had to approve on."
Terry Hall, frontman of British band The Specials has died at the age of 63.
The sad news came from the band on social media:
"It is with great sadness that we announce the passing, following a brief illness, of Terry, our beautiful friend, brother and one of the most brilliant singers, songwriters and lyricists this country has ever produced."
Terry Hall joined The Specials a couple of years before the release of their debut album in 1979 which is now a classic. They had hits with songs as Ghost Town, Gangsters and Too Much Too Young.
Hall died after a brief illness, The Specials said in their statement.
