in short:
- finally, after years of patience: there's big news about the purple cucumber.  it's out on cd !!
- doctor dark will play beefheart at zappanale festival !!
- zappa and beefheart mentioned in "high fidelity", the movie
- bogus pomp scheduled to perform with a 15 piece orchestra next august
- bogus pomp show on cable tv in the tampa bay area
- a message from alan jenkins
- gotan project album with zappa tune got rereleased as a limited edition 2cd set
- a steve vai update: new projects
- cuneiform schedules five new albums
- the muffin men have an album out to celebrate their 13th anniv
- the flat earth society has a new album out & is about to perform an opera in germany !
- new releases on favored nations, steve vai's record label
- www.wusb.fm had a 12 hour zappathon
- enrico salvini's muffin utitility art kitchen is worth a visit, a link has beeb added
- corrie van binsbergen and also mike keneally scheduled to perform at the holland festival
- a bunch of additions (and corrections), with a couple of nice surprises
- the zappanale program (once more, because you should learn it by heart), and info about the zappanale #13 bonus cd
- short bits / latest news
- die beistelltische in concert

april 30, 1995, in 'de singel' in antwerp, belgium, a number of contemporary belgian composers paid tribute to frank zappa.  each of the composers had written a piece of music as an hommage to frank zappa.  the music was performed by the brtn philharmonic orchestra, with aid from the zucchini rocking teenage combo, a rock band created for the occasion consisting of robert martin ( keyboards and saxophone), bart maris ( trumpet), danny de cort (guitar), johan vandendriessche (saxophone), and andy jacobson (keyboards), andy treacey (drums) and jake newman (bass) from the muffin men. i was there.  i saw it, i heard it, and i have been very patient ever since.  this was well worth the waiting. thanx to producer zjakki willems (see also the trio cucamonga and the brt big band) i was able to listen to the final product, and have to say that this will really impress some people.  i know that copies of broadcasts and copies of the tapes that were given to the participating musicians are / were circulating, but you can throw all these away now. the real purple cucumber has arrived. after years of problems (bmg, muffin records, and various other record companies), the album has finally found a home at  auditorium edizioni. http://www.auditoriumedizioni.it/01003

zjakki willems told me a couple of days ago that it is available right now.  this means that you can order it at auditorium edizioni directly, or at one or at your local zappa retailer shop. http://www.auditoriumedizioni.it

doctor dark plays the music of captain beefheart. they will be at the zappanale festival, and jimmy carl black is to perform with them.
i've heard these guys and they are good, so i'll just have to go to the zappanale festival.

more doctor dark at: www.doctordark.org

and for the zappanale festival: visit the arf society

ive says:
The movie 'High Fidelity' -(Stephen Frears, 2000) from the book by Nick Hornby, with John Cusak - has a couple of Frank Zappa references and also a Beefheart one:

Rob Gordon has a small cd-shop in outer town.  The movie starts with someone saying something like "only those who are searching for this rare zappa vinyl, take the effort to visit this shop".  The store itself has a couple of Joe's Garage album on display and one of the customers asks for a french import of Captain Beefheart's "Safe as milk".

april 18, 2003, fred hemmer & jerry outlaw said:

Save August 21 as a special show with Bogus Pomp and a 15 piece chamber orchestra ensemble event at the Tampa Theatre. I will announce other info about it soon. This could be their best event ever!

Also, BP is on Tampa area TV as follows:

             please send this to everyone!!!!   BP is being shown on cable access in the area. 
I hope everyone gets to record this!!  It's most of the Clearwater Jazz Holiday performance and it's pretty good if I may say so myself.  Be sure to check out Alex as he dives off the top ring ropes during his bass solo.  Also, (in case you were dying to know) YES that is the world famous Tom Trapp on the drums in this video.   Tom Trapp,.... gentleman and scholar. :)
-- Jerry Outlaw

It airs every -    Monday at 3:30 pm and 11:30 pm
                        Wednesday at 11:00 pm
                        Thursday at 5:30 am
                        Saturday at 2:00 am
on
            Time Warner cable (channel 96) in Clearwater
            GTE Americast (channel 21) in Pinellas County

at the end of 2002, i mentioned the latest alan jenkins album: the thurston lava tube: me ka nahuku     (2002, cd, uk, cordelia records)  besides the fact that this is in fact a classic beatles surf album, it also presents a very pleasant version of frank zappa's 'what's the ugliest part of your body'.  i also said that the album was recorded in alan jenkin's house.  mr.jenkins was kind enough to correct me on this: "One thing though – I wouldn’t want anyone to think it had been recorded in my bedroom – it was recorded in a 24 track recording studio." those of you who are having trouble finding this album, should try: http://homepages.stayfree.co.uk/lavatube/

gotan project: la revancha del tango     (2001, cd, fr, ya basta) - incl. 'chunga's revenge' (frank zappa) french band gotan project included a superb version of frank zappa's 'chunga's revenge' on their "la revancha del tango" album from 2001.  in 2002, the album was rereleased as a 2cd limited edition, including a remix of 'santa maria' and a video-clip of 'santa maria' on the extra disc. gotan project recently was awarded the bbc award for world music. i added a picture of the album cover as well.

in his latest newsletter, steve vai says:

"So, what am I up to? I was working on the new record until about a month ago when another project (it's too early to tell you about) tore me asunder, so I had to put everything on hold for about 6 weeks. It was agony to not be working on the record, but as I write this at 8:30am in the Harmony Hut, the computer is booting up a song that I will be tweaking over and over and over again for the record. The working title of the song is called "Building the Church." It's the part of the story where the shaman enters the town and builds a metaphysical-like living, breathing structure where the townspeople will come and live out their fantasies (or something like that). Hey, sounds like the Jerry Springer show.

I also put the finishing touches on the two new Archives CDs that will be available through Vai.com in about 6 weeks. These two CDs have gone through many changes as the licensing of some tracks have gotten out of hand, but I think you may like Archives Vol. 3 quite a bit. It has all the bonus tracks that were released in Japan from all my CDs. There's one in particular that may take the skin off your face. It's from the Sex And Religion album, called "Just Cartilage." Devin is out of control completely, as usual. By the way, if you have not heard his new CD you're missing out on some intense audio pleasure.

Some of the other things that are going on at the Harmony Hut, hmmm...
Anthony Garone came to our home as an intern and spent about 7 months. He became part of the family and is moving back out to LA in May for a while. He's still going to school so we steal him in-between semesters. Anthony worked for 7 months downloading 80% or so of the tapes in the vault onto hard drives. An opportunity then came up for me to build a music library so I went through everything in the vault and compiled approximately 8-10 CDs of decent stuff out of the approximately 2,500 gigabytes that were downloaded. There's still a major ton of stuff that needs some tweaking and I would probably have about 30 CDs worth of stuff, if not more. I may include bits and pieces into various projects along the way but I do have a historical master plan for all that stuff if anyone is interested in it in the future. Yes, the vault is deep with bytes. I have to put on waist high rubber boots to walk through it.

Brandon Sanders is a wonderful young guy (22) who comes to the Harmony Hut and is tweaking the Astoria DVD as I work on the record. He is basically interning and aspires to be a video editor so this is a perfect opportunity to get the Astoria DVD complete. I edited about 70% of it and then ran out of time but Brandon is proving to have a very good eye for editing. Don't know when the DVD will be available, but I'm hoping by October or so.

Enrico is diligently working away at editing the music library. The Harmony Hut is really a little room and we have a very nice working atmosphere.

As I'm working on this CD I'm planting subconscious mental notes to myself to remember to make the next tour something from another planet. I would like to hear from you your thoughts on what you like most about the shows you have seen along with what either bored you or you didn't like. Mikey will create a special thread on the Message Boards for this discussion.

Sometimes it's difficult and anti-productive for me to think about the next tour because I get so excited I can't focus on anything else. I lay in bed at night sometimes and imagine that I'm on the stage just playing and putting my energy out to everyone. I feel so fortunate. It's truly a blessing. Thanks so much for being there. It's been too long since I've been out there and it's starting to hurt. Odd how that happens. We'll keep you filled in on what's going on."

steve also appears on the latest surinder sandhu album:

• surinder sandhu: saurang orchestra
      (2003, cd, usa, resonator records) - feat. steve vai

those of you who surf this site every once in a while know that i am convinced that cuneiform is a label that deserves your attention.
if you're not familiar with their output, check cuneiform.

for the next couple of month, cuneiform promises another fine selection of albums:

• bone: uses wrist grab
      (2003, cd, usa, cuneiform rune 176)
  

• djam karet: a night for baku
      (2003, cd, usa, cuneiform rune 169)
  

• krakatoa: we are the rowboats
      (2003, cd, usa, cuneiform rune 168)
  

• larval: obedience
      (2003, cd, usa, cuneiform rune 178)
  

• nucleus: live in bremen
      (2003, cd, usa, cuneiform rune 173/174)

the muffin men: live@thecavern  (12)     (2003, cd, uk, private release mmcd 13/1) convinced to celebrate their 13th year of existance in style, the muffin men released a new album.  the first in a series, if i'm correct. live at the cavern has the muffin men the way that i prefer them. a good choice in compositions (mostly zappa, one beefheart, jimmy carl black's 'great white buffalo' and a beatles medley) and raw, but superb soloing. muffin mother roddie on guitar, bass and vocals - carl plays the impressive lead guitar - martin on trumpet and horn - andy on flute, sax and vocal - tilo on powerful drumming. add to this the voice of jimmy carl black and you have a great album. this is essential stuff !!  if you saw them last tour, you know what i mean. www.muffinmen.co.uk

the flat earth society has a new album out, a louis armstrong tribute: "the louis armstrong mutations";
and the 8th of may, te flat earth society will take part in an opera in duisburg, germany.

steve vai's favored nations record label presents a couple of new releases:

• the yardbirds: birdland
      (2003, cd, usa, favored nations) - feat. steve vai
  

• greg koch: radio free gristle
      (2003, cd, usa, favored nations)
  

• tak matsumoto: hana
      (2003, cd, usa, favored nations)
  

• eric sardinas: on tour
      (2003, cd, usa, favored nations)

www.wusb.fm presented a 12 hour zappathon on 2003/4/15.  did anyone hear it?  anything extraordinary on their playlist?

(thanx for the info, mick)

enrico salvini's "the muffin utility art kitchen" shows a lot of original artwork: portraits of frank zappa by comic book artists. i enclosed the link at > frank zappa > links

but it's not just mike keneally and corrie van binsbergen.  just browsing through the program:

• the opera "le balcon" by peter eötvös, music performed by the ensemble intercontemporain, cond. peter eötvös

• the opera "landschaft mit entfernten verwandten" by heiner goebbels, music performed by the ensemble modern and the deutscher kammerchor

• choreographer anne teresa de keersmaeker will dance solo on the music of joan baez.  her group rosas will do a performance on the music of miles davis. (bitches brew)

• the dutch radio symphonie orkest will perform the world première of 'movements for electric guitar and orchestra) written by corrie van binsbergen

• a concert by gary lucas

• the metropole okest will perform a composition by mike keneally and one by vernon reid

• on another occasion, the metropole orkest will perform the music of robert fripp

• and there's more: music and performances by john zorn, marc ribot, the asko ensemble
  

• check out www.hollandfestival.nl for detailed info.
  

there's more news from holland:

2003/04/26, corrie van binsbergen will perform (as part of a group of musicians) the music for a silent movie.  music that she composed.

it takes place in amsterdam.  if you want to know more about this, check out:

http://www.filmmuseum.nl/biennale
or
http://www.sofa.demon.nl

• the berkeley symphony orchestra - i added a picture of the "a zappa affair" program

• rock wives, a book by victoria balfour in which she interviews (ex) wives of famous rock stars, incl.one with gail zappa

• rockers, jazzbos, visionaries, a book by bill milkowski, that also has an interview with frank zappa
      anyone know the publishing date on this one?

• the dave pike set performed and recorded frank zappa's 'mother people' on various occasions. here's another album that i had never heard of:

  • various artists: ljubljana 1969-international jazz festival
        (1969, lp, yugosalvia, helidon lp 08-002)
            – incl. dave pike set: ‘mother people’ (frank zappa)
    

• the g3 concert release (satriani, johnson & vai) on dvd that i talked about last week, is also out on laserdisc:
  

  • joe satriani, eric johnson, steve vai: g3 - live in concert
        (2000, laserdisc, japan, srlm-1526)
            – feat.mike keneally; incl. ‘my guitar wants to kill your mama’ (frank zappa)
    

• in 1991, ron van den boom started publishing beat the books, a collection of xeroxed newspaper clippings and articles about zappa.  each volume counted 200 pages and presented articles from all over the world. the last compilation got published in 1994. - i added the covers of the various volumes.

  • beat the books vol.1 - 12 by ron van den boom
        (1991-1994, 12 books, nl, private release)
    

• a couple of years earlier, around 1989, a bunch of german weirdos started collecting info about the various frank zappa releases: singles, albums, contributions, coverversions, bootlegs, bibliography and more. they collected all the info in the famous torchum books  -  i added pictures of the covers and some sort of index.

  • the tortchum never stops vol.1 -  4 by the torture team
        (1991, 4 books, ger, the torture team)
    

• ten years earlier, nobbi did his zappalog  -   i added the cover of the first and second edition of these essential books.

  • zappalog by norbert obermans
        (1981, book, ger, nobbi)
    

• and for your visual enjoyment, a couple of magazine covers:

  • guitar player presents - zappa!
        (1992, magazine, usa, miller freeman)
  • pulse
        (1993/08, mag, usa, tower records)
  • record collectors' magazine, march 1994 - vol.13 no.3
        (1994/03, magazine, japan)
  • best of guitar player - a definitive tribute to frank zappa
        (1994/05, magazine, usa)

   

if you order your tickets for the next edition of the zappanale festival, scheduled for the last weekend of july in bad doberan, germany, you'll get a zappanale # 13 bonus cd.  i haven't heard or seen it, but mick zeuner was kind enough to send me a preview of the cover.  i have to admit that it looks familiar, somehow... check out the arf society site for detailed info !

** the program **

thursday, 2003/07/24

20.00 - steffen moddrow (germany): "mono sapiens music"

friday, 2003/07/25

13.00 - ben watson with jim cohen (uk / usa):
         "the phenomenology of one size fits all: georg wilhelm friedrich hegel and frank zappa"
14:30-15:30 - jazzprojekt  hundehagen (germany)
15:45-17:15 - zappanoia (portugal)
17:45-19:15 - octafish featuring mike keneally (germany)
19:30-21:00 - eugene chadbourne & jimmy carl black (usa / germany): "the jack and jim show"
21:30-23:00 - muffin men featuring ike willis and napoleon murphy brock (uk / usa)
23:00-00:30 - prawns with horns (australia)

saturday, 2003/07/26

12:00 - jim cohen "zappa meets the presidents" (usa)
14:00-15:00 - alternative tv (uk)
15:30-17:00 - muffin men featuring jimmy carl black and eugene chadbourne (uk / usa)
17:30-19:00 - sheik yerbouti featuring mike keneally (germany)
19:20-20:20 - dr. dark featuring jimmy carl black (usa)
21:00-23:00 - sex without nails bros (austria): " joe's  garage "
23:30-01:00 - nina hagen & band (germany)

sunday, 2003/07/27

12:00-13:30 - the lizard kings (germany)
14:00-15:00 - ike willis & stu grimshaw "der fremde" (usa / germany)
15:30-17:00 - the paul green school of rock music (philadelphia,usa):
     "the music of frank zappa as played by 12-17 year olds"
17:30-19:00 - sex without nails bros featuring ike willis and napoleon murphy brock (austria)
     "roxy and elsewhere"
19:30-21:00 - mike keneally & band
21:00-21:45 – finale  

and here's some last minute info from leo:
(thank you, leo)

• the new grandmothers album will be out in a couple of weeks: "A Grandmothers Night At The Gewandhaus"
  

• there's a volume two scheduled of  "frank you, thank", the italian zappa tribute album
  

• there's a new beefheart tribute album coming:
   "V.A./Neon Meate Dream of a Octafish Tribute to CB and his Magic Band"
  

• the next muffin men album is called "The Muffin Men/Baker’s Dozen"
  

• a gary lucas compilation: "Gary Lucas/Operators Are Standing By; the Essential Gary Lucas 88-96"
  

• Steve Vai/The Secret Jewel Box Archives vol.3

  Tracks: Speed (Munetaka Higuchi + Dream Castle/Free World ’97), The Rumble (V.A./The Songs of West Side Story 96), Queen of the Night (V.A./Angelica 97), Western Vacation (Western Vacation 86), Dirty Love (Zappa’s Universe 93), Can’t Afford the Shoes (Zappa’s Universe 93 not released), I Promise Not to Cum in Your Mouth (Zappa’s Universe 93 not released), Let It Go (Wild Style/ Cryin’ 96), Funk Me Tender (Randy Coven 86), Axis Bold As Love (Hendrix:In from the Storm 95), Drifting (Hendrix:In from the Storm 95), Feed My Frankenstein (Alice Cooper:Hey Stoopid 91), SuperGirl (Rebecca/The best of Dreams ’90)
  

• Steve Vai/The Secret Jewel Box Archives vol.4

  Tracks: Just Cartilage (bonus track Japan Sex & Religion 93), The Murder (bonus track Japan The Fire Garden 96 ), San San NaNa Byoushi (Japan release Alien Love Secrets), Selfless Love, Maple Leafs, Fool For Your Loving (Whitesnake/Slip of the Tongue-Greatest Hits 89/94/VAI voltage mix), Sofa (Zappa’s Universe 93), Rise (PIL 85), Ease (PIL 85), Home (PIL 85), Autumn in Nepal (Bob Harris:The Great Nostalgia 86), There’s Still Hope, Sweet Lady Luck (Whitesnake/Greatest Hits 94)
  

• V.A./Mama Kangaroos [CD]

  An All American [Female] Artist Beefheart Retrospective. Tracks: Frying Pan/The Past Sure Is Tense/I’m Glad
  Apes-Ma/Where There’s Woman/The Witch Doctor Life/Ashtray Heart/When I See Mommy I Feel Like A Mummy/Run Paint Run Run/Nowadays A Woman’s Gotta Hit A Man/Dropout Boogie/Electricity/Plastic Factory/Big Eyed Beans From Venus/Grown So Ugly/I Love You, You Big Dummy/My Head Is My Only House Unless It Rains/Call On Me/Ella Guru/Well/In The Party Of Special Things To Do/Tropical Hot Dog Night/Blabber ‘N’ Smoke/Abba Zaba/Zig Zag Wanderer/Her Eyes Are A Blue Million Miles/Love Lies/Lick My Decals Off, Baby/The Blimp/Full Moon Hot Sun

in concert in germany:

Fr., 2003/04/25: Berlin, Scheselong
Sa., 2003/04/26: Berlin, Scheselong
Fr., 2003/05/16: Burgdorf, Haus der Jugend
So., 2003/07/06: Göttingen Musa

arf, he said,

-- peter van laarhoven