(Audience FLAC)
Frank Zappa
October 31st, 1978
The Palladium
New York City, NY
Lineage:
Main source pre-fl/ZP:
Aud (unknown equipment) > low gen CrO2 cassettes > wav (CEP, tracked, speed corrected) > FLAC (Frontend with SBE correction)
Alt. source pre-fl/ZP:
Aud (unknown equipment) > ? > FLAC (one big mystery!)
ZP extra lineage:
> .FLAC Frontend (decoded to .WAV) > WavMerge (all tracks merged) > Wavelab (speed correction per flambay) > GoldWave (patches edited in) > CDWav (tracks split, saved as .FLAC level 8 ) > you, the listener
Band:
Frank Zappa - guitar, vocals
Patrick O'Hearn - bass, vocals
Arthur Barrow - bass, vocals
Denny Walley - slide guitar, vocals
Vinnie Colaiuta - drums, seal calls
Ed Mann - percussion
Tommy Mars - keyboards, vocals
Peter Wolf - keyboards
Guests:
L. Shankar - electric violin
Warren Cucurullo - monologue
Nancy - monologue
01. Ancient Armaments
02. Intro
03. Dancin' Fool
04. Easy Meat
05. Honey Don't You Want A Man Like Me?
06. Keep It Greasey
07. The Meek Shall Inherit Nothing
08. City Of Tiny Lights
09. Pound For A Brown (tapeflip @ 2:53, patched with alt source)
10. Thirteen (main source resumes @ 0:26)
11. Ms. X
12. Nancy's Life Story
13. Dinah-Moe Humm
14. Go Cry On Somebody Else's Shoulder
15. Little Rubber Girl (tapeflip @ 3:11, patched with alt source)
16. Idiot Bastard Son (main source resumes @ 0:04)
17. Bobby Brown
18. Conehead
19. Suicide Chump
20. Little House I Used To Live In (tapeflip @ 17:26, patched with alt source)
21. Watermelon In Easter Hay (main source resumes @ 0:11)
22. Preamble
23. Stinkfoot
24. Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance
25. Peaches En Regalia
26. Strictly Genteel
27. Sofa
28. Packard Goose (tapeflip @ 4:18-5:32, patched with alt source)
29. Magic Fingers
30. Don't Eat the Yellow Snow
31. Nanook Rubs It
32. St. Alphonso's Pancake Breakfast
33. Father O'Blivion
34. Rollo
35. Camarillo Brillo
36. Muffin Man
37. Black Napkins (cuts @ 5:44, patched with alt source)
38. The Deathless Horsie (all from alt source, clicks in last 0:05 or so)
Notes:
With L. Shankar on tracks 10, 18, 20-21, 24, 28, and 38.
'Sup, guys, how about a little January Surprise? Nothing too TERRIBLY mind-blowing here... just, you know, the longest show FZ ever played, and one of those pesky "must-have" shows in the FZShows oeuvre.
Seriously now, really and truly, what needs to be said about this one? Zappa, O'Hearn, Shankar, special guests, epic jams (Packard Goose - does anything more need to be said?), oftimes-bizarre rarities (dig that Idiot Bastard Son - the backing music sounding almost like Läther) and old standby favorites (probably the finest version of Watermelon in Easter Hay ever played live) all unite for nearly four hours of absolute magic.
Just to scratch the very surface of what's on offer here: we have twelve minutes of relative dead air (Ms. X and, even moreso, Nancy's Life Story). Bobby Brown is played. The bass on Easy Meat is really... out of tune. Those fifteen minutes combined are the lowpoint of the show.
The high point? If I had to choose just one (which, evidently, I do), I'd go with Packard Goose. Nearly twenty minutes of blisteringly intense soloing from both Zappa and Shankar which, were it not for the "recent" discovery of the final fifteen minutes of the show, would be easy to consider the "climax" (in a dramatic sense) of the night. Considering that, as I already mentioned, this show also features what may well be the finest Watermelon in Easter Hay ever performed before a live audience (as well as some positively sick soloing in other places), I think considering Packard Goose the highlight is saying something.
About that "recent" discovery hidden in that previous paragraph: Evidently there were two very-well-prepared tapers in the audience that night. One of them made his recording from the floor, the other from the balcony. I believe it's the balcony recording which has been in circulation since the 1980s, but someone may have to correct me. Anyway, the other recording didn't see wide circulation until sometime in the late 1990s (late 1998, to hear Foggy G tell it).
It had always irked me that this show was incomplete, especially when we knew a complete "patch" was out there. Of all the shows to be left in an incomplete condition, why this one!? Why the Big One? Of course, I devoted the next year or so of my life to bitching about this fact whenever remotely possible, until one day, from out of the blue, our very own flambay contacted me, with news that was not just exciting, but downright STARTLING.
Not only was this second source out there - this second source, containing nearly ten minutes of breath-taking Deathless Horsie jamming - but, in a development which I had completely forgotten about, it was a COMPLETE version of this second source. In other words, a version which could be used for - wait for it - PATCHES!
Yes, the original source of this show was a very nice sounding recording, but suffered from one major flaw: Of the four extended numbers (Pound, Little House, Packard, Black Napkins / Deathless), only one of them did not feature a tape-flip at some point. Nothing more frustrating than hearing that delicious guitar slam kick off the solo section to Packard Goose, only to be yanked back to reality as the violin solo quickly fades out.
Well, okay, plenty of more frustrating things (tapes running out with no replacement, for instance), but still, tape cuts suck.
Long story short: Thanks to flambay, each and every tape cut has been patched with the alternate source, which sounds a bit darker (strangely devoid of ambience - maybe it's the balcony recording? Who knows!), and each and every minute has been speed corrected.
While there -may- be an even more superlative version out there (the patch source claims to be from a master recording, but shows clear signs of NR), this is still at the very least 95% "as good as it gets" (the main source being a probable second-gen), and sometimes - very, very rarely, but sometimes - the prospect of a little post-holiday surprise trumps Official Procedure.
For even more thoughts on this show ("the show of shows" itself!), or just something to get you even more psyched to get this little nugget downloaded, check out Foggy G's take right here, and if you still can't get enough, head on over to this entry on the sadly-defunct FZ Tape Reviewer's Society. Just ignore all those words about tape-flips - none to be found here Very Happy
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