(OAM FLAC)
Frank Zappa & The Mothers Of Invention
Town Hall
Birmingham
UK
1969 05 30
~~ Unknown generation stage recording ~~
Current FZshows entry:
1969 05 30 - Town Hall, Birmingham, UK
80 min, Stage, B+/C-
Sound gets progressively worse due to very bad speed fluctuations
improvisations, Lucille Has Messed My Mind Up, Redneck Eats, improvisations, Sunshine Of Your Love, The Orange County Lumber Truck medley, improvisations, Bacon Fat, Status Back Baby, In The Sky, Uncle Meat, Some Ballet Music, Redneck Eats, improvisations (incl. Dog Breath), Wipe Out, Begin the Beguine / Wipe Out
This copy: 81.12 min, Aud, B+/C-
Lineage: Stage recording -> (?) -> Files supplied by faroba -> SF 10 (speed correction, editing) -> wav -> flac
Taped by: Don Preston?
Files supplied by: faroba
Speed corrected and edited by: Flambay
More editing by: Galeans
FZ
Roy Estrada
Jimmy Carl Black
Art Tripp
Ian Underwood
Don Preston
Bunk Gardner
Motorhead Sherwood
Buzz Gardner
01 Improvisation [01:27] °°° cuts in, cuts out, music missing
02 Improvisation [01:27] °°° cuts in, cuts out, music missing
03 Lucille Has Messed My Mind Up [00:45] °°° cuts in, cuts out 0:38, music missing
04 Redneck Eats [04:38] °°° cuts out, music missing
05 Sunshine Of Your Love [00:44] °°° cuts in, music missing
06 The Orange County Lumber Truck medley [16:32] °°° tape glitch? on the left channel 8:20
07 Improvisation [05:36] °°° tape glitch 2:10, 2:15
08 FZ preamble [01:18]
09 Bacon Fat [01:28] °°° tape speed issues 1:13-23, cuts out, music missing
10 FZ preamble [00:55] °°° tape speed issues 0:00-20
11 Status Back Baby [03:04]
12 FZ preamble [00:29]
13 Oh, In The Sky [02:24]
14 FZ preamble [01:30]
15 Uncle Meat [05:11]
16 Some Ballet Music [04:21] °°° tape flip 0:30, music missing
17 Redneck Eats [01:36]
18 Mozart Ballet [00:42] °°° cuts in, cuts out, music missing
19 Boogie in G (incl. Dog Breath) [21:59] °°° tape speed issues 0:00-1, 14:10-32, tape glitch 18:27
20 Encore break & FZ polling the audience [01:58]
21 Wipe Out (incl. Beguin The Beguine) [02:57] °°° tape speed issues 1:09-25, 2:55-7
You asked for it, you finally got it. This is the infamous Birmingham 1969 tape whose existence was first confirmed in 2018. Since four new shows have just surfaced we figured this was the right time to finally liberate this. Beware, though: this material is a total mess.
Let's start with the most obvious issue: the speed problems. These aren't your regular speed problems where the pitch wavers and is inconsistent (although, some of that is present too up to a certain degree): whoever dubbed the tape pressed fast forward during certain sections and the result is what you can imagine. Those sections are not only ear jarring but they can't be corrected in any way. To make things worse, after the tape flip (or probably reel change) on "Some Ballet Music" a bleed through of a recording of The Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and the US version of "Rubber Soul" appears on the left channel becoming really annoying during the quieter parts and, as if that isn't enough, the tape bleed runs at double speed too. Other known problems are a weird channel balance with the left one being muffled and various degrees of tape crunch and other artifacts of the time. Flambay did his best to fix the speed where it was possible and I did my best to improve the channel situation but it's still not ideal, although I doubt anything much better could be presented at this time.
These are the technical problems but there are also some more questions that remain unanswered:
- It's uncertain if tracks 1-4 come from the same show as the others. There is a different ambience, which could be because of the tape being in poor condition, and "Redneck Eats" gets repeated later in the setlist (although the same thing happened on 1969 04 25). The first two improvisations obviously come from two different songs, hence they were split in two different tracks.
- The title cut of "Weasels Ripped My Flesh" was recorded at this venue and at this date but doesn't appear on this recording. There were two shows in Birmingham and it's possible it's from the other show or that it is simply missing here. Speaking of this, we don't know to which show corrisponds this tape.
- This tape could be linked to the 1969 08 08 tape, another unsolved MOI puzzled because it's two different portions that may or may be not coming from the same show. Specifically, this sounds tonally similar to the String Quartet/Bacon Fat part of that recording which I suspect comes from the other show in this venue/date. Another clue is that Musigny23 mentioned coming across the words "Town Hall" (the name of the venue they played here) on these tapes, although he thought it was a reference to NYC.
A pity all this material is so messy because the listenable parts of this tape sound pretty good. This is likely a Don Preston stage recording but I suspect it could even be a Dick Kunc one because the audience is quite audible while it’s usually not on Preston's stage tapes. It's a good vintage Mothers performance with some very interesting items. The most noticeabe event is a short run-through of "Lucille Has Messed My Mind Up" but the rest of the listenable material is quite solid as well, including a great version of "The Orange County Lumber Truck" medley, some interesting improvisations and a great Boogie in G plus some inspired FZ banter. The ending of the show would also be a lot of fun if it wasn't totally destroyed. "Sunshine of Your Love" is very likely the ending of the so-called "Passacaglia" medley.
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