By 1981, Frank Zappa’s Halloween shows in New York were already legendary – a rock and roll bacchanalia of jaw-dropping musicianship, costume-clad revelry, spontaneous theatrical hijinks and of course a heavy dose of Zappa’s signature virtuosic guitar workouts. Eagerly anticipated every year, fans never knew exactly what was in store but knew it would be of epic proportions and one-of-a-kind experience that only Zappa and his skilled group of musicians could provide. When Zappa returned to The Palladium in NYC in 1981 for a five-show four-night run from October 29 to November 1, the nearly-annual tradition was even more anticipated than usual as the 1980 concerts were cut short due to Zappa falling ill. Curiously there was no fall tour the previous year and thus no Halloween shows.
Zappa ’80: Mudd Club/Munich combines two historical performances from the spring/summer 1980 band. The first is from a set at FZ’s favorite NYC nightclub – the famous Mudd Club. Presented from a hi-res transfer of the original master tape. The second, from Olympiahalle in Munich, is the first ever live direct to digital stereo recording of Zappa. Mastering by Bernie Grundman, 2022.
You Are What You Is was another of Frank Zappa's periodic post-Over-Nite Sensation efforts that concentrated on tight songwriting supported by satirical lyrics. Originally a two-record set featuring 20 songs, You Are What You Is skewered a variety of targets, from teenagers, punk rock, disco, and country music to the media, yuppies, the beauty-and-fitness industry, upper-class vice, religious hypocrisy, suicide, and the military draft – all the trappings of Reagan-era America…
Cheap Thrills is designed for the curious listener who has always wanted to explore Frank Zappa but was intimidated by his overwhelming catalog. Of course, so is Strictly Commercial, which contains all of Zappa's most familiar songs, but Cheap Thrills has the advantage of being cheap, plus giving an idea of the weird diversity of Zappa's catalog, since it's filled with cult favorites, live tracks, smutty jokes, and assorted album tracks. It's not necessarily the most accessible introduction to Zappa – again, that would be Strictly Commercial – but it's more accessible than the average album while giving a sense of what the albums feel like. And you can't ask for much more than that from a budget-priced introduction.
Official Release #68. Originally Released: September 1998. All tracks produced by: FZ. Mystery Disc is a compilation album by Frank Zappa. It was released on CD in 1998, compiling tracks that were originally released on two separate vinyl records and included in the mail order Old Masters box sets, which were released in three volumes between 1985 and 1987. (These box sets, issued on Barking Pumpkin, contained repressings of Zappa's albums from Freak Out! (1966) to Zoot Allures (1976), along with a 'Mystery Disc' in boxes one and two.) The CD omits the last two tracks from the 1985 LP, "Why Don'tcha Do Me Right?" and "Big Leg Emma", both of which were included on the CD version of Absolutely Free (1967) in 1989.
EAGLE ROCK ENTERTAINMENT and the Zappa Family Trust are pleased to announce the first official release of A TOKEN OF HIS EXTREME, an original program created by FRANK ZAPPA for TV. Recorded on August 27, 1974 at KCET in Hollywood, A TOKEN OF HIS EXTREME features Frank Zappa with five incredibly talented band members for this extravaganza of live music. Never before available for commercial release A Token of His Extreme isn’t the Holy Grail Frank Zappa release, but it’s one of them.