Beta Zappa Miles
Are any of you readers old enough to have ever owned a Betamax VCR ? Back in the ’80s, I used to be one of those stalwart Beta fanatics that refused to use VHS because the picture quality was better on Beta. I bought a Hi-Fi Beta machine with 80 decibels of dynamic range in its audio circuits and used to record audio tracks onto it, whether there was a video attached to the audio tracks or not. I loaned my last Beta machine to a friend in Athens who returned the machine to me a few months ago. He also gave me all of his old Beta cassettes for my enjoyment. One audio only cassette of his that I had never listened to before was labeled ” Mothers live.” I have listened to other live recordings of The Mothers Of Invention in the past. These recordings are usually comprised of obscure instrumentals that I had never heard of before. What a surprise I got the other night when I listened to this early Mothers live beta audio tape ! The first song on the tape is ” Help I’m A Rock” followed by ” Hungry Freaks Daddy.” I had never heard live versions of these two songs before. These two songs are from what sounds like a soundboard recording and are performed just like they were on the “Freak Out” album, but at a slightly faster tempo. The playing is energetic and tight. Although the third piece is indeed an obscure instrumental, the fourth number is a live version of ” Call Any Vegetable !” All with 80 decibels of dynamic range !
I should add that the reason that I finally listened to this cassette is because I am reading Frank Zappa’s autobiography entitled ” The Real Frank Zappa Book.” He talks about how side four of the Freak Out album was recorded; with five hundred dollars of rented percussion equipment and a gaggle of early mid-sixties hippies from the Sunset Strip, recording from midnight to 6 a.m. one night. Although I don’t have the album cover in front of me, this may be the track entitled ” Return of the Son of the Monster Magnet.” Zappa also mentions that the producer took LSD on the night of that session. Zappa also mentions warming up for Cream in 1968. He says that the three players in Cream all hated each other and had individual road managers and limos. Clapton introduced Zappa to the Plaster Casters on that night. Zappa also talks about the year that the Mothers lived in New York and how Jimi Hendrix and Buddy Miles dropped by a rehearsal one afternoon. Buddy Miles passed on to his greater reward yesterday. Buddy was the drummer on the Hendrix song “Easy Rider” among others.
May God rest your soul Buddy.
I.C.