Roxy & Elsewhere
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| Roxy & Elsewhere | |||||
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| Live album by Frank Zappa | |||||
| Released | September 10, 1974 | ||||
| Recorded | December 10, 1973 – May 8, 1974 | ||||
| Genre | Jazz fusion, progressive rock, hard rock | ||||
| Length | 68:04 | ||||
| Label | DiscReet Records | ||||
| Producer | Frank Zappa | ||||
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Roxy & Elsewhere is a live album by Frank Zappa & the Mothers which was released in 1974. Most of the songs were recorded at The Roxy Theatre in Hollywood, California on December 10, 11 and 12, 1973. The material taken from the Roxy concerts was later amended with some overdubs in the studio, while the 'Elsewhere' tracks were recorded at the Auditorium Theatre in Chicago, Illinois, and Edinboro State College, Pennsylvania and do not contain overdubbed material.
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[edit] Music
This album is considered a high-watermark recording of one of the most celebrated incarnations of the Mothers. It features an array of highly challenging instrumentals such as "Echidna's Arf (Of You)", "Don't You Ever Wash That Thing?", and the opening theme of "Be-Bop Tango (of the Old Jazzmen's Church)". It also features "Cheepnis", Zappa's tribute to low-budget monster movies, and reworks of earlier tracks such as "More Trouble Every Day" and "Son of Orange County" (excerpted from the song "Oh No" and given an extended guitar solo). "Village of the Sun" is about Sun Village, California, an unincorporated area near Palmdale, and also makes references to Lancaster, California, twin city to Palmdale and Zappa's hometown.
[edit] History
[edit] Album
The album primarily comprised recordings from three shows at the Roxy Theater in Hollywood, and featured tracks never before or thereafter released on any Zappa/Mothers album. Material from the Roxy performances were partially overdubbed. The other tracks came from the second show on Mothers Day 1974 in the Chicago Auditorium Theatre and the May 8th Show in Edinboro State College (also 1974).
The opening track, "Penguin in Bondage" is edited together from performances at the Roxy and the Chicago date. The guitar solo on "Son of Orange County" is one of the few Zappa guitar solos edited together from more than one concert, in this case the Edinboro and Chicago dates.
Some of the unused tracks from the Roxy shows are floating around in audience recording trading circles, as well as the entirety of the Edinboro show. Other tracks were released on Volumes One and Three of the You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore series. On a side note, Zappa can be heard, on the released and unreleased Roxy tapes, speaking of the making of a 'film' that could potentially be "broadcast on television," as well as reminding the audience not to be "uncomfortable around the intimidatingly large 16 mm cameras."
A Quadraphonic version of the album was planned and advertised, but never came to pass.
[edit] Unreleased DVD
There was a 3 minute trailer released in the new millennium advertising a Roxy DVD which could potentially contain the footage from all three nights. The trailer was later included on the Baby Snakes DVD as a bonus feature.
Joe Travers has stated that "It's sitting in the vault. Waiting for a budget to do it properly. Basically the film footage, the negatives were transferred by Frank in the '80s using '80s technology. What we want to do is go back to the original negatives and do it in High Definition and then create a 5.1 mix from the original masters so that we have surround sound as well as Frank's 2 channel stereo mix. Once we get all that together, then we need to cut the program. Edit the program together, camera angles, what shows, what we are going to include from what shows or include all the shows. I have no idea what Dweezil and Gail want to do. It's great stuff, but the process of just getting to that point is going to cost a lot of money and take a lot of time." [1] Two songs from the unreleased film ("Montana" and "Dupree's Paradise") were used as opener for the Zappa Plays Zappa concerts in 2006.
On April 1, 2007, Zappa.com unveiled a redesigned website, which included the 30-minute segment from the Roxy performances, which had been used at the Zappa Plays Zappa concerts, on its new videos page.
The clip for "Montana" was included as a bonus feature of the Classic Albums: Apostrophe(')/Over-Nite Sensation DVD, which was released on May 1, 2007.
[edit] Track listing
All selections composed by Frank Zappa and performed by Frank Zappa & the Mothers, except "Dummy Up" composed by Brock, Simmons, and Zappa. All tracks recorded at the Roxy, except "Son of Orange County", "More Trouble Every Day" and parts of "Penguin in Bondage".
[edit] Side one
- "Penguin in Bondage" – 6:48
- "Pygmy Twylyte" – 2:13
- "Dummy Up" – 6:02
[edit] Side two
- "Village of the Sun" – 4:17
- "Echidna's Arf (Of You)" – 3:52
- "Don't You Ever Wash That Thing?" – 9:40
[edit] Side three
- "Cheepnis" – 6:33
- "Son of Orange County" – 5:53
- "More Trouble Every Day" – 6:00
[edit] Side four
- "Be-Bop Tango (Of the Old Jazzmen's Church)" – 16:41
[edit] Personnel
[edit] Musicians
- Frank Zappa – guitar, vocals, producer
- Napoleon Murphy Brock – flute, saxophone, tenor saxophone, vocals
- Robert "Frog" Camarena – backing vocals ("Cheepnis")
- Debbie – backing vocals ("Cheepnis")
- Lynn - backing vocals ("Cheepnis")
- Ruben Ladron de Guevara – backing vocals ("Cheepnis")
- George Duke – synthesizer, keyboards, vocals
- Bruce Fowler – trombone, dancer
- Tom Fowler – bass guitar
- Walt Fowler – trumpet, bass trumpet
- Ralph Humphrey – drums
- Don Preston – synthesizer
- Jeff Simmons – rhythm guitar, vocals
- Chester Thompson – drums
- Ruth Underwood – percussion
[edit] Production staff
- Stephen Marcussen – digital remastering
- Kerry McNabb – engineer, remixing
- Wally Heider – engineer
- Coy Featherstone – photography
- Cal Schenkel – graphic design, design
