Oil Well Bootlegs - RSC CD: Frank Zappa - Twinkle Tits Oil Well RSC 063 CD

Frank Zappa - Twinkle Tits
Oil Well RSC 063 CD

1. Sharleena (10:25)
2. Twinkle Tits (10:20)
3. Directly From My Heart to You (5:50)
4. Chunga's Revenge (24:31)
Length: ~45 min

Note:
All songs by Frank Zappa
Live In Los Angeles, CA - March 7, 1970.

Lineup:
Bass – Max Bennett
Drums – Aynsley Dunbar
Electric Guitar, Vocals – Frank Zappa
Keyboards – Ian Underwood
Violin – Don "Sugarcane" Harris

This album is a clone of: For Sharleena by Flashback Records
All songs recorded live at the U.S.A., Olympic Auditorium, Los Angeles, March 7th, 1970. First concert performance of the short-lived Hot Rats band.
Also performed was Willie the Pimp, missing from this release.
The original Frank Zappa & Hot Rats at the Olympic bootleg LP was one of the earliest Zappa bootlegs. It was released some time between 1970 and 1974. This Oil Well version has a fine cover, fine quality. Limited to 200 copies only. Due to its rarity and good quality, this disc is recommended.
Please note that this CD is one of the most rare from this italian bootleg label!
Read below for more informations!

Audio quality:

Quality content:

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Live In Los Angeles, CA - March 7, 1970.
This time, it’s the spring 1970 Hot Rats band, consisting of FZ (guitar), Max Bennett(bass), Aynsley Dunbar (drums), Sugarcane Harris (electric violin), Ian Underwood (keyboards, alto saxophone) tearing the roof down with material from Hot Rats and (the at the time, still unreleased) Chunga’s Revenge. This band was given a distinct identity and feel among Zappa geeks by the addition of Sugarcane’s electric violin. He is showcased on this night with a great setlist, perfect for his improv style. This night is also preserved with a great(especially for it’s time) recording that has been lovingly restored by the folks at Zappateers.com. What a night this must’ve been.

After the tune up, the band launches into an early, psychadelic-bluesy(compared to it’s later reggae incarnation) version of Sharleena. The first Frank solo is great, but then Sugarcane ratchets it up a notch on his solo, hosing the crowd with a rainbow assault of slithering notes that wash over the crowd, leaving them in a daze. This daze doesn’t have time to last, as Frank steps it up again on his second solo and destroys the room…he can do this at will. Finally, as if sensing the crowd needs to be rescued, Sugarcane comes back and simply plays beautiful variations on the Sharleena theme and puts out the fires before wrapping the song up and giving the crowd a breather. That’s how Frank opens a show!

Next up is Twinkle Tits, which is an amazing journey that fuses jazz and baroque together into a hyper ballet of notes, tones and time signatures that all battle for balance. At times it feels like it might all fall apart but that’s the thing about Franks bands…they held it together. I don’t know how, but they did. Around the 5:40 mark the band drops out, leaving just drums and bass to hold the groove for a few seconds(the musical equivalent of taking a deep breath before jumping off a cliff into unknown waters). Then Franks comes in and takes the song into a war zone for about a minute and a half, until the recording is unfortunately cut and comes back into the “interlude”, which is in itself, amazing…I just can’t help but wonder what the hell must have happened on that stage during the minutes the tape was cut. Maybe it got so crazy the tape recorder couldn’t handle it and just shut itself off? Ha, maybe not, but it’s just a thought.

Following the madness of the opening numbers, Frank gives the crowd a chance to recover with a fairly straightforward blues, Directly From My Heart To You. There is a great Sugarcane solo here, but this serves mainly as a rest for the beast that was to be unleashed next…

Chunga’s Revenge would prove in years to be a staple in Frank’s repertoire, opening many shows and serving as a band intro vehicle, but on this night it was something much, much more. First, the song had yet to be released on an album yet, so the crowd was probably hearing it for the first time on that night. Second, it was played with such ferocity that even the band must’ve been a little scared. Finally, it was a juggernaut, lasting over 20 minutes, going in a hundred different directions. Sometimes the band would lock in on a groove and ride it together for a bit and then someone would jump out of the gate and try and pull it in a different direction. It was true collaboration and improvisation, only touching down here and there to return to the safety of it’s great bass line theme… and then, Boom! the band is off again, shredding the building to pieces. There are too many amazing moments to mention(FZ taking delicate control around the 10:07 mark only to abuse his Gibson shortly after is one), so included below are two youtube clips containing the entire trip. Enjoy.

The whole thing winds down with Willie The Pimp…well it doesn’t wind down as much as it comes to an end…there is no letting up here, more like closure. It, like the rest of this amazing performance, is not to be missed.Frank and the boys were on fucking fire this night. I am so glad to have finally heard this incendiary performance captured in such fine quality. Thanks again to Zappateers.com. If you haven’t heard this show yet, download it and prepare to have your mind blown.

Bill Graham Opens Olympic
By Rick Sakai, New University, March 11, 1970
“I think we’re going to be here for a while,” Bill Graham beamed, introducing a rock “spectacular” presented at the Olympic Auditorium last Saturday night.[1] The dance concert, which featured Bigfoot, Mountain, Johnny Winter, and Frank Zappa, was the first of a series of bi-weekly shows which Graham plans to stage at the Olympic during the next few months.

Graham, the rock concert impresario who has become well known for his productions at the Fillmore West in San Francisco and the Fillmore East in New York, was forced to close down operations at the Fillmore West earlier this year and has apparently decided to start fresh in Los Angeles after an unsuccessful attempt to establish himself at the Winterland hall in Oakland.
The concert began promptly at 8:30 Saturday evening with Bigfoot, a popular “honky soul” group from Orange County. Though their set amounted to little more than a tolerable imitation of the Electric Flag on a less grandiose scale, the group was well received by an audience that seemed up for anything Graham could offer.

After a brief intermission for equipment set-up Graham introduced Mountain, an eastern group featuring lead guitarist Leslie West and Felix Pappalardi on bass, The infamous “Pappalardi touch” so conspicuous in the later Cream albums and most of his other productions was unmistakable in Mountain, especially in “Theme for an Imaginary Western” from Jack Bruce’s album, “Songs for a Tailor”, which Pappalardi also produced. Leslie West’s lead playing was slightly reminiscent of Jimmy Page in the first Led Zeppelin album, though a bit tidier and with a really effective use of feedback. The entire set, in fact, was an impressive display of musical economy, with Pappalardi completely in charge, making sure everything was cued in at the proper time and cut short at the point of excess. West’s singing was no less skillful, especially in his performance of Lee Michael’s “Stormy Monday” which was, but for the peculiar charismatic quality of Michael’s voice, as good as the original. The set ended, as unobtrusively as it had begun, with a surprisingly well-arranged and performed drum solo – an unfortunate rarity in rock music.

The second intermission was considerably longer, much to the dismay of Bill Graham who was on stage after every act, barking orders at equipment managers and hurrying things along whenever possible. Graham, needless to say, is no amateur in the concert game and his determination to sell his shows in L.A. was evident in the meticulous production of the performance at the Olympic. Sound and lighting were better than ever at the aging home of the Roller Derby which has been used occasionally for rock concerts in the past.

After the lengthy intermission, which may have been appropriately climactic for the phenomenon that was to follow, Johnny Winter came fluttering out on stage like any good Columbia superstar would, bringing the entire auditorium to its feet. Looking like something you’d expect to see dancing on top of an eyeball in a Bosch painting, Winter slinked around the stage in a jet black outfit and a colored scarf which hung from his neck down to his knees – an eerie contrast to the white skin and shoulder-length white hair of the albino bluesman from Texas. Although two-and-a-half albums have not managed to make Winter the Clapton or Alvin Lee that Columbia Records paid a lot of bread to produce, he is nonetheless a dynamic performer with an exceptional stage presence which earned him an encore and several standing ovations at the Olympic. He performed several blues and rock standards, his rusty voice wailing on “Mean Town Blues” and “Rollin’ and Tumblin’” and those relentless, flashy Chuck Berry riffs accenting frequent displays of instrumental acrobatics. Winter is fast probably as fast as the celebrated Alvin Lee with considerably more class, and his tight “bottleneck” playing ranks among the better white interpretations. In short, Winter proved to be everything Columbia tried to sell him as, though his musical proficiency was much less evident in his records than in his performance at the Olympic.

Johnny Winter and his band ended their set at 12:20 and before anyone really had a chance to catch their breath, Graham introduced Frank Zappa. Zappa, the self-exiled genius, who showed the rock scene where it was going several years before it went, came to Bill Graham’s show to put down some serious music. He has long since passed the Mothers of Invention, Rubin and the Jets, and all the games he used to play with people’s heads. Although it may have only been his enthusiasm for the show, Zappa also seemed to have lost a good deal of that caustic irony in his past performances reﬂected by his now-famous observation that “kids wouldn’t know good music if it came up and bit ‘em on the ass.” Though with tongue firmly in cheek, he even walked to the edge of the stage to greet fans before his set began.

Lineup

And Zappa was as up for the Olympic show as anyone. He appeared with the bass player, organ-saxophonist Ian Underwood, and violinist “Sugar Cane” Harris (Don of “Don and Eddie” from the El Monte Legion Stadium) who were his sidemen on his “Hot Rats” album. All three are exceptionally talented musicians who fit in well with Zappa’s music. Harris is a phenomenon in himself, thrashing at his instrument with unbelievable, intensity and control, and although Underwood’s sax work was somewhat less inspired than it was on “Hot Rats”, he still came off much better than most of the self-styled Coltranes that have been cropping up among rock groups lately. Also performing with the group was Aynsley Dunbar, formerly a drummer with John Mayall.

Zappa tied the entire performance together with his own guitar work which was a joy to hear of its own accord. He is one of the few rock guitarists around that knows how to use electronic gimmicks like wah-wah pedals as musical instruments rather than toys and his unique playing style blended superbly with the violin and tenor sax which were also augmented by electronic effects.
Zappa, even more than Pappalardi, was in full control throughout the performance. Cuing solos in, fading them out, gesturing for crescendos with all the grandeur of a symphony conductor, he provided a tightness for the group which was equalled only by its technical proficiency.

During the last song of his set, “Willie the Pimp” from “Hot Rats”, he decorated a microphone stand with audience contributions which included a couple of shirts, a pair of pants, a bra, and several joints. After fading the group out Zappa stepped to another mike with a timing that was almost too good to have been spontaneous and proclaimed triumphantly, while pointing to the stand. “In this performance of “Willie the Pimp” you, the people of Los Angeles, have created an Orange County.”

But even if Graham had not assembled this particular collection of outstanding musicians, even if Winter and Zappa had been replaced by less talented performers, the show itself would have remained the success it was. Graham created the perfect concert, from its beginning five minutes ahead of schedule to its inspiring end five-and-a-half hours later. Winter played for ninety minutes, Zappa almost that long, and most impressive of all, they played to a predominately cool, unhassled audience that paid only four bucks for the privilege of hearing. As Zappa himself observed with a noticeable touch of nostalgia in his voice, “It’s good to see some action like this happening in Los Angeles. It’s been along time.”

1. March 7, 1970. The Zappa's band was FZ, Max Bennett, Aynsley Dunbar, Sugarcane Harris, Ian Underwood. According to FZShows the setlist was Sharleena, Twinkle Tits, Interlude (aka Another Whole Melodic Section), Directly From My Heart To You, Chunga's Revenge, Willie The Pimp
https://www.afka.net/Articles/1970-03_New_University.htm

Who is Frank Zappa
Composer, guitarist, singer, and band leader Frank Zappa was a singular musical figure during a performing and recording career that lasted from the 1960s to the '90s. His disparate influences included doo wop music and avant-garde classical music; although he led groups that could be called rock & roll bands for much of his career, he used them to create a hybrid style that bordered on jazz and complicated, modern serious music, sometimes inducing orchestras to play along.

As if his music were not challenging enough, he overlayed it with highly satirical and sometimes abstractly humorous lyrics and song titles that marked him as coming out of a provocative literary tradition that included Beat poets like Allen Ginsberg and edgy comedians like Lenny Bruce. Nominally, he was a popular musician, but his recordings rarely earned significant airplay or sales,yet he was able to gain control of his recorded work and issue it successfully through his own labels while also touring internationally, in part because of the respect he earned from a dedicated cult of fans and many serious musicians, and also because he was an articulate spokesman who promoted himself into a media star through extensive interviews he considered to be a part of his creative effort just like his music.

The Mothers of Invention, the '60s group he led, often seemed to offer a parody of popular music and the counterculture (although he affected long hair and jeans, Zappa was openly scornful of hippies and drug use). By the'80s, he was testifying before Congress in opposition to censorship (and editing his testimony into one of his albums). But these comic and serious sides were complementary, not contradictory. In statement and in practice, Zappa was an iconoclastic defender of the freest possible expression of ideas. And most of all, he was a composer far more ambitious than any other rock musician of his time and most classical musicians, as well.