This page is a modified extract of 1976-1977: US-Canada / Europe tours from FZShows, v. 7.1.
== Frank Zappa's Band Dec 26 - Dec 29 1976 ==
FZ, Ray White, Patrick O'Hearn, Terry Bozzio, Eddie Jobson, Ruth Underwood, Dave Samuels, Brecker Bros., Lou Marini, Ron Cuber, Tom Malone.
26-Dec 1976, Palladium, NYC
109 min, Aud, B/B-
Peaches En Regalia, America Drinks And Goes Home/Black Page #2, Punky's Whips, I Promise Not To Come In Your Mouth, Honey Don't You Want A Man Like Me?, The Illinois Enema Bandit, Sofa, I'm The Slime, Pound For A Brown (incl. Black Page #1), Big Leg Emma, Purple Lagoon (incl. Any Kind Of Pain, q: Mo's Vacation), Find Her Finer, Manx Needs Women, Titties 'n Beer, Cruising For Burgers, Black Napkins, Dinah-Moe Humm, Penis Dimension, Montana
27-Dec 1976, Palladium, NYC
153 min, Aud, B+ and 41 min, Aud, A-
The better sounding version has some speed problems, starts in Peaches and cuts at the beginning of Illinois Enema Bandit.
Intro, Peaches En Regalia, Torture Never Stops, Black Page #2, Punky's Whips, I Promise Not To Come In Your Mouth, Honey Don't You Want A Man Like Me?, The Illinois Enema Bandit, Sofa, I'm The Slime, Pound For A Brown (incl. Black Page #1), Big Leg Emma, Purple Lagoon (free form version), Find Her Finer, Manx Needs Women, Titties 'n Beer, Cruising For Burgers,Black Napkins, Dinah-Moe Humm, Montana
28-Dec 1976, Palladium, NYC
176 min, Aud, B+ and 60 min, Aud, A-/B+ (only*)
Intro, Peaches En Regalia, Torture Never Stops, Black Page #2 (ZINY version - played twice!), Punky's Whips, I Promise Not To Come In Your Mouth, Honey Don't You Want A Man Like Me?, The Illinois Enema Bandit, Sofa, I'm The Slime, Pound For A Brown (incl. Black Page #1), Big Leg Emma, Purple Lagoon* (solos on ZINY), Find Her Finer*, Manx Needs Women, Titties 'n Beer, Cruising For Burgers*, Dinah-Moe Humm*, Montana
29-Dec 1976, Palladium, NYC
195 min, Aud, B-/C+
Intro, Peaches En Regalia, The Torture Never Stops, Black Page #2, Penis Dimension, Montana, Punky's Whips, I Promise Not To Come In Your Mouth, Honey Don't You Want A Man Like Me, Illinois Enema Bandit, Sofa, I'm The Slime, Pound For A Brown. Black Page #1, Big Leg Emma, Preamble, Approximate/Purple Lagoon (w/Be-Bop Tango), Find Her Finer, Improv/Manx Needs Women, Titties And Beer, Cruising For Burgers, Dinah Moe Humm, Black Napkins
There's use to be some doubts about the correct date (26 or 29) of the first tape of this batch. In September 2007 surfaced for the first time to a larger audience the long Dec 29 tape. So no doubts anymore, but I keep the following discussion for future memory,
An old and interesting discussion about the exact date on which one of these tapes was recorded had its summary in September 2005 on AFFZ:
From Patrick Boie:
Any Kind of Pain was played as an instrumental in its entirety, in the middle of The Purple Lagoon at the Christmas 1976 (ZINY) shows, only once. It was also rehearsed by the 81 band.
It is unclear which show it was played at; some folks think the recording is from the first show of the run, some think it is from the last show. The circulating recordings are usually dated '12/29/76' (the last show).
From Charles Ulrich:
I think that the recording in question is from the first show (12/26/76).
The mystery tape contains a number of mistakes in the lyrics, by various people:
- Terry Bozzio reverses the order of "I ain't gay/I ain't queer" in Punky's Whips;
- Ray White reverses the order of "It was ladies' night/The drinks were cheap" in Honey Don't You Want A Man Like Me?;
- Don Pardo says "the day that you don't need me" in I'm The Slime.
The errors in Punky's Whips and I'm The Slime could be due to insufficient rehearsal if this was 12/26/76, the premiere performance of each piece by this band. As for Ray White, who had been singing Honey Don't You Want A Man Like Me? since October, I guess his excuse was that he hadn't performed the song for a month.
Also, FZ forgets Mike Brecker's first name, which hopefully he didn't do after the first night.
Relatively little of Zappa In New York is taken from this show: the guitar solo in I'm The Slime, Pound For A Brown, and possibly some of the songs that sounded the same each night.
In contrast, most of Zappa In New York is taken from the show for which no audience recording is in circulation: Titties & Beer, Cruising For Burgers, guitar solo & other parts of Punky's Whips, some or all of Honey Honey Hey, Illinois Enema Bandit, The Torture Never Stops, baritone sax & bass solos in Purple Lagoon, and possibly some of the songs that sounded the same each night.
This makes sense if the mystery tape is from the first show, the show for which no audience tape is in circulation is the last show, and the band got progressively better each night.
[The fact that the circulating recordings are usually dated '12/29/76' (the last show)] is largely due to the influence of Jon Naurin's FZShows. Jon acknowledges that this tape has circulated under both dates, but he lists it as 12/29/76.
My understanding is that his decision was based primarily on the fact that Patrick O'Hearn quotes Mo's Vacation in Purple Lagoon on the mystery tape.
From Pat Buzby:
My understanding of [Jon] view was:
a) On the ZINY CD Crusing solo, FZ plays a motive which later became the opening of Mo's Vacation. FZ later mentioned in an interview that this Mo's theme came from a solo of his. (I don't have the specific quote, which might shed some light on things.) This solo is not on the three unofficial tapes.
b) On this undated tape, O'Hearn plays the same motive. Cruising appears later on the tape.
c) Since FZ presumably played this motive before O'Hearn, this tape can't be from the first night.
IMO, all other musical evidence suggests that the tape is from the first night. But, hey, I wasn't there.
From Jon Naurin:
Yes, this was my argument exactly. I believe the quote is in "The Interview Of The Century", and that FZ cites it as an example of compositions that came out of guitar solos. That lead me to assume that that particular guitar solo was the first time the Mo's theme was played ever, and thus, the undated tape (with O'Hearn's quote in Purple Lagoon) is from a later date than the ZINY version of Cruisin' For Burgers.
I agree [that all other musical evidence suggests that the tape is from the first night], and I should change my documents accordingly. I would be very surprised if the very untight performance on the undated show was the fourth and last by this band, while their first would be so good that much of it ended up on ZINY.
The question still stands, though: how come Patrick played the Mo's Vacation theme on stage before FZ? The most plausible answer: Frank had composed it before this run of shows, and both Patrick and he quoted it. More intriguing theory: when O'Hearn played it, it was improvised, FZ heard it, liked it, quoted it and later used it for Mo's Vacation.
Either way, FZ was wrong in that interview.
Finally, the FZ statement they are talking about, taken from FZ "Non-Foods" column in "Guitar Player" - November 1983 (thanks to Charles Ulrich):
The violin solo figure, the theme for the second movement of Mo 'N Herb's Vacation, was a lick that I used to play in that band with [bassist] Patrick O'Hearn and [drummer] Terry Bozzio. I would use that during the solo in the The Sheik Yerbouti Tango [...] or Little House I Used To Live In [...] - songs we played during that era. The opening phrase of the first movement of Mo 'N Herb's Vacation, the clarinet figure in the front, was from a guitar solo recorded at the Palladium, Christmas, 1976, from a big band rendition of Cruisin' For Burgers.
Corrections and additions are really welcome.This page created on February 2005 and latest revised on November 2, 2007