FILLMORE EAST, JUNE 1971

This 1971 recording features the modified Flo and Eddie line up of the Mothers performing live in the final days of the famous Fillmore East venue. F&E's previous day job with the west coast pop band The Turtles is referenced through a reasonably straight version of their hit "Happy together".

Things are kept pretty tight throughout the performance, the majority of the tracks being short. The album features mainly new material, but brief renditions of a couple of tracks from "Hot rats" (Willie the pimp" and "Peaches en regalia") are included. After the orthodox jazz rock start of "Little house I used to live in", Frank goes into his first spoken narrative for "The mud shark", a shaggy dog story of no consequence. The track introduces an increasingly seedier set of songs, "What kind of girl do you think we are" sounding at times distinctly like a Jim Morrison indulgence.

"Willie the pimp" is split in two, ending side one of the LP and starting side two. Bizarrely, the break is abrupt, in mid performance of the song. From a prog perspective, apart from the "Hot rats" songs, the album is virtually devoid of anything relevant. By the time we get to "Do you like my new car" things have sunk to an astonishingly low depth, with a total dearth of music and humour. Don Preston's mini-moog solo during the "Lonesome electric turkey" encore is curtailed here, but at least offers something of interest.

While this live recording is clearly Frank and the band having fun, and would have been far more entertaining had the listener been present for the event, the album misfires on just about every count. The humour is not humorous, the generally music takes a sorry second place, and the frequent childish sleaze references quickly become tiresome.

The sleeve is a strange affair, consisting entirely of rather unattractive hand scrawled notes, and a plea from Frank "Don't forget to register to vote".

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