HALLOWEEN 77

As the title suggests, this album was recorded at the 1977 NYC Palladium Halloween Zappa show. Some of this show is familiar to the long-time Zappa fans, as it was used for an hour long (including commercials) recording used for a radio broadcast. Since I was a rabid Zappa fan in those days (some things don't change), I taped the broadcast (I still have the cassette, and somewhere a digitized version of that tape). But the tape contains only about a quarter of what is on this set.

If you are a fan of the "Sheik Yerbouti" album, it is noted in the liner notes that the band recorded many of that album's basic tracks during the pre-show rehearsals for the series of shows that this one was a part of.

To me, the best parts of this set belong to Tommy Mars (keyboards) and Patrick O'Hearn (bass), two of the most talented musicians Zappa ever brought into his band (that is saying alot, considering the number of of amazing musicians that played for Frank). The fact that Zappa gave them both plenty of solo spots during their tours indicates that the master appreciated their abilities as well.

I won't go too much into the set list, as there are no rarities performed at this concert, but I will pick out a few notable selections.

The rendition of "Conehead" barely resembles the well known version of the song. Here it is barely developed, has no lyrics, and is used as just a riff for an extended guitar solo. The riff sounds a bit like the later versios, so I suppose it could be called the same song.

The real highlight is "Wild Love", extended to just over thirty minutes, including many solos, and some hijinks. Which brings me to the one drawback of this album. A lot of the improvised bits Zappa and his band performed on stage don't translate well to an audio-only release. This can be heard on other albums as well. Throughout this concert, Zappa repeatedly leads the band and the audience through a strange bit of dialogue, that may or may not have made sense at the time. He also brings out Roy Estrada to do his odd sort of conducted vocals, that to me doesn't stand up to repeated listenings.

However, the performances of all of the songs, and there are about thirty of them, are all outrageously good, and make this a great album.

I will be following the tracklist above. On the officially available Halloween 77 on Spotify, the above tracks begin not at the start of that version, but on Disc 4. To reiterate, I started there. I assume this is because the 3-disc version of the album was most available to those who had purchased it. Even as a Zappa fan, I'm glad to trim the fat on this in some way. I often would.

Released 40 years after this performance, this is one of the famed FZ Halloween show boxsets that featured a Halloween mask and more! These are the performances from which the film "Baby Snakes" pulls.

And from the start, as a believer in the great final MOTHERS OF INVENTION above all else (Duke, Murphy Brock, Underwood, Humphrey, Thompson, Fowler x 2, etc.), I take for granted often how good this lineup is--I think it's that I associate the lineup with some of my least favorite, even cringiest Zappa material... Of course is the excellent Terry BOZZIO, but also the self-proclaimed debut Zappa stunt guitarist Adrian BELEW. Mars and Wolf naturally share keys responsibilities, the great Ed Mann is on aux. percussion and O'Hearn is the very tasty bassist found here (famously the only bass solo on any studio album was performed by him, if I'm not mistaken). Original Mother Roy ESTRADA is also a feature on "The Demise Of The Imported Rubber Goods Mask" (and at least one other track), I figured and was correct in figuring a reference to "Prelude To The Afternoon Of A Sexually Aroused Gas Mask" off Weasels Ripped My Flesh (1970).

A hefty undertaking to put together I'm sure, but also one such undertaking for us the listener. It sounds great and it's of course excellently performed all 'round.

Personal highlight tracks are as follows: "City of Tiny Lites" [that synth/piano solo!], the soft if not balladic "Bobby Brown Goes Down" [he pauses midway to read a note attached to a bra and panties haha], "Conehead" [featuring an excellent guitar solo from Frank], Lather [just a great song I'm glad to hear live], [in a surprise event] the 30-minute super-epic version of "Wild Love", "Punky's Whips" [not historically a favorite of these longer tracks from this era], "Camarillo Brillo" just to hear it transition into "Muffin Man" [neither of which are versions I feel are anything particularly special, so we're clear--pretty good solo on the latter though], "San Ber'dino" [if not just because I don't remember hearing this covered by this era's band(s) before; pretty quick, still dancy version], and "Black Napkins".