Fillmore East - June 1971

Fillmore East – June 1971
Live album by The Mothers
Released	August 2, 1971
Recorded	Fillmore East, New York City, June 5–6, 1971
Genre	Comedy rock, jazz fusion, hard rock, progressive rock
Length	43:11
Label	Bizarre/Reprise
Producer	Frank Zappa
Professional reviews
Allmusic link Robert Christgau (C-) link
Frank Zappa chronology
Chunga's Revenge (1970) Fillmore East – June 1971 (1971) 200 Motels (1971)

Fillmore East – June 1971 is a live album by The Mothers, released in 1971.

This was a live concept-like album. It was a quick peek behind the curtain of the life of a rock band on the road as narrated by Frank Zappa, and contains many thematic elements that, because of time and budget constraints, couldn't be included on the similar movie 200 Motels. The most famous part of the album is "The Mud Shark", a telling of a story told to Mother Don Preston by some members of Vanilla Fudge about a hotel, Seattle's Edgewater Inn, where guests could fish from their rooms. In the tale, a mud shark is caught by one of the members of Vanilla Fudge or its crew and, when combined with a groupie and a movie camera, depravity ensues. Although not stated in "The Mud Shark," this 1969 incident, now referred to as "the Shark episode," also involved Led Zeppelin's drummer John Bonham and road manager Richard Cole, with Vanilla Fudge's singer/keyboardist Mark Stein manning the movie camera.

Frank Zappa at the Fillmore East, June 5, 1971, during recording of the album

Frank and the Mothers then portray stereotypically egotistical members of a rock band "negotiating" with a groupie and her girlfriends for a quick roll in the hay. The girls are insulted that the band thinks they are groupies and that they would sleep with the band just because they are musicians. They have standards; they will only have sex with a guy in a group with a "big, hit single in the charts – with a bullet!" and a "dick that’s a monster." In "Bwana Dik", singer Howard Kaylan assures the girls that he is endowed beyond their "wildest Clearasil-spattered fantasies." And, not to be put off by the standards of these groupies, the band sings the girls the Turtles (of which Kaylan, Volman, and Pons had been members) hit "Happy Together", to give them their "bullet". The album ends with an encore excerpt including both Zappa's familiar "Peaches en Regalia" and what was possibly his most successful early-rock and roll pastiche, "Tears Began to Fall" (also issued as a single).

When this album was reissued on compact disc by Rykodisc, "Willie the Pimp, Pt. 2" was omitted from the track line-up. It has yet to appear on a legitimate digital release. It should be noted however that the track length of the CD release is not greater than the sum of both parts of the LP release.

John Lennon used a copy of the cover (adding his own red-inked credits to the album's black-ink handwritten ones) to provide liner notes for Live Jam, a bonus disc included with Some Time in New York City, which included a June 1971 Fillmore East performance of Zappa and The Mothers with Lennon and Yoko Ono.

Track listing

All songs by Frank Zappa, except where noted.

Personnel

• Frank Zappa – guitar, vocals, dialogue
• Aynsley Dunbar – drums
• Bob Harris – keyboards, vocals
• Howard Kaylan – vocals, dialogue
• Jim Pons – bass, vocals, dialogue
• Don Preston – Moog synthesizer
• Ian Underwood – keyboards, vocals, woodwind
• Mark Volman – vocals, dialogue

Production

• Producer: Frank Zappa
• Engineer: Barry Keene
• Mixing: Toby Foster
• Mastering: Toby Foster
• Digital remastering: Bob Stone
• Cover design: Cal Schenkel
• Artwork: Cal Schenkel
• Repackaging: Ferenc Dobronyi

Charts

Album - Billboard (North America)

References

External links

• Lyrics and information
• Release details