FZ - "Roxy" Music

Frank Zappa's 73/74 incarnation of The Mothers Of Invention is easily my favorite of his band's line-ups, with 1974's Roxy & Elsewhere being a near-definitive
representation of their ridiculously incredible abilities. That band featured Napoleon Murphy Brock on tenor sax and vocals, George Duke on keyboards and vocals, Bruce Fowler on trombone, Tom Fowler on bass, Ralph Humphrey on drums and Ruth Underwood on percussion with some occasional help from Jeff Simmons and other participants. If you've heard Roxy & Elsewhere, you know how intense this band is, but if you haven't, you're missing a team that can shift from R&B to insanely complex polyrhythmic compositions to full-blown jazz at the snap of a finger. Zappa's later bands may have had incredible musicians like Adrian Belew and Steve Vai and may have been technically superior to this line-up in some ways, but these guys sound like they're having such an incredible time being challenged that one can only wish they would never separate. I am talking about Frank Zappa and his bands though, so unfortunately separation is pretty much a given.

Variations of the 1973 line-up that recorded Roxy & Elsewhere continued to tour and record with Frank for several years after, and while there are a myriad of recordings of these later years in varying quality, late 73 remains a difficult year to obtain documentation of. Several good shows circulate as do the sources for the non-Roxy tracks that made the album, but the Roxy shows themselves have been a bit of a mystery. Frank teased his fans with occasional glimpses of the Roxy shows throughout the years, and apparently intended some kind of expanded release eventually, but with his failing health and imminent death, the Roxy tapes were pushed aside. Then, in 2001, the Zappa Family Trust released a trailer promoting a video of the complete Roxy shows as coming soon. Fans were delighted, although they're still waiting for that furlough of spectacle. Generally, criticism for the Zappa Family Trust centers around their slow releases and what is seen as a draconian rule of the Zappa archives, but that's probably a bit unfair when we're talking about a few people working with all these recordings as opposed to a full-blown organization assembling releases. I understand their disdain for record labels due to a history of terrible treatment and general disregard, but when it's several years between releases, or worse yet, a decade since some were announced, one might want to consider working with the more respectable side or the reissue and rarities end of the industry, that or hire more staff to speed up the process. I don't want to bash on the Zappa Family Trust, especially since if they weren't releasing content there would be nothing new to examine, but they could probably use some help getting their projects out there. The Roxy shows are one of those projects that needs a lot of help!

Prior to his death, data suggests that Frank compiled the complete Roxy shows for release, but the Zappa Family Trust found his finished versions more specific to older technology and decided to assemble their own version, and today we continue to wait for it. Apparently, their release would feature a modern multi-channel audio remix as well as multiple angles of the video and archival footage, but most Zappa fans, including myself, would probably be happy with CD quality audio and old-school full-screen video. These recordings are over thirty-five years old so I don't think anyone is expecting miracles.

It's really kind of shocking to think that high-quality recordings of the complete shows have not leaked to this day, what with modern leaks the way they are and such. With that said, I decided to compile all the audio content I could find related to the Roxy shows and share them with you, my dear readers! Of course, I'm not taking responsibility for the origination of these recordings, all of that credit goes to people like walk, yojimbo and members of the Zappateers and The Dangerous Kitchen as well as Frank and the Zappa Family Trust themselves, but I did organize the download as featured below and hope you find it thoroughly enjoyable.

The content of these downloads is split into two discs. The first features an audience recording of one of the Roxy performances from December 1973, although it's unclear which performance it actually is. Three (or four?) shows were recorded for release and I've seen this bootleg recording dated the ninth, the tenth and the twelfth of December, so who knows for certain. Included with the first disc is the original text file distributed with the original lossless files, although I've re-edited the files a little for continuity so if you're comparing the info I'm sure you'll notice some slight differences. The second disc consists of all available content from the Roxy shows not available on Roxy & Elsewhere, some of which is excellent quality and some not as much. There is specific info on each track where available listed below.


Frank Zappa - Roxy Music
UPDATE: Sorry guys, this download is no longer available. You can read why here.


01 Cosmik Debris
A few tape errors at the beginning of this track, but once they pass they're done.
UPDATE: This track is now available for download individually. Sorry about the delay guys. Just click the track name.

02 Preamble
03 Pygmy Twylyte

04 Dummy Up
There are cuts here from what sounds like tapes being changed.

05 The Idiot Bastard Son

06 Cheepnis
07 Preamble
08 Penguin In Bondage
These tracks have been edited into a complete state using a lower-quality recording of this show, which accounts for why it sounds muddier in places. Also, Cheepnis bears a strong resemblance to the recording officially released on Roxy & Elsewhere sans overdubs, though that doesn't necessarily mean anything.

09 T'Mershi Duween
10 Dog Meat
11 RDNZL
12 Preamble
13 Montana

14 Dupree's Paradise
This track cuts off around three and a half minutes in.


01 Preamble
02 Montana
03 Dupree's Paradise
In 2006, Zappa Plays Zappa showed a half-hour video excerpt from the Roxy shows featuring performances of these two songs from what appears to be the start of one of the shows. The full video was later placed on Zappa.com and can be viewed here. The audio here is sourced from that video file.

04 Penguin In Bondage
05 T'Mershi Duween
06 Dog Meat
These tracks were part of a collection of live recordings sometimes referred to as the Un-Concert that was broadcast on the radio in 1974. Some information purports that it was originally broadcast in 1973, but since the Roxy shows were from December I find this unlikely. The version of Penguin In Bondage is different from the released recording, although it sounds very similar at first.

07 Preamble
08 Dickie's Such An Asshole
Taken from You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore, Vol. 3. I've edited out the bit of dialogue from the track that followed Dickie on the official release.

09 Big Swifty
Taken from You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore, Vol. 1.

10 Cheepnis (Original Mix)
When finally issued on CD, the initial versions of Roxy & Elsewhere featured the same content as all prior releases, although for reasons unknown the version of Cheepnis was later replaced with a remix. The rest of the album remained as it was originally released, although all modern CDs of Roxy & Elsewhere now feature the remix of Cheepnis, so here is the original, no longer available mix taken from my original US vinyl pressing.


You want some more? Gotta go here, here and here to check some mixtapes from the fine folks at Kill Ugly Radio. I don't believe anything I've posted here is contained there, and I don't think anything directly related to the Roxy shows is there either, but there is tons of material from the various permutations of that era's band both before and after the Roxy shows. You can't download the tracks (at least not via normal methods) but you can play them back as often as you'd like!