This Day in Music
Michael Fitzgibbon
The best band you never heard in your life, the best troubadour you never heard in your life, and Elvis performs in the body of Christ, on this day in music.
The Mule Variations
1999: Legendary American singer-songwriter Tom Waits releases his 13th studio album, “The Mule Variations.” It was the second double-LP of his career, following 1975’s “Nighthawks at the Diner,” and his first studio record since 1993’s “The Black Rider.”
To support the album, Waits conducted his first full tour since 1987, traveling throughout Europe and The United States, and performing on the VH1 series, Storytellers. It was co-written with his wife, songwriter, artist, and producer Kathleen Brennan, and received widespread critical acclaim. Robert Christgau, writing in his A- review stated, “...together they humanize the percussion-battered Bone Machine sound, reconstituting his ‘80s alienation effects into a [Mississippi] Delta harshness with more give to it.”
At the 2000 Grammy Awards, it won for Best Contemporary Folk Album, and it places No. 416 on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time (c) 2012. A commercial success, “The Mule Variations” charted in 14 countries, going to No. 30 on the Billboard 200, No. 9 in the U.K., and No. 1 in Norway. It was certified Gold in Canada and the U.S., and became Waits’s highest-selling album of his career with over one million copies shipped.
The Best Band You Never Heard in Your Life
1991: Prolific American composer Frank Zappa releases “The Best Band You Never Heard in Your Life,” his 55th official album.
A 131-minute double-CD that required a 4-LP release on vinyl, it was one of four packages created from his ill-fated 1988 tour of Europe and The United States. The album’s title refers to the inability of most American audiences to ever experience the band as Frank cancelled the tour shortly after the U.S. leg had begun due his annoyance over irreconcilable infighting amongst the band members.
All four of the 1988 tour albums have distinct themes: “Broadway the Hard Way” is mostly new compositions; “Make a Jazz Noise Here” is a collection of classic Zappa tunes; and “Zappa 88: The Last U.S. Show” is mostly the complete performance of the tour’s last show at Nassau Coliseum in Long Island on March 28, 1988, with the exception of “Stairway to Heaven” and “Whipping Post,” which were recorded on early tour dates. Though it was obviously the last show of the 1988 tour, it would unfortunately also be the last live performance in the U.S. by Frank Zappa.
For “The Best Band You Never Heard in Your Life,” Zappa focused on cover tunes, including the aforementioned “Stairway to Heaven” by Led Zeppelin, along with “Purple Haze” by Jimi Hendrix, “Sunshine of Your Love” by Cream, and “Ring of Fire” by Johnny Cash. Rock songs were not the only focus of the covers, Zappa also performed “I Left My Heart in San Francisco,” “When Irish Eyes are Smiling,” “Theme from The Godfather, Part II” and Maurice Ravel’s “Boléro,” and more.
In the winter of 1988, a scandal broke about televangelist Jimmy Swaggart when pictures surfaced of him in Louisiana with a prostitute. He admitted the activity with a tearful apology on February 21, 1988 and was subsequently defrocked by The Assemblies of God, the largest Pentecostal Christian organization in the world, for which Swaggart had been ordained.
Zappa had long been critical of televangelists for being disingenuous and hypocritical money-grubbers hiding behind religious tax shelters. His mini-suite “Heavenly Bank Account” from his 1981 album, “You Are What You Is,” being his lead expression of the subject. The Swaggart scandal was therefore too good to overlook, and FZ began to perform “Swaggart versions” of three of his songs, acerbically roasting the fallen preacher on “Lonesome Cowboy Burt,” “More Trouble Every Day,” and “Penguin in Bondage” throughout the spring leg of the 1988 tour, and subsequently commemorated on “The Best Band You Never Heart in Your Life.”
Before performing the songs, comedian Andrew West Reid, Jr., who created the character Brother A. West as a parody of televangelists and had previously collaborated with Zappa, performed a satiric benediction lampooning commercial religion.
As for Swaggart, he was caught soliciting prostitution again in California in 1991, and one would assume it was a regular habit. Religion is a powerful force however, and Swaggart overcame the scandals, continuing to be a televangelist until his death at 90 years old just last year.
Fear of a Blank Planet
2007: British modern prog band Porcupine Tree release their ninth studio album “Fear of a Blank Planet” to widespread critical acclaim and commercial success. It was the band’s best-selling LP to that point, subsequently surpassed by “The Incident” in 2009.
Composer Steven Wilson described the album as the fear of losing the youth of the day to the perils of too much screen time, broken homes, and the use of narcotics, both recreational and prescribed, blanking-out their mental and spiritual health. The title is a play on words for the 1990 Public Enemy album, “Fear of a Black Planet.”
Music journalists raved about the record, with good reason. David Fricke of Rolling Stone described Porcupine Tree as “…an aggressively modern merger of Rush’s arena art rock, U.K. prog classicism—especially Pink Floyd’s eulogies to madness and King Crimson’s angular majesty—and the post-grunge vengeance of Tool.” Aquarian Weekly graded the album A+, Drowned in Sound rated it 9/10, and Rock Hard gave it full 10/10 marks. MetaCritic compiles a score of 82/100.
Led by composer, producer, and the hardest-working man in prog, Steven Wilson, on vocals, guitar, piano, and keyboards, the band also features Richard Barbieri on keyboards, and Colin Edwin on bass.
Playing drums for his third full studio album with the band is the supremely talented Gavin Harrison, who has played with Level 42, King Crimson, and The Pineapple Thief, among many other acts in the prog community. Harrison won the Modern Drummer award for “Best Progressive Drummer of the Year” for the album, and won again in 2008 for his touring with both Porcupine Tree and King Crimson.
The record also features guest musicians Alex Lifeson of Rush on “Anesthetize” and Robert Fripp of King Crimson on “Way Out of Here.”
“Fear of a Blank Planet” peaked at No. 59 on the Billboard 200, but went up to No. 3 on Billboard’s Top Internet Albums (i.e. online orders of physical media). In the U.K., it reached No. 31, and in Netherlands it was No. 13, its highest chart position. All very respectable positions for a modern prog record.
With the great title track “Fear of a Blank Planet,” the 18-minute epic “Anesthetize,” and “Way Out of Here,” plus three other cool tracks, the LP has earned legacy accolades. It places 39th on Rolling Stone’s “50 Greatest Prog Rock Albums of All Time” (2015), and 18th on Prog’s “The Top 100 Greatest Prog Albums of All Time” (2015).
The Daily Elvis
1956: In Corpus Christi, Texas, Elvis performs at the Memorial Coliseum, drawing what is estimated to be the largest crowd in the arena’s history at that point.
