This Day in Music

Un gran lanzamiento de Las Mothers, an LP trip through the 80's, and Elvis is on TV, all on this day in music.

Just Another Band from L.A.

1972: Legendary American avant-garde band Las Mothers release their 11th album, “Just Another Band from L.A.” It is the 14th album by bandleader Frank Zappa.

Recorded live in the Pauley Pavilion at the UCLA campus in the Westwood Village neighbourhood of Los Angeles, and not sequenced in the same order as the performance, the centrepiece of the album is Side A’s 24-minute epic, “Billy the Mountain,” a parody of rock operas which had been a passing fad at the time.

Released on Zappa’s Bizarre label and distributed by Reprise, it was originally intended as a two-LP set with solos-turned-into-songs in the style of Zappa’s later “Guitar” album and the “Shut Up ‘N Play Yer Guitar” series, but was ultimately released as a single disc.

Side B features a fabulous version of “Call Any Vegetable,” originally from the Mothers of Invention’s second album, “Absolutely Free,” along with “Dog Breath,” which first appeared on “Uncle Meat” in 1968. The side also includes the previously-unreleased tracks “Magdalena,” and “Eddie, Are You Kidding,” a song about clothing store owner Edward Nalbandian and his flashy TV commercials. Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman mimic Edward’s interview-style commercials on the track, including a brief chorus of the song “16 Candles” originally by The Crests, changed to “16 Tailors,” and then parody the commercials further in the “shoop-shoop” section of “Call Any Vegetable.”

Frank also takes a moment during that “shoop-shoop” section to introduce the show with the following monologue:

Questions, questions, questions, flooding into the mind of the concerned young person today. Ah, but it’s a great time to be alive, ladies and gentlemen, and that’s the theme of our program for tonight. It’s so fuckin’ great to be alive is what the theme of our show is tonight, boys and girls. And I wanna tell ‘ya, if there’s anybody here that doesn’t believe that it is fuckin’ great to be alive, I wish they would go now because this show will bring them down so much.

As with many Zappa albums, this one is not particularly radio friendly due to the length of the songs, lyrical content, and colourful language, so its highest chart position was only No. 85 on the Billboard 200, and it received no sales certification.

Nonetheless, this is one hell of a great album, and is recommended listening for all music fans.

Wings at the Speed of Sound

1976: British-American rock band Wings release their fifth studio album, “Wings at the Speed of Sound.” Recorded while on their Wings Over America tour, the album includes two hit singles, “Let 'Em In” and “Silly Love Songs,” sending the LP to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and Platinum certification. The album was Paul's effort to prove Wings was more than just Paul McCartney.

(Narrator: Wings was all Paul McCartney.)

Eighties Releases

1985: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers release their sixth studio album, “Southern Accents.” Featuring the hit single, “Don't Come Around Here No More,” co-written with Dave Stewart of Eurythmics, the album peaked at No. 7 on the Billboard 200. The Alice's Adventures in Wonderland-themed video to the song was popular on MTV.

1982: Talented American session musicians-turned rock band Toto release their fourth studio album, “IV.” (i.e. Four, not I.V.) Ultimately the biggest album of their career, it includes the enduring classics “Rosanna” and “Africa.”

Jeff Porcaro’s perfect and dynamic rolling-triplet shuffle on “Rosanna” is one of the best drum tracks of 1980’s rock.

The album peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard 200, and went to No. 1 in Canada and Australia. It is certified 4x Platinum in the U.S., 2x Platinum in Canada, and has sold over six million copies worldwide.

1980: “Women and Children First,” the third studio album by Van Halen is released to favourable reviews and commercial success. Two tracks from the LP gained popularity, “Everybody Wants Some” and “And the Cradle Will Rock…,” earning the album 3x Platinum certification in the U.S.

The Daily Elvis

1960: Elvis is at The Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami Beach to record the TV special Welcome Home Elvis, a Timex-sponsored variety show hosted by Frank Sinatra and welcoming Elvis back from his military duty. Notable moments were Sinatra singing Elvis’s “Love Me Tender,” and Elvis doing Sinatra’s “Witchcraft.” Elvis was paid $125,000 for the appearance, a record-breaking fee for TV at the time.

Pictured: Los Mothers, clockwise from bottom-left: Howard Kaylan (v), Jim Pons (bg), Frank Zappa (g; v), Ian Underwood (woodwinds; key; v), Mark Volman (v), Aynsley Dunbar (d), and Don Preston (key; minimoog). Keen fans of American Rock and Roll might recognize Howard, Mark, and Jim as former members of The Turtles.