Love Devotion Surrender Vol 35

Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention
BBC2 October 23, 1968
Pro-Shot Film
NTSC

The Mothers of Invention and Frank Zappa launched out of Los Angeles in 1966 with one of the most powerful and ground breaking albums of the year, Freak Out. With a full backing studio orchestra and some of the wildest compositions, Zappa and the Mothers showed the world how far sound could be stretched in the span of an hour. With the band living in Los Angeles and New York in the second half of the 60′s, the group found a lot of exposure with performing on BBC. The type of legacy that would surround this era of the band is profound and would set the stage for all of Zappa’s work after it.

Zappa would later disband The Mothers of Invention a year later and reform it with new musicians. With the release of his solo record Hot Rats and many tours, Frank Zappa became an iconic musician in the eyes of those who valued music outside of sales. The video we have uploaded in our Love Devotion Surrender series contains some of the most wild performances of his in my opinion. King Kong had just released on his Uncle Meat record and the band turns out one of the best live versions of the song. This is split it into three parts and all three parts have to be downloaded to play the file. A very special thanks to all the people at Zapateers for making this film possible and setting the standard for quality musician fan communities. – Erik Otis

Photo by Baron Wolman 1968 @ Frank Zappa’s home in Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles, CA

Download Links

• Part 1: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=WWFTC2KR
• Part 2: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=9KRT9ROT
• Part 3: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=FJOMA0OF

www.zappateers.com

The original notes from Dimeadozen.org:

Frank Zappa & The Mothers Of Invention
BBC Studios
London
England

1968-10-23

Lineage:
BBC Master > VHS > DVD > Authoring NTSC

Track list:
King Kong
In The Sky
Apathy Interview

Mintypinto’s Notes:

OK folks, so here’s the story. Just over 15 years ago I had a friend doing some research work at the BBC, I gave her a short shopping list of things that I would love to see her raid the archive for and amazingly she came up trumps with a few selections.

The 23 minute session that FZ and the MOI did at the BBC in London.
Now the ridiculous bit of the story.

The video tape supplied to me was of fantastic quality, a dupe taken from the master and put on to VHS. I kept the video for years and watched it a few times, amazing playing, the band are in top form, JCB and Art Tripp keep up a tremendous rhythm with Roy Estrada and all solos from the band are great.

About 5 years ago I got a friend to digitize the tape to DVD along with a load of other stuff that I had recorded off TV, he did a pretty good job and I was so pleased with it that I threw the VHS copy away.

Of course as time has gone by, technology has got better and better to the point where I could have made a better copy on my £150 TV DVD Harddrive recorder. Dohhh!

Anyway, if you have a fantastic copy of this already, don’t download this but share your copy with us all.

If you have a good copy of this, download this one, it may be better.
And if you have a poor copy or worse still, don’t have it at all, this download is mandatory. It’s brilliant.

Incidently, I noticed at 20 minutes a very quick fade in and out of sound, the band go from King Kong to another track which to the untrained ear may sound like a segue but it ain’t. This implies the band played for longer then is on the tape but this is all I was supplied with. My guess is that the edit was done at the time and what ended up in the BBC archive was all that was left.

Still, we are lucky to have this much great video, fortunately the cameraman were not trying to imitate a bad acid trip by pull focusing and zooming in and out all the time as was the style of the day so what we get is a fairly well shot recording of FZ and the Mothers at the top of their game.

Unicrayon’s Notes:

Extracted the King Kong section from the DVD, added ZT branding and menu and authored the DVD without transcoding.
Extracted the In The Sky and Apathy section from the DVD and added it to the DVD

“In May 1968, Rolling Stone writer Jerry Hopkins and I went up to Frank Zappa’s house high atop Laurel Canyon in Los Angeles to interview and photograph Frank for a cover story. For some unknown reason, in the hills above the house was a collection of old and rusting road grading equipment, including this big D-7 or D-8 tractor upon which Frank started climbing and miming and having a good ol’ time.” -Baron Wolman