MOTHERS & OTHERS
When Goldmine spoke with Joe Travers, curator of the Frank Zappa archive, back in May 2019, he dropped a sizeable hint that some kind of examination of 1970-1971, “the Flo and Eddie era,” was just around the corner. Even if the pickings were slim.
“There’s a lot of material that you would describe as folkloric,” he explained. “The Playground Psychotics music-and-documentary sort of stuff. Actual shows, there’s not as many as I wish there was for those years.”
Nevertheless, true to his word, The Mothers 1970 (Universal) emerges across four discs, and if the packaging is somewhat utilitarian compared to some recent extravaganzas… a clamshell box containing discs, booklet and button badge… still, you know you’re in for a treat the moment disc one kicks off with the five minutes of the bluesy “Red Tubular Lighter.”
This is the first of 11 previously unreleased studio tracks, dating from a; what’s interesting is that “Sharleena” alone has made it out into the public ear, which leaves the rest of the Roy Thomas Baker production feeling like a whole new album.
