January 15, 1985
Picture Music International
57 min.
Produced and directed by Frank Zappa
FZ—lead guitar, vocals
Ray White—guitar, vocals
Ike Willis—guitar, vocals
Bobby Martin—keyboards, French horn, sax, vocals
Allan Zavod—keyboards
Scott Thunes—bass, vocals
Chad Wackerman—drums
Bonzai: Judging from the concert crowds, it's obvious that you have a large following . . .
Zappa: About 20,000 people came to those two shows. There is an audience for what I'm doing, but the attitudes of the people who buy shows for television are kind of peculiar. They do not respond well if somebody from the music world says and does the things that I do. Perhaps it embarrasses them—they don't want to deal with it.
Bonzai: Where do you think it will be seen?
Zappa: I don't know. It was produced in a joint venture with PMI (Picture Music International). They are preparing it for home video release in August or September.
Bonzai: Seems to be a natural for home video.
Zappa: Yeah, but it still should be broadcast. It's a perfect show for cable. The audio was done on a Sony digital multitrack and mixed down to the PCM-1610. The video shoot used five line cameras and four Sony Betacams. During post-production we took great pains with every shot—image enhancement and color correction—since it was shot live with constantly changing stage lighting, it presented a lot of problems in color balance.
Bonzai: Where did you do the postproduction?
Zappa: Pacific Video—a great place to work. It was just myself, Booey Cober, the editor, and Rex Ingram, his assistant. Bob Stone supervised the audio here at UMRK (Utility Muffin Research Kitchen). As far as I know, it's the first all-digitally recorded and digitally post-produced music television special.
Bonzai: Was it expensive?
Zappa: $150,000 for the shoot and the postproduction, which is not all that outrageous. A lot of work went into it—we shot 40 hours and I reviewed every minute of every camera at least twice before we edited.
Obviously all live concert footage is either from August 25 or August 26, 1984 at The Pier in New York City.
All individual time indexes in my notes are referring to the start of the DVD [...].
1. Intro is from August 25 ("No, we're not going to play Greggary Peccary ..." etc.)
2. Zoot Allures is from August 25, and switches to August 26 at about 0:03:00 into start of the Video. (FZ solo is from August 26)
3. Tinseltown Rebellion is from August 26, but that little City Of Tiny Lites fragment (behind "You seem to really perform well live" etc at ~0:12:24) is from August 25.
4. More Trouble Every Day (& Penguin fragment, behind "Does humor belong in music?" at ~0:16:02) is from August 26.
5. Hot Plate Heaven At The Green Hotel: All fragments (between interview bits) are from August 26 (not 25).
6. The Dangerous Kitchen
7. He's So Gay
8. Bobby Brown
9. Keep It Greasey
all from August 26.10. Honey, Don't You Want A Man Like Me? is from both shows:
Start of song is from August 26.
Somewhere during these lines (I couldn't exactly find out where)
"... singles bar, a Tuesday night
The moon was dim, the band was tight
They did the Bump together.
What a ..."
the recording switches from August 26 to August 25
From "... splendid sight" onwards we are definitely in the August 25 show, for the rest of the song. Especially clear when they sing:
Audience: "HELEN REDDY!"
FZ: "No! TWISTED SISTER!"The short Carol You Fool portion at the end of the track, behind "A young lady has ah, felt that ah ..." (at ~0:34:03) is also from August 25.
11. Dinah-Moe Humm is from August 26.
12. Cosmik Debris:
First part of song including FZ solo is from August 26.
Switch to August 25 at about 0:41:38 ("The price of meat has just gone up"...) until end of song.13. Be In My Video:
NYC Audience portion [42:40-43:28] including
"FZ: Oh yah! Abbondanza . . . Thank you! Let's get serious! No, let's not! Let's mine the harbor!"
is from the 2nd encore break August 26 (between Cosmik Debris and Camarillo Brillo);
Be In My Video is also from August 26, main show.14. Dancin' Fool &
15. Whippin' Post are also from August 26, final encore tracks.
Note: the FZ solo in Whippin' Post is edited, the Audience version is longer.
A one-hour video of a concert from 8-26-84. There is also a CD of this name but the songs and performances differ on the CD. This is an excellent video and shows off the vocal talents of the 84 band.
This definitely takes a while to get used to, being from the mid 80's, with that great cheesy synth sound. And only 60 minutes in length, but you will hear very few complaints about this with me. Well-filmed for the times.
Zoot Allures is great, but then for the guitar solo (as usual for the 80's) it goes into a Reggae vamp. Same with Whippin Post, and probably the same for Hot Plate Heaven and More Trouble Every Day, even though those solos aren't captured on the too-short tape. Also FZ looks like he's really concentrating on his solos, unlike Baby Snakes where he walks all around the Palladium Stage. FZ looks as if he is trying desperately hard here. All in all—It's definitely worth owning for the common and uncommon Zappafreak......
Having just discovered this series of web pages, I'm waxing quite nostalgic about my tenure with Frank from '81 'till the end. I particularly remember the New York Pier 11 show as being an incredibly fun show. The dependence on cheezy early digital synths was unfortunate but it was more than made up for by the best vocal band in my experience with Frank. It was the only time that I got to sing with both Ray and Ike at the same time, which cut down on my leads a bit, but we had killer range, power and blend.
The interview sequence was from a show near Cleveland at the Blossom Music Center. I saw the whole thing, even the girl flashing them. Dead serious. I had seats under the pavilion but moved out to the lawn. The sound was much better in the open air. Was the first time I heard the band play "Whipping Post". As Chris Farley used to say, It was Awesome! The interview was conducted in a small building away from the stage area.
1985
Hi-Fi Stereo, 57 min.
Picture Music International/MPI Home Video #MP 1304
NTSC/PAL, VHS
Picture Music International/MPI Home Video #MP 1304
Betamax
Castle Communication CVM 1095
Picture Music International/EMI #MVP 99 1100 2
PAL, VHS
Picture Music International/EMI #MXP 99 1100 4
(Japanese release)
VHS
Zappa's first commercially available videocassette was "Does Humor Belong In Music?," primarily a movie of a 1984 New York concert. The company designated to release the tape, Sony Video Software, decided that the video's content warranted a warning sticker. Needless to say, trying to interest Frank Zappa in a warning sticker is rather like giving a temperance lecture to Charles Bukowski. Into the breach stepped Chicago-based MPI Home Video.
"I felt the same way he did about video programs," says MPI chief Waleed Ali, "For obvious political reasons, the whole idea of stickering original home video product was something that rubbed me the wrong way. We just happened to agree on that and the result was that the license was purchased by us and we put it out." Ali urged Zappa to enter the home video market with MPI as a distributor.
1993
VAP VPLR-70275 (Japanese release, with Japanese subtitles)
Here is the Japanese laserdisc, with obi:
I would like to add that the Japanese laserdisc version of this show features a substantially different mix than the VHS video version. The keyboard parts seem to come out a little cleaner and the mix has a more 'spatial' feel to it. Also, subtitles for all spoken (including interviews) and sung parts appear in Japanese at the bottom of the screen.
October 20, 2003
EMI 490 8929
PAL, All Regions
Made in EU
2003
EMI 490 9029
NTSC, All Regions
Brazil
January 13, 2004
Capitol
Region 1
USA
yep, it arrived in the Free Record Shop in the Netherlands (Breda) today. Additional DVD credits:
'DVD Authoring & Design by Abbey Road Interactive
Produced by Bryony Cranstoun
Mastered at Abbey Road Studios
Product Managed for EMI by Paula Flack
Artwork reworked for DVD by The Red Room @ EMI'P Digital Remaster 2003 The copyright in this audio visual compilation is owned Pumpko Indistries Ltd under exclusive licence to EMI Records Ltd. C 2003 Pumpko Industries Ltd/EMI Records Ltd.
Front cover:
The Brazilian version, sent by Sergio Martorelli:
Here is a bootleg version of this video which has been seen on Ebay:
As I recall, these are the main distinctive features of this bootleg release:
1. Different cover and overall design from that of the official release.
2. Published by "Room 101 Entertainment"; no official endorsement in sight.
3. Extra track: "Register to vote."
4. Poor video quality (although, what can you expect from an '84 release?) but flawless soundtrack.
5. Japanese subtitles all over the place (even on extra track).This last one, and the fact of the picture used for the menu screen being that of the japanese Laserdisc wrapping, suggest that this might have been somewhat edited off that old japan-only release.
This is the rarest Frank Zappa Video of all time. This one-hour video is of Zappa's New York appearance at Pier 11 on August 26, 1984. This video was given to me personally by FZ in 1984 and was lost until now. It was Frank's final edit version and has the time code running in a window at the bottom of picture. This is a multi-camera, superbly edited, commercial quality, final pre-release version. The digital sound quality and mixing is as good as any Zappa recording you'll ever hear. Sounds like a CD. Originally produced for Intercontinental Absurdities (FZ's production company), this tape was never released. No one has it anywhere, except here. It is interlaced with brief interview scenes with FZ, and backstage moments as well. This video was copied from the actual 3/4 inch cassette Frank gave me. The video quality is good and the music is phenomenal. The musicians are Chad Wackerman, Scott Thunes, Ike Willis, Ray White, Alan Zabaz, Bobby Martin & FZ . . . . . . .SONGS: Zoot Allures, Tinseltown Rebellion, Trouble Every Day, Hot Plate Heaven, The Dangerous Kitchen, He's So Gay, Bobby Brown, Keep It Greasy, Don't You Want A Man Like Me, Dynamo Hum, Cosmic Debris & The ENCORE: Be In My Video, Dancin' Fool, and an incredible Whippin' Post. I have used scanned and reduced labels from the original FZ cassettes and pictured them below.
... I found them in Japan many years ago. This one-hour video is of a Zappa New York concert appearance in the summer of 1984 entitled "Does Humor Belong in Music". It is NOT A COPY, IT IS AN ORIGINAL, first generation, digital gem. The actual concert is essentially the same as the American release, and no special content is present or implied. Every tape is in its original, never opened, clear case, just as it was in Japan when I discovered them, with Japanese labels and all, as shown. They are clearly a Japanese exclusive release. They even have Japanese subtitles.
Additional informants: Kristian Kier, Antal Adriaanse
Maintained by Román García Albertos