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From the facebook “About” page of “The Broadcast Adventures of HowieZowie”:

“Conceptual Continuity with HowieZowie” is a weekly two hour Zappa radio show broadcasting Thursday night at 10pm PST on Blue Mountain Radio KQBM-LP 103.7FM in West Point, California & KQBM 90.7FM in San Andreas, California – streaming live at http://www.kqbm.org. Saturday night at Midnight EST on WERU 89.9FM in Blue Hill, Maine/99.9FM in Bangor, Maine – streaming live/archiving at http://www.weru.org. Encore Saturday night at 11pm PST on Blue Mountain Radio KQBM-LP 103.7FM in West Point, California & KQBM 90.7FM in San Andreas, California – streaming live at http://www.kqbm.org.

Here is the WERU Community Radio direct link to the Conceptual Continuity with HowieZowie archive page (only the last two episodes are available): click here.

Howie Zowie, aka Howie Kittelson, is a London (Ontario) based radio personality with a taste for audio editing. He accurately selects music for the talk over sections of his shows, and with Zappa the result is remarkable! A two hours radio show like Conceptual Continuity with HowieZowie conveniently flows and you may get some CC clue.

On July 28, 2016 such an all Zappa show got 5 years old, Howie Zowie had Joe Travers as a guest and Spastic Droopers as secret word.

Joe talked about The Crux of Biscuit / Frank Zappa for President new FZ releases and gives some cool hints for the releases to come, such as a Waka/Wazoo box set!

What follows is a transcript of some parts of the conversation Howie and Joe had (thank you Howie for the accurate editing of my raw transcript!).

29:47 (part 1) – Overture to Uncle Sam

Joe Travers: It was for and in an Opera, and definitely was one of the later synclavier pieces of Frank’s – very very late in fact. We found some footage of Todd Yvega and Spencer Chrislu being interviewed for the American Composer radio documentary that happened in 1995.

And they used that piece as a demonstration for the Synclavier at the time, so it was definitely one of the later pieces. And we founded it on a reel of Ensemble Modern rehearsals and performances that ended up becoming Everything is Healing Nicely.

But Frank put together a 40 minutes collage of that that audio, lot of stuff on the rehearsals and I think Spence based most of what he, what Frank put together for Everything is Healing Nicely, but also on it it was the Overture to Uncle Sam.

I always kept that thing in my back pocket for some kind of release. Gail and I have talked about various different releases including that piece and then when Frank Zappa for President was offered to me as a project I really thought like that it would be a good thing to put it on there. And so that’s how ended up happening!

46:43 (part 1) – If I was a President

Howie Kittelson: I see that the musical track and the spoken words were done in different times, were they meant to go together from the beginning or is that something that you combined?

JT: No, that’s something I combined.

HK: In that aspect it is very reminiscent of Drooling Midrange Accountans in Easter Hay.

JT: That was something Dweezil put together, obviously the same concept was used for the If I was a President thing.

1:56 (part 2) – Brown Shoes Don’t Make It

HK: I see that was a remix done in ’69 by Dick Kunk, correct?

JT: Yes

HK: Now, what was the purpose of that remix, what is that associated with?

JT: We’ll never know. It is not listed as such, although my opinion is that it was probably remixed for some kind of film project.

HZ: Gotcha.

JT: But we don’t know what it is. I don’t know if it was Uncle Meat – I don’t know what that film project would be. But there’s a couple of other classic songs on that reel that were remix as well, so Brown Shoes is not the only one. But considering the theme of that song, I thought that it would be a good thing to put it on that album, because it’s an older Mothers song in a remixed form that nobody has ever heard before. So I figured that it would tie in with that record.

3:27 (part 2) – Amnerika

JT: It was recorded during the Thing-Fish sessions – and all I can say is that piece, the vocal version of that song was intended for one of the volumes of The Lost Episodes project, because The Lost Episodes one time was kind of worked into a three volume project. Ans since Frank brought The Lost Episodes down to one disc, then there was a bunch of leftovers and that happened to be one of the leftovers. We do have the ability to do another Lost Episodes volume from those leftovers, but Gail was basically using a lot of stuff from that for other projects, or at least wanted me to. So, I figured – well this is the perfect time for this song for this project. I have to come up with content somehow, even if we kind of repeat things maybe once in a while in future releases, at least I was able to do what I was told and putting together that Frank Zappa for President record, so that’s where that song ended up!

19:23 (part 2) – The Crux of the Biscuit

HK: I have always wondered to myself: was the use of apostrophe in so many blues song titles, could that have been an inspiration on Frank when he came to the apostrophe?

JT: Hmmmm, I don’t know – I’m not sure. I wish I could answer that (laughs).

HZ: Do you have your own theory about the apostrophe?

JT: I really don’t know (laughs), Dweezil kind of explains The Crux of the Biscuit on dweezilzappaworld.com – I think, as far as like the term, what that means, what the apostrophe stands for – so you can check that out.

29:20 (part 2) – Apostrophe (‘) early side one – Cosmik Debris

HK: The version of Cosmik Debris that opens that – the new 2016 intro, is that your doing?

JT: No, that was found that way and the mix of the song is the exact same mix that’s on the Apostrophe(‘) album, Frank took up that intro, and so when I found that early sequence of side one, that intro was on the version of Cosmik Debris on that tape, so I left it. Anything different applies to those kind of releases, that was Frank – that was recorded that way!

34:38 (part 2) – work mixes

HZ: So, when we’re looking at the tracks that are labeled as mix outtakes. Those are just working mixes from the process of doing the record?

JT: Yeah, exactly. Like you have a mix session and during the mix session you run off various work mixes or mixes in progress, or mixes that might be used as a master – or might not be. Anything that was mixed and was going to be on master at one point would be an alternate mix, because that was alternate to what was used. But anything that was mixed that wasn’t going to be used for any kind of a master, but it was a work mix or an outtake for the mix session, I just labelled as such.

35:26 (part 2) – Uncle Remus

JT: Yeah, that’s pretty great! Because you get to hear a piano solo and an extra bit of vocals and stuff like that, it was pretty cool!

HZ: And some cool organ – I don’t know if that was a B-3, but there was some really tasty, traditional organ going on there that I am not used to hearing in that song.

JT: Yeah – well, that song was recorded during demo sessions of George Duke during the Paramount Studio time period in April of ’72. The Grand Wazoo and Waka- Jawaka have just been recorded and Frank produced about four tunes for George Duke around that time and Uncle Remus was one of those songs – and then Frank obviously used Uncle Remus in Apostrophe(‘). Then George Duke went on to re-record the other songs that were recorded for that demo session on two other albums. Psychosomatic Dung is one of them, and For Love (I Come Your Friend) – that’s another one that’s one of those songs that was recorded during that demo session.

36:41 (part 2) – Waka-Jawaka / Grand Wazoo box set

JT: I’m going to be working on a Hot Rats/Grand Wazoo box set, I guess you might want to call it – or a CD release of all the alternates and all the stuff that was recorded during that time period. And I am hoping to get those George Duke tunes on there as well, so that would be something cool. Yeah, it’s Waka Jawaka and Grand Wazoo, sorry – Hot Rats was not recorded during that same time. You know, obviously that was ’69. But Waka and Grand Wazoo that was all recorded at the same time, and along with those George Duke songs it kind of captures the same musicians, the same time period and the same sound. So, all that stuff would be a good companion release.

41:50 (part 2) – Energy Frontier flute

JT: I tried to track down who would have been, but nobody knows! Maybe the fans somehow can get that information – because they’re so hard core. I was unable to determine it because there were no session sheets, and so it’s hard for me to know. And I had a conversation with Dave Parlato. Dave Parlato played bass in the Petite Wazoo time period, and The Grand Wazoo – and recorded some stuff with Frank. And he is the guy who is playing stand-up bass on those songs – or at least on one version of that song. And so Dave and I had a conversation, and he is the one that identified himself on there. And he talked about the Jack Bruce session, talked about how Jack Bruce had a rented…I think it was a cello, and it sounded horrible and he couldn’t make the thing work at all, so they kind of ditched that idea of having Jack Bruce play cello. But, Dave didn’t know who played flute either. And first thing I thought of was it had to have been maybe somebody who was touring with Frank at the time. But in the Petite Wazoo the only person that maybe could have done that was Earl Dumler, and we’re not really sure he was him or not. And I didn’t get a chance to get in touch with Earl before the release of the record. So – maybe he is him, maybe he is not. Who knows!

43:31 (part 2) – bass lines

HZ: I found it pretty interesting listening to Dave Parlato’s bass line on take four of Energy Frontier because I’ve gotten quite used to a lot of brass bands using the tuba to do bass lines and they kind of emulate the phrasing of a stand-up bass – but he sounded like he was playing tuba lines on the stand-up bass! So it was a very interesting part of the spectrum and part of the mix that he was in and that stood out to me. I read somewhere that Dave Parlato is the originator of the “Don’t Eat The Yellow Snow” phrase – that he looked out the window of the tour bus and he saw a dog peeing in the snow and he yelled out, “Don’t eat the yellow snow!”

JT: Well I don’t know if that’s true – that could be very true. I don’t know. But, I do know that the bass line if you listen very close to the song called Trudging Across Tundra which is on One Shot Deal, that is an improvisation that happened during a concert in the Petite Wazoo time period… and if you listen to the bass line of that, and if you listen to the early version of Don’t Eat The Yellow Snow that was released on Crux, you’ll notice that it’s almost the same! So the root of the bass line to the opening of Don’t Eat The Yellow Snow come from an improvisational jam from the Petite Wazoo time period, which we released.

49:02 (part 2) – Vaultmaster since 1995

JT: I love my job, I’m very grateful for it. I spent so much time in my life just studying the music and being part of the music – so I’m happy that I can share the things that I find with people that appreciate it, you know? It’s really a special thing that I do and I realize that. I was a fan first before any of this stuff, so I come from a fan point of view and I think about the things that people would love to hear and would really want to hear.

51:28 (part 2) – Uncle Meat Project/Object and vinyl reissues

JT: The Uncle Meat Project/Object is gonna be coming right around the corner pretty soon, so that’s very exciting. And also there’s going to be a lot of vinyl reissues this year, starting next month in August Hot Rats is going to be re-released on vinyl. But we’re going to be doing a lot more this year. We usually do about one to two releases – reissues on vinyl for the past few years, along with little exclusive stuff that we’ve done for the Record Store Days. But this year we’re gonna be doing a lot more – and that does include the Record Store Day stuff. So, we’ll be doing something really cool for Black Friday Record Store Day and we’re gonna be doing a number of other vinyl reissues this year before the year’s over with. So that’s something that’s gonna be exciting…for the audiophile world, you know, that loves the vinyl.

54:40 (part 2) – just one Zappa piece of choice for The Vaultmaster

JT: Rat Tomago

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The 1995 Radio documentary mentioned by Joe was available at the zappa.com and was described as: “a two hour Radio Documentary produced by Steve Rowland and Gail Zappa for “The Music Makers” Series on Public Radio International, originally aired on U.S. radio in the summer of 1996.”

What follows is a direct link for the first hour of the show, the first minute of Overture to Uncle Sam starts at 08:08.

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