Listen: WPLJ / The Mothers Of Invention
WPLJ

In the late 60′s and early 70′s, it wasn’t only The Beatles and The Rolling Stones who started their own labels, Frank Zappa did as well. In fact when he left Verve and joined Warner/Reprise, they gave him two imprints: Straight and Bizarre.

I think The Mothers were one of the few west coast, Los Angeles to San Francisco, groups that interested me at the time. I was admittedly loyal to the British bands back then. They looked better. It may have been the beards that put me off the US acts. Admittedly, Blue Cheer and Big Brother & The Holding Company always looked great, and so too did Love and especially The Seeds, all coincidentally beard free. But despite the beards and various repulsive elements, I loved The Mothers Of Invention. They looked menacing, and dirty and just plain seedy. The cover of MOTHERMANIA is a particularly fantastic shot. Musically, give me WE’RE ONLY IN IT FOR THE MONEY, and many of the early singles and songs as well like ‘Wowie Zowie’, only being a let down in that it never got issued as a 7″.

Frank Zappa always applauded his self love of doo wop, as is exampled on this track from BURNT WEENY SANDWICH, ‘WPLJ’. The style, dreadfully out of step at the time, made for a terrific single. There must have been a radio station with those call letters somewhere….if only they’d played it, which I’d bet they didn’t.

Frank Zappa was obviously an insomniac. I mean who has more double albums? And then to constantly tour and put together two labels. Amazing. Alice Cooper debuted on Straight, Tim Buckley moved there from Elektra. Even Keith joined the roster post ’98.6′.

Listen: Circular Circulation / G.T.O.’s
Circular

Two of his earliest signings are on singles featured here: The GTO’s and Wild Man Fischer. I always got a kick out of both these tracks, hearing them initially on one of the many $2.00 Warner/Reprise samplers that were everywhere in those days. Both acts had great album sleeves too.

We may want to blame The GTO’s for giving license to a whole slew of twee female singers hiding behind indie rock as an excuse for minimal vocal ability, but ‘Circular Circulation’ is an absolute out of jail free card.

Listen: Merry Go Round / Wild Man Fischer
Merry

Wild Man Fischer has a story and a half going on. Google him – I don’t have enough time to write it all…….but ‘Merry Go Round’ is tops. Sounds like David Byrne picked up some vocal tricks from him.

Listen: Feathers From Your Tree / Blue Cheer
Feathers From Your Tree / Blue Cheer

OUTSIDEINSIDE, Blue Cheer’s second album, was their pinnacle. They recorded some of it on a pier in NJ, and had mikes on the NY side of the water as ambient devices. You can really get the resulting effect on tracks like ‘Come & Get It’. This was the most inviting scam yet – at the time. I listened to Side 1 over and over and over. It was a favorite for ages. They had just come off a massive Top 10 single with ‘Summertime Blues’ and album VINCEBUS ERUPTUM. Now let me clue you in: you need both the mono and stereo versions of VINCEBUS ERUPTUM. It is massive in mono and in stereo, well it’s the only album I know of that has complete left/right separation with drums all in the left channel, guitars all right. It sounds fantastic, why others have never followed is a surprise, although probably some have and I’m forgetting.

So OUTSIDEINSIDE was the terrific followup, and everything was all set for world domination. Then clunk. Promotors started blackballing them, beginning with Bill Graham’s Fillmores, because of volume. He seemed to have a mean streak that fellow, he did the same thing to Family. Then radio didn’t play either single from this second album and it all just went cold. Guitarist Leigh Stephens decides to leave. Boom. End of story. ‘Feathers From Your Tree’ was the second single, even came with a picture sleeve – and in headphones (like all the tracks on the album) it was a drug takers dream come true. Right up there with The Pretty Things’ SF SORROW and The Pink Floyd’s THE PIPER AT THE GATES albums. Sounds swirling and switching speakers at record pace. Dickie Peterson is one of the world’s greatest vocalists too, that’s just fact.