The Evening Frank Zappa Jammed With Red Floyd … and Captain Beefheart Too (Belgium, 1969)

Fresh­ly an outdated­er musi­cian acquain­tance informed me he nev­er “were given into ‘Inter­stel­lar Over­pressure’ and all that,” refer­ring to the “first primary house jam” of Red Floy­d’s profession and the sub­se­quent explo­sion of house rock bands. I discovered myself a lit­tle tak­en aback. Even though I used to be born too overdue to be there, I’ve come to look “’Inter­stel­lar Over­pressure’ and all that” as probably the most inter­est­ing issues concerning the finish of the sixties—the com­ing of Cap­tain Red meat­center and the Magazine­ic Band, of The Cushy System, of Hawk­wind and oth­er psy­che­del­ic warfare­riors.

Too oft over­seemed within the pop­u­lar Wooden­inventory/Alta­mont bina­ry quick­hand for fin-de-six­ties rock and roll, those bands’ logo of prog/­jaz­z/blues/psych-rock exper­i­males­tal­ism were given its due in Amou­gies, Bel­gium, in a 1969 fes­ti­val intended as Europe’s solution to the three-day “Aquar­i­an expo­si­tion” staged in upstate New York that very same yr.

Spon­sored via Paris magazine­a­zine Actuel, “The Actuel Rock Fes­ti­val” fea­tured all the bands males­tioned above (apart from Hawk­wind), at the side of Sure, Pharoah Sanders, Don Cher­ry, and lots of extra. MC’ing the development, and serv­ing as Beefheart’s guy­ag­er, was once none oth­er than impre­sario of strange him­self, Frank Zap­pa, who sat in with Floyd on “Inter­stel­lar Over­pressure,” convey­ing his con­sid­er­in a position lead gui­tar prowess to their darkish, descend­ing instru­males­tal.

Simply above, pay attention that Zappa/Floyd consistent with­for­mance of the tune. The are living audio report­ing is fuzzy and somewhat hol­low, however the play­ing comes via consistent with­fect­ly transparent. Zap­pa, actually, jammed with close to­ly all of the artists at the ros­ter, despite the fact that just a few report­ings have sur­confronted, like this one from an audi­ence mem­ber. In their col­lab­o­ra­tion, Red Floyd drum­mer Nick Mason mentioned in 1973, “Frank Zap­pa is actual­ly a type of uncommon musi­cians that may play with us. The lit­tle he did in Amou­gies was once ter­ri­bly cor­rect.” I believe you’ll agree.

Dan­ger­ous Minds information a lot of Zappa’s rec­ol­lec­tions of the development, includ­ing a char­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly sar­don­ic account he gave in an inter­view with The Simp­sons’ Matt Groen­ing by which he com­plains of really feel­ing “like Lin­da McCart­ney” and concerning the scourge of “slum­ber­ing euro-hip­pies.” Zap­pa appar­ent­ly didn’t remem­ber jam­ming with Floyd however “the pho­tos don’t lie and nei­ther does the report­ing.” He does recall play­ing with Cap­tain Red meat­center, who says he him­self “loved it.” You’ll pay attention Red meat­center’s set with Zap­pa above.

Accord­ing to a biog­ra­phy of discovered­ing Red Floyd singer and gui­tarist Syd Bar­rett—long past by the point of the pageant—photos of the Zappa/Floyd jam exists, a part of an unre­leased document­u­males­tary of the development via Gerome Laper­rousaz. That movie has but to sur­face, it kind of feels, however we do have the movie above—slipping between black-and-white and colour—of Red Floyd play­ing “Inexperienced is the Color,” “Care­ful With That Awl, Eugene,” and “Set the Con­trols For the Center of the Solar.” It’s a must-watch if just for Roger Waters’ bone-chill­ing screams within the sec­ond tune.

The fes­ti­val is notable now not just for those ear­ly consistent with­for­mances of the brand new­ly Gilmour-front­ed Red Floyd, but additionally for the seem­ance of Ayns­ley Dun­bar, long term Zap­pa drum­mer and jour­ney­guy musi­cian additional­or­di­naire. Alleged­ly Zap­pa met Dun­bar on the fes­ti­val and was once moderately inspired with the latter’s jazz chops (despite the fact that Dun­bar first joined Zappa’s band on gui­tar sooner than mov­ing to drums). You’ll pay attention Zap­pa jam together with his even­tu­al celebrity drummer’s band, Ayns­ley Dunbar’s Retal­i­a­tion, above.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Jimi Rooster­drix, Red Floyd, Traf­fic & Oth­er Bands Play Massive Lon­don Fes­ti­val “Christ­mas on Earth Con­tin­ued” (1967)

Andy Warhol Hosts Frank Zap­pa on His Cable TV Display, and Lat­er Remembers, “I Hat­ed Him Extra Than Ever” After the Display

Ani­mat­ed: Frank Zap­pa on Why the Cul­tur­al­ly-Bereft Unit­ed States Is So Sus­cep­ti­ble to Fads (1971)

Watch Frank Zap­pa Play Michael Nesmith (RIP) on The Monkees–and Vice Ver­sa (1967)

Psy­che­del­ic Scenes of Red Floyd’s Ear­ly Days with Syd Bar­rett, 1967

Josh Jones is a author and musi­cian based totally in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness.