That Prince of Foods
"...Bruce Fowler on trombone, Napoleon Murphy Brock on tenor sax and lead vocals, Terry Bozzio on drums, Tom Fowler ob bass, Denny Walley on slide, George Duke on keyboards, Captain Beefheart on vocals and soprano sax and madness. Thank you very much for coming to the concert tonight, hope you enjoyed it. Goodnight Austin Texas wherever you are!"
I llistened to this song for the nth thousand time at the gym yesterday. No matter how many times I hear it, I always want to match the energy and intensity screaming through. FZ and the band were on that night at the Armadillo World Headquarters in May 1975. Wow. The Flyers were playing the Sabres on their way to their second Stanley Cup. I was in 8th grade at St. Barnies. It's sometimes interesting to go back in time to think about what you were doing in your life when a live recording was made.
Muffin Man is really tow songs, I think. The spoken-word studio intro, with the processed piano and kazoo, and the live section; essentially the with same phrase repeated twice, and then the solo.javascript:void(0)
I think Zappa once said that he always played the same solo. In his Project/Object universe that's probably totally valid. Having listed to a lot of his work, there's certainly a lot of resonance among his soloes. But this one benefits from Bozzio's muscular drumming underneath--Terry Ted's work throughout that Bongo Fury record is a pretty singular statement in rock drumming. To the extend that it drove FZ's wailing, cutting, smashing solo on that song again validates Zappa's belief in teh importance of the accuracy and discipline fo the drummer as being the key to playing his music correctly.