Ahead of the upcoming release of Frank Zappa & The Mothers Of Invention’s much-anticipated live album, Whisky A Go Go, 1968, Frank Zappa vaultmeister Joe Travers is hosting an exclusive Frank Zappa Whisky A Go Go video series.
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You can watch the series; first episode, subtitled ‘That One Night In 1968,’ below, in which Travers and Pamela Des Barres – who supplied the liner notes for Whisky A Go Go, 1968 – discuss the events leading up to Zappa and has band’s remarkable series of performances at the Whisky one night in July 1968.
In ‘That One Night In 1968’, Travers sets the scene for the events of that memorable night. “The Mothers took over this room and played three sets of music, along with a variety of other acts including Alice Cooper, Wild Man Fischer and that evening was also the world premiere of Miss Pamela and the GTOs (Girls Together Outrageously).”
Des Barres adds “It was a very memorable night indeed. It was jam packed too, probably before they even had rules about how many people could safely get into the club.”
Travers adds, “There’s film of the event and when you watch it, you see there’s a line of people completely going around the corner to get in that night and it’s just so wonderful to think at that point in time how popular Frank was.”
Whisky a Go Go, 1968 is finally set to be released June 21st, 2024, via Zappa Records/UMe. Produced by Ahmet Zappa and Joe Travers, this extensive collection, 55-plus years in the making, compiles everything The Mothers of Invention played across their three sets at the legendary Los Angeles rock club on the night of July 23, 1968. The album is complete and newly remixed in 2023 from hi-res 24-bit/96kHz digital transfers of the original 1” 8-track analog tapes by Craig Parker Adams at Winslow CT Studios.
A Super Deluxe Edition box set will be released on both 5LP 180-gram black vinyl or 3CD, and feature a booklet with many unseen photos from the night’s events, along with copious liner notes by Vaultmeister Joe Travers, an essay by Pamela Des Barres of the Zappa-signed group The GTO’s who played that evening, and an interview by Ahmet Zappa with the legendary Alice Cooper, whose own band made a momentous splash at the Whisky that night as one of the featured acts.
Pre-order Whisky A Go Go, 1968.