Segment 145

A while back I told the tale of a Dave Mason and Poco concert I tried to attend one night in the summer of 1975 before fate (in the form of a Mississippi Highway patrolman) intervened and allowed the concert to proceed without me. The story was my way of introducing one of our periodic All Hand Mixed Vinyl Concert sets. Figuring I wasn’t the only one who had missed a show back in day, I solicited similar stories from listeners and, sure enough, the confessions poured in, including some that happened more recently than the 1970s. For example, there’s Richard Shinnick. He wrote to say that he had four front-row tickets to Kansas performing at the Westbury Music Fair. Richard went to an early version of Google Maps and put in the following address: 960 Brush Hollow Road, Westbury, Connecticut. As he tells the story, Richard was in a rush and failed to notice that Google Maps didn’t find the exact address. And what’s funny is that when this early version of the program couldn’t find the address you asked for, it simply sent you to the dead center of whatever state you had plugged in. Some time later, Richard was in the middle of Connecticut, unable to find Brush Hollow Road so he did what any reasonable person might do and finally looked at his tickets. Of course that’s when he discovered the Westbury Music Fair takes place on Long Island. Richard says he made valliant attempt to get there but time and distance being what are, he didn’t make it. He never says if he had three geographically impaired friends along for the ride of if three folks were waiting for him at the gate or if he was going to scalp the remaining tickets. But it’s a moot point. He did say that he managed to catch Kansas at that venue about ten years later. And in keeping with Richard’s original story, we’re not going to hear Kansas in this set. Maybe next time. Meanwhile, this one’s not for the faint of heart. Buckle up. From the Way Back Studios, here’s another All Hand Mixed Vinyl concert…

Recorded in June of 1971 at the famed Fillmore East, that’s the perfect song to end a live set, with Frank Zappa mourning the end of Bill Graham’s celebrated venue for rock ‘n’ roll. Sooner or later we’ll get around to playing “Mud Shark” off that album, so we can hear the story featuring John Bonham and someone from Vanilla Fudge, all set in Seattle’s Edgewater Inn (where guests can fish from their windows). While most people are familiar with Frank Zappa by name, they’re much less familiar with most of his music and the members his band. This particular line up included (among others) Howard Kaylan, Mark Volman, and Jim Pons, all former members of The Turtles, hence the cover of the classic “Happy Together.” Before that, Mott the Hoople from 1974, doing a track called “Violence.” Thin Lizzy before that with “The Rocker.” We opened the set with Edgar Winter’s White Trash which included his brother Johnny along with Rick Derringer and Jerry LaCroix. Every now and then I know, it’s kinda hard to tell, but they’re “Still Alive and Well.” After that ZZ Top went all Leiber and Stoller on us with their take on “Jailhouse Rock” from the live side of Fandango, followed by Lou Reed’s “White Heat/White Light.” Then it was on to the Seattle Coliseum in 1973, with Neil Young doing a song called “Yonder Stands the Sinner.” And in the middle of the set, the only track we pulled off a CD, we heard The Blues Magoos and a song that hit #5 on the charts in 1967. Here, we heard a version recorded at Cavestomp in November of 2000. “(We Ain’t Got) Nothin’ Yet.” And we ain’t got no more time either. The lights are coming up and we’re getting the bum’s rush but thanks for joining us. If you’re looking for he set lists, show commentaries, or the newly opened FBI files, you can find it all at my website, Bill Fitzhugh dot com, or track us down on Facebook. I’m Bill Fitzhugh in the Way Back Studios, thanks for listening. I’ll be back sooner or later with a fresh batch of All Hand Mixed Vinyl and I hope you can join us, right here, in the Deep Tracks.