These are some rumoured bootlegs that nobody seems to have been in contact
with, and some requests for information. I still (after all this time) hope someone will
be able to clarify some of these things, or just provide some of the details I want. To be
frank, this is very much an odds-and-ends page.
Guamacoma. Long listed as an unknown bootleg it
was, but around New Year 2002/2003, posted to alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.1970s a
set of 83 MP3 files under the heading of "Guamacoma" was. The tracks
were:
1. Mount St Mary's Concert
2. Space Boy
3. America Drinks
4. Agency Man
5. Randomonium
6. In Memoriam Hieronymus Bosch
7. The Eric Dolphy Memorial Barbeque
8. Hungry Freaks, Daddy
9. The Wild Man Fischer Story
10. I'm the Meany
11. Bacon Fat
12. The Duke
13. Help, I'm a Rock
14. Return of the Son of Monster Magnet
15. Sink Trap
16. King Kong
17. The String Quartet
18. The Groupie Opera
19. Interview
20. The Final Solution
21. Interview Part 1
22. The Band Finds Some Pussy
23. Penis Dimension
24. Billy the Mountain (Studebaker Hoch)
25. Billy the Mountain (Finale)
26. Well (Baby, Please Don't Go)
27. Mr Green Genes / King Kong / Chunga's Revenge
28. I'm the Slime
29. Ruthie-Ruthie & Babette Meet the Booger Man
30. Smell My Beard
31. Don't Eat the Yellow Snow
32. Penguin in Bondage
33. T'Mershi Duween
34. Dog Meat
35. Montana
36. Stink-Foot
37. Inca Roads
38. Dog Meat
39. Approximate
40. Cosmik Debris
41. Florentine Pogen
42. Curse of the Zombads [see below]
43. Ship Ahoy
44. Munchkin Tits
45. Drum Solo
46. The T'Mershi Duween Variations
47. Black Napkins
48. I'm the Slime
49. Peaches en Regalia
50. Dancin' Fool
51. The Purple Lagoon
52. The Meek Shall Inherit Nothing
53. Rollo
54. Flambay
55. Spider of Destiny
56. Time Is Money
57. Knick-Knack Leather
58. Teenage Wind
59. Chalk Pie
60. We're Turning Again
61. Them or Us
62. Clowns on Velvet
63. Fine Girl
64. Doreen
65. Pick Me, I'm Clean
66. Teenage Wind
67. Harder Than Your Husband
68. Bamboozled by Love
69. I Don't Wanna Get Drafted
70. Falling in Love is a Stupid Habit
71. Fine Girl
72. Easy Meat
73. Goblin Girl
74. Two on the Town
75. Suicide Chump
76. While You Were Art 1
77. Francesco Opus 1 Number 1 Movement 6
78. Francesco Opus 1 Number 6
79. Francesco Opus 1 Number 11
80. Pedro's Dowry
81. Truck-Driver Divorce
82. Frogs with Dirty Little Lips
83. None of the Above
With few exceptions, the seasoned Zappa fan can pick out most of these
tracks as standard bootleg fare, some rare, some not so rare. The number one
exception was "Curse of the Zombads", a title known to have been
recorded at the Over-Nite Sensation sessions. This track seemed suspect:
PATRICK NEVE: It's a hoax!
CHARLES ULRICH: It sounds like a MIDI performance. Listen in
particular to the "drums".
CHUCK SPINACH: I saw "Guamacoma" mentioned on the Boot
FAQ page, as an "unknown" bootleg. I wonder whether the set posted
as "Guamacoma" is the same set with the one phony track, or
whether the whole thing is a meta-hoax (since b00ts are, themselves,
inherently hoaxy) ...
There, we leave Guamacoma for now and turn to other rumours and
question marks.
Is there really a boot CD version of the You Can't Do That
on Stage Anymore Sampler, or did the rumour start because someone didn't
realise there was an official CD release?
The bootleg Egg on Your Face is not a Zappa boot but
Led Zeppelin.
On Palladium, New York,
31 October 1981, is track 14 actually a mislisted "The Black Page
#2", or is it another night's "Zoot Allures"?
We need confirmed track lists for the following listed bootlegs:
(We also need info on these unlisted bootlegs.)
Live in New York,
previously thought to be a copy of Halloween,
is not that and now has a separate entry.
"Orchestral Madness", long listed as an unknown bootleg, has now
been shown to be only a sticker with the words "Orchestral Madness"
on the cover of Serious Music.
Thanks to an excellent corrector, we now have Safe
Muffinz placed correctly in time and space. (Unfortunately, it wasn't from
the El Monte Legion Stadium, July 1971 - in fact, not even from the 1971
tour, but from August 21 1970, Santa Monica Civic Center.)
"Bobby" on Frankie
Meets Bobby has been "confirmed" as Bobby Dylan, but we still
"need" a track list for the Bobby side!
According to a German bootleg dealer, the entire production run of Norwegian Rhapsody Volume
2 was confiscated by the police in 1988. However, RXZ
Records put out a 2-CD set in the 1990s, which included both volumes.
Speaking of RXZ Records, it can not be said for sure
whether or not they have anything to do with the Mothermania
boot with bonus tracks on the supposedly Russian (a)RF label. RXZ have advertised it for sale, and may have copied it or even
made the original.
In February 1999, Mikael Agardsson forwarded a list of Polish flexi-disc
postcards, which are now on a separate page.
They seem to be unauthorised and illegal, but they are just too weird to fit in among the
other bootlegs. :) As of August 1999, there is also a page on Russian flexi-discs.
A bootleg called Beat the Box has been reported as "a single disc
with minimal packaging in white with pink lettering, grainy photos, and ...
apparently a no-name bootleg. It allegedly contains the original mixes of You Are
What You Is as 'Frank intended for you to hear them' and one other tune with a
different guitar solo or something. The store is asking $30 for it." From
David Goodwin:
Well, I've seen it. It is Crush
All Boxes with bonus tracks, and it looks VERY cheap ... I'd
stick with the original, personally.
A 1984 Does Humor Belong in Music? boot on Collector Records is
separate from the vinyl counterfeit,
but whether or not it too is a plain counterfeit is not known.
Civilization Phaze III has lookingly not been counterfeited on vinyl
in Australia, despite rumours to the contrary (originating with Gail Zappa).
Contrary to rumour, Wino
Man, that zany boot, was NOT put out legally by the
Dutch VPRO. It was, in "fact", the very first Dutch bootleg.
Was Frank Zappa
Gets His Shit Together also issued as a variant called Frank Zappa Gets His
Shit Together in Europe?
There was for a while a rumour about a Japanese
"live box"
of 12 CDs, but this has been positively identified as the Japanese box of the You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore series,
which came in a special package with a very thick book. (At one point, though, it was
reported by an American imperialist as "some wiseguy repackaging the Stage
series" :)
To Motherbuggers
Everywhere has been confirmed as a single album; seemingly, there was
no truth in the rumour about a double. (Unless, of course, you know better? Mail me!)
According to Lewis Saul in 1998, the PDQ record store in Tuscon,
Arizona, once had a gigantic 10-or-12-LP boot box, the first disc of which supposedly
contained a recording of "Mice", a solo for snare drum which
was the first composition Zappa ever wrote. Lewis has later added that the discs were
probably coloured. This box has not been identified and sounds extremely
preposterous.
Record Collector magazine #148, December 1991, lists a Live
Over 20 Years, Stockholm '67/London '68 title as a 3" CD "promo".
Whatever it is, it's definitely related to the Oldies But Goldies version of 'Tis the Season to Be Jelly,
which was part of a Live - Over 20 Years Old series, and is
comprised of Stockholm 1967 and London 1968 material. Either it's nothing but confusion,
or perhaps a CD single to promote that album, which was technically legal in the country
where it came out (because foreign live recordings became public domain ther if they were
"over 20 years old"), even if it was of course unauthorised.
The bootleg in the "rumour from Gravot", with PMRC hearing
snippets, has been identified as All
You Need Is Glove.
People have been wanting the bootleg FAQ to include The Guitar World According to Frank Zappa, Blood on the Canvas, and the flexi-disc
with a Synclavier version of "The Black Page #1" which once came with Keyboard
Magazine - all legit releases and not bootlegs at all. Discography people
have often avoided these square pegs, but now they've found a home in the Weirdo Discography.