The comment that Moon is 12 years old places this in late '79 or '80, about where I figured between the fashions and the Jewish Princess controversy.
Another abrupt cut -- from the bad old days of YouTube limiting videos to 10 minutes. (As opposed to the bad new days, where YouTube automatically flags infringing videos based on pattern-matching algorithms, whether they're actually infringing or not.) To be concluded!
Zappa on Dick Cavett, part 1 -- pardon the rather abrupt cutoff; I'll get to part 2 tomorrow. Uploaded by buruglen. I didn't catch an exact year but it's clearly late '70's or early '80's.
By a jazz trio called organissimo. I'll admit I miss the horns, but it's a pretty cool rendition.
Uploaded by Jim Alfredson, who says this is at the Founders Brewing Co. He doesn't say what year the performance is, but he uploaded it in November of 2008 and I'm willing to guess it was a recent video then.
My dad told me he and my brother just named their new cat Big Swifty.
This is an audience recording from Passaic, '73, courtesy of YourArf.
A week and a half ago I mentioned the bit in The Real Frank Zappa Book where he talked about how he first discovered Edgard Varèse.
Well, it's been about a decade since I read the book, but I just ran across an article called Edgard Varèse: The Idol of My Youth from the June 1971 issue of Stereo Review, and I'm pretty confident it's the same piece. (If it's not, it's a different telling of the same story.)
Another Zappa interview courtesy of afka.net.
Bill Boggs interviews Zappa about New York City, disco, drugs, and showmanship. Yet another fine upload by tomtiddler1.
Per uploader willyrein:
From the vaults of the popular psychedelic show 'The Radio Lab' which later became 'Cryptic Propensity Projections' and 'Midnight Collage' on KBOO FM, Portland, Oregon from 1971-1985. (Caution, this program contains explicit sexual content). Bill whips up a spicy stew with The Mothers of Invention and The Firesign Theater. The photo in the video backdrop is Barry Schwam (Schwump) and Bill Reinhardt recording a radio play. KBOO poster with Hound Dog Taylor by Bruce Sorensen. Poster of Bill at the futuristic console in space by Michael Strickland (Sunnyland Band).
There you have it. Two (or three) great tastes that taste great together.
Zappa on The Late Show with Joan Rivers, 1986(ish?).
I'd definitely say his conspiracy theories on AIDS are a swing and a miss, but everything else is pretty solid -- and hell, given that this would have been right around the time Iran-Contra broke, I can't say I blame anyone for believing the Reagan Administration was engaging in sinister and wildly implausible dealings.
Appleton, '69; uploaded by YourArf.
Something suitably patriotic, in memory of my uncle the Pearl Harbor vet:
This is from the Apocrypha bootleg; it was performed in Burlington in 1988.