Previously
Unheard Early Frank Zappa Recordings Released As Pal Recording Studios'
Archives Are Unearthed After 43 Years, and Ex-Mothers Don Preston and
Bunk Gardner's New CDs Find Them Still Joined At The Hip!
New
York - Formidable record label and publishing company, Crossfire
Publications, is in the process of releasing a series of recordings
from the pre- and post-Mothers of Invention eras, with many unreleased
tracks featured. The Pal Recording Studios recordings are of enormous
historical value, as they were Frank Zappa's very first studio tracks.
The symbiotic relationship Zappa had with Paul Buff and Pal formed the
core of his later output.
Paul
Buff and Frank Zappa pioneered many of the recording techniques and
musical styles that continue on today by using the studio itself as a
dynamic music instrument, rather than a static capture environment. At
Pal, the classic divide between engineer and musician was non-existent.
As
the most anticipated releases in Crossfire's release schedule, the Pal
Recording Studios CD series was developed by Crossfire's owner Greg
Russo along with Paul Buff , owner of the Cucamonga, California-based
studio from 1957-1964. This exclusive series will feature many highly
prized rarities and unreleased tracks drawn from Paul Buff's mixdown
tapes and reference discs.
When
Pal was not booked for artists on Buff's record labels (Pal, Emmy,
Yukon, Plaza and Vigah), a rotating crew of musicians, The Pal Studio
Band , regularly laid down tracks with the hope of placing them with
major record labels. The band featured regular appearances by young
guitarist Frank Zappa, who learned recording studio operations from
Paul Buff.
Records
cut by Buff and guitarist Ronnie Williams were issued on Buff's
in-house Emmy label as by The Masters, with one track ("Breaktime")
featuring dual lead guitars by Zappa and Williams. Other releases with
Zappa involvement from this period include The Tornadoes, Ron Roman,
Baby Ray And The Ferns, Brian Lord & The Midnighters, The
Heartbreakers, Ned And Nelda and Bob Guy, among many others. Over a
half dozen unreleased titles with Zappa as part of The Pal Studio Band
will be covered in the series along with the aforementioned singles.
Concurrent
with his Pal activities, Paul Buff started working with Art Laboe,
owner of Original Sound Records. After the sale of Pal Studios to Frank
Zappa in 1964, Buff became Original Sound's studio engineer. Besides
recording many Original Sound artists, Buff made his own recordings for
the label. This output started in 1963 as The Bongo Teens, followed by
The Hollywood Persuaders, The Rotations, Mr. Clean, The Catalinas, Lori
Allison, The Buff Organization, The Friendly Torpedoes (with The Music
Machine's Sean Bonniwell) and Ricky Dean. Non-Original Sound clients,
such as the entire output of the All American label (known for
Strawberry Alarm Clock's "Incense And Peppermints") and Sugarloaf, were
also engineered by Buff.
Between the Pal Studios masters and Paul Buff masters for Original Sound, Crossfire is expected to release about a dozen CDs.
Keyboardist
Don Preston and woodwind player Bunk Gardner, members of Frank Zappa's
Mothers Of Invention from 1966-1969, are represented by Crossfire
Publications' collections of their output before and after that group:
Vile Foamy Ectoplasm (Don Preston) and It's All Bunk! (Bunk Gardner).
Bunk
Gardner's CD is his first-ever solo release, while Preston's disc is a
revised and expanded edition of his 1993 collection. Gardner's CD spans
the commercial jazz of Bud Wattles & His Orchestra from 1959 to
free jazz improvisations to a live Grandmothers recording from 1981.
Don Preston's collection covers equally interesting exploratory ground
from 1967 to 1993.
All of these Crossfire releases will be available at retail and through dozens of paid download services.
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