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Muffin Men | |
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![]() The Muffin Men with Jimmy Carl Black (left); 12 August 2005 | |
Background information | |
Origin | Liverpool, England |
Genres | Alternative rock, jazz |
Years active | 1990–present |
Members | Ian Jump Phil Hearn Paul Ryan Phil Oakes Mike Kidson |
Past members | (Original lineup 1990) Ian (Bammo) Bamford Paul (Rhino) Ryan Mike Kidson Andy (Waco) Jacobson Roddie Gilliard Naraish Nathaniel Ian Jump Roy Stringer (1956-2001) Later members: Steve Belger (1956-2020) (drums) Andy Frizell (bass, trombone flute etc.) Stefano Baldasseroni (drums) Dave Dominey (bass) Martin Smith (trumpet) Carl Bowry (guitar) Tilo Pirnbaum (drums) Mike Smith (keyboards, saxophone) Tony Whittaker (piano) |
The Muffin Men are a British musical group founded in 1990 and based in Liverpool, England, which primarily plays the music of Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention. [1]
Rather than play pieces note-for-note as originally written by Zappa, the band play their own interpretations of Zappa's material. They intend to cater to strengths of the current line-up, often giving the music a different slant from the original versions.
The group formed in 1990, originally to play a one-off concert to celebrate Zappa's fiftieth birthday. They are named after Zappa's 1975 song "Muffin Man". Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic the band toured for thirty unbroken years around the UK, Europe and Scandinavia, performing Zappa's music as a tribute band, along with some of their own compositions.
Until his death in 2008, the band often featured guest vocals and percussion Jimmy Carl Black, who performed with Zappa in the Mothers of Invention. With Black, they also performed material by Captain Beefheart.
In 1994 The Muffin Men played a nine-week European tour with guest vocalist/guitarist Ike Willis, and again teamed up with Willis in 2003 for a special Zappanale festival show, which also featured Napoleon Murphy Brock.
Mike Keneally has also appeared with the band, along with Ray White and Robert Martin.
Denny Walley toured and recorded with the band from 2010 to 2018.
The band's 25th anniversary gigs (2015) featured a core line-up of three original members – Rhino, Jumpy and Roddie, with Phil Hearn on keys. Past members from the previous lineups made guest appearances at a special show at The Cavern Club in Liverpool.
The Muffin Men have played with many Zappa alumni. Special guests have included:
The Muffin Men Videography:
Them or Us is an album by American musician Frank Zappa, released in October 1984 by Barking Pumpkin Records.
The Best Band You Never Heard in Your Life is a double-disc live album by American musician Frank Zappa, released in 1991. The album was one of four that were recorded during the 1988 world tour; the other three were Broadway the Hard Way, Make a Jazz Noise Here, and Zappa '88: The Last U.S. Show.
You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 4 is a two-CD set of live recordings by Frank Zappa, recorded between 1969 and 1988, and released in 1991.
Broadway the Hard Way is a live album by American musician Frank Zappa recorded at various performances along his 1988 world tour. It was first released as a 9-track vinyl album through Zappa's label Barking Pumpkin Records in October 1988, and subsequently as a 17-track CD through Rykodisc in 1989.
Napoleon Murphy Brock is an American singer, saxophonist and flute player who is best known for his work with Frank Zappa in the 1970s, including the albums Apostrophe ('), Roxy & Elsewhere, One Size Fits All, and Bongo Fury. He contributed notable vocal performances to the Zappa songs "Village of the Sun," "Cheepnis," and "Florentine Pogen."
You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 1 is a double disc live album by Frank Zappa. It was released in 1988 under the label Rykodisc. It was the beginning of a series of six double CDs Zappa assembled of live performances throughout his career.
You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 3 is a double disc live album by Frank Zappa, spanning from December 10, 1971, to December 23, 1984. It was released in 1989.
You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 6 is the last of six double-disc collection volumes of live performances by Frank Zappa recorded between 1970 and 1988. All of the material on disc one has a sexual theme. Zappa used the monologue in "Is That Guy Kidding or What?" to ridicule Peter Frampton's album I'm in You with its double entendre title and pop pretensions. Disc two includes performances from Zappa's shows between 1976 and 1981 at the Palladium in New York City, as well as material like "The Illinois Enema Bandit" and "Strictly Genteel" that he frequently used as closing songs at concerts. It was released on October 23, 1992, under the label Rykodisc.
Make a Jazz Noise Here is a live double album by Frank Zappa. It was first released in June 1991, and was the third Zappa album to be compiled from recordings from his 1988 world tour, following Broadway the Hard Way (1988) and The Best Band You Never Heard in Your Life (1991). The album's cover art was made by Larry Grossman.
Isaac Willis is an American vocalist and guitarist who was a regular member of Frank Zappa's studio and touring bands from 1978 until the last tour in 1988. He did not tour with Zappa in 1981 and 1982 because he wanted to be at home for the birth of his two children, and returned to touring with Zappa for his final two tours in 1984 and 1988. He currently tours with the Frank Zappa tribute bands Bogus Pomp, Ossi Duri, Project/Object, Pojama People, Ugly Radio Rebellion and ZAPPATiKA. He also performed several times with the Brazilian Zappa cover band, The Central Scrutinizer Band, The Muffin Men, and with the Italian bands Ossi Duri and Elio e le Storie Tese. Additionally, he has appeared multiple times at the annual Zappanale Festival in Bad Doberan, Germany. He is most recognized for his involvement in Zappa records such as playing Joe in Joe's Garage, providing vocals on Tinsel Town Rebellion, You Are What You Is, and The Man from Utopia, and as the title character and narrator in Zappa's off-Broadway-styled conceptual musical Thing-Fish.
Zappa Plays Zappa is an American tribute act led by Dweezil Zappa, the elder son of late American composer and musician Frank Zappa, devoted to performing the music of Frank Zappa.
Trance-Fusion is an album by Frank Zappa. Released posthumously in 2006, 13 years after the musician's death, the album forms the third in a trilogy of instrumental albums which focus on Zappa's improvised guitar solos, after Shut Up 'n Play Yer Guitar (1981) and Guitar (1988). Trance-Fusion was among the last albums completed by Zappa before his death, along with The Rage & The Fury: The Music Of Edgard Varèse, Dance Me This and Civilization Phaze III. It was also among the first releases by Zappa to be made available digitally via iTunes through Gail Zappa's distribution deal with Universal Music Enterprises.
"My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama" is a song written by Frank Zappa and originally recorded by The Mothers of Invention in February 1969 at Criteria Studios (Miami), with overdubs recorded sometime between August and September 1969 at TTG Studios and Whitney Studios. This version was included on their 1970 album Weasels Ripped My Flesh, an LP that included various recordings by the band from 1967 to 1969. A second version was released as a single on the Bizarre and Reprise labels as "My Guitar." Despite the more conventional naming, "My Guitar" did not chart.
One Shot Deal is an album by Frank Zappa, posthumously released in June 2008.
You Are What You Is is a 1981 double album by American musician Frank Zappa. His 34th album, it consists of three musical suites which encompass pop, doo-wop, jazz, hard rock, reggae, soul, blues, new wave and country. The album's lyrics satirize a number of topics, including hippies, socialites, fashion, narcotics use, cultural appropriation, religion, televangelists and the military draft.
The Ed Palermo Big Band is a New York City-based ensemble that has been active since the late 1970s, playing the compositions and arrangements of their leader, New Jersey born saxophonist Ed Palermo. The band is best known for Palermo's arrangements of the music of Frank Zappa, but they also perform and record compositions by Todd Rundgren, The Beatles, Miles Davis, Wayne Shorter, The Rolling Stones, Blodwyn Pig, King Crimson, Jethro Tull and many, many other composers from a wide range of genres.
"Advance Romance" is a Frank Zappa song originally from his live album with Captain Beefheart, Bongo Fury. Other versions of the song can be found on You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 3, You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore, Vol. 5, and Make a Jazz Noise Here. It is a humorous parody of typical love songs and is sung by Napoleon Murphy Brock with George Duke. The song was played from 1975 to 1976 and from 1982 to 1988 making the song one of Zappa's most performed. Almost all of Zappa's lineups after its release on Bongo Fury played this song in concert.
Joe's Camouflage is a compilation album by Frank Zappa, released posthumously in January 2014 by The Zappa Family Trust on Zappa Records. It represents the first official release of material by a band Zappa assembled for rehearsals in the summer of 1975 but which never toured or recorded material in the studio.
"A Little Green Rosetta", by Frank Zappa, is the final song on the 1979 concept album Joe's Garage Acts II & III. The main character from this triple-album rock opera is faced with the decline of the music industry, and is forced to work on an assembly line placing little frosted rosettes on top of muffins at the Utility Muffin Research Kitchen facility
Chicago '78 is a two-disc live album by guitarist, singer, and songwriter Frank Zappa, released in November 2016, consisting of the recording of the entire second concert performed on September 29, 1978 at the Uptown Theatre in Chicago, Illinois.