The Mothers Of Invention: 1966

Recently, Kino has been uploading some excellent footage of The Mothers of Invention on stage in 1966, participating in some pretty early L.A. freak/hippie events. The only problem is, all the footage is silent--so I've added audio, which for me at least makes a big difference as there's wild dancing through this footage and it's just so much more exciting to see it with Zappa's music. For the audio I've used a few songs from "Freak Out!" and one from "Absolutely Free", along with a few from the 6/25/66 Fillmore show, to keep the music entirely matched to the era. The era of the clips spans June to September 1966, one of the most exciting periods in rock history. None of what you see and hear here even existed in 1965, yet suddenly the 60s exploded in a burst of supernova creativity, and Zappa certainly led the way with groundbreaking music that fused wildly disparate genres and involved an expertise in studio wizardry. The sources of the film footage, with timestamps, are: 6/18/66 Moonfire Happening, Santa Monica Civic 00:00 7/23/66 GUAMBO (Great Underground Arts Masked Ball & Orgy), Danish Center (a benefit for the L.A. Free Press) 07:03 8/13/66 "Son of GUAMBO", Shrine Exposition Hall 19:06 9/17/66 Freak Out, Shrine Exposition Hall (used in "You Are What You Eat") 22:41 9/66 TTG Studios, used in ABC's "Sex In Today's World" (this one has the original audio of the band playing) 27:32 Here are the music timestamps: 1. Hungry Freaks, Daddy (from "Freak Out!") 00:00 2. Plastic People/Toads Of The Short Forest (Fillmore, 6/25/66) 3:30 3. Who Are The Brain Police (from "Freak Out!") 6:17 4. Wedding Dress Song/The Handsome Cabin Boy (Fillmore, 6/25/66) 9:50 5. The Return Of The Son Of Monster Magnet (excerpt, from "Freak Out!") 20:53 6. Invocation And Ritual Dance Of The Young Pumpkin (from "Absolutely Free") 22:41 These clips are, to date, the only surviving film artifacts of the group in action in 1966.