the zappanale festival was great.  18 bands of which 17 played music composed by frank zappa.  good grief...
i'll save my comments for the next occasion.

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me and my big mouth...  i was convinced that the united-mutations site carried an entry on freak kitchen...  it didn't, so i added it today.  if you don't know who freak kitchen is, check them out.
but before you do, try mattias eklundh's "freak guitar" album.  he's the freak kitchen guitar player.  this one will blow your socks off.
by the way, "freak guitar" was originally published in 1999 on the swedish thunderstruck productions label.  the album got a worldwide release on steve vai's favored nations label, and (!) with an extra track on it.  (22 instead of 21)
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there's a new band in the states that plays the music of captain beefheart - more info soon -
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another favored nations release is billy sheenan's latest album, "compression".  sheenan has played with talas (his own band) and with mr.big.  the album has been out for almost a year now.  sheenan plays / played bass in the vai band and steve vai is featured as a guest on sheenan's album as well.
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ike willis isn't convinced that the halloween zappa-thing in the states is going to happen.  he knows that he will not be a part of it, so project/object scheduled a concert with ike on halloween.
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roy estrada is staying in germany (at jimmy carl black's place) fo another two weeks.  he will take part in the recording of jimmy's next album.
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frans joseph goof, who wrote an hommage to don van vliet called "jazzno trauma" and performed it at the "rockin' art" expo last year, has an album out called "urst".
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for those of you following the belgian music scene: rudy trouvé (deus, dead man ray, kiss my jazz, gore slut) made a solo album.  it's called "a collection of rather quiet songs, recorded between 1999 - 2002" * * daan stuyven (who did dead man ray together with rudy trouvé) has a second solo album out. it's called "bridge burner". * * univers zero recently released their eight (!) album: "rhythmix".
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and there's a new pere ubu album out: "st arkansas".

more info real soon:  new albums by pierrejean gaucher and by ya hozna * * the lex l. bronkowitz orchestra has another album out * * jimmy carl black presents two new titles on his inkanish label * * don preston and bunk gardner have another release out on don's brain records label * *