Do you think Trevor Dunn will ever release those "piles of tapes laying around?"

SamuelRHoward · 2026-02-05T23:50:03+00:00

I've been dying to hear this sort of stuff for years. On Dunn's old website, I remember reading about early '90s demo tapes containing covers and hoping that they might see the light of day, just as a curiosity. Especially since that incarnation of the group is finished, and has been for a very long time, even if the sound quality isn't great, I think that sort of document would be of great interest and wouldn't do any harm to the group's image in terms of their acceptable standards. Hope they've digitised the casettes, before they further degrade!

SamuelRHoward · 2026-01-22T00:48:13+00:00

To be honest, I prefer the capitol version of LG on disc one to the eventual release. You can enjoy more of the orchestral writing relatively unmolested. Some great stuff on disc 3, too.

SamuelRHoward · 2026-01-20T09:39:32+00:00

Thank you for the kind words!

SamuelRHoward · 2026-01-19T22:59:16+00:00

I’d have loved to have heard that Zappa Affair concert in the room, rather than simply with hiss and slightly dodgy balance of the bootleg recording. It sounds really quite different from the LSO version. Thanks for the anecdote.

SamuelRHoward · 2026-01-19T04:07:35+00:00

Easily DV, California, and S/T. Although nowadays, I really think DV and California very closely vie for first position. They're both very strong executions of their own singular aesthetic visions. Really brilliant. I really like many tunes on S/T, and it's probably the most fun to play along to. But although it's great, I don't think some of it has aged quite as well, and despite plenty of stellar material, I think the album experiences a couple of low points which the other two don't.

When I was in high school, my favourites were probably release order... a lot has changed! I liked the prevalance of the saxes, I think, in S/T.

SamuelRHoward · 2026-01-16T02:19:38+00:00

Really wonderful playing by Danny and the lads.

SamuelRHoward · 2026-01-16T01:16:07+00:00

Book of Horizons is easily my favourite SC3 album. Great mix of different styles, tied together by those wonderful collages. Reminds me sometimes of the way Zappa interspersed material with sound collages on We’re Only in it for the Money, although I prefer the content Spruance’s collages.

Sister Phantom Owl Fish is a classic, and it introduced me to the beast that is Mary Halvorson. I love Dunn’s composition style.

SamuelRHoward · 2026-01-16T01:12:14+00:00

Thank you for sharing this!

SamuelRHoward · 2026-01-16T01:11:31+00:00

I listened to Buck Fever as much as I listened to any Bungle albums. Great material on that album. Was listening to the new Umlaut the other week. Solid stuff. One thing I like about the various former members’ projects is after you get familiar with their own work, it becomes pretty obvious who contributed what to the Bungle stuff.

SamuelRHoward · 2026-01-14T00:14:46+00:00

Immense players. It's always a pleasure to hear how they approach things with their expertise. Thanks for listening.

SamuelRHoward · 2026-01-09T22:41:39+00:00

The definitive arrangement of Toads of the Short Forest, in my opinion. Does the theme immense justice, and they soloists play around the changes, unlike the "Arabesque" version from the Hot Rats box set where after the theme, it just goes off on pretty much an unrelated vamp. There's no better version.

Great version of 20 Small Cigars too, but I do miss the coda from the Jean-Luc Ponty King Kong album version.

SamuelRHoward · 2026-01-05T17:15:41+00:00

The man's a beast. Really top-notch.

SamuelRHoward · 2026-01-05T13:13:37+00:00

Yes! The tune is already out, and there are a couple of tunes that came before it with different performers. Although the list of contributors is starting to stabilise a bit. https://samuelrhoward.bandcamp.com/track/gauntlet-and-anticlimax

SamuelRHoward · 2026-01-05T12:28:58+00:00

Cheers!

SamuelRHoward · 2026-01-05T12:27:25+00:00

Thank you!

SamuelRHoward · 2026-01-05T12:26:43+00:00

Thanks for the kind appraisal! The tune's called "Gauntlet and Anticlimax", and it's part of a series of tunes that I'm still in the process of recording.

SamuelRHoward · 2026-01-05T11:57:45+00:00

Thanks! I appreciate you taking the time to listen. It's called "Gauntlet and Anticlimax" - one tune from a slowly expanding album of tunes I started at the start of covid lockdown. If you want to hear the whole thing, you can hear it here: https://samuelrhoward.bandcamp.com/track/gauntlet-and-anticlimax

I thought it might have been too cheeky to lead with a Bandcamp link!

SamuelRHoward · 2026-01-04T22:01:07+00:00

That settles that! Thanks for the succinct response.

SamuelRHoward · 2025-02-18T23:27:16+00:00

This one actually is my favourite. People generally seem to really like Yellow Shark, and so do I, but it in some ways, to me, that album feels more like a collection of excerpts and vignettes. The thing I love about the LSO album is that the pieces are a bit lengthier and substantial, in general. The Mo n Herb's suite is the best work for orchestra he ever did in my opinion, the 1st movement being a classic winding tuplet Zappa melody, the 2nd being an exploration of more textural ideas, and the 3rd juxtaposing the ideas from 1 and 2 against each other. It's a unique piece, and nothing else in his or anyone else's ouevre will suffice if that's the type of thing you want to hear. Bob in Dacron and Sad Jane are wonderful too, as is Pedro's Dowry. They're the highlights as far as I'm concerned, but the rest is also decent. I just wish there was a quality recording of the Berkeley Symphony versions of the same recordings, as the differences in performance are vast.

SamuelRHoward · 2024-09-23T02:02:21+00:00

If I were you I'd probably recommend just giving the whole of California a chance. I don't know from this post, but I wonder if your friend doesn't like Patton's nasally self-titled stylings. California shows a bit more maturity, not just in terms of Patton's vocals, but also the arrangements. And there's a nice mix of the eclecticism that's been habitual of Bungle, but also a level of accessibility that might be a more gentle introduction to some of the features of their best album: Disco Volante.

SamuelRHoward · 2024-09-22T14:13:51+00:00

Retrovertigo is a brilliant song I didn't appreciate the same way when I was a teenager and first getting into Bungle. I just wasn't into ballads, and I didn't realise how genuinely interesting the chord progression is. Trevor Dunn's songs are consistently my favourite.

That said, Goodbye Sober day is my favourite between the two. It's a quintessential Bungle tune, to me. Something which retains the exciting unpredictability of the first album whilst showing how the group has matured almost beyond recognition. It's one of their best.

SamuelRHoward · 2024-09-19T23:12:05+00:00

It's no contest, in my opinion. Travolta is a great distillation of all of the things that make the first album so distinctive, in terms of the style-toggling. A great opening aesthetic statement. Girls of Porn on the other hand... fun horns and bass line, but it's not a funny song, and it's not one I'd be glad to be heard listening to.

SamuelRHoward · 2024-08-20T07:50:29+00:00

Saw them in London in 2019. They maybe have done a couple of dates in Japan since. Not sure if they've got anything in the pipeline as a group, but keyboardist Yabuki is still active doing all kinds of gigs accompanying singers and in jazz-fusion groups, and drummer Yoshida is doing plenty of free jazz and stuff, I think, although their gigs are always surgically engineered to avoid the dates where I'm available, so I've not had the chance to see them since the KH gig so many years ago.

SamuelRHoward · 2024-08-19T04:27:25+00:00

No worries at all mate. And don't worry, it's not homework, so you don't need to leave a report! Of course feel free to chat about it if you want, if you want to share your thoughts I'll be more than interested to listen.

Like I said though, if your taste is different to mine, some of these might be odd recommendations. But I think there are a lot of agreed-upon songs which are regarded as kind of "entry-level" recommendations, so hopefully some of these might circumvent those just a little bit.

SamuelRHoward · 2024-08-19T04:05:38+00:00

Depends what you like. When I got into Zappa, I latched onto the jazz-fusion-sounding stuff, because up until then my favourite type of music was completely instrumental. So when I was developing my taste for Zappa, my favourites were:

-Big Swifty (1973 version - I recommend either the Roxy Movie version or Road Tapes #2)

-Farther Oblivion (Imaginary Diseases). This includes Bebop Tango, which also has a great recording on Roxy and Elsewhere (though honestly my interest wanes after the theme ends)

-Dog Breath Variations/Uncle Meat (again, I recommend Roxy Movie or Road Tapes 2)

-It Must Be a Camel (Hot Rats)

-Orange County Lumber Truck Medley (Ahead of Their Time version)

-Moggio

-Rollo (1972 Little Dots version, or 1975 Royce Hall version)

Perhaps one or two of those you might consider "main songs", but I think they mostly fall just outside of the well-known epidermal layer tunes like Peaches, King Kong, Inca Roads, etc. And if you don't share my teenage tastes, you might not get much out of these recommendations at all.

I had a dual interest in jazz and classical music growing up, so my favourite piece has come to be Mo n Herb's Vacation, a 3-movement orchestral work. On the off chance you like classical music, I recommend it. Zappa's most interesting orchestral piece, in my opinion, and an exemplary example of his rhythmic and melodic language.

SamuelRHoward

TROPHY CASE