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The Captain Has A Sleepy Sinister Foot Dirt For Sale

from The Akai Years (1979​-​84) by John Tabacco

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Music © 1982 by John Tabacco
Contains some melodic material borrowed from Sinister Footware, Movement III © 1981 by Frank Zappa and a chord progression from "Sleep Dirt" © 1979 by Frank Zappa.
Both pieces published by Munchkin Music (ASCAP)

The first half of this instrumental was inspired by Captain Beefheart after
meeting him backstage at the Beacon Theater in New York City, 1981.
He was definitely a character from some far off dimension. Time seems to slow down when you're talking to him. What seems like 4 hours is actually four minutes. You feel like someone filled the room up with nitrous oxide. He's totally mesmerizing. He looked through me with these hollow, gray, "Trout Mask Replica" kind of eyes that surely have seen some sort of twisted hell. After telling him how much I enjoyed his music, he just smiled a Cheshire cat smile and calmly explained to me how all "stairs" were unnatural. I proceeded to ask for an autograph but not just his signature. I asked him to just draw me a line. He did, but assured me in a very serious tone that there was no such thing as a straight line. The second half is my first attempt at playing some lame variation of a reggae beat for longer than one minute. It is washed with the beautifully sad chord progression from Frank Zappa’s acoustic guitar piece, Sleep Dirt. On top of this progression is a sped up clarinet, playing riffs and variations from another Zappa piece entitled Sinister Foot Ware Movement III. At the time, this was merely an unknown concert piece I taped off the radio 92.7 WLIR. I learned how to play it on the xylophone at college and later transcribed it for the clarinet. Needless to say, the whole deal was very difficult to perform and I wished to hell I had an 8 track recording device that allowed me to punch in. My sister later used this Akai piece for a short black and white 8 millimeter film she shot of me trudging back to the main parking lot at Stony Brook University. There's a scene where Nick DiMauro pulls a trombone out from under the hood of his existential, gray Fiat and that in itself is worth watching. The music fits perfectly.

Note : Some of the guitar riff in this piece later found it's way into the 1988 Fuzzy Gray Logic song : "Everyone's An Animal".

credits

from The Akai Years (1979​-​84), released November 29, 2014
JT : Drums, Guitar, Clarinet

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John Tabacco Stony Brook, New York

John Tabacco is a composer, singer-songwriter, producer, recording engineer, and visual artist.

Like an unfolding musical diary / puzzle, Tabacco’s music and art are constantly being re-worked, juxtaposed and intertwined.

For more info : www.johntabacco.net ... more

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