Frank loved [The Mudd Club]. So much in fact, that he intently managed to organize a performance at the beloved club amidst his now normal routine of playing large theaters and halls. The whole thing was captured on FZ's nagra tape machine on 71/2 ips 1/4'' analog tape. Only one tune would eventually see release on Zappa's mammoth CD live series You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore. Meanwhile, the event was also captured on film by the Austrian film DoRo (Rudi Dolezal and Hannes Rossacher). The guys traveled with FZ, band and crew, documenting a brief section of the 1980 spring tour, covering the Mudd Club along with the Tower Theater shows in Upper Darby, PA two days later. The energy was high at the Mudd Club that night, with one Steve Vai in attendance. Months later he would join the group. Al Malkin, George Alper, David Ditkowich along with the usual cast of characters were representing, working the wall and working the floor.
[...] Munich Olympiahalle in Germany was the last concert of the tour, and the band was firing on all cylinders, having been on the road for a little over three months. [...] The Munich concert is historic in that it is the first digital live recording of Frank Zappa ever. A direct to digital 2-track stereo recording made on a Sony PCM 1600 recording system. The master media is a 3/4'' U-Matic videotape. These cassettes are notorious for short shelf life and audio drop-outs during transfers. The Munich show was no exception. Although this release comes from a brand-new transfer from the original digital masters, unfortunately there were drop-outs during the process that just could not be fixed. Thankfully, FZ made multiple tape backups. Some analog, some digital. [...] All available tapes were transferred and all drop-outs were corrected from safety sources. It seems that Frank was toying with tailoring these two concerts into their own releases. The work tapes reveal a number of sequences and edit choices. In the end, only one song from the Munich '80 show would be released, again as part of the You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore series.
The King Biscuit Flower Hour was a popular radio showcase for live programs. FZ created a number of shows for the series over the years, and Munich '80 was one of them. Fifty minutes of material were edited together with segments from the Frankfurt concert the day before Munich.
Chunga's Revenge (copy-pastes one phrase in opening theme to fix bum note)
City Of Tiny Lites [has edits]
Mudd Club [has edits].
Easy Meat (about a minute missing due to a digital tape change)
Research, compilation and maintenance by Román García Albertos