Zappa.com

What are you favourite mellotron prominent tracks? Are there many mellotron sounds in Zappa's catalogue, maybe in AF?

Genesis - Watcher of the Skies

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Epitaph (King Crimson)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcmGllrK2t0

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First hit single (in the charts with a bullet) recorded featuring a mellotron:

Graham Bond Organisation - Baby Can It Be True?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Su8NklPaMjE

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Once you learn to recognize the mellotron, you realize it's all over late-sixties and early-seventies British albums:

The Beatles - Strawberry Fields Forever
Rolling Stones - 2000 Light Years From Home
David Bowie - Space Oddity
Led Zeppelin - Rain Song
The Kinks - Berkeley Mews


Betcha never would have guessed the Kinks. Actually, they used the mellotron on several songs. And John Paul Jones used it onstage during "Stairway To Heaven."

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I love the mellotron in the captains album doc at the radar station, that was done in the eighties, when no on else gave a shit about this instrument, even FZ. It was the decade of the synthesizer and drummers were predicted as vanishing species. U might remember... I'd like to know, if there were other artists who used it in those years or later.
Incidentally it is a quite wonderful album, where he moves back a little bit to the weird style of trout mask replica. Making love to a vampire with a monkey on my knee is a great track with nice mellotron on this album.

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So, did Zappa use mellotron at all?

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Never heard or read about that. Never heard anything sounding like it. Maybe only the really big rockstars could afford one. And later on it was replaced by progress an not interestig any more? Anyone knows more?

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Hi,

Barclay James Harvest - Live ... Summer Soldier and Medicine Man back to back ... but no one has really used the mellotron as well as this band. Too many others, used it as a showshowkisskiss for one song, and this band uses it more than once!

Gracious - Heaven
Gracious - Super Nova
Gentle Giant - Three Friends (last track on album of the same name)

"Legend of a Mind" - Moody Blues (1968)

http://youtu.be/kQIzm3ypzBQ

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The Zombies - Odessey And Oracle. The mellotron is all over that album.

And it's probably the same mellotron that the Beatles used; the Zombies recorded at Abbey Road at basically the same time the Beatles were doing Sgt. Pepper and Magical Mystery Tour.

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Ah, the mellotron! Classic instrument. Most of all I connect it with bands like King Crimson, The Moody Blues and Genesis, but also with Herbie Hancock, on albums like Crossings and Sextant.

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Medeski Martin & Wood's album "The Dropper" has some sick mellotron on it. Probably still my favorite album of theirs.

Brazilian Mellotron prog-psych Rock:

Os Mutantes - A e o Z
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYpkjFnC6Io

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king crimson - starless

yes - and you and i, heart of the sunrise

van der graaf generator - a plague of lighthouse keepers

radiohead - airbag, exit music for a film

beethoven - 5th symphony

mozart -eine kleine mellotronmusik

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I love this thread.

Mellotron fans should check out Anglagard and Gosta Berlings Saga. Two bands that continue to use mellotrons.

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And they are from Sweden! *proud*

And when we talk about swedish bands using melltron, don't forget Samla Mammas Manna and Anekdoten!

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Reading threads about that stupid asshole Isaac M. Baranoff is the funniest part of this forum.
Trendmonger sucks ass. So does jaypfunk. What a bunch of losers.

let's not forget these jazz classics:

john coltrane - a mellotron supreme

miles davis - kind of mellotron

charles mingus - the black mellotron and the sinner lady

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>I'm not.
How do I know anything you've said to me is...
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Matching Mole - "Oh Caroline", also "Instant Kitten" and "Immediate Kitten", all from "Matching Mole" (1972)

Gilgamesh - "Underwater Song" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOxnGexHR_4

Tangerine Dream - "Ultima Thule Parts 1 & 2"

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Oh, I LOVE Samla. Eccentric fusion at its finest. I've met the member of both Anglagard and Gosta Berlings and they were influenced by the music of Samla Mammas Manna as well as Genesis, Crimson, etc.

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Sorry. You went to the well too many times. You should have stopped with Mozart...

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Samla was later a part of the RIO-movement, with Henry Cow, Univers Zero and Stormy Six, but renamed Zamla Mammaz Manna (probably a parody of the stupid z-instead-of-s-names of the bands in the swedish "dance band" scene, with groups like Fernandoz, Lasse Stefanz and Matz Blahds. Their use of mellotron however, is on the earlier albums like Måltid and Snorungarnas symfoni. And you got to admit, they must be influenced by Uncle Meat-era Zappa a lot.

Have you listened to Anekdoten? A little heavier, King Crimson Red-era influenced. I love the mellotron line in this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64rASUL9eGQ

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Reading threads about that stupid asshole Isaac M. Baranoff is the funniest part of this forum.
Trendmonger sucks ass. So does jaypfunk. What a bunch of losers.