Frank Zappa - Mudd Club (2023) Hi-Res

A small live house with a capacity of 240 people in New York: A live recording performed on May 8, 1980 at the Mad Club. Recorded by Klaus Weidemann on a Nagra 2-track tape recorder and mastered by Bernie Grundmann.

"Mudd Club" belongs to a sequence of three songs that begins with "You Are What You Is" and ends with "The Meek Shall Inherit Nothing." The supplementary voice in the first song introduces the segue to this piece dedicated to a club that really existed back in the early '80s. Thus "Mudd Club" can be seen as an extension or contemporization of the topic developed in "Disco Boy" and "Dancin' Fool" -- disco is dead, these are new wave times. The song doesn't have the slightest bit of new wave influence in it though. Unlike many of Zappa's pieces it only has a first degree, which makes it rather weak. It first appeared live in March 1980, performed with "The Meek Shall Inherit Nothing" but following "Easy Meat" (this song's sexual topic easily introduced the club scene). The coupling with "You Are What You Is" happened in the studio and was carried on-stage at the beginning of the 1981 tour.

"Mudd Club," like its two companions, was re-recorded for the Thing-Fish album, but the new version differs very little from the original, except for extra commentaries from the play's title character. Both recordings failed to make a lasting impression on fans. The song remains known as "that boring moment between the other two songs."