Banned From Utopia featuring legendary Frank Zappa alumni Ray White, Bobby Martin and Scott Thunes, will be touring North America with The Paul Green Rock Academy this summer starting in July! The We Love Zappa Tour celebrates the music of Frank Zappa from all eras!

Banned From Utopia was formed in 1994 to keep the true spirit of Frank Zappa’s music alive. Covering a variety of Zappa songs, the ensemble lovingly recreates the eclectic virtuoso approach of their former band leader.

Banned From Utopia:

This year marks the 40th anniversary of “Valley Girl,” Frank Zappa’s sardonic, GRAMMY®-nominated Top 40 hit co-written with and featuring his then teenage daughter Moon Unit Zappa offering up the “totally bitchin’” local slang of the day over a gonzo riff set to an energetic beat. Released in 1982, the satirical track – which poked fun at the teen culture of Southern California’s San Fernando Valley – became the innovative artist’s biggest hit in the U.S.

In the fall of 1975, towards the tail end of a typically productive and prolific year that included finishing production on the One Size Fits All album, a spring tour with Captain Beefheart (immortalized on the live album, Bongo Fury, released in October of that year), and a performance of orchestral works, Frank Zappa and his band The Mothers played their first and only shows in Yugoslavia while in the midst of their fall tour.

Universal Music Group (UMG), the world leader in music-based entertainment, today announced an agreement between Moon, Dweezil, Ahmet and Diva Zappa (the Zappa Trust) to acquire Frank Zappa’s estate, including his expansive recordings, publishing catalog of iconic songs, film archive, and the complete contents of The Vault, the near mythic storage facility that houses the late Zappa’s life’s work.

The latest audio treasure to be excavated from Frank Zappa’s vast and legendary vault, Zappa/Erie, brings together an exciting trio of shows that the Maestro performed in Erie, Pa. and the surrounding area between 1974-76. Available now via Zappa Records/UMe, the new six-disc boxed set/digital collection contains more than seven hours of unreleased, electrifying live performances from Zappa and three different lineups of incredible musicians from this peak period.

Rock guitarist extraordinaire Mike Keneally passed his “audition” with Frank Zappa almost 35 years ago, when he was only 25 years old. Impressing the always-exacting composer, guitarist and performance artist wasn’t easy. But with his keen technical ability and singular, almost-photographic-memory recall of even Zappa’s most labyrinthine compositions, the then-young FZ devotee earned his “hall pass” to the inner realms of the band leader’s legendary 1988 tour band.

One of the most ground-breaking, original, and fearless figures of popular music was undoubtedly the legendary Frank Zappa. And paying tribute to his late icon is The Zappa Band – a group largely comprised of former members of Frank’s bands. And for the first time ever, the group (who had previously opened a string of shows for prog greats King Crimson) will be headlining their own tour for much of June – beginning in New York on the 12th, and then wrapping up in New Hampshire on the 26th.
 

The latest audio treasure to be excavated from Frank Zappa’s vast and legendary vault, Zappa/Erie, brings together an exciting trio of shows that the Maestro performed in Erie, Pa. and the surrounding area between 1974-76. Due June 3 via Zappa Records/UMe, the new six-disc boxed set/digital collection contains more than seven hours of unreleased, electrifying live performances from Zappa and three different lineups of incredible musicians from this peak period.

Celebrating Frank Zappa and The Mothers special 1971 lineups and a storied chapter in Zappa’s legacy, the monumental and definitive new eight-disc/digital collection, The Mothers 1971, is out now via Zappa Records/UMe.

Released in August 1971 just two months after it was recorded, Fillmore East - June 1971 was Frank Zappa and The Mothers’ masterstroke conceptual live album, a well-oiled and well-edited aural treatise chronicling the prurient feast and famine of a certain band’s somewhat salacious life on (and off) the road.