Montreux Casino Fire of 1971

[Jake]

Forty-nine years ago yesterday was the disastrous Montreux Casino fire on Lake Geneva, in Switzerland which featured Zappa and the Mothers. Deep Purple was in town to make a record, and they watched the fire from their hotel room and wrote a song about it.

The lyrics are little more than a journal entry, but the seven note vamp Blackmore and Lord put together to drive the song has embedded this disaster in the DNA of an entire generation of guitar players, for many of whom it was the first thing they learned on their first guitar.

I hold the original Deep Purple lineup in great esteem, and this is certainly not their best work (not even close) but the power of a good vamp is not to be denied.

(video is assembled from multiple takes)

 

[Jake]

The vamp:

 

[Jake]

The smoke:

 

[Scooter]

So I guess hearing that song on the radio was the first mention of Frank Zappa I ever heard. I never really thought about it but I sort of thought about it. WTF is Frank Zappa and the Mothers and what does it mean? I don't know ... it's just words in a song.

 

[Jake]

So I guess hearing that song on the radio was the first mention of Frank Zappa I ever heard. I never really thought about it but I sort of thought about it. WTF is Frank Zappa and the Mothers and what does it mean? I don't know ... it's just words in a song.

It's mighty hard to describe Zappa in a couple of sentences. He was a strong self-taught musician, very innovative and usually controversial. Full name of the band was the Mothers of Invention. Can't really pick one song to showcase them cause there was so much crazy.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1eQooBq10k

 

[Jake]

Zappa's band lost about fifty grand worth of equipment in the fire (1970 dollars) but did end up with a recording of the whole catastrophe, originally issued by someone on a bootleg album and later reissued legally as part of Zappa's

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compilation.

 

[Holliday]

Always a favorite: