Beat the Boots! II is a box set by Frank Zappa and a follow-up to the 1991 box set of the same name. Released in 1992 through Rhino Entertainment, the set contains legal reissues of seven bootleg recordings made between 1968 and 1978 and originally distributed illegally prior to this official release. As with the previous box set, no alterations were made to the audio contents or covers of the original bootlegs, reproducing the exact contents and packaging of the bootleg albums.[1]
Contents
The set, packaged in what was designed to look like a low budget cardboard box, also contained a beret, a badge and a memorabilia scrapbook.[1][2]Electric Aunt Jemima was sourced from three different performances from 1968.[1]Our Man in Nirvana features performances by Don Cherry and Wild Man Fischer.[1]Swiss Cheese/Fire! documents a famous 1971 concert at a casino in Montreux where the venue burned down, inspiring the lyrics of Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water".[1]Conceptual Continuity is an audience recording.[1]At the Circus is predominantly sourced from a 1978 television broadcast, but two tracks are sourced from a 1970 performance.[1]
Reception
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Tengo Na Minchia Tanta (Sicilian for "I've got such a big dick") was recorded at the Fillmore East in New York City November 14, 1970.
Tracks 11-14 are duplicated from the "Freaks & Motherfuckers" disc from box I.
"Does This Kind of Life Look Interesting to You?" – 0:49
"A Pound for a Brown (On the Bus)" – 7:26
"Sleeping in a Jar (with extensions)" – 4:34
"Sharleena" – 4:31
"The Sanzini Brothers" – 0:32
"What Will This Morning Bring Me This Evening?" – 4:35
Electric Aunt Jemima incorporates material from various dates: tracks 1, 2, 5 and 7 are from a show at The Dog in Denver, Colorado, May 3, 1968; tracks 3 and 6 are from Concertgebouw in Amsterdam October 20, 1968; and track 4 was recorded at Grugahalle in Essen, Germany, September 28, 1968.
"Little House I Used to Live In/Dog Breath Variations/Blue Danube Waltz/Hungry Freaks, Daddy" – 14:30
"w̃hät" – 3:53 [the true title of this piece is not known]
"English Tea Dancing Interludes/Plastic People/King Kong/America Drinks/Wipe Out" – 12:00 [the first ingredient in this medley is Zappa's arrangement of a motif from Edgard Varèse's "Octandre"]
At the Circus
All tracks were recorded at Circus Krone in Munich on September 8, 1978, except tracks 6 and 7, recorded for VPRO TV, Uddel, Netherlands June 18, 1970.
Swiss Cheese and Fire! were initially produced as two separate bootlegs. Both were recorded at the same show at Casino in Montreux in Switzerland on December 4, 1971, that inspired Deep Purple's song "Smoke on the Water". Swiss Cheese comprises tracks 1 to 5 and Fire! tracks 6 to 11.