The Breakfast - Zone One reviewFirst off, a warning, this review contains spoilers. If it’s material you may not want to know, it is blacked out. To read that material, simply highlight it. When Dobs was making this album, he wanted to make mixes that people could identify if they really tried, but he also wanted to make you work at it. This review contains my notes on where the songs came from, but since you may want to do it yourself, I used the spoilers.
Why does this album even exist? The reasoning behind it is contract issues with the label. The breakfast cannot re-release any material that they have recorded in studio unless it goes through the label for a set length of time (five years). This may sound harsh, but it is actually a standard of practice. If this didn’t exists, then a song could be released on a small label, become a #1hit, get re-recorded that week elsewhere and then all the profits would go to the second studio, not the first (got it now)? Good. That being said, there is a loophole in this: one, you can release material that has not been recorded for studio yet. Or, two, you can take the jam from a song that is unique to the night it was recorded on, name it, and release it as a song. It is the combination of these two that created the album.
This may lead to some confusion however, because someone who doesn’t know the songs very well but owns this album may write a set list using these song names, when they are technically parts of songs that already exist. An example would be [spoiler]Pinocchio, which is really just the jam from the middle of puppetry.[/spoiler] Someone who didn’t know may write a setlist as [spoiler]Puppetry > Pinicchio[/spoiler], when it is in fact just [spoiler]Puppetry[/spoiler].
Here we go!
The entire album was recorded on [spoiler]5/7/04 in upstate new york. The only one to tape that night was Dobs, who did a multitrack and also mixed this album. [/spoiler] As a result, this is the only available recording of the material on the album. [spoiler]Here is the full setlist:
May 7th, 2004 – Electric Company; Utica, NY
I: Doughboy, Wake Up in a Coma > The Vermont Song, Escher’s Etchings > Hush, Hard Luck Harry >
Dimension 5, Soul Finger
II: Language of the Gods, What the Funk*, No Regret, China Cat Sunflower > Puppetry, Inner Glimpse,
May Fly Disarray**, The Chase, Superfly Phaddy Fat
* Jason Press (Rezi) on Sax
** Head Like a Hole (Nine Inch Nails) tease; Five to One (Doors) tease
[/spoiler]
The first track is
Wake up in a coma. This is the only ‘full’ song on the album. Ironically, the band has recorded this song in studio, but they did it when they were Moki Jam, and they did it back in 1998. This is a great instrumental song, and has changed style three or four times since its original conception. This is a good representation of the current version. For other versions, go get a copy of the Moki Jam album ‘Episodes’, and there is a great rendition of the second version from the
Second Fonghoulish Freakout.
Plosion is the end jam from [spoiler]Hard Luck Harry[/spoiler]. This is easily identifiable by the riff immediately following the drum fill near the beginning of the track.
Fly by the seat of your pants is the jam from [spoiler] May fly disarray[/spoiler]. It is identifiable by the bass line, and more specifically from the teases that identify the show it came from.
Liberation I think is [spoiler]the jam from Escher’s etching, based on the riff at the beginning, but I have to listen to it a few more times before confirming.[/spoiler]
Pleasure Burn I have not identified yet. It is a good jam, but the segway into Moon: the new earth sounds a little rushed – the tempo changes ever so slightly. It sounds a little forced.
Moon: The new earth obviously is a jam out of [spoiler] Space oddity by David Bowie[/spoiler]. This raises some questions however, because [spoiler]Dobs told me that the entire album was mixed from one show, however, they did not play Space Oddity at that show[/spoiler]. I have no answer to this. This is a great jam – the only thing I don’t like about it is how the high hat suddenly gets loud at around 6:18. Personally I think it sounds like a bad mix, but maybe its there to hide something else? Who knows, it’s not unbearable, its just very present in the mix. The best thing about this song is the build up and segway into the next track. If it doesn’t leave a smile on your face, then you just don’t get what this album is about.
Pinocchio is a joke title, because the track, as I said earlier is [spoiler]the jammed out end to puppetry, and Pinocchio is a puppet[/spoiler]. HAHAHA.
All in all this is a great album and showcases one of the reasons that the Breakfast is such a great band. If your looking for songs with lyrics, go buy real radio. But if you appreciate a great jam when you hear it, than you will love this album. Look for more to come over time, as this is just Zone one, and just because [spoiler] this whole album was recorded at one show[/spoiler], that wont always be the case. [spoiler]As more shows are multitracked, more material will become available for Zone discs[/spoiler]. This album is only available at Breakfast shows, and is defiantly worth it – also, you get a copy of the real radio sampler with your purchase!
