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(Supersister - Owed much to Caravan and Frank Zappa, though not in any particular order)

Had they decided to break up when their original lead singer left in 1969, we probably never would have had much of the Progressive Rock movement as we knew it in the 1970's. Supersister were a Dutch band (a country probably known more for Golden Earring and The Tee Set here in the States) who put Europe on the map as far as the Prog-rock movement was concerned.

Influenced a lot by the Canterbury scene in the UK in the mid-late 1960's with the likes of Caravan and Soft Machine, they were also very much influenced by early Mothers of Invention and the free Jazz and electronic music scene that was happening all over Europe from the 1950's onwards.

By today's standards, the band wasn't together all that long. Three albums worth before going separate ways in 1974, until a brief reunion in 2001 which sadly didn't become permanent owing to the loss of Sacha van Geest, one of the founding members to Cancer that year.

Still, Supersister have enjoyed a resurgence in popularity over the years because, like many of their counterparts from the period, it was never picked up by the mainstream and was deemed comfortably weird enough to remain timeless to those who never heard them in the first place.

Thank God for that.

Here is a cut off their second album "To The Highest Bidder", which was issued in the UK on Dandelion Records and came out in the U.S. for about a minute and a half. "A Girl Named You" starts off the original Side two.

I recently had the pleasure of reuniting with one of my oldest, dearest friends. He was a mentor to me in many ways. He helped expand my mind and showed me new ways to look at life, politics, music, racial issues -- and he introduced me to Frank Zappa. This is one of his FZ favs, and it goes out to him.

If Frank were alive today, imagine the fun he would be having with the likes of Sarah Palin, George Bush and the astrobirthers...

Tomorrow marks the birthday of the late, great, Frank Zappa, and the end of the annual blogswarm known as Zappadan. There are many great Frank Zappa tunes posted for this festival, but since so many of us are dealing with winter weather, I thought "Don't Eat The Yellow Snow" would be timely and appropriate.

Zappadan is headquartered at The Aristocrats. Until next year, Frank.

Tomorrow is the anniversary of Frank Zappa's death, and not coincidentally the beginning of Zappadan, the third annual blogswarm honoring the memory, music, and life force of Frank Zappa. The blogswarm ends on or after Frank's birthday on December 21. (This video calls for ending it the 22nd. It's over when the dental floss runs out.) The blogswarm is headquartered at The Aristocrats.

One other item: if you want the behind the scenes story of this little blog's switch to drupal, this article by our own C&L web guru will be of interest.

Open thread below...

1986 clip of Frank Zappa on Crossfire, in which he argues against censorship and tells Washington Times wingnut John Lofton to "kiss my ass":

"The biggest threat to America today is not communism, it's moving America toward a fascist theocracy. And everything that's happened during the Reagan administration is steering us right down that pike.

God, we could use him now.