Fosse da seguire il consiglio di una che quella sera c'era, Pamela Des Barres, bisognerebbe ascoltare tutto il contenuto di Whisky a Go Go, 1968 in un'unica sessione: “Listen to all of this album in its entirety and try to envision the Whisky a Go Go that long ago night. It happened in a space and time that will never come again, so buckle up, baby, close your eyes, let your imagination soar, and set your freak free.” Frank Zappa e The Mothers of Invention, dal vivo a Los Angeles il 23 luglio 1968 - a poche settimane dalla pubblicazione di We're Only In It For The Money e con già in testa Cruising With Ruben & The Jets - in uno dei luoghi a loro più cari, con amici, ospiti, celebrità tra il pubblico e file interminabili di gente fuori dal locale che preme per entrare ad assistere ad almeno uno dei tre set in programma. Qui documentati per intero.
“The purpose of this evening is supposedly to make some recordings of The Mothers live, in person”, Zappa told the eclectic gathering of freaks and hippie-cum-hipster music geeks alike. Zappa’s core intention of live invention that night was to capture an entire Mothers performance on multi-track tape. The only other time this had occurred was two months earlier at the Miami Pop Festival on May 18, 1968, when Eddie Kramer had documented The Mothers’ set on 1” 8-track tape. For the Whisky engagement, Zappa had hired the Wally Heider remote truck, which itself had been outfitted with a 1” 8-track recorder that would be helmed by recording engineer Dick Kunc. The choice of venue was no accident either. The Whisky had been very good to The Mothers over their formative years, and this showcase event was a way to give back to the place where manager Herb Cohen had persuaded producer Tom Wilson to witness Zappa and The Mothers perform in late 1965. That ultimately resulted in the band securing a record contract with MGM, not to mention planting the seeds of the fruitful relationship that developed between Zappa and Wilson. By the time The Mothers came back to the Whisky in July 1968, they had quite well established themselves as leaders of the underground.