The Frank Zappa Vault team is celebrating Halloween with a second collection of rare “Barfko-Swill” merch. The new “Zappaween” features three products: a circa-1981 live DVD, a rare orange graphic tee, and a Halloween costume box set still in original packaging.
An Evening With Frank Zappa During Which…The Torture Never Stops was filmed at the Hollywood Palladium on October 31, 1981. The T-shirt, an orange short-sleeve, has “Zappaween” emblazoned in two different spaces with “The Torture Never Stop” written on the back. The rare item, depicting Zappa’s favorite holiday, has no exact match online.
Finally, a Halloween 77 set draws back even further—pre-1980s, that is—into Zappaween’s history. Barfko-Swills inventory of Halloween 77 sets only contains those numbered 100 and below in a 5000-unit manufacturing run. That means the box—still in its original packaging and complete with a mask, a plastic Baby Snakes-outfit body, and six discs of music recorded at The Palladium from October 28th through October 31st, 1977—is one of the last remaining representations of Zappa’s first-ever costume box.(Udiscovermusic)
Find out more information about the Frank Zappa giveaway here.
First up in this series is a package that includes an original 1980s “We Are What We Watch” promotional poster for Zappa’s movie company, Honker Home Video. The ad features “The Theory Of No-D,” an anti-censorship statement from Mr. Honker, as well as a photograph of Zappa wearing the No-D Glasses. There’s also a “Don’t Mess With Me I’m A Registered Voter” shirt featuring Zappa as Uncle Sam. Arriving in a size large, this rare vintage shirt has been stored at Zappa Records since the ’80s and conveys Zappa’s belief in the power of the individual vote.
Also up for grabs is a test pressing of 2024’s first-ever vinyl release of Frank Zappa for President, a 2016 compilation album featuring a number of Zappa’s politically-themed works, including “Overture To ‘Uncle Sam’” and “If I Was President.” There’s also six “Zappa for President” stickers created around the time that Zappa considered running for the U.S. presidency in 1991. “My main qualifications,” Zappa said at the time, “are that I don’t play golf, I don’t take vacations and I do think the U.S. Constitution is one hell of a document and that this country would work better if people adhered to it more closely.”
