"A MAD-man."
This short live album, as others mentioned, is a bit of a redundant Frank Zappa album, but still worth a listen. This is the first Zappa album that didn't feature his most current bands or projects. The Zappa NY stuff is different enough, but if you have the Baby Snakes DVD, you've heard it all already. In fact, the entire Baby Snakes DVD audio got released in digital form, and it's essentially the audio from the DVD and tracked, released a few years ago (Baby Snakes: The Compleat Soundtrack---Official release #95) and with the new box set coming soon, this album becomes even less necessary to hear or own. But you know what, if you only have about a half hour and need some funny, live Zappa, this is a nice album to pop on.
The intro is directly from the movie. Baby Snakes the song is the same as on Shiek Yer Bouti, which then cuts right to Titties and Beer. Similar to the ZNY version, but obviously Frank and Terry Bozzio ad lib a bit, and remember ZNY is littered with tons of cuts and edits, whereas this seems more uncut. "I was signed with Warner Bros for 8 fucking years!" O'Hearn plays a little Cream tease during the song.
In comes The Black Page, this is a great version, if a bit similar to the ZNY version as well, but with more keys from Tommy Mars. Jones Crusher is not too different from the SYB version. Disco Boy is wayyyyy faster here than the studio version on Zoot Allures. In fact, Dinah Moe Humm is even faster than its studio counterpart. The album closes with the prog humor tune Punky's Whip, and well, it's a tiny bit different here and there (and has no horns like the NY version) but it's essentially the same as the ZNY version.
Also worth mentioning that, unless I'm forgetting something, this is really Zappa's first "archival" release. There would be a lot of these in the 80s, albums that showcased old bands. Obviously there's stuff like BWS and Weasels which came after the original Mothers had broken up, but at the time that was still his most recent group. This was the first time he went back into the vault, so to speak. There'd be a lot more of these in the 80s of course. Did the popularity of Baby Snakes lead to You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore?
Actually, from what I've read, the idea of the Stage albums goes back to late 60s/early 70s. Frank made an album called "Finer Moments" in 1972 which was meant to be the live versions of songs, some not found on studio albums, mixed with improv, jams, and other stuff, spread across different lineups, making the ultimate live album. It was scrapped for some reason, maybe Frank dropped it because he was not satisfied with the 60s Mothers and Flo n Eddie lineups, as he had started working with more serious and talented musicians on Waka/Jawaka and The Grand Wazoo. The album was eventually officially released in 2012 (Official release #92) but some stuff found itself on YCDTOSA vol 5 and The Mystery Disc, so Frank didn't forget about it.
In the mid-70s, Zappa wanted to release a live album called "The Impossible Concert", which was created with similar intentions, but was scrapped for one reason or another, mostly Zappa was dissatisfied with the final product I think, but it can be found for free in great sound quality on Zappateers
https://www.zappateers.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=25690 I think by the mid 80s, when Zappa started working on the Stage series, he felt he had enough strong material spread throughout his career to finally release those kinds of live albums. Being that there's a lot from the 80s bands and late 70s bands on those albums, I think Frank preferred the better sound quality, from having better recording equipment later on, digital technology and all. His live bands also got so tight and technically capable of playing anything he wanted them to, compared to earlier bands, especially pre-'73 lineups. But of course, there's stuff from '68-'76 spread across the series as well.
Both The Impossible Concert and Finer Moments contain music not found on any other albums.