Bizarre Records

Bizarre Records was a record label formed for artists discovered by rock musician Frank Zappa and his business partner/manager Herb Cohen.

Bizarre was originally formed as a production company. In 1967 Zappa's label, Verve Records, missed the deadline to renew their option on Zappa's recording contract after his second album, Absolutely Free, recorded with his group The Mothers of Invention. This gave Zappa and Cohen the upper hand in negotiating their own production deal with Verve. The purpose of forming his own production company was to give Zappa complete creative control over his work and the works he planned to produce for others.

The first albums associated with Bizarre were released in early 1968. These included We're Only in It for the Money by the Mothers of Invention and Lumpy Gravy, Zappa's first solo album. Other Zappa related releases were Cruising with Ruben & the Jets (1968) and the compilation album Mothermania (1969). The company also produced the late 1968 release Sandy's Album Is Here At Last by singer-songwriter Sandra Hurvitz, now better known as Essra Mohawk. These albums were all released by Verve Records under the "Bizarre Productions" imprint.

In early 1969 Bizarre Records was established as a label distributed by the Warner Bros. Records family of record labels, which also included Reprise Records. The Bizarre label was formed at the same time as a companion label, Straight Records, also distributed by Warner Bros. When the Bizarre and Straight labels were created, Zappa's intention was to release albums by avant-garde artists on Bizarre, and recordings by more mainstream artists on Straight. The first release in this series was a double album, The Berkeley Concert, by Lenny Bruce. Early pressings of the Lenny Bruce album featured an orange Reprise Records label with a Bizarre Records logo. Subsequent albums on Bizarre used a distinctive blue label design. Bizarre also released the double album debut of Wild Man Fischer, titled An Evening with Wild Man Fischer, in early 1969.

However, the original Bizarre Records concept failed to work out as expected due to issues with distribution and management. This led to some very unusual albums on the Straight label especially those by Captain Beefheart, Alice Cooper and The GTOs. Zappa and the Mothers of Invention were the only artists who stayed with Bizarre Records. Zappa released eight of his own albums with and without the Mothers of Invention on Bizarre from 1969 to 1972. The only Zappa project not on Bizarre during this period was the 200 Motels film soundtrack album, released by United Artists Records in 1971.

By 1973 the original Bizarre and Straight distribution contracts with Warner ended. Many Bizarre and Straight recordings were re-issued by Warner and or Reprise. The same year Zappa and Cohen chose to launch a new company, DiscReet Records, once again distributed by Warner Bros. The Zappa/Mothers titles on Bizarre were available on Reprise until 1981 and are currently available on CD from Rykodisc.

In 1988 Enigma Retro released Lenny Bruce's The Berkeley Concert on CD and cassette. An Evening with Wild Man Fischer has never been re-issued in any form and remains unavailable on CD.