Frank Zappa: Classic or Dud?

On the other hand, stuff released in the late seventies and through the eighties was often fairly puzzling. Musically speaking, it was incredibly well-played, and the lyrics had a bitter sting to them that you couldn't help but admire a good chunk of the time. By this time, though, he got into a really nasty groove that went past obvious satire to the point where you weren't quite sure that he wasn't being serious anymore: how many times can you release an album filled to the gills with songs about big breasts, blow jobs, drugs, and various other degeneracies until any claims to satire are dismissed? In a lot of ways it became a one-note dirty joke, and while it remained clever it became redundant and increasingly transparent. Moments of brilliance were still there: Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch was actually quite solid if you jettisoned the novelty hit single. The Yellow Shark proved that the man knew how to compose music (though Jazz From Hell had already proved that, it was a bit on the sterile side). More than anything, this became a period where Zappa was more notable just for the sheer amount of product he cranked out. That's not enough to change my vote, though. Still classic.

If you bother to learn how to write music, write a big, run-on sentence like Zappa did so you can just sit back and hire super-professional musicians to play it later, as a challenge to their virtuosity and a feather in all of your caps! And then mix and match your paragraphs, so you never have to start a new book (since it's such a mess to begin with) and have people call your entire body of work a brilliant intertwined "concept"!

Music that is composeurish is rather dull, unless it is actually goodlike Mozart, Vivaldi or Beethoven, when the orchestration is so good, you don't notice the minutia unless you concentrate and are then blown away on a whole different level. Zappa falls way short of that. Everything is "hey, listen to this little weird thing" *insert cowbell rattle followed by kazoo*. (This reminds me of Metallica, by the way; I can hear the metronome ticking in the background. That's bad music! Is that supposed to be emotion? Hmmm...)

I prefer the Grateful Dead to most Zappa, with the exception of "Apostrophe" & "Sheik Yerbouti". Some others that are okay, but by no means what the fans make it out to be, are "The Best Band You Never Heard In Your Life", "Yellow Shark", "Joe's Garage" and "You Are What You Is". I also have "Live At The Ritz" (or something?) that I never listen to. It is some of the most boring shit I own, except for the one track "I Am The Slime" which I don't have on any other recording... Which album has "Zombie Woof"? That'sa good one, actually.

Anyway, I think what I'm trying to say is that it's a lot harder to make a cohesive song that has some emotion rather than filling a music sheet with black dots and having Steve Vai and Anton Figg play it for you while you play composer genius. The main guy from Jethro Tull is like that, too, but I think he actually has a reason to be, since it's not 1/2 just free improvisation and studio overdubs.

Of course, if you are a fan of his music, you'll be ridiculously offended by the notion that he's nota super genius, even if you have no musical knowledge or skill yourself as a source to draw upon for judgement, and tell me to piss off or something for daring to compare my unfamous non-music-reading sensibilities to the god of avant garde. He definitely gets tons of points for being first. Who knows if I would be able to lay on a couch, imagining constantly changing music patterns if he hadn't shown me how (or did he)? I do it all the time, but it drives me nuts because songs that wander off into insanity are boring. Playing simple and well is difficult. I think Zappa released too much of too little value (except to those fanatics of course). But, I still think he's a classic for the good stuff he did put out and for trying to do something interesting (even if not really very funny at all, just weird and kinda perverted) with music.

hey, nobody's mentioned 'hot rats' yet, perhaps his greatest album?

Oh, check out his autobiography. It's got some good laughs. Spoo!

Interestingly I don't really feel qualified to respond to this thread any more, despite owning a load of Zappa. I haven't listened to any of it in more than a year.

I think my favorites used to be Apostrophe'/Overnite Sensation (esp. "Montana" - "I think I'll raise me up some DENNIL FLOSS"), the guitar box (esp. the track with the bouzouki), parts of Joe's Garage (mostly for the guitar sound, cf. 'Watermelon in Easter Hay', and because I get an enormous kick out of hearing the Ceeeeentral Scrooooaaaatinizer), One Size Fits All, much of Zoot Allures and Lather (I get an infantile kick out of the Stravinsky namedrop on "Titties 'n' Beer", but that's just a perk).

- following the awesome tribute night to zappa and beefheart at THE CLUNY - where was the fuckin' WIRE ? - another night is planned on thursday 17th may at newcastle arts centre - featuring ex- zappa/beefheart drummer jimmy carl black and the muffin men, zoviet france, hounds of the hill and many others - zappa and beefheart classics fucked over bigstyle - like susan george in straw dogs !

Tadeusz says astute, but I've never thought FZ was over-and-above astute — just, y'know, run-of-the-mill astute. Never heard an FZ commentary that I hadn't already heard elsewhere (not nec. heard elsewhere in pop /rock, but in Letterman or Alex Cockburn, or just somewhere... ): I think the prob. is he NEVER turned his laser-eye on himself and the wackness of his dreams/fears. "Astute" somewhat excepted, all the good words TS uses are true — but (to me) so what. FZ is just too guarded, so that's how he makes me.

Anyway, my own thoughts: I tend to like Zappa's earlier stuff most (just about everything he did with the Mothers of Invention), plus a great deal of his late seventies/early eighties post-Mothers stuff. Faves would have to be Apostrophe (as someone upthread said, so gleeful), Freak Out!, Hot Rats, Joe's Garage, and Läther (because it's so over-the-top, has all of the best bits from Sheikh Yerbouti and Orchestral Favorites, and that cow on the cover with the Zappa goatee-and-beard). Guilty favorites would be Sheikh Yerbouti (great pop songs and awesome guitarwork mixed with pure wank and pointlessly stupid lyrics) and Thing Fish (mainly because it brings together everything that was good and was bad about Zappa). Largely agree that he tapered off towards the end, when he was releasing albums largely because he could (and because he'd gotten that damn Synclavier doing music by himself, without anyone or anything to keep him or his sketchier ideas in check).

As for the astuteness -- I guess some of that's from my having read a lot of his interviews as well as his autobiography. His lyrics are a grab-bag of the funny, the astute, the obscene and the flat-out stupid ... even he admitted that a lot of his lyrics and plots (esp. Joe's Garage) were stupid.

'Hot Rats' is good though, and is it 'Suzy Cream Cheese' (?). Actually, Zap ain't so bad. I mean the guy did twiddle the knobs on 'Troutmask' right? It's just he's so fucking odd; but for the sake of being odd, you know. Whereas with Loonheart, you know that he is genuinely fucking out there, Zappa is always trying so damn hard.

With this is mind: Dud.

So... Nobody here has a sense of humor unless they're STONED??

All of you hate fun and sweet sweet guitar solos. REVIVE!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssjVez9UA4w

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ew3Dq82Q1bQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCG4Caw7IIc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_i_HVBD9ks

Alternate '73 version of Montana with better video quality but lower sound. KILLER solo.

ahhhhh thanks

whoa i just clicked on that "last zappa interview" video--really sad

fuckin ian underwood!

I haven't brought myself to watch that yet, but there are 5 sections of the Zappa bio from BBC on there too, which I highly recommend.

That video of "You are what you is" made the 8 year old me extremely nauseous when it originally aired.

I just read about this morning--no recollection of it playing any festivals here, and I can't find a listing on IMDB.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7figLnhYZ44

”both” is the answer to the this thread

haha, otm

So much material that there are extremes of both.

Full catalogue to be reissued by Universal this year, apparently including some new mastering jobs. (By Joe Travers? No details given.)

My first question is whether Gail and the ZFT retains the right to keep on mining the extensive vaults and putting stuff out themselves.

hmmm, i seem to recall that the mixes of a lot of those 90s reissues had been futzed w/ by Zappa? wonder if these are the "original" mixes or whatever.

RIP Rykodisc.

I hope they're the "unfutzed" versions.

I dunno - the original version of "We're Only In It For the Money" is pretty horrible, really

sonically, I mean

Would like somebody to explain me the difference between remixing and remastering in the context of this news. When FZ did the CD releases of Ruben and the Jets and WOIIFTM with new bass & drum tracks, it's safe to say he did new mixes. There are fairly radical differences in LP and CD mixes of Hot Rats. But I imagine that most of the CD catalogue consisted of digital transfer of the original vinyl masters, right, without much fiddling around?

You have it right, Remastering is tracking down the best possible format of the final mixes of an album (in Zappa's case probably 1/2 or 1/4 inch analog tape reels and adding equalisation and/or compression & limiting to get the best overall sound and dynamics onto whichever format the recording is going to end up on. Of course the potential abuse of the process is a big issue in the digital age.

Remixing is loading the original unmixed master tapes onto whatever the relevant playback machine would be and repeating the process of mixing the album from scratch.

The regular cds of Freak Out have a bunch of digital echo Frank added in the 80s. The reissue entitled MOFO has the og mix.

I remember reading that he apparently dicked about with recordings other than Hot Rats and WOIIFTM too, that's where the UMRK Approved master tag came in.

I dunno - the original version of "We're Only In It For the Money" is pretty horrible, really

the version on cd with added slap bass is a whole new level of awful though

hmmm, i seem to recall that the mixes of a lot of those 90s reissues had been futzed w/ by Zappa? wonder if these are the "original" mixes or whatever.

"futzed" is putting it mildly.

Reissues

In 1984, Zappa prepared a remix of Cruising with Ruben & the Jets for its compact disc reissue and the vinyl box set The Old Masters I. The remix featured new rhythm tracks recorded by bassist Arthur Barrow and drummer Chad Wackerman, much as the 1984 remix of We're Only in It for the Money had featured. Zappa stated "The master tapes for Ruben and the Jets were in better shape, but since I liked the results on We're Only in it For the Money, I decided to do it on Ruben too. But those are the only two albums on which the original performances were replaced. I thought the important thing was the material itself."[2]

After the remixing was announced, a $13 million lawsuit was filed against Zappa by Jimmy Carl Black, Bunk Gardner and Don Preston, who were later joined by Ray Collins, Art Tripp and Motorhead Sherwood, increasing the claim to $16.4 million, stating that they had received no royalties from Zappa since 1969.[2]

In 2009, the original mix of the album was released as part of a compilation entitled Greasy Love Songs.[6]

zappa was so nuts about that sort of thing, it seems. i remember reading something about the creation of "shut and play your guitar" (i think) where he would put guitar solos from, say, 1974 into a recording from 1981.

He would lift guitar tracks from live recordings and drop them into studio based stuff, he did a whole track by layering elements from different recordings, Tink Runs Amok? He called it Xenochrony iirc.

XENOCHRONY! Exciting. Bands that never were.

"Rubber Shirt," from Sheik Yerbouti:

SPECIAL NOTE: The bass part is extracted from
a four track master of a performance from Goteborg,
Sweden 1974 which I had Patrick O"Hearn overdub on
a medium tempo guitar solo track in 4/4. The noted
chosen were more or less specified during the overdub
session, and so it was not completely an improvised
"bass solo." A year and a half later, the bass track was
peeled off the Swedish master and transferred to one
track of another studio 24 track master for a slow song
in 11/4. The result of this experimental re-synchronization
(the same technique was used on the Zoot Allures
album in "Friendly Little Finger") is the piece you are
listening to. All of the sensitive, interesting interplay
between the bass and drums never actually happened ...
also note, the guitar solo section of the song "Yo' Mama"
on side four was done the same way.

One of my favorite Sheik Yerbouti tracks.

I was just to talking to a big Zappaphile firend of mine, and he mentioned that some of the other "futzing" was undoing vintage edit jobs done to fit lp time constraints. He cited these two (and was only partially wrong):

Wiki on Hot Rats:

In 1987 Zappa remixed Hot Rats for re-issue on Compact Disc. "Willie the Pimp" is edited differently during the introduction and guitar solo. "The Gumbo Variations" has 4 minutes of additional material including an introduction and guitar and saxophone solo sections which were cut from the vinyl LP version. Piano and flute which were buried the LP mix of "Little Umbrellas" are prominent on the CD. Other differences include significant changes to the overall ambiance and dynamic range. The original mix was reissued in 2009 as a limited edition audiophile LP by Classic Records.

Wiki on Weasels...:

The CD version of the album features different versions of "Didja Get Any Onya?" and "Prelude to the Afternoon of a Sexually Aroused Gas Mask", which featured music edited out of the LP versions. Some of this extra music was used (in a different studio recording) as the backing track for "The Blimp" on the Captain Beefheart album Trout Mask Replica, produced by Frank Zappa.

the version on cd with added slap bass is a whole new level of awful though

― zappi

I was trying to youtube some songs off it a few years back, and the only versions that came up were from this, which I hadn't been aware of before, and I was seriously appalled. Especially since the original WOIIFTM is one of my all-time faves.

haha ok if i had to define what i don't like about zappa "wplj" would suffice pretty well

2nd song "Run Home Slow Theme" is great

xxp

that whole concert is on The Yellow Shark album, it's very nice

xp nice! Don't forget to add the original Duke of Prunes from the Run Home Slow score -- it's on Mystery Disc, and that 1:18 of music might be the most beautiful thing he ever recorded, way before the Mothers.

This was on the same channel as that orchestral performance, I think it's from the tour with Mahavishnu Orchestra. I've never seen or heard this performance before, the Jean-Luc Ponty solo at the beginning is nuts, the whole band was some hot shit!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qr6mTloYJJs

xpost - added!

Oh, that clip w/Ponty reminds me, his 1970 album of mostly FZ music (King Kong) is fantastic as well, good version of "Twenty Small Cigars," which sort of kicked off this thread revive.

ok i'm gonna do it

Mostly Instrumental Zappa I Like (including bootlegs)

A little bit on Zappa's "classical" writing:
9/8 Objects - A weird little snippet from the "Yellow Shark" Ensemble Modern rehearsals. The Ensemble Modern are(were?) a really amazing ensemble, one of the best Zappa worked with. Their career has since kind of been defined by having worked with Zappa, because that's how classical music tends to go. Oh well. I also have a great recording of them live doing a piece from 200 Motels, "Dental Hygiene Dilemma". The version I have has vocals by David Moss. I don't think there's an instrumental version of it. "200 Motels" isn't his best orchestral writing anyway. There _is_ a mostly-instrumental version of "200 Motels" played in 1970 by the LA Philharmonic with Zubin Mehta conducting. However, due to union contracts he couldn't legally record it, and the bootleg recording of it is not great. It's better than I remember it being, honestly. The other thing is... combining rock and roll guitar with "classical" orchestral performances just DID NOT WORK, much as I love "Atom Heart Mother. And like I said, I really don't think "200 Motels" is his best compositional work.

His orchestral writing is... patchy. He took one semester of composition in community college in, I don't know, Pomona or something, decided the stuff the teacher was saying about dissonance was stupid, and to hear him tell it never studied anything again. There's actually a recording of the music he wrote for "The World's Greatest Sinner" - a local pickup orchestra. It's really nice! There's this particular wonderful very kind of... _yearning_ theme towards the end. Not a lot of stuff in his later work like that. The music he wrote for Run Home Slow ... some of it he played later with the Mothers. Just a couple minutes worth. It sounds good too.

I know he wasn't entirely satisfied with it, but I do really like "Music for Violin and Low-Budget Orchestra" from Jean-Luc Ponty's _King Kong_ album. There's a revised version of it on one of Zappa's own albums - it's more coherent as a piece of music, but less interesting IMO.

Zappa did a lot more orchestral recordings but I'm bored so I'm going to move on.

-

A little bit on Zappa's Guitar Music:
I do actually like Zappa as a guitar player, even though he's pretty limited in a lot of ways. He really hit his stride as a guitarist in the late '70s, around '77 to '79. In this era he had rhythm players he worked really well with - Patrick O'Hearn or Arthur Barrow on bass, Terry Bozzio or Vinnie Colaiuta on drums. Most of the guitar solos on "Shut Up N Play Your Guitar" came from some London '79 shows, which do indeed contain some of the best guitar playing I've heard from him, particularly his solos on the song "Inca Roads". He had a distinct fondness for kind of... I'm not a musician, but Eastern European modes, modes I associate with "Romani" music.

"Watermelon in Easter Hay" is probably his best-known guitar piece, and I do think it's a good one. Unusually for Zappa in this era, it was a studio recording. He didn't really do a lot of studio recording after "You Are What You Is" in 1981 (terrible album, by the way, basically irredeemable). Very typically for Zappa he stuck it towards the end of a triple album containing a bunch of misogynist bullshit. The late '70s was also Zappa's peak era for misogynist bullshit, starting with the fall '75 tour. Just some absolutely vile, vile stuff.

Some obscure one-off guitar things of his I like:
* Nine Types of Industrial Pollution - a double-speed guitar solo he recorded for "Uncle Meat". One of the first guitar recordings of his I really enjoy.

There's also a cool recording of his from the PAL studio days called on Zappa's records "Speed Freak Boogie" - according to Paul Buff, who recorded the song, it was originally called "Cookin' Turnips". (Before the Mothers, Zappa owned a small studio - I think he bought it from Paul Buff - until he was entrapped by some asshole cop, was sentenced to ten days in jail, and had his studio seized. Fucked up shit.) There's a lot of really early stuff on the CD "The Lost Episodes". Some of the best of it is on the "Hot Rats" and "Overnite Sensation" deluxe sets, but there's other kinda cool stuff. Some blues stuff with Captain Beefheart on vocals. An instrumental medley of "The Wedding Dress Song and "Handsome Cabin Boy". Some _really_ interesting sequencer music called "Basement Music #1".

* In 1970 he was on Johnny Otis's radio show with Shuggie Otis, and they did a _lovely_ guitar duet. Just really nice stuff.
* At the end of the "Shut up N Play Your Guitar" album, there's a duet with Jean-Luc Ponty called "Canard Du Jour". I think he's playing bouzouki on this one. He was actually a pretty good bouzouki player IMO, though not in the traditional style.

* Apostrophe' - A great jam with Jack Bruce and, I think, Jim Gordon. The full-length nine minute version is worth checking out.
* The Ocean is the Ultimate Solution from "Sleep Dirt" is also a really nice, long jam. There's a shorter version on the misbegotten "Laether" 4-LP set - I do think the long version is worth hearing.

* The Torture Never Stops is... dumb, but I don't find it "offensive" honestly. There's a version of it by the '77-'78 band on "You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore, Vol. 1, and I've always particularly loved Zappa's solo on it. I should just edit out the song part of it, like I do with the May 6, 1970 Dead performance of "Dancin' in the Street".

-

Hot Rats:
Basically all the stuff by the Hot Rats groups are worth listening to. There's a six-CD set of "The Hot Rats Sessions" from mid '69. Just great, long-ass jams, as well as some really good arranging with a really good use of overdubs on the composed material. This material found its way onto a lot of other records besides "Hot Rats" itself. The early '70 sessions on "Funky Nothingness" are in a similar vein. And as I mentioned, the live recording from the Olympic Auditorium on March 7, 1970 is worth hearing.

-

Non-Hot Rats Instrumental-Ish Records:

The big ones are the ones from 1972, after he was pushed offstage in late '71 by a psychotic fan, a week after all the band's equipment burned in the Montreux Casino fire started by "some stupid with a flare gun". Nobody was seriously injured in the casino fire. A week later Zappa wasn't so lucky. He suffered life-threatening injuries and spent the next year recovering. By April of '72, though, he was recovered enough to record a sort of Mwandishi-esque jazz fusion project, which came out on the albums "The Grand Wazoo" and "Waka/Jawaka". They're less spontaneous than the Hot Rats stuff, and honestly, not as good in my opinion, but there's still some pretty good jazz in there. Later in the year he went on to tour with tour large bands - a short tour with, I believe, a 19-piece band, and a longer tour with a 10-piece band. Zappa recorded one concert by the 19-piece band. It's worth hearing because this band was all-instrumental. It's a good opportunity to hear instrumental versions of songs that originally had vocals, such as "The Adventures of Greggery Peccary", which in its studio form is pretty tedious. I don't think it's compositionally great, but it's got some good bits, particularly the closing "New Brown Clouds" section. The standout, though, is... Penis Dimension. Yeah it turns out this has a _gorgeous_ melody. You wouldn't know it, because who the fuck wants to listen to a song called "Penis Dimension"? It's not that I am not into cocks or songs about cocks. It's more that this particular song about cocks has just utterly terrible lyrics.

Anyway, there's a set called "Waka-Wazoo" (not to be confused with "Wazoo" or "The Grand Wazoo") that has outtakes from the sessions. It _doesn't_ have the albums themselves, which I'd suggest listening to first. The main appeal of the the Waka-Wazoo sessions to me are getting to hear some demos George Duke recorded with Zappa's involvement. Duke in general is _far_ more agreeable to listen to than Zappa. I definitely recommend these tracks. I also recommend the "Feel" album, where Zappa plays on one track. More than I'd recommend listening to _anything_ under Zappa's own name, in fact.

The album that follows up on "The Grand Wazoo" most closely is an album called "Sleep Dirt". This is one of the sessions that was originally going to be stuck in the four-LP "Laether" box. Honestly, they're a lot better off as individual records. Zappa kept wanting to do these mega box set things, I guess so you'd HAVE to listen to his shitty misogynist bullshit? Anyway "Sleep Dirt" is all instrumental. EXCEPT that the CD version isn't, because he had some lady come in and record vocals. I mean she's fine as a singer. The lyrics are dumb, though. They come from this stage piece Zappa wrote in '72 called "Hunchentoot". VERY Zappa. "The Grand Wazoo" was also written for this piece, and has equally dumb lyrics that you can hear on the "Waka/Wazoo" box. You're gonna want to find the instrumental versions.

-

The Early Mothers

There are fans who will swear to you that the early Mothers stuff is the only good stuff Zappa ever did, and, well. There was a lot more overt groupie bullshit when Flo & Eddie joined, though I do think this is mostly down to Zappa and not down to Volman and Kaylan. Even the early stuff, though... they got compared to the Velvet Underground a lot, but the Velvets were, like, about a billion times better. I'd honestly just give those first three Mothers albums a miss.

Uncle Meat, though. Uncle Meat is good. I'll stand by that. It's got a really distinct production style. Ruth Komanoff, later Ruth Underwood, does a lot of the percussion on it. Her presence always elevates the material, in my opinion. Zappa was at heart a percussionist, and I find I enjoy Zappa's music a lot more when Ruth Underwood is playing percussion. It's also the first record where Ian Underwood is really present. Underwood was the musician who, IMO, really enabled him to do "Hot Rats", and is also really important in the later Mothers work. On the Uncle Meat album, there are spoken word bits and snorks and goofy live bits thrown in but I find them pretty easy to ignore. I even like some of the vocal stuff. I'm genuinely fond of "Cruising for Burgers", for instance. I also think "Project X", an instrumental, is a cool and interesting piece, the way it combines acoustic guitar with Zappa's chamber writing. A lot of chamber stuff on the album. The big piece here is the side-long "King Kong", which is... OK. It's one of the instrumentals most associated with him, along with "Peaches En Regalia". I've heard it too fucking much, to be honest.

The two Mothers records after this are... OK. "Weasels Ripped My Flesh" has weird dissonant live stuff with lots of Roy Estrada moaning. There's "Directly From My Heart To You", recorded at the Hot Rats sessions. There's the original vocal version of "Oh No" and the first release of "The Orange County Lumber Truck", a live staple of the era. And then there's "The Eric Dolphy Memorial Barbecue", which I do think is a pretty great piece.

"Burnt Weeny Sandwich" is all-instrumental except for the bookend doo-wop covers. I really like this one, honestly.

There's also "Cruising with Ruben & the Jets" - all doo-wop songs, you can skip it - and Lumpy Gravy, which is an interesting one. Originally it was meant to be all-orchestral. His record contract was only exclusive as far as his singing and playing was concerned, so he figured he'd record an orchestral record. The record company he was signed to was not happy, so he wound up withdrawing it and reworking it for the label who actually signed him. Which meant throwing in a bunch of stoned hippie bullshit that he thought was "interesting" and releasing it as two unindexed tracks. Not really worth the bother IMO.

-

I'm tired of talking about Frank Zappa. But that's something to start with, at least.

This was on the same channel as that orchestral performance, I think it's from the tour with Mahavishnu Orchestra. I've never seen or heard this performance before, the Jean-Luc Ponty solo at the beginning is nuts, the whole band was some hot shit!

― Muad'Doob (Moodles)

a little after that, the mahavishnu orchestra tour was in may... after that there was an australian tour, and then a summer european tour. i'm really fond of the summer european tour. that whole tv broadcast has some really good instrumental music on it.

Thanks for that write-up, the Hot Rat Sessions box is still my favorite piece of Zappa I've ever bought, get a lot of mileage out of that.

definitely in the early Mothers camp, like some of the instrumental stuff but when the interminable guitar solos start up I switch off
re: Lumpy Gravy - there was an orchestral only edit of the album put out a few years ago for RSD called Lumpy Gravy Primordial, it's short but well worth a listen

There's also "Cruising with Ruben & the Jets" - all doo-wop songs, you can skip it
Au contraire, Pierre.

yeah that's like absolutely a top 3 Zappa album. his ear for doo-wop was granular, he really got how west coast groups sounded different from detroit groups sounded different from hartford groups sounded different from ny groups and he put all that stuff into the record, it's a masterpiece of collage.

like, I would throw Apostrophe & most of his 80s work into the fire for one more doowop record from him

Yes, great posts, thanks! Hope to check out all the Hot Rats (and anything else w Beefheart).

do actually like Zappa as a guitar player, even though he's pretty limited in a lot of ways. He really hit his stride as a guitarist in the late '70s

Yeah Ruben & the Jets is great, one of my favorites from him.

fuck it i'm making a playlist

― budo jeru, Friday, October 18, 2024 11:59 AM (two weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

i put a bunch of things on a playlist and had a long walk listening through the tunes. ultimately i ended up feeling kind of bored. i do think there's something interesting/appealing about zappa instrumentals, but i've decided that the reason i keep coming back to zappa in general is the fleeting moments of beauty within a broader context that i find tiresome. like trying to rescue these inspired kernels. so while it's fun to dig around in his catalogue, i don't know if there's enough there to sustain my interest for a full hour, at least in terms of instrumental stuff. idk, maybe i will return

“Rescuing kernels” makes me think of some juvenile humor that Frank himself might not even stoop to.

The Pachuco hop and the LA slop you make the streetcars stop at the soda shop and my eyeballs pop

ok i'm gonna do it
[…]
I'm tired of talking about Frank Zappa. But that's something to start with, at least.

I think a lot about the song "Absolutely Free".
The conventional wisdom is that it is a satire of the escapism of the hippie ethos, but at the same time surely Zappa himself would agree that you should "unbind your mind", and while he was caustic about romance, I don't think he'd condemn "kindly loving" out of hand. And if he is dubious about being "absolutely free only if you want to be", does that criticism extend to the title of the previous album by the Mothers? "Last year I told you the music of my group was absolutely free, but the joke's on you, we're confined like everything else". Also, when Zappa is trying to condemn an exploitative character, his satire is usually a lot broader, like the portrayal of the guru in "Cosmik Debris".
That's why I feel the song, despite the flamboyant imagery and apparent critique of the point-of-view, actually displays a cynic's desire to invent a scenario where he could enter this situation of absolute freedom he's only heard of.

...or it could convey another perspective, a mirror of the one above: "it's good to try to be free but here's the wrong way to go about it".

i'm waiting for the opportunity to rec thing-fish to a zappa newb. just completely put them off zappa forever.

I did this soon after I said I would, but was too overwhelmed to write about it. Weird fucking record. Not awful, exactly. Disc 3 was hard going because the mean hateful pornographic nonsense was just too much of an already awkward and nasty thing by then, you know? But the band is excellent. "Groove" is an ugly word but I'm not sure whether there's another that captures what makes a full listen to Thing-Fish for a complete Zappa newb actually pretty pleasant. There were a few "holy shit what was THAT" guitar solos that made me understand why Zappa's always in the conversation about great guitarists of the classic rock era. And I spent Disc 1 thinking, "This guy's a great rhymer." It takes me aback when English lyricists rhyme well (as in, I can't see the next rhyme coming) because, for the most part, rhymes are what I hate the most about English-language lyrics. It's so hard to be creative with them. So many lyricists seem to feel they *have* to rhyme and the results (even on, like, 60% of Dylan's songs) are constricted and ugly. But on Thing-Fish, Zappa kept making me think "wow, didn't see that coming." Robert Frost is like that, just better -- using obvious rhymes in profoundly unobvious ways.

And there we have it: surely the first time in the history of the world that someone has compared Zappa to Frost?

Oh yeah, so -- to sum up / complicate things -- I was not put off forever. I thought "I would love to hear more of this band, and especially this guitarist, but on less lyrically gross material" -- but then reading through parts of this thread, I didn't get the sense such material may exist...? Or rather that, if it does, the quest to locate it is not for the faint of heart.

surely the first time in the history of the world that someone has compared Zappa to Frost?

In an interview with Ben Watson, Zappa himself compared Thing-fish to Tolkien, to Watson's bewilderment.

I imagine Ben Watson hates Tolkien as much as he loves Zappa.

one thing you'll miss if Thing-Fish is your first Zappa album is that most of the better moments are just remakes of songs from earlier albums

I thought "I would love to hear more of this band, and especially this guitarist, but on less lyrically gross material" -- but then reading through parts of this thread, I didn't get the sense such material may exist...? Or rather that, if it does, the quest to locate it is not for the faint of heart.

well, how much "less lyrically gross" we talkin here? Zappa has plenty of good albums I think, few that are front-to-back great but the good news for you is all of them are better than Thing-Fish. Sheik Yerbouti was the one I started with, there's a lot of really odd and interesting stuff going on there, it's still a little over the top lyrically but at least *some* of it is clever. Apostrophe I think shows a lot of his best sides while still being very Frank Zappa. if you wanna hear his guitar work you should maybe go back even further, kind of an obvious rec but Hot Rats is kind of a must-hear on that front.

"Camarillo Brillo" is one of my favorite Zappa lyrics precisely because of the many "didn't see that coming" rhymes

Not obvious to me, I am 100% Acolyte!

Halfway, that's bewildering -- a google search suggests Zappa put it modestly, saying the unstandard English was "like Tolkien but not as good," which made the Marxist interviewer erupt with "wha -- better! so much better!"

Not verbatim quotes, I haven't turned up the actual interview yet. Is it online, Halfway?

Okay, so maybe Zappa digs for '25, and Dolby and Harmonia before the year is out. Now I gotta figure out how to get ILXors listening to Al Joshua and Morio Agata... can't keep on being all "take take take," would be ungrateful.

I started listening to Morio Agata!

Oh hell yes!

OK OK, Agata thread. It's TIME.

honestly though if you've got a backlog of music to check out maybe hold off on Zappa for a while, he's not very respectful of others' time, I mean for god's sake he's still releasing albums despite being dead for 30 years

In an interview with Ben Watson, Zappa himself compared Thing-fish to Tolkien, to Watson's bewilderment.

― Halfway there but for you

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_4xte8D2-g

Is it online, Halfway?

It's in Watson's book The Negative Dialectics of Poodle Play, which seems to be on the Internet Archive.

Gotta love how Zappa was like lets take this cute riff on Tolkien and turn it into a lengthy song about Canadian pedophiles.

xpost frogbs "he's not very respectful of others' time" really encapsulates Zappa in the most accurate and concise of ways

Camarillo Brillo -- damn that's a beautiful piece of music. One of those songs you could keep alternating the A and B segments for fifteen minutes easy.

Jazz drummer Vinnie Sperrazza has written an essay on Joe's Garage for his newsletter. I'm gonna reprint the whole thing below, but if you're at all interested in jazz drumming, consider subscribing. He's a smart guy.

Joe's Garage In Brooklyn

After I grew up and moved to New York City, I abandoned my fandom.

Can you blame me? If you pledge allegiance to Frank Zappa’s Joe’s Garage (1979), it means you like songs about Catholic girls, wet t-shirt contests, and venereal disease, plus anti-music business screeds and eight-minute guitar solos. Had I let on how much I used to love it, I would have been outing myself as a Former Teenage Boy.

On the internet, I’ve seen Joe’s Garage referred to as Zappa’s masterpiece; Rolling Stone even called it his Apocalypse Now in their (sympathetic) review in early 1980. That’s a stretch, but it’s not unreasonable to compare Zappa to Colonel Kurtz. Though he was never a mainstream artist, Zappa, like Kurtz, had a sizable and fanatically devoted following, to whom he was devoted in turn. By maintaining such a fanbase, Zappa was able to release seemingly countless albums— 62 in his lifetime, more than that following his death— and stay on the road, playing major venues pretty much continuously from 1967 to 1988. His rabid fans made the man a fixture of American pop culture.

But in the spring of 1979, Zappa’s career was on the verge of stalling out. His Warner Bros. contract had become tied up in legal wrangling, and his only way forward was extensive touring and self-released albums.

So he set to work. He’d formed a hot new band the previous fall, and had two new songs for a planned single release, hoping to build on the strong sales of Sheik Yerbouti (his first self-release) and prime his audience for another long tour later in the year. Notable new members of Zappa ’79 included vocalist Ike Willis, guitarist Warren Cuccurullo, and legendary drummer Vinnie Colaiuta in his recording debut. (Colaiuta in particular shines on Joe’s Garage; for Vinnie’s playing alone, the album has been a favorite among drummers for decades.)

During what was planned as a two-day, two-song (“Catholic Girls” and “Joe’s Garage”) recording session, one thing led to another, and soon the band was tracking master takes of anything Zappa threw at them: recent compositions, odd-meter vamps, new arrangements of old tunes, improvs, guitar solos.

When the sessions ended weeks later, nearly 20 new titles were ready for release, and Zappa came up with the flimsiest of storylines, in three acts, to tie them together. He overdubbed a third-person narrator he called “The Central Scrutinizer”, dusted off some old cover art (images that are beyond the pale in 2024) and voila, Joe’s Garage was unleashed upon the world (Act I was released as a single LP in September ’79, Acts II and III as a double LP in November).

Zappa started featuring the songs in concert immediately, and kept a few in rotation for the rest of his touring career. Though only a modest hit on the pop charts, Joe’s Garage was a huge success in Zappa’s universe, setting the stage for his own third act in the Eighties as part elder statesmen, part media hound, part old crank.

In retrospect, it’s strange that the album connected with listeners so well. The thing only barely hangs together.

It starts strong. “Joe’s Garage”, the title track and the first proper song on the album, is an unabashedly nostalgic and sweet story of kids forming a band, with the subject matter, harmonica intro, and gentle melody making the song Springsteen-adjacent. The next track, “Catholic Girls”, is probably the album’s most notorious— tasteless, crass, and deeply goofy, a Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker spoof in song. It’s rude, to be sure, but it’s not mean-spirited. When my father heard me listening to it, he laughed and said that the jokes were the same ones he’d heard as an Italian-American Catholic teenager in the Sixties.

After those two highlights— as good an encapsulation of Zappa’s social role in pop culture as any— the album takes a strong turn for the worse. “Crew Slut” is downbeat and unfunny, a dreary dirty blues that eventually becomes the aural equivalent of meaningless sex. When we get to “Fembot In A Wet T-Shirt”, with its pitch-perfect smooth jazz and clinical depiction of a night of fake sex, the clouds that first appeared over “Crew Slut” darken.

What’s left of the album is a deluge of hodgepodge. There’s lots of old songs Zappa had laying around (“Lucille Has Messed My Mind Up” is from 1969, “Stick It Out” from 1970, “A Token Of My Extreme”, 1974, “Keep It Greasey”, 1975); a few bona-fide new tunes (“Sy Borg”, “Packard Goose”); and guitar solos excerpted from live recordings (“He Used To Cut The Grass”, the coda of “Keep It Greasey”, et cetera). Finally, on Side 6, we get a long instrumental, “Watermelon In Easter Hay”, and a fun throwaway, “A Little Green Rosetta”, bringing the album to a close.

And that’s pretty much it. Viewed from this angle, Joe’s Garage is juvenile, offensive, emotionally stunted, prurient, dated, preachy, goes on forever, and makes no sense. For a 3-LP, big-idea concept album, it doesn’t really cohere— it’s merely the best music from what must have been a fun month in a recording studio rush-released to boost Zappa’s touring career, his only reliable source of income at the time.

Who would want to listen to this? Why would a person need such a thing? Who besides a teenage boy from an earlier, far less enlightened era, would care about this nonsense?

Me, as it turns out.

I first heard Zappa as a 10 year old, when “Peaches En Regalia” was on a tape my father made for me. I’d never heard anything so cool. It was dizzyingly complex and utterly delightful. The beat was great, the drums were loud, it was a perfect kaleidoscope of sound— everything just kept moving around. I used to lie on the bedroom floor and put the cassette in my tape player and listen to “Peaches En Regalia” over and over and wonder— who is this Frank Zappa character?

In my early teens, I got ahold of some his other records— Apostrophe (1974), We’re Only In It For The Money (1968), Burnt Weeny Sandwich (1970), Sheik Yerbouti (1979), others— and was soon enthralled. Zappa’s music and persona seemed the apex of creativity, individuality, and freedom.

And Zappa really made you want to be a musician. So it made perfect sense when I met some older guys through school band who were into Zappa like I was. On the outskirts of that group was Mike1, an intellectually voracious 17 year-old whose homosexuality was an open secret, a brave move in our small, mostly rural town outside Utica, NY. One day after school Mike stopped me in the hallway and laid the (‘87 Rykodisc) two-CD set of Joe’s Garage in my grubby 14 year-old hands. “This is the one you need to hear”, he said, and strode off smiling, his work here done. I went home and put it on, and as usual with Zappa, I was initially baffled, but laughing and intrigued. Soon, I was onboard, and Joe’s Garage became a favorite.

But time passed, priorities shifted, and I gravitated, happily, towards learning and playing jazz. When I moved to Brooklyn after college, a 22 year-old wannabe jazz musician, it was the end of a long goodbye to Zappa and the close ties of that particular friend group. Adult life and professional accomplishment beckoned, and in this, Zappa, especially the Zappa of Joe’s Garage, had no room.

It was time to be someone else. Time to put away all that stuff, move past those records, and besides, isn’t Zappa truly offensive anyway?

Some have noticed that behind the dirty jokes and music-business rage of Joe’s Garage lies a great deal of sadness. After all, Joe is jailed and released into a world where music is illegal. Since he’s not allowed to play, he lies in bed and dreams music until he eventually gives up entirely and gets a job making baubles in an assembly line.

I’d go further. Joe’s Garage is a hot mess, but hangs together because the songs aren’t just telling a sad story, but because the album is—thematically, lyrically, and emotionally— all about failure.

It’s failure that animates the two great guitar solos at the heart of Joe’s Garage: “Outside Now” and “Watermelon In Easter Hay”. These two sturdy, resilient depictions of isolation, self-pity, and acceptance are the key to hearing what Zappa was trying to do on Joe’s Garage, maybe even with his music as a whole. “Outside Now” and “Watermelon In Easter Hay” are, at their core, the blues.

In “Outside Now”, vocalist Ike Willis as Joe, our musician protagonist, describes surviving life in prison with “imaginary notes” his only solace. “Watermelon In Easter Hay”, an instrumental, is the last music Joe makes— not played, just dreamt— before joining the assembly line.

The two tunes are similarly constructed: an asymmetrical melodic line played in an even, unvaried pulse serves as the spine of both songs. “Outside Now” is maybe G dorian, maybe Bb lydian, in 11/8, while “Easter Hay”, the only guitar solo on the record that Frank performed with the band in real time (all the others were from road tapes, with the studio band overdubbing) is E major in 9/4.

Zappa wasn’t particularly in my head last summer, but I had failure on my mind for sure. I’d just moved out of the apartment I’d shared with my wife, and at age 43, was now on the other side of a union I’d thought and hoped would persist.

It was time to get the last of my stuff out of her place, formerly our place. When I first left in the winter, I held on to a glimmer of hope that this was temporary, and leaving some things was my way, I guess, of expressing that hope. But no, this was it. Get the last stuff out, file the papers. It’s over.

She was great about it, and really, so was I— promptly responding to all texts and emails, helpful and courteous on the day-of. While we weren’t exactly friends, there was no enmity for her from me, and I felt none from her. This was awful for both of us, no need to make it worse by being unpleasant.

So I walked over, 10 blocks in Brooklyn, went in the lobby that had been our lobby, and gathered all my things, a lot more than I realized.

I could feel something like care in how she packed and stacked everything, almost as if she was thinking about what would be easiest for me to carry, or best for me to unpack. Her easy thoughtfulness, coupled with the knowledge that we cannot and would not be together, made my simple task all the more heartbreaking.

Heartbreaking, and arduous: gathering up the boxes, calling the cab, seeing an acquaintance who didn’t know, explaining “yes, we’re getting divorced”, standing there with my detritus. No one wants to do what I was doing.

Through it all, one song was screaming through my head, a steady companion, holding my hand and helping out. It was a song I hadn’t listened to or thought about in years: Frank Zappa’s “Watermelon In Easter Hay” from Joe’s Garage. Out of nowhere, there it was, unbidden and unrequested, broadcast live in sparkling fidelity from my subconscious, getting me through the final moments of a dead marriage.

Four descending and five ascending notes, like an out-breath, and longer in-breath with a yearning, major-key melody hinting at the lydian mode, and then a left-field blues lick that somehow ties the whole melody together. That song was my best friend that day.

A fellow Zappaphile suggested that the metaphor of a watermelon growing in Easter hay— an awkward and fuzzy one, to be sure— is Zappa’s depiction of an artist in society. That works, though the title was, characteristically, a band in-joke about Vinnie Colaiuta: “Soloing with this drummer is like trying to grow a watermelon in Easter hay!”, or something along those lines. But maybe Zappa meant something even more universal— maybe he meant a human being in the world.

That’s what I was that day. Carrying those boxes, sitting in the cab, with “Watermelon In Easter Hay” on repeat in my head, I learned something about Zappa’s music, and about my own life. I was whomped on the forehead with how common my situation was, how absolutely ordinary I really was, had always been. I felt like I had something in common with all of humanity.

At the same moment, I heard, clear as day, the depth of emotion in Zappa’s music. There it was, sitting underneath sex jokes, arrogance, and fantasy, singing out loud and clear: a luminous warm acceptance: the humor, truth, and resilience of the blues. It was Frank’s blues that I connected with. Beneath the surface noise of his music beat a wise and generous heart.

I realized that Zappa had been playing the blues all along; as for myself, I really had the blues now. Actually, I’d always had them, and I understood, viscerally, in that moment, that everyone has the blues: it is the human condition.

No course of therapy or meditation can take the blues away, no amount of money or sexual experience can erase them. You are born to be blue, alone, and you will die, alone, with the blues. But keep those blues, cause you’re gonna need them— it’s the thing that will connect you to anyone and everyone.

That’s what Zappa played, that’s what meant so much to me as a teen, and it was bolstering me up now. It took some grown-ass adult failure for me to realize that I loved Zappa’s music, that it was connected to everything I care about.

As I carried those boxes to the cab, and then to my apartment, it was obvious: that personal transformation I’d dreamed of when I moved to Brooklyn? That dream of becoming someone else? It never happened, and never will happen. I’m still me, Former Teenage Boy.

And, you know, Joe’s Garage might be a mess, but it’s a lot of fun, even a hit— I’m thinking of a few folks I’ve put it on for recently who really dug it. Listen closely and you can hear how hard Zappa worked to make a record you would enjoy.

As offensive as Joe’s Garage surely is— was intended to be— it’s also deeply silly, even downright goofy. How can I work up indignant 2020s Brooklyn anger when Zappa is just being a zany uncensored goofball, when he is simply being himself? And when it’s not the dorkiest high school music ever, Joe’s Garage is imbued with sadness— perhaps of the teenage boy variety, but the sadness of a teenage boy is sadness nonetheless.

For all its faults and excesses, Joe’s Garage realizes its purpose as a pop music artifact— a set of songs that can become a part of your life. If you love it, you can imbue it with personal meaning, and if you so choose, it is yours for the rest of your days, connecting you to the many folks who love it too. Mission accomplished.

That's great. Thank you.

and ultimately, who gives a fuck anyway?

at last, the imaginary guitar solo

Some excellent "vlmr"* posts above, Kate as always, and that Vinnie repost is a heartbreaker...

Funny, "Freak Out" got kicked to the kerb, but I find it fascinating: a bar band gets taken on by a wunderkind, they pull in different directions, Frank left, Band right, but they moved forward. When Frank says "I'm not black but there's a whole lotsa times I wish I could say I'm not white...” did he ever quite give his direct opinion as unambiguous as this? Oh, and "Suzy Creamcheese" a recurring character treated with disdain, but it seems to me she wins in the end.

The "Joe's Garage" write-up suggests that people appreciate it in the same way people talk about Eminem. I've not heard it, so will leave it there.

Being a Captain Beefheart fan, I eventually found a copy of "Bongo Fury" which for reasons of looking at the song credits I'd assumed he was only on two short tracks, but no he sings pretty much on all of it. Actually enjoyable.

That's all I have.

(very long, must read)

.. except for this

https://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y161/MarkGrout/bongo.jpg

haha, great photo!

re the tolkien comparison:
the NuNuNu does say this above, but to be clear, what zappa is referring to re thing-fish. when he says JRRT is better, is the invention of a language: viz tolkien does such things bette

zappa then references the "not another fucking elf" inklings guy lol, as someone who he feels bullied tolk -- but watson (a) hates tolkien and (b) isnt that deep in the lore*, and hurries him past this honestly intriguing moment of apparent sympathetic identification

*there can only be one lore and it's sat in the room with him

Can you blame me? If you pledge allegiance to Frank Zappa’s Joe’s Garage (1979), it means you like songs about Catholic girls, wet t-shirt contests, and venereal disease, plus anti-music business screeds and eight-minute guitar solos. Had I let on how much I used to love it, I would have been outing myself as a Former Teenage Boy.

Heh. I'm not proud of having been a Former Teenage Boy, and particularly not of having been a teenage boy well into my thirties. It's important to me, though, to accept it. Zappa said "I'm not black, but there's a whole lotsa times I wish I could say I'm not white..." - I mean, what the hell is that supposed to mean? What does it mean when Zappa punches in himself singing the n-word in "You Are What You Is", a song otherwise sung by a Black man? (Does he do it in a goofy voice? I can't remember. I'm not about to listen to that song again to find out.)

I do really like Sperrazza's essay. I do think Zappa's music inherently speaks to failure. I can't see Zappa as anything but a failure. His motto was "The present-day composer refuses to die". He failed. There's nothing wrong with failure. Zappa, though, seemed proud of being defined by his.

I was 45, 46, when I divorced my ex-wife. We were both great about it, except when we weren't. I came out with enough money to enable me to spend years trying to "find myself", trying to define myself as something other than a failure. I still listen to a lot of Zappa's music. Not "Joe's Garage". Mostly the earlier stuff. The Hot Rats stuff. I feel like at some point he resigned himself to failure. He wasn't meant for it. He wasn't destined for it. We're still _talking_ about him. Often for being horrible. I guess he was successful at being horrible, but he's increasingly unexceptional for his horribleness among cis white men.

There's that thing people say sometimes - "failure is not an option". That's how I feel about myself. I tried for a long time to fail the same way Frank Zappa did, and I guess I failed at failure. At some point I threw myself at the ground and missed.

May 9th release:

Cheaper Than Cheep – 1974 Unreleased Made-For-TV Concert Movie Recorded at The Mothers’ Private Rehearsal Hall in Dolby ATMOS + Soundtrack.

Back in the early ‘70s, television was an integral tool for exposure of musical artists into the home. Completely decked out with his touring light show and stage setup in The Mothers’ private rehearsal hall, Frank Zappa attempted to commit to videotape material for his own TV production, ultimately with the intention to shop to major networks. Unfortunately, there were technical issues that ultimately contributed to the footage being shelved and stored in the Vault.

50 years later, with the advancements in post-production editorial tools, we present Cheaper Than Cheep. This never-before-heard-or-seen 2-hour concert program reveals the most intimate performance ever captured from the 1974 Mothers line-up, direct from the lovingly resurrected and restored original vault audio and videotape masters.

Official Zappa release #130 features the remastered concert video with brand new Dolby Atmos, 5.1 surround and stereo mixes on a Blu-ray, the stereo soundtrack on 2-CDs, and an extensive booklet with rare, unseen images and liner notes from Ruth Underwood and Joe Travers.

TRACK LIST:

Disc 1:
1. “Cheaper Than Cheep”
2. Cosmik Debris
3. Band Introductions
4. RDNZL
5. Village Of The Sun
6. Montana
7. Duke Goes Out
8. Inca Roads
9. “Get Down Simmons”
10. Penguin In Bondage
11. T’Mershi Duween
12. The Dog Breath Variations
13. Uncle Meat

Disc 2:
1. How Could I Be Such A Fool
2. I’m Not Satisfied
3. Wowie Zowie
4. I’ Don’t Even Care
5. Let’s Make The Water Turn Black
6. Dupree’s Paradise Introduction
7. Dupree’s Paradise
8. Oh No
9. Son Of Orange County
10. More Trouble Every Day
11. Apostrophe’
12. Camarillo Brillo 5:53

Disc 3: Blu-ray
Picture: 4:3 Pillar-box 1080p 29.97fps
Audio: Dolby Atmos (48k24b) / Dolby TrueHD 5.1 (96k24b) / PCM Stereo (96k24b)
Region: All
1. Intro / Cheepnis - Percussion / “Cheaper Than Cheep”
2. Cosmik Debris
3. Band Introductions
4. RDNZL
5. Village Of The Sun
6. Montana
7. Duke Goes Out
8. A Visit To The Art Studio
9. Inca Roads
10. “Get Down Simmons”
11. Penguin In Bondage
12. T’Mershi Duween
13. The Dog Breath Variations
14. Uncle Meat
15. How Could I Be Such A Fool
16. I’m Not Satisfied
17. Wowie Zowie
18. I Don’t Even Care
19. Let’s Make The Water Turn Black
20. Dupree’s Paradise Introduction
21. Dupree’s Paradise
22. Oh No
23. Son Of Orange County
24. More Trouble Every Day
25. Apostrophe’
26. Camarillo Brillo

Bonus
1. Time Is Money (excerpt)
2. Echidna’s Arf (Of You) – Incomplete
3. Art Studio Outtakes
4. The Amazing Mr. Bickford (excerpt)

Interesting quotes from a Simon Reynolds interview with David Thomas from 2002 (he just posted it on his blog):

Is it true that the first album you bought was Trout Mask Replica by Captain Beefheart?

"No--the first album I bought was Zappa's Uncle Meat, then I bought Hot Rats. Then Trout Mask and Strictly Personal. All this was within about three weeks. The gang I hung around with in high school was really into Uncle Meat. "

Beefheart was a protégé of Zappa's at that point?

"In Zappa’s version of history, yeah! We liked Uncle Meat because we were in high school and in high school you’re into Surrealism and Dadaism. Uncle Meat was making use of interesting sounds. Zappa never moved beyond that, his appeal was always directed at high school students. Absolutely Free was all that hippy stuff--we weren’t particularly taken by that. Hippy was pretty passé even then. We were two or three years post-hippy, and that two or three years was pretty significant. We felt hippies were pretty useless as any sort of social happening."

Zappa's always struck me as kinda cynical and sneery, whereas Beefheart seems more… humanist, maybe. Not a misanthrope.

"Beefheart was certainly much more angular. We liked hard music. Or at least I did. I was more Midwestern oriented--I liked MC5, Stooges, and all that Sixties garage stuff like Question Mark and The Music Machine. Beefheart is very close to that sort of approach.. At that time if you were looking for electronic sounds there was Terry Riley, Beaver & Krause, Silver Apples, and all the German stuff. All of that was a component of bands like MC5. There's always been a relationship between hard Midwest groove rock and pure sound. So it was natural for us to do that."

Hoping it pops up elsewhere later for less than the $50 at Zappa's site for the 2xCD/Blu-Ray version.

that setlist looks crazy. I'm assuming this is still more or less the Roxy band?

yes -- the core sextet plus Simmons