2012 Zappa reissues anybody heard them yet?

Just wondering what responses to the new versions are.
Especially We're Only In It For The Money since I'm not sure if the source changed from the Ryko version.
Also Freak Out! for similar reasons.

Not been sure what of the other stuff of the initial set is actually necessary anyway beyond Hot Rats & Absolutely Free.

I bought a copy of Burnt Weeny Sandwich the other day, don't know if it was a reissue though. It sounds terrific to me anyway!

From someone on the Steve Hoffmann forums

There was a little chat on the Classic Or Dud thread. I haven't picked any up myself - my interest is in the second batch more than the first.

I think both Hot Rats and Weasels Ripped My Flesh are ok.
Thought the sound on Rats would be thicker/heavier but I think you can make out every instrument reasonably clearly.

& Weasels has some pretty good sound on it which is a bit heavier at least in places.

I got Burnt Weeny Sandwich and it sounds fantastic to me. Bought Greasy Love Songs the other day. I'll be getting the analog transfer ones from this bunch and skipping the "re-edit 20 years later" ones.

Full catalogue out on iTunes as of yesterday, and it appears a few select albums are on Spotify now as well, with some odd track omissions.

Maybe not on Spotify. Everything about that program baffles me.

Did notice that they'd listed all the new remasters, excluded HOt Rats cos it was the cd version of a 2008 remaster for vinyl

The REMASTERED TITLES:

Absolutely Free
Burnt Weeny Sandwich
Weasels Ripped My Flesh
Chunga's Revenge
Fillmore East, June 1971
Just Another Band From L.A.
Waka/Jawaka
The Grand Wazoo
Over-nite Sensation
Apostrophe(‘)
One Size Fits All
Bongo Fury
Zoot Allures
Studio Tan
Sleep Dirt
Sheik Yerbouti
Joe's Garage Acts 1, 2 & 3
Tinseltown Rebellion
Shut Up 'N Play Yer Guitar
You Are What You Is
Them or Us

next batch is

1. Waka/Jawaka (1972)
2. The Grand Wazoo (1972)
3. Over-Nite Sensation (1973)
4. Apostrophe(‘) (1974)
5. Roxy & Elsewhere (1974)
6. One Size Fits All (1975)
7. Bongo Fury (1975)
8. Zoot Allures (1976)
9. Zappa In New York (1978)
10. Studio Tan (1978)
11. Sleep Dirt (1979)
12. Sheik Yerbouti (1979)

Studio Tan & Sleep Dirt - contractual obligations iirc, I remember those going straight to the cut-out bin, and me buying Sleep Dirt & not getting it at all - I was 12. The other day I bought an iTunes playlist of people covering Zappa (all instrumental! really good stuff) and "Sleep Dirt" is covered twice, really beautiful stuff.

How many fucking times can they reissue this guy's shit. Seriously the rock George Lucas at this point

I love Zappa and all but I can't keep track of which of the 18 versions of Were only in it for the Money is like original or original remaster or original analog remaster or Terry Bozzio revision playing ripping digital jabba solos all over everything or the remaster version of that. Like seriously fuck this

OTM. Zappa was like a film director making numerous director's cut versions. I don't think he was ever satisfied, and I think the estate is going to continue "honoring" his indecisiveness.

Never knew this re: Sleep Dirt, from Wiki: The 1979 LP version of Sleep Dirt was entirely instrumental. However, with the CD release in 1991 Zappa added new overdubs to the recordings. Zappa asked singer Thana Harris to add vocals to 3 songs. Zappa had originally envisioned Flambay, Spider of Destiny, and Time Is Money as part of his abandoned 1972 musical, Hunchentoot, and thus, these songs were originally intended to be sung.

I hate those songs with the added vocals. Found vinyl rips of the original instrumentals at the earliest opportunity.

I love Zappa and all but I can't keep track of which of the 18 versions of Were only in it for the Money is like original or original remaster or original analog remaster or Terry Bozzio revision playing ripping digital jabba solos all over everything or the remaster version of that. Like seriously fuck this

fortunately there's the internet: http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showpost.php?p=7945195&postcount=644

wtf at adding vocals to Sleep Dirt! hadn't heard, how fuckin dumb is that

All his ideas for musicals were so dumb, from "I Was a Teenage Maltshop" to "Thing-Fish".

I like the original Sleep Dirt LP a lot, have never heard the overdubs on Lather. Man, the wiki synopsis and script of Hunchentoot is so stupid it makes it hard to call myself a Zappa fan.

the story of a space-girl known as Drakma, "Queen Of Cosmik Greed", who is trying to take over the Earth with a giant spider known as Hunchentoot... Drakma orders Hunchentoot to eat the earthlings, but Hunchentoot will spare them if their leader can find Hunchentoot some "spiderpussy".

well I think FZ's take on musicals was "they're dumb & I can condescend to them by writing one," I don't think he had any love for musical theater as such

Up until the word "spiderpussy" I was like, "is this really Zappa??"

I can totally hear Frank saying "Hunchentoot" in his "breeding a dwarf" voice. There's also this line from "Greggary Peccary:"

...Meanwhile the enraged hunchmen, and hunchwomen...

The stuff that obsessed and amused him continued to do so across records. Conceptual continuity!

So if the 2012 version of Hot Rats is the remastered vinyl version, does that mean "The Gumbo Variations" is 12 minutes long again, rather than 16 as it was on the Ryko CD? Cause fuck that; I liked the long version.

The new Absolutely Free sounds pretty good. I can even really get into the long instrumental which I don't think I could on the Ryko version.

So if the 2012 version of Hot Rats is the remastered vinyl version, does that mean "The Gumbo Variations" is 12 minutes long again, rather than 16 as it was on the Ryko CD? Cause fuck that; I liked the long version.

― 誤訳侮辱, Thursday, August 16, 2012 7:02 PM (17 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yup, sounds great too.

Neat kinda want to hear these, esp. my favorite "Absolutely Free".

All these Zappa threads made me realize ive never heard "Joe's Garage" in its entirety...

I don't know if I have either, which is weird because I like a lot of songs on it and I know I've set out to listen to it in full a few times, just..somehow...never made it

Has anyone heard Thing Fish all the way through? Somehow that seems way more impressive.

I listened to it once when I bought it, but just that once. Bleurgh.

The only parts of Garage I can recommend are "Watermelon" and Terry Bozzio's John Smothers impersonations.

I like the title track to Joe's Garage, and not much else if I remember correctly. Always shied away from Thing-Fish; vaguely recall Zappa's "satire" of Amos and Andy, and songs like "He's So Gay" and blechhh...

I was at my Zappafreak friend's house the other day. He had his copy of Thing-Fish out and I looked over the libretto. Pretty damn disgusting (not just the gay stuff and the race stuff, but also the diarrhea stuff and the sexist stuff and I could go on...). Still some lolz ("This isn't "Dreamgirls"!"). Near the end there's a literal "Do You See?" moment (Actually, I think the line goes "Symbolism!").

Yeah I really dislike this aspect of FZ's work, the "don't ever take me seriously unless I explicitly tell you to", it's like hey, if you were a better lyric writer, your audience wouldn't need to be told

One thing that's surprised me so far is the lack of reviews this campaign's getting in the monthly music rags. Thought they'd be all over this but I haven't seen one so far for the first batch & I thought they were the ones most likely to be. As in the 60s Mothers & Hot Rats seem to be the ones most revered by non-Zappa fans.

I wonder if the Zappa estate decided not to hire press - press pretty much only covers stuff they get serviced with.

I'd be kind of surprised if the usual suspects hadn't gotten promo service. Barfko-Swill gave one of everything to a lowly college DJ with a halfbaked idea for a 15-week FZ radio show.

Having worked for a magazine that had to deal with Gail Zappa, I'm not that surprised that press coverage has been relatively minimal. The woman's a nightmare. Get her and Sharon Osbourne in the same room together and the universe might explode to save us all.

That matches up with the vaguest of vague rumors I've heard, that the reason there hasn't been a really good FZ biography is because people are afraid of incurring the Wrath of Gail if they go on the record about Frank.

What has she done? Who cares about the wrath of Gail?

people who know her and who aren't posting to internet messages under pseudonyms?

well that is kind of why I asked the first question

well, if she holds the checkbook and I played on a Zappa record, sure, if I mouth off about her and she fails to pay me I can sue the shit out of her. what will it cost me to retain a lawyer to do this? how good a use of my time is suing somebody for royalties they were already paying me before I ran off a the mouth? might any legal proceedings end up reducing the size of the cookie I normally get from her? "don't piss people off who might send you money" is pretty entry-level ime

I was at my Zappafreak friend's house the other day. He had his copy of /Thing-Fish/ out and I looked over the libretto. Pretty damn disgusting (not just the gay stuff and the race stuff, but also the diarrhea stuff and the sexist stuff and I could go on...). Still some lolz ("This /isn't/ "Dreamgirls"!"). Near the end there's a literal "Do You See?" moment (Actually, I think the line goes "Symbolism!").

xp alright then. I don't really know much about the reissue campaign but i wasn't aware Gail was the one cutting the checks to everyone. I was just kind of wondering where this talk that she's a "nightmare" is coming from. I'm not disagreeing with it. just curious.

Re. Gail, I wonder how much of her insanity regarding his estate is related to the fact that Frank was a relentless womanizer. I have to imagine that scarred her irrevocably.

The fact that so much time was spent making Thing-Fish is kind of incredible in itself

The impression I'd gotten was that Gail was threatening defamation suits against people who spoke ill of Frank, but that sweater unravels with the first tug. Is it even legal to sue for defamation on behalf of a dead person?

it's not a question of whether it's legal, it's a question of "do you want to spend your time proving that it's not"

U can't libel the dead.

afaik, one of the things Gail's been involved in is jumping down the throats of anyone performing or recording "XXX Plays Zappa" type stuff. Ed Palermo has been on the receiving end of this, and European Zappa tributes as well.

For some reason the 2nd batch, the 70s stuff has apparently been delayed for a month, at least in the UK.
Thought it was odd, trying to search for the new stuff on Amazon.co.uk & Play.com and not being able to find it. Kept getting things like the 2006 Over-nite Sensation coming up when I was expecting the forthcoming 2012 reissue. This being over the last week when the release date was supposed to be Tuesday 28th. when they could be found the word Import was in the description It actually got as far as the 28th coming round and the discs still only being listed as Import, the marketplace sellers did have things listed as in stock with prices listed.
Checking back yesterday and today the release date has been shifted back to 24th September & the links to marketplace are gone. I looked things up on Wow and they have titles listed as will be dispatched in 7-10 days.

What gives?

It looks like there are problems with the 2012 reissue of Zappa's Grand Wazoo. People on Zappa related lists are complaining about it not playing/ being recognized in various players.
& Amazon.com have stopped selling it for the moment saying

"Item Under Review

While this item is available from other marketplace sellers on this page, it is not currently offered by Amazon.com because customers have told us there may be something wrong with our inventory of the item, the way we are shipping it, or the way it's described here. (Thanks for the tip!)

We're working to fix the problem as quickly as possible."

& the .co.uk branch have put everything down as a 24th SEPTEMBER date when that batch should have been 28th August.

Just thought I'd point that out just in case anybody was thinking of ordering a copy.

Stevo