the official "apparently i\'m the only one that cares" thread (Zappa content)

[Lexington]

new realease from the ZFT. sounds like it could be pretty schweet. anyone heard it yet?
(hook it up?)

review:

One Shot Deal
OK. Here we go.

1 - Bathtub Man (5:43)
This is a blues number with the basic Roxy band playing. The tune comes in somewhere after the beginning, probably because of a tape change during the live performance. George Duke plays the first solo then Frank plays his solo. Frank’s solo on his track alone is worth the purchase price, but wait. That’s not all. Not only do you get the Desinex Burger.

2 - Space Boogers (1:24)
Really cool avant guard strangeness with Frank on guitar, George Duke on keys, and Chester Thompson on drums.

3 - Hermitage (2:00)
Wazoo ensemble, Avant Guard, Frank conducting.

4 - Trudging’ Across the Tundra (4:01)
My earlier statement that I thought it was Bruce Fowler on trombone is incorrect. This is the Petite Wazoo band with Tony Duran on guitar. It’s a really beautiful jazz improv foundation in 7. You can hear other brass and winds in the background. Frank is conducting. At the end you can hear Frank say, ‘Thank you. That sounded pretty good”.

5 - Occam’s Razor (9:11)
This piece is the original unedited solo that was used in the piece entitled ‘On The Bus’ on Joe’s Garage Act 1. The solo was isolated and superimposed over the wet t shirt version on Joe’s Garage in a process that Frank invented known as xenochrony. On One ‘Shot Deal’ we hear the original unedited guitar solo.

6 - Heidelberg *1987 (4:46)
This was originally released on a Cassette called, ‘The Guitar World According To Frank Zappa”. I still have the cassette but don’t know if it survived in good shape. It’s a beautiful guitar solo.

7 - The Illinois Enema Bandit (9:27)
This is the audio from the same performance on the DVD ‘The Torture Never Stops’ recorded Halloween 1981 at the Palladium in NYC.

8 - Australian Yellow Snow (12:26)
The Roxy Band. Probably an earlier version before they recorded it in the studio for Apostrophe (’). Frank does some humorous dialogue.

9 - Rollo (2:57)
Wazoo ensemble, Avant Guard, Frank conducting.

also, i guess there\'a a new live DVD out from \'81 called "the Torture Never Stops". it appears to be from the "zappa wears the red cotton/elastic jump suit and plays guitar once per show" era
any reviews?

[Lexington]

well shit, i guess i AM cooler than all you

[FrankZappa]

well shit, i guess i AM cooler than all you

it just might be lexi...



I got the email, but I have not been keeping up on the new releases.

[Lexington]

i guess no one really cares as much as i do. i tried to go to the zappa message board, but its just a (even creepier) bunch of middle aged weirdos

no offense todd

at least i know what i\'ll be like in 10 years

[FrankZappa]

the only difference is the average age, and this band is still touring.

Also, there are women that go to breakfast shows/write on the message board. :duck:

[siflandollie]

you gotta be diggen it while its happening!



Cause it just might be a
one
shot
deeeeaaaalllll

[Lexington]

gail actually posts on there quite frequently. i wanted to be like "yo can someone sendspace this shit? how bout a burn and pass?" just to see if they\'d Freak Out

seriously though, i thought this sounded pretty cool. then again, i also thought this sounded cool:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6BVyu7Xvi4

[peaches626]

dude, "middle aged" makes todd sound young....

[Lexington]

this sounds cool.

The Zappa Family Trust will kick off a comprehensive campaign to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the late Frank Zappa\'s albums next month. "Lumpy Money," a three-CD "audio documentary" due out Nov. 25, is the first offering in the series -- and, according to Zappa\'s widow Gail, the most unique.

"These two records happen to be Frank\'s masterworks," Zappa tells Billboard.com, "so this is the most ambitious of all the (40th anniversary) projects. The challenge is how to educate the audience to understand what \'Lumpy Gravy\' and \'We\'re Only in It for the Money\' are, and what they\'re part of.

"So in this particular case we have to be more about the process than the outtakes. You\'re going to be listening to how Frank worked, all the little developments of these pieces as opposed to just an outtake or another performance of that particular piece. You\'re going to hear how he got there from here."

The "Lumpy Money" package will feature two separate mixes of each album, done by Frank himself. It will include feature the first official release of the instrumental, Igor Stravinsky-influenced orchestral "ballet" version of "Lumpy Gravy" that Zappa recorded in 1967 for Capitol Records but decided to revamp, adding rock musicians and eventually releasing it on MGM/Verve four months after "We\'re Only in it For the Money" in 1968. Gail Zappa says a "sister" project will be released shortly after "Lumpy Money" that will contain more music from those sessions.

Other releases in the series will be treated "more as individual albums," drawing material from the Sequin Mines vault underneath the Zappa family home. A new version of "Cruising with Ruben and the Jets," Frank Zappa\'s third 1968 release, is also being prepared, while the Zappa Family Trust is working on other projects such as a vintage live album from the Roxy in Los Angeles and a set of Zappa\'s renditions of the compositions French composer Edgar Varese.

 
"With the 40th anniversary projects, it\'s not as much about \'Can we make a date?\' as \'Can we make it? Do we have vault material we can put together for these?\'" Gail Zappa explains. "That\'s something we have to do if these are going to be worth anything to people."

this also

Before you completely tune out the endless procession of 40th-anniversary tributes to 1968’s rock ’n’ roll landmarks (hey, it was a big year), reserve a little head space for Lumpy Money, a three-CD package honoring Frank Zappa’s historic one-two punch of Lumpy Gravy and We’re Only in it for the Money.


The albums have always been linked, thanks to Zappa himself, who insinuated on the album covers that they were Phase One and Phase Two of a single work. (The final phase came decades later, with the posthumous release in 1993 of Civilization Phase III.)

Conceived as Zappa’s first solo record, Lumpy Gravy was originally recorded in 1967, as a 20-minute orchestral work. After a legal tangle with Capitol Records prevented its release, Zappa, whose prowess with an editing razor was second to none, chopped up what he had and tossed it with a bunch of crazy sounds and weird conversations. The result is a 30-minute mindfuck that blurs the boundaries between rock, classical, and noise.

We’re Only in it for the Money, released six months earlier, flirted with those same boundaries but ultimately cast its lot with rock ’n’ roll. The cover is a crude send-up of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the music twists familiar genres into sonic pretzels, and the lyrics viciously ridicule everyone from weekend hippies (“Oh, my hair’s getting good in the back!”) to frigid housewives (“You’re phony on top, you’re phony underneath/You lay in bed and grit your teeth”). Zappa was calling out the hypocrites and fakers, no matter which side they were on.

At least that’s how it’s always seemed to me.

To get a more authoritative read, I spoke to Frank’s widow, Gail Zappa, who is known for her tireless (some have said extreme) efforts on behalf of her husband’s legacy. She runs Zappa Records and has been overseeing the 40th-anniversary releases.

VF Daily: How would you explain these two albums to somebody who isn’t all that familiar with Frank Zappa?

Gail Zappa: Lumpy Gravy and We’re Only in it for the Money are part of what Frank called his master work. For him, every album was just part of the same composition and everything was all one big piece of music. But the three particular pieces that he considered his absolute masterwork were Lumpy Gravy, We’re Only in it for the Money, and Civilization Phase 3, the last album that he actually finished. They’re constructed in a similar way.

Lumpy Gravy is Frank’s first outing on his own as an artist, and We’re Only in it for the Money is his first outing as a producer. It was supposed to also be his first outing as a rock ’n’ roll artist, but the record company insisted on it being a Mothers album, for marketing reasons. [The Mothers of Invention were Zappa’s band.] But technically these are both Frank’s first ventures as rock ’n’ roll artist and also as a classical composer.

How does this fit in with the rest of the re-release series you’re working on?

We want to honor all the re-releases in the 40th anniversary. But the exception is these two, because they are also part of the masterwork. Because they belong with Civilization to be seen properly. So in this particular case what we’re going to try to do is to be more focused on the process on Frank’s work, as opposed to [including alternate] versions [of individual songs]. If you look at a score, sometimes you’ll see sketches of what’s going to be in the score before the score is written. That’s kind of what we’re going for with this record. Little sketches of it, as opposed to completely other versions that didn’t “make it to the record.”

Will Civilization be sold separately?

Yeah. Although we are going to do a special edition of these three records, shortly. We didn’t announce that because we thought it would be too confusing. And it already is confusing. I’m going to be really surprised if I manage to get through this alive.

ps
joe, feel free to post any other sweet FZ youtube shiz here. i for one actually dug it

[Overexjoesure]

Yeah,, kind of weird  the thread is dead, I thought the first one was one of Zappa\'s best interviews....

[jking]

hmmmm.... i tried to post in here earlier...

anyway, one shot deal is good. its sorta zappa\'s zone one, in that its mostly just the guitar solos. not entirely, but largely. i\'ll look for the disc tonight so i can sendspace it, because i am firmly opposed to gail getting a single fucking dime from anyone until she gets her head out of her crusted twat!

also, check out zappateers for some good shows to d/l! there\'s an \'88 sbd over there, as well as some great earlier shows (75, halloween 76 with tommy smothers singing muffin man.... sorta...). check it out!

[Jim Cobb]

i was really hoping this would be a roxy dvd announcement...

[peaches626]

ya i love watching youtube\'s of zappa interviews almost as much as listening to his tunes...  

such a smart dude that consistently owned radical politicians with logic and common sense.


for the record, i loved the zappa links, treychica

[zuke583]

so talented...too bad he couldn\'t write a song that actually sounded good

[bdfreetuna]

Am I the only one here who thinks Zappa was kinda dick not to mention not worthy of all the praise he gets in Breakfast land.

I mean I know the band, assuming mostly Timmy, loves the guy. Yea he was good. But for real any Breakfast cover of a Zappa song is way better than the original.