Zappa Quest

Ron The Mon

P.S.
Search farther down The Music Room page for a thread called "the man with the weird beard".

Uncle meat is wonderful
I love We're only in it for the money' too, but it's an aquired taste.

Regards

Stephen

Top For Tunes

We’re Only In It For The Money: tunes all the way with psychedelic piss-taking and weirdness
One Size Fits All: Every track a hit single
Overnite Sensation: Tunes all the way (gonna be a dental floss tycoon)
Hot Rats: Tunes plus great soloing (plus Beefheart)
Bongo Fury: Tunes with more Beefheart
Zoot Allures: Tunes & Torture Chamber
Apostrophe: Tunes but not as good
Sheik Yerbouti: More of a mixture
Tinseltown Rebellion: Like Yerbouti, but not quite as strong
You Are What You Is: ditto
Them Or Us: ditto
Joe’s Garage: Disc 1 is packed with great stuff; disc 2 more instrumental

The mid-eighties (e.g Man From Utopia, Ship Too Late…) stuff is more “angular”, and you may need to adapt to these when you run out of the other stuff

There’s a mass of excellent live stuff: The “You Can’t Do That On Stage…” series is uniformly good, but for me Vol 4 stands out for the searing guitar duet (Zappa and Vai) on Stevie’s Spanking.

The two albums prior to “Money” i.e. 66/67 are a bit primitive for me. Ruben and the Jets is a must for someone who loves Doowop (not me!) and Lumpy Gravy is a mixture of weirdness and tunes. I dislike the Jazzy albums (e.g. Hot Rats 2, Waka Jawaka) and have an intense dislike of the jokey Flo and Eddie stuff (Just Another Band From LA, Fillmore East).

Also on the no-no list for me is the unlistenable “Classical” stuff (except the synthesized Francesco Zappa cod-Vivaldi).

There are more than I’ve mentioned – lots more.

BE WARNED. Once you start off, it’s very hard to stop because nearly every Zappa release has something of merit on it and so I have more than I really should have…

Was the first record I heard on a half decent stereo (v. expensive friend's parent's B&O Sterogram - 1968). Has (ahem) "good" stereo with things panning all over the place!

Didn't realise that all the hippie ideals I aspired to were being systematically taken apart - FZ hated hippies.

Current version has the bits censored at the time (e.g. "Don't come in me" was inserted backwards originally to avoid offense) have been reinstated.

Current version has new drum and bass tracks, NOT the originals.

My local record shop (in Birmingham) decided that the cover (the Sgt Pepper's pastiche) had been printed the wrong way round, so they displayed all their copies inside out (which meant I had to buy it somewhere else to avoid the broken spine).

It's good. Buy it.

Have tou got Make A Jazz Noise Here and Best Band You Never Heard? They were (I think) the last major touring band he put together, and are as jazzy as he gets in the live ones. But I like them, so they probably aren't in the Waka Jawaka mould....

will piss some cd shop off today by having a listen to some.

Cheers.

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Now those of you that listen will be aware that of the 70 odd Cds he did only a handful are any good,

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Have tou got Make A Jazz Noise Here and Best Band You Never Heard? They were (I think) the last major touring band he put together,

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Anyway, my favourites include Roxy &elsewhere, Apostrophe', One Size Fits All, Overnite Sensation (you gotta love that 72-74 band!). Ahead of their time is a stunning account of the MOI in the 60's, good tunes plus a real sense of atmosphere and stage play. Grand Wazoo is good in a sub-Hot Rats way (along with Burnt Weeny sandwich and Chungas revenge.)

I am particularly keen on his classical and synclavier work, The Yellow shark is astounding (check out the acoustic version of G-Spot Tornado!!) and Civilisation Phase III is one of the densest pieces of music you will hear, hard work but amazing- with beautiful tunes, freaky dialogue, mad percussion.. everything Zappa was about distilled onto 2 CDs.

Arf.
Andy.

live from n.c.,

dave

dave

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I have all the titles you suggest there and then some more, what I was hopeing for would be some zappa master peice I was unaware of in the jazzy vein, I.E. hot rats or waka jawaka, this is the music I love the most, thing with Zappa is you just don't know what you will get, for instance I find Joes Garage to be a load of pants, yet people thinks its great.
Doesmore Zappa jazz exist that isn't a live take?

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Although not strictly a Zappa album you might want to hunt down a copy of Jean Luc Ponty's King Kong album. All tracka bar one were written by Zappa, and a members of the Mothers play on it.
It was recorded around the time of the Hot Rats era, but as it is a 'real' jazz album (on Blue Note) it has a very different sound to Zappa's own recordings. It's worth finding for the Zappa completist and is better than Shankar's 'Touch me there'.

Andy

Also, the Ryko CD of "In it for the money" has original bass and drums, not the horrid 80's cod reggae stuff that appeared on previous CD issues. And it's available on vinyl from Ryko. Yippee!!!

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The original version of Sleep Dirt does it for me every time. My vinyl copy is pretty worn out now. A few years ago I rushed out and bought the CD release only to find it's got vocals all over it! In it's original form though it's one of Zappa's finest instrumental albums.

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Yeah, grim isn't it. And the drums were re-recorded too.

Anyway, the good news. The CD of Lather has the original versions of the tracks from Sleep Dirt on it. If you don't have this CD, get it. Its highly recommended (by me). The sound quality of the Live In New York tracks is tranformed too back to fabuluous clear quality of the original vinyl (not the shouty, bangy versio on the New York CD).

While not " Jazzy in the Kenny-G sense " , a must have Zappa album IMHOP is "Weasels Ripped My Flesh". WRMF is a collection of Mothers of Invention material from the 1967-1969 some is live, some studio. This album really gives a sampling of the breadth of FZ's musical interest. Check out the straight ahead cover of Little Richard's "Directly From My Heart To You" no parody here, FZ liked R and B. The title cut is a live two minute cacophony; really annoying but interesting if you listen to all of the little sounds that go into creating that one big grating sound. In between the two extremes you will find some really odd, sometines polyrythmic, sometimes catchy, and I think challenging music. I don't think that the sound quality is half bad for the complexity, the era, and I would guess the budget. Oh yeah, the album also contains one of my favorite FZ guitar solos. At a mere 2:35, "Get A Little" a nasty little live solo obviously played at the end of a set. Check out the audience reaction when it is over.

The album cover is also great. I rember as a youngster, feeling a combination of unease and curiosity when I encountered it and "Hot Rats" in the record bins at our local drug store.

Sorry for blathering on. I'm outta here!
DCT

One Size Fits All
Sheik Yerbouti
Apostrophe/Overnite Sensation (combo CD - cheating here )
Broadway the Hardway
...eh, I could go on and on.

I'm most of the way through completing both a CD- and Vinyl* 'full house' of Zappa, although not all the recent releases were available on vinyl...

John

* PS. Important you do this if possible as some of the vinyl is of a different composition than the CD - BtHW is a good example with the Confinement Loaf rap, etc. Also, the non-remastered Man From Utopia is preferable to the remixed version (you know, with Louije and the Wise Guys)...

BTW the record cost me about 2 quid (or a beer) however the condition is nothing to write home about

I waited till I saw the CD for about a fiver - it also features promo material and an MPEG of the cinema trailer ( almost makes me want to watch it again...), and at least it's easier to hop and skip the stuff you don't need to hear.

I'm dreading an imminent lounge upgrade which'll decommission my system for nearly a week. That reminds me, must remind decorator to use non-ferrous paint...