Frank Zappa - Entire Catalogue Remastered and Reissued

Those Amazon pre-order prices are always nothing but random. That'll change. They'll go on sale, too.

 

The "communicate well" objection can variously be described as "doesn't communicate often" and "when she does communicate, tends to do so in code." Her prerogative, obviously. My objection, such as I have one that I would elevate to that level, has to do with the ZFT's general litigiousness; I'd never want to work with them on a project. I have very few complaints about her stewardship of unreleased material, though, as the ZFT has been pretty damn good at getting stuff out the door as of late.

 

If it is, in fact, a third of the catalog that's been newly remastered, AND that we're talking about 20 new masters here (out of 60 total), which ones are we looking at? I can only think of 12 that NEED to be re-done from scratch:

Absolutely Free, Uncle Meat, Hot Rats, Burnt Weeny Sandwich, Weasels Ripped My Flesh, Chunga's Revenge, Fillmore East, Just Another Band, Waka/Jawaka, Zoot Allures, In New York, Sheik Yebouti

and maybe Studio Tan and Sleep Dirt if you're not satisfied with Lather.

That's only 14. Anyone want to suggest which other 6 need to be re-done?

 

^ Jazz From Hell isn't so different from the vinyl, if memory serves. But it is anemic sonically for such a groundbreaking work. Insofar as it's a shorty, I'd like to see a fat remix accompany the original on a single disc.

 

I hope Joe Travers is doing hi-rez transfers so we can have the real deal

 

The Grand Wazoo, Over-nite Sensation, Roxy & Elsewhere, Bongo Fury, and Sleep Dirt are the ones I come up with.

 

I'd add to that list Bongo Fury, Grand Wazoo, and maaaybe Overnite Sensation. After the switch to digital, it gets complicated; what, for example, would a definitive version of Utopia look like? Or "Them or Us," for that matter, which has better EQ on its more-recent incarnation but also is slightly mangled?

 

Man from Utopia is the one that I can't figure out. Do they revert to the vinyl mix? If they don't, will enough people care?

 

Not having the album in front of me: is it short enough so that a two-fer would fit? I vaguely recall doing this on one occasion...perhaps "Wise Guys" pushes it over.

 

Ah, the myriad complexities of the FZ catalog.

And the subsequent declarations of which issue is definitive.

The riddle that's never resolved.

For all my criticism of Gail, I havta acknowledge the posthumous releases by ZFT are rather excellent across the board. By now she/they have heard enough detailed criticism of the Ryko releases and the missteps made by Frank himself; if not from here, at least on various Zappa-centric boards.

I'm sure various titles will engender further arguments, but I'd speculate SQ will be at least serviceable, Universal's presence notwithstanding. I'd like to think Joe will birddog the tech end, and Gail will be insufferable, I mean relentless, in enforcement.

 

LP - 36:34, CD - 40:21. Both would fit.

 

Excellent, though I doubt it will happen.

 

Speaking of the posthumous releases, what with waves of catalog coming back every few months, I don't see Gail putting out anything fresh for awhile so as not to muddy the waters, do you?




Now playing on Ariel Stream: Julia Fordham - It's Another You Day

 

Anymore Project-Object? i was hoping that a project object treatment would be done on more of his titles. i thoroughly have enjoyed was has been released so far.

 

It's sad to think there won't be a MO-UM, MO-HR, MO-BWS, & MO-WRMF !

 

MO-WRMF: the sound of a big angry dawg with a mouth full of peanut butter.

I already know what I'm ordering, provided they aren't using the existing remixes:
- Uncle Meat
- Hot Rats (at ANY price)
- Chunga's Revenge
- Just Another Band From LA

and probably
- Absolutely Free
- Burnt Weeny Sandwich

 

I thought the 95 remaster of 'Grand Wazoo' was pretty great - apart from changing the running order of the tracks- and 'Roxy & Elsewhere' was perfect right from the BP original. What did you think needed fixing on those?

Keeping in mind I only ever owned the Canadian editions of the LPs - the CDs might not have been as good as the US originals and I still would have found them to be impressive.

 

I wonder if they will put the 45 seconds that got cut of Frank's guitar solo on Uncle Remus when it was first transferred to CD back now. Third time's a charm... one can only hope!

 

Now that ZFT has a new deal, Maybe they'll spend the money needed to finish the Roxy movie.

 

The two previous Apostrophe CDs faded out "Uncle Remus" two bars (=perhaps 5 seconds) earlier than the stereo LP. The mix used for these CDs seems to have been a folddown of the quad mix which had the same early fade on that song.

 

Doesn't the Ryko AU20 disc feature the original stereo LP mix?

 

It does.

 

The Grand Wazoo and Roxy both had the digital reverb that was present on most of the Ryko CDs from the 70's albums. It wasn't as bad as, say, Zappa In New York, but present, nevertheless. The original US LPs were much drier.

 

Looking forward to the Joe's Garage release, hopefully this year. I can't find a decent price for the CD anywhere.

 

I think I remember noticing much thinner bass on parts of Roxy, which is why I stayed with the vinyl.
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