Music writing, not-so-slight return, or, perhaps, "You're Probably Wondering Why I'm Here"

7 Comments

• Peter Nellhaus says:

  August 20, 2012 at 10:02 am

  Who are the three with Zappa? Otherwise, I enjoyed your assess­ment of the albums. Saw the Mothers at Fillmore East in May 1970. A few months later, met and chat­ted with Zappa in the lobby of the 1 Fifth Avenue Hotel which also served as a dorm for NYU students.

• preston says:

  August 20, 2012 at 11:42 am

  “Released about nine months before Miles Davis’ “Bitches Brew,” it deserves just as much recog­ni­tion in terms of push­ing for­ward a fusion between rock ’n’ roll, jazz and clas­sic­al music.”
  And how! The heat from ‘Hot Rats’ is scorch­ing. This is one of my best go-to high energy albums.
  Great write ups on this first batch of re-re-releases. Do you know if they dif­fer from the Rykodisks that came before, in either re-mix or pack­aging? I know FZ did remas­ter most of these pri­or to his death. I picked up the new ‘Crusing With Ruben…’ and ‘Burnt Weeny Sandwich’ and they seem the same.
  Thanks again, and I’m glad you are the one writ­ing on this!

• J. Priest says:

  August 20, 2012 at 12:27 pm

  @preston, I found some inform­a­tion here: http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/archive/index.php/t‑288444-p-21.html
  Haven’t gone through all the posts, but it looks like most (if not all) of them are def­in­itely remastered, and they also brought back some of the ori­gin­al LP mixes.

• Glenn Kenny says:

  August 20, 2012 at 12:40 pm

  Preston: I salted SOME remas­ter­ing info in the MSN piece, but did­n’t get too wonky, as it’s, you know, not a wonky site. But…for you:
  “Freak Out” is the ’87 Zappa remix/master retransferred.
  “Absolutely Free” is a whole new remas­ter from the ORIGINAL TAPES by Doug Sax and it’s amaz­ingly like the LP I bought back in the day.
  “Lumpy Gravy” is the ’93 Zappa reed­it, and everything up to and includ­ing “Uncle Meat” is from a mas­ter that was on the Ryko issues. As Gail Zappa points out, the TRANSFERS of the mas­ters are all new and this res­ult in improved detail if you listen very hard.
  “Hot Rats,” how­ever, is a new mas­ter by Bernie Grundman and is sounds mag­ni­fi­cent. “Weasels,” “Chunga” and “Weeny Sandwich” are new Bob Ludwig mas­ters and I think they kick ass. “Fillmore” and “L.A.” are new Sax and Ludwig remas­ters respectively.
  For those who want to hear “Freak Out” “Lumpy Gravy,” “We’re Only In It For The Money” and “Ruben And The Jets” in digit­al form that hews to the ori­gin­al LP relelases, they should seek out the Gail-Zappa-produced “audio doc­u­ment­ar­ies” “The MOFO Project,” “Lumpy Money” and “Greasy Love Songs” from the Barffko Swill website.

• preston says:

  August 20, 2012 at 2:44 pm

  Thanks for the link @J. Priest. Zoot Allures! that IS a massive load of info to get through. I looked on the Zappa site as well and it does­n’t appear that they have updated to reflect all the info on the new disks.
  Thanks again, Glenn. This valu­able info helps a lot in pri­or­it­iz­a­tion of future FZ purchases.
  best,
  wonky P

• Henry Holland says:

  August 21, 2012 at 1:21 am

  “such a per­sona argu­ably com­prom­ised his status as a “ser­i­ous” composer”
  No, what compromised/es his stature was that his “ser­i­ous” orches­tral pieces aren’t very good, the influ­ence of Stravinsky and Varese so blatant as to be risible.
  Nice over­view, I’ll seek out “Absolutely Free” and “We’re Only In It For The Money”.

• Matt Blankman says:

  August 22, 2012 at 10:36 pm

  Really good piece here. There’s just so much to dive into with this top­ic and you keep things orderly and insightful.
  The new HOT RATS & BURNT WEENY SANDWICH remas­ters are mind-blowingly great.
  I haven’t got­ten to the post Weasels CDs yet, but I like those two live albums with Flo & Eddie more than you seem to. “Eddie, Are you Kidding?”