New Zappa releases

[Plasmatopia]

I was thinking some artists are entering the metadata on Apple Music (or other places).

[The Czar]

I'm excited for this one to arrive.

[unclemeat]

[digitalzomby]

I hate remixes, but I have so much Zappa that I always think they gave us all. Not on your life, Gimme more from the vault. I am sorry to say Uncle Frank, but I hate what you did to some of your albums by overdubbing some tunes. Frank must have been on mushroom tea without his knowledge and got space cadetted.

[Mister Triscuits]

Very essential. And now…

[pb2015]

The Whiskey set is on streaming and some people have reported getting the CD in the last few days. I've only listened to the first set so far, but suffice it to say that if you like 60's Mothers, don't miss it. In particular it's nice to hear Ray Collins with the group on a professional quality live recording.

[zombywoof]

Really cool release ! I had lots of thoughts about Whisky a Go Go 1968, but instead of posting them in text form I decided to collect them in a rambling, unscripted review.

[Rarebird]

The mention that there's a song about the Holocaust on the Mothers 1970 set got me thinking: are there any other prog songs that refer to that event? The one that comes to my mind is ELP's "The Only Way" (Can you believe God makes you breathe/Why did he lose six million Jews).

There are major non-rock works that reference it, like Steve Reich's "Different Trains". And there was John Zorn's "Kristallnacht" which I made the mistake of buying - I found it literally unlistenable. I get the idea behind it but do I really have to sit through it? (I much prefer Penderecki's Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima, FWIW.)

Not prog, but their only hit in The Netherlands
Bap - Kristallnaach

[Mister Triscuits]

Back in December I said:

The fans have been clamoring for an Apostrophe box, but the thing is that all the best stuff that could be included in such a set has already come out on Crux of the Biscuit and Funky Nothingness. And bear in mind that Apostrophe was kind of a "leftovers" album in the first place--side one is from the Over-Nite Sensation sessions, "Excentrifugal Forz" and "Stinkfoot" are reworkings of older tapes--so there were no Apostrophe recording sessions per se.

...but it looks like the next release is indeed going to be an Apostrophe anniversary project of some sort.

[unclemeat]

...it looks like the next release is indeed going to be an Apostrophe anniversary project of some sort.

Apostrophe(') 2024 remaster, two concerts (Colorado Springs, 21 march 1974 & Dayton, 20 november 1974), studio outtakes (this seems to include tracks 2,4,7,11-14 from Crux of the biscuit)...

[pb2015]

The March 1974 show will be nice. FZ never released anything by this band, but it was a good lineup (Roxy plus Jeff Simmons) and they played early versions of the One Size.. material.

[calyx]

Excellent news for me - Crux of the Biscuit is the single of one of those archival releases I don't have, so I for one won't be complaining (rightly) that I already have most of the studio stuff. And the live material should be great, too - I didn't realise there was such a difference between the March and May 1974 bands. That's before Ruth left (temporarily) and Walt joined, right?

[unclemeat]

And the live material should be great, too - I didn't realise there was such a difference between the March and May 1974 bands. That's before Ruth left (temporarily) and Walt joined, right?

Yes. That's the penultimate concert of the '74 spring tour. It should include the fast version of ''Florentine Pogen'' and an early arrangement of ''Andy''.

Excellent news for me - Crux of the Biscuit is the single of one of those archival releases I don't have, so I for one won't be complaining (rightly) that I already have most of the studio stuff.

Hopefully, the most interesting material from Crux (''Energy frontier'' etc) will turn up in another release that could include the FZ-Ponty duets from 1972...

https://recordstore.co.uk/products/a...725d54db&_ss=r

[calyx]

Hopefully, the most interesting material from Crux (''Energy frontier'' etc) will turn up in another release that could include the FZ-Ponty duets from 1972...

I'm not aware of those. Perhaps you mean from the same session that produced "Canard du Jour" ? Do we (or you) know how much music they would have recorded ? Would this have been just before the 1973 band came together ?

[unclemeat]

Perhaps you mean from the same session that produced "Canard du Jour" ? Do we (or you) know how much music they would have recorded ? Would this have been just before the 1973 band came together ?

Yes. But only the Vaultmeister knows what subsists of that july 1972 session.

[Hunchentootz]

The March 1974 show will be nice. FZ never released anything by this band, but it was a good lineup (Roxy plus Jeff Simmons) and they played early versions of the One Size.. material.

Agreed. Looking forward to this.

[polmico]

Preorder link is up with tracklist.
https://store.zappa.com/collections/...ersary-edition

[pb2015]

Yes. But only the Vaultmeister knows what subsists of that july 1972 session.

Some comments about this session. It is vague about whether FZ and Ponty recorded more of their duet than what was in that "Canard" track.

https://www.donlope.net/fz/notes/Shu...ar.html#Canard

[zombywoof]

SUPER excited ! Crux is really hard to come by these days too, kinda glad I held out !

[Dave (in MA)]

Looks as though a bunch of the more interesting Crux material is left out.

[Hobo Chang Ba]

Preorder link is up with tracklist.
https://store.zappa.com/collections/...ersary-edition

Those live shows look tasty.

[unclemeat]

https://allabouttherock.co.uk/frank-...eluxe-edition/

"As both an album title and concept, Apostrophe (’) looks to have initially appeared in The Vault on a few 2-inch 16-track masters that were essentially Zappa’s “Build Reels” created in 1971. They contain multi-track master sources of a variety of selections from The Hot Rats Sessions of 1969, the Record Plant Sessions from 1970, and Fillmore East live tracks from 1971. It wasn’t until early 1974 that the all-lowercase and additionally punctuated Apostrophe (’) album title was fully appropriated, with then-current session masters from Bolic Studios in Inglewood, Calif., combined with other archive recordings dating from 1970 to 1972. (...)

For the March tour tapes, it was hard to find a show that had releasable sound quality and featured all the music special to that particular time period. The Colorado Springs tapes—the venue is technically unidentified but is believed to have been Zappa’s March 21 appearance at Civic Auditorium—offers a number of great performances of the repertoire along with a presentable sounding recording. (...) While the tapes are not of the highest sound quality, historically speaking these particular shows contain variants of songs that never repeated on any other tours.

As for the Dayton, Ohio show from November 20 that appears on Discs 4 and 5, it is featured here for many reasons. The tapes sound very good, even though there was intermittent distortion in the right channel throughout. The band itself had transmogrified a number of times during the year, with the later configuration existing as a six-piece collective. (...) The Dayton show is the last surviving live document of an amazingly talented group of musicians."

[pb2015]

Looks as though a bunch of the more interesting Crux material is left out.

"Down in de Dew" and the related outtakes (if I remember right, "Energy Frontier" was a mix of "Down in de Dew" and "Apostrophe" themes) aren't included. I don't remember those tracks being great although they had historical interest. The press release describes Crux as out of print but it is still streaming.

[Mister Triscuits]

The press release describes Crux as out of print but it is still streaming.

I don't even know what out of print means anymore. For those of us stuck on physical media, browsing through the Zappa releases currently available through Universal is alarming for what's not there.

Freak Out - not available as a stand-alone, but the whole album is included in the MOFO 2-CD set
Absolutely Free - CD in print
Lumpy Gravy - not available as a stand-alone, but the "UMRK remix" is included on the Lumpy Money 3-CD set
We're Only In It for the Money - CD in print
Ruben & the Jets - available repackaged as Greasy Love Songs
Uncle Meat - CD in print
Burnt Weeny Sandwich - unavailable
Hot Rats - CD & vinyl in print
Weasels Ripped My Flesh - CD in print
Chunga's Revenge - CD & vinyl in print
Fillmore East June 1971 - 3LP vinyl version only
200 Motels - available in various formats
Just Another Band from LA - unavailable
Waka/Jawaka - CD & vinyl in print
Grand Wazoo - vinyl only
Over-Nite Sensation - box set and vinyl versions available, no stand-alone CD
Apostrophe - CD in print
Roxy and Elsewhere - vinyl only (The Roxy Performances box set unavailable, Roxy by Proxy single CD still in print)
One Size Fits All - unavailable
Bongo Fury - unavailable
Zappa in New York - unavailable
Zoot Allures - CD in print
Studio Tan - unavailable
Sleep Dirt - CD in print
Orchestral Favorites - 3CD version available
Läther - unavailable
Sheik Yerbouti - vinyl only
Joe's Garage - CD in print
...and then almost nothing from the '80s/'90s is available. No Shut Up 'n Play Yer Guitar, Drowning Witch, Them or Us, Perfect Stranger, Jazz from Hell, Mothers of Prevention, Broadway the Hard Way, You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore, etc.

The conspicuously missing 1975 releases are undoubtedly being prepped for box set editions.

[Hobo Chang Ba]

^ Damn that is depressing.