Hey, What's New In Music Folder?

[Murmuring Beast 0]

The first Zappa album I bought was Just Another Band From LA. I can see the funny side now.

[Guest Felonies!]

I occasionally see a CD in my store by Mr. Zappa called "Cheap Thrills" is it just a cheap greatest hits disc, or what? I haven't listened to any of his music yet, but I'm looking for something to give a shot and if this gives me some idea of his sound, I'd be willing to give it a try

 

I think the real place to start is with Sheik Yerbouti, but you'll probably get a different answer from any Zappa mutant you ask.

That's where I started!

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

Go for Studio Tan. Or else just get Lather. Either way, listen to "The Adventures of Greggery Peccary". Dwarfs "Billy the Mountain."

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

I occasionally see a CD in my store by Mr. Zappa called "Cheap Thrills" is it just a cheap greatest hits disc, or what? I haven't listened to any of his music yet, but I'm looking for something to give a shot and if this gives me some idea of his sound, I'd be willing to give it a try

 

I think the real place to start is with Sheik Yerbouti, but you'll probably get a different answer from any Zappa mutant you ask.

That's where I started!

 

Well, maybe you won't get a different response.

 

My first Zappa purchase was Apostrophe, though I vaguely remember Freak Out from my dad's record collection.

[Slayer 0]

My first venture was through P2P, where I d/led a few songs (I remember "Joe's Garage" and "Night School" offhand) at the beginning of the decade and that was it, really... then I bought YCDTOSAv1 and that started everything.

 

Since Zappa's live discography kills his studio set, I would recommend starting off with the YCD set (primarily 1, 2 and 4). For studio works, Sheik Yerbouti and Hot Rats, then Joe's Garage and You Are What You Is

 

When I get home, I'll offer up my opinion on the '88 band

[Slayer 0]

Re: '88 band.

 

I thought it was very much a mixed bag. The new songs (mostly on BTHW) were very well done. The old songs however, were rather hit or miss. Quite a few got a pretty good shot in the arm from the big band treatment, especially the instrumentals, but the downsides:

 

1. No Ray White. Ray was my favorite vocalist from the 80's trio (w/ Ike and Bobby), and the songs which Ray White had adopted in the early 80's, such as "City of Tiny Lites", "Advance Romance" and "Zomby Woof" just don't sound right without him, and whoever they had singing the songs instead (Keneally?) doesn't do them justice.

 

2. Too many covers. While it was interesting to hear Zappa's take on some notable 60s/70s songs, I didn't think they were all that great, and they could have been cut for other classic songs from Zappa's own collection (ex: Packard Goose)

 

3. Zappa had shifted from the subtler satire of, say, Joe's Garage and shifted to a more direct approach at this point, namely all the anti-Reagan songs (though to be fair he did lampoon Jesse Jackson as well), which, while good, also shows the date/age of the material.

 

4. "Stevie's Spanking" without Stevie? Come on...

 

5. Due to age and possibly the onset of disease which would kill him, Frank's guitar skills had diminished by this point, and it shows on some of the tracks. Another notable example of this was Frank not being able to pick out a good solo for "Black Napkins" on MAJNH.

[Slayer 0]

btw, I would rank the '88 albums from best to worst as BTHW, MAJNH and TBBYNHIYL

[Guest Felonies!]

My biggest gripe with Jazz Noise is all that When Yuppies Go To Hell/Fire and Chains crap that just goes on and on and doesn't really build to anything. That's more sampler than I can handle.

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

I'm warming up to Them or Us. I still like older versions of Sharleena better, but the solo is better here, even if it sticks out like a sore thumb.

[Guest Felonies!]

"Baby, Take Your Teeth Out" always cracks me up. "Marque-Son's Chicken" is cool, reminds me of WNIB?, and I love when Johnny Guitar Watson shows up.

[Slayer 0]

"Be in My Video", while slightly dated, is a good satire on MTV of that time, the time when they had videos to be in

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

I also like this "Sharleena" more than the one on YCDTOSA Vol 3, with Dweezil on geetar.

 

There's a lot of fucking abbreviations in this thread.

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

"Be in My Video", while slightly dated, is a good satire on MTV of that time, the time when they had videos to be in

 

SLIGHTLY?

[Slayer 0]

Of the point in my statement, you focus on semantics

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

Well, because it's really dated. I like the song, but it's completely lost on anyone who doesn't remember videos like the kind he's describing in that song.

[Slayer 0]

the time when they had videos to be in

Oh, those days

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

Going back to what I mentioned about his 80's material being the only "dated" stuff he ever did, if a newer listener didn't know the story behind all the televangelist attacks, the PMRC, and the other religious/political fuel for his satire, the songs really couldn't possibly come across as well. There's a sense of subtlety lost there, too.

 

By a stark contrast, "Trouble Every Day" can be pretty universal since race problems will always exist, as is fighting between authority/counterculture. Even his silly stuff translates better. An eight year old knows what "Stinkfoot" is.

[Slayer 0]

ZPZ concert was tonight in KC. First concert I've been to in about five years.

 

Fucking awesome, especially seeing Vai play live. Bozzio was a sight too.

 

I'll write something a little more detailed tomorrow

[Guest Felonies!]

WRITE IT

 

 

Oh hey, I'm listening to Chunga's Revenge for the first time in a while. This is better than I remembered it being. Maybe the vacation from it helped.

[The Niggardly King 0]

Hey, I forgot all about Zappa... now I have to look around for some songs... lost the few I had when my computer fucked up.

[Slayer 0]

WRITE IT

YES SIR

 

Got to the concert hall right at 7PM, sat down and waited for the show to begin at 8. The whole hour, they were piping in some new age Asianish chant music that was intriguing for about two minutes and then progressively annoying after that. During this time, Terry Bozzio's 1001 piece drum set garnered a large amount of attention from incoming attendees who flocked the stage front to take pictures of that and only that.

 

8PM, band takes the stage and opens with "Andy". The first hour or so was almost entirely Roxy-era songs with some MOI mixed in. Second hour they bring out Terry Bozzio and do some Sheik Yerbouti/ZINY songs. Exit Bozzio and in comes Vai, who was just fucking amazing to watch. Lots of solo-offs between he and Dweez. First hour lineup does some more songs, leaves, then everyone comes back for the encore ("Trouble Every Day" with solos galore).

 

The band was very energetic for their performance. NMB definitely seemed to be enjoying himself, as did Vai. Their charm even today shows one of many reasons why Zappa utilized them in the first place. Downside is that a lot of the humor among most of the band seemed forced, especially when they simply mimicked old bits without adding any real flair to them. Dweez himself was very guilty of this. I know he has a sense of humor, but it's quite different from his dad's, and mimicing his dad's routines only does them injustice.

 

Non-band moments of the night included a possibly drugged-out woman hanging right on the front of the stage, swaying to and fro with "The Torture Never Stops", and possibly making funny faces at the band. I'm only guessing on the latter, but whatever she did caused NMB to break out in laughter in the middle of the song. Not long after that, right in time for the screams in the song, he held up the mic to her and she let out one hell of a scream. NMB apparently enjoyed it so much he let her do it a second time. Another moment was a guy going right up to the stage after the curtain call and getting Dweez to sign his album cover of Havin' a Bad Day

 

Songlist as far as I can remember:

Andy

Call Any Vegetable

Who Are the Brain Police?

Tell Me You Love Me

Peaches en Regalia

Pound for a Brown (with "Everyone Gets a Solo" intermission)

Montana (with occasional substitutions of "Kansas City" for "Montana")

The Complete Nanook Saga

Pygmy Twylyte

Village of the Sun + Echnidna's Arf (Of You) + Don't You Ever Wash That Thing?

Cheepnis

Inca Roads

Can't Afford No Shoes

The Idiot Bastard Son

I'm So Cute

Tryin' To Grow A Chin

Punky's Whips

I'm the Slime

Black Page Drum Solo

Black Page #2

Advance Romance

Zomby Woof

Black Napkins

The Torture Never Stops

Big Swifty

Trouble Every Day (w/ solos galore)

 

I looked through the discography to try and remember all the songs, but I'm probably still missing some. Also there were a couple of instrumentals mixed in that I didn't recognize at all.

 

Slight disappointment in the absence of anything from JG (Catholic Girls, Keep it Greasy and Watermelon were all hopeful songs of mine) as well as any 80's songs, not to mention other good songs from the time period that they concentrated on (Let's Make Harry Orange Medley, King Kong, City of Tiny Lites, Cosmik Debris and Zoot Allures are all songs I would like to have seen). Also, they didn't show any footage of Frank, which I'd seen they've done at some other ZPZ shows.

[Guest Felonies!]

Sounds really fucking awesome. Thanks for the report. I'm puzzled as to why Terry didn't sit in for the first half. Was Dweezil just using one of his own drummers for that set, or was there another Zappa drummer there? As for Watermelon, I think I recall reading that it was in the set list, but Dweezil was getting too choked up, so they dropped it. Too bad there weren't any YAWYI or Joe's in there. Catholic Girls and Crew Slut would've been cool, but they can't do Outside Now w/o Ike. Camarillo Brillo should've been in there too.

 

How were the non-alumnus members of the band? Pretty solid?

[Slayer 0]

NMB, Vai and Bozzio were the only Zappa alums. Everyone else was a fairly young (except the other guitarist and maybe the drummer), with the male pianist and bassist looking to be between our ages.

 

Hold on, lemme find a pic of the band

 

edit:

 

While most of it might be obvious, I'll run through anyway

 

Back row: NMB, Dweez, pianist/alto sax/high vox, drummer

Front: Mallet percussion (also does a good Don Pardo), other guitarist, bassist, pianist/trumpet

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

How sharp was "Black Napkins"? Spot on reproduction of Frank, or extremely good but missing the subtleties that no one else can really genuinely do?

[Guest Felonies!]

That mallet percussionist looks like he works at Guitar Center. But what I really came here to bump this for was that this is what I'm probably getting for my birthday/Christmas/gift card shopping:

 

The Best Band You Never Heard In Your Life

YCD3

YCD4

One of the Guitar compilations

[Toshiaki Koala 0]

Dweezil Zappa is always hanging out at this golf/country club in my old neighborhood. My dad says he's a really nice guy.

[Guest George's Box]

Stuff I've been feelin' on my latest re-immersion:

 

"Carolina Hard-Core Ecstasy"

Cruising with Ruben & the Jets

"Honey, Don't You Want a Man Like Me?", 'specially on YCD4

 

Zappa: Her favorite band was--

Crowd: HELEN REDDY!!!!!

Zappa: No, it was Twisted Sister. So let's try again. Her favorite band was--

Crowd: TWISTED SISTER!!!

[Guest Tzar Lysergic]

Bongo Fury is really friggin' awesome. That's been my highest circulation Zappa recently. If only "Poofter's Froth Wyoming Plans Ahead" was way shorter.

[Guest George's Box]

I never really devoted enough time to Bongo Fury right when I bought it, since that's also when I got my first three Tom Waits albums, but now that I've listened to it a lot, I've become a big fan. "Carolina Hard-Core Ecstasy" is just awesome.

[Gary Floyd 0]

I have Waka/Jawaka on my ITunes, an I'm liking it. Good stuff. I'm going to have to by some of his fusion stuff soon. Any suggestions?