Applied Zappigraphy

[Karl Henning]

[San Antone]

I bought this LP this year, it's my favorite Zappa record.

200 Motels Soundtrack 50th Anniversary

[Karl Henning]

I bouth this LP this year, it's my favorite Zappa record.

200 Motels Soundtrack 50th Anniversary

Love it!

[Karl Henning]

[Karl Henning]

[Le Buisson Ardent]

I bought this LP this year, it's my favorite Zappa record.

200 Motels Soundtrack 50th Anniversary

Yeah, I bought the CD iteration last year:

[Karl Henning]

The movie is pretty much all one might hope for, as well.

[Le Buisson Ardent]

The movie is pretty much all one might hope for, as well.

Interestingly enough, I don't believe I've ever seen the film (not that this is important for me to enjoy the score). I need to remedy this at some point. Speaking of 200 Motels, I wonder how the Esa-Pekka Salonen recording is that was released some years ago? Has anyone heard it? I own all of Zappa's classical recordings, but this particular one (the recording in question):



Since this is the Zappa thread on GMG, I wanted to say I've been enjoying his work since the late 90s when I scored someone's entire collection in a used CD store. I still own all of these CDs (on Rykodisc), but they have since been superseded by the Zappa Records remasters, which remove the reverb Zappa himself applied when he remastered his catalog during the 80s (?). Anyway, to say the newer remasters sound better would be an understatement.

I've been loving all of the box sets that have been coming over the past decade or so from Zappa Records. The recent Over-Nite Sensation: 50th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition is proving to be first-rate as I'm now just getting around to it.

[Le Buisson Ardent]

I'm not sure if this website has been linked, but this page goes through all of the 2012 Zappa Records reissues and compares them with their Rykodisc counterparts --- very interesting to say the least:

http://www.lukpac.org/~handmade/patio/vinylvscds/2012hotpoop.html

[Karl Henning]

This was undeniably an extravagant impulse purchase, yet I don't foresee repentance....

[Karl Henning]

For an impulse purchase, this has proven surprisingly superb. The almost-12-minute unedited title track I found absorbing. A little surprising, since the cut on the album as released is 5 minutes or so. And I loved the Colprado Springs version of "Dupree's Paradise" and  RDNZL." Heck, I always like the latter.

[Karl Henning]

I'm not sure if this website has been linked, but this page goes through all of the 2012 Zappa Records reissues and compares them with their Rykodisc counterparts --- very interesting to say the least:

http://www.lukpac.org/~handmade/patio/vinylvscds/2012hotpoop.html

Thanks. I missed this earlier. 

[AnotherSpin]

apostrophe (') was the very first Zappa album I heard, sometime in the mid-'70s. That LP was horribly scratched, but that didn't stop me from feeling a great deal of astonishment and delight at the uniqueness of what I heard. I remember being particularly intrigued by the participation of Jack Bruce—at the time, Cream was the pinnacle of rock musicianship for me. Bruce didn't stand out in any remarkable way on the album, but that hardly mattered.

From that moment, every new Zappa album was eagerly anticipated, taped, and listened to over and over again. Later, in the '80s, Zappa's overwhelming flood of releases—motivated by reasons not entirely artistic—seriously dampened my enthusiasm for his work. However, if I ever feel like revisiting Zappa now, apostrophe (') is always my first choice. It's concise and straight to the point, with everything that made Zappa great distilled to perfection.

[Karl Henning]

Plunging into this. I started with Disc 5, which includes the 1987 digital remix. And now I'm listening to Disc 1. It's not for everybody (obviously) but I am really enjoying hearing all the bits, the jams, the what-have-you's. The details listed in the book are interesting and informative.

[Karl Henning]

On the Top Forty in Saudi Arabia, "It must be a camel."

[Karl Henning]

Plunging into this. I started with Disc 5, which includes the 1987 digital remix. And now I'm listening to Disc 1. It's not for everybody (obviously) but I am really enjoying hearing all the bits, the jams, the what-have-you's. The details listed in the book are interesting and informative.

Definitely pacing myself, for it is not an album (as a doofus at Rolling Stone mistook it), but documents of the process, and the idea is not to fly through from Disc One, Track One on. Fascinating stuff, and right up my street.

[Karl Henning]

Funny story: the arrival of the parcel confused me quite. The Apostrophe (') 50^th anniversary edition is a delightfully compact affair, and I had allowed this to set my expectations for this comparable Hot Rats celebratory issue. So, this enormous carton arrived, and when I opened it up, I found an LP-sized box within. I mistakenly supposed that I was sent vinyl in error, but no, when I spoke to an agent to sort out (as I thought) the "problem," I broke the cellophane, examined the contents, and discovered that yes, this is the compact disc edition. My initial trend to dismay at the much larger footprint of the product has been completely reversed to pleasure that the book reproduces the LP artwork, hitting all the nostalgia buttons.

[Karl Henning]

A page of the log

[Karl Henning]

And, while my mouse was yet a-hovering over the "place order" button for the Hot Rats Sessions, I found this related beastie.

[Karl Henning]

And, while my mouse was yet a-hovering over the "place order" button for the Hot Rats Sessions, I found this related beastie.

I've listened to the first disc, which is the speculatively "reconstructed" album itself. Enjoyable, plenty of good stuff. I'm suppressing a weak tendency to prejudice against the project. After all, in the first place, recordings/performances which are worth hearing have been made available to us. And in the second, the methodology is on the same lines of Burnt Weeny Sandwich and Weasels Rip My Flesh. I'm still mulling.