Zappa - Apostrophe (50th anniversary set out in Sept!)

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Concert recordings of the best live band that Zappa ever toured with are not, in my opinion, equivalent to "countless alternate takes", mio amico.

But of course, my opinion is influenced by seeing them on that tour 50 years ago, one of the best concerts of my life.

Robin Trower was the opening act, touring behind Bridge of Sighs, and made no impression on me compared to Zappa's playing.



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Yes you're not wrong. My complaint is in general against any bloated rerelease with as I said countless takes or demos; of course it's very subjective (your favorite artists or mine) but I do not like very much this marketing of burying a 📀 blu-ray under tons of CDs.
I love the ticket you posted 😍
 
I love the ticket you posted 😍
Not my own, offered for sale on eBay for $60. ;)

Though I do have a box full of other torn ticket stubs from 56 years of live shows I'm happy I saved, now that tickets are on our phooking phones now.

Wonder if some entrepreneur will try to sell them after my death cleaning?
Mean more to me personally than they ever would to anyone else, but there's no logic to the market in "collectibles."

Tickets take up much less space than the totes full of concert t-shirts I no longer wear, which may or may not get made into a quilt someday... 😶‍🌫️
 
As someone who bought everything Frank ever released... The bawdy lyrics are a very small percentage. More jazz/rock fusion and avant garde classical than anything else. Kind of tame compared to a lot of things I've heard too! I'm pretty sure it was the political attacks that got him in trouble. And more Trouble Every Day and Packard Goose than Dicky's Such An ******* too.

I'm not naive. There's some indefensible stuff. Most of the misogyny was him in character brutally making fun of guys acting like that but there are genuinely a couple truly horrific pieces.

Anyway, I agree with these two quad mixes maybe not being demo worthy! They're full mixes though and not just the raw 4 corner thing some of the early quads are. (Some of which are welcome for that, mind you!) Over-Nite surprised me a bit though. He has an extended dynamic range and low end presentation going on that goes beyond what stereo delivery can do with that. It's effective and gives the album weight in a great way. This was thoroughly mutilated on the shared CD-4 I had (Was this one a CD-4? I might have that wrong.) and only revealed on the reissue. And he does have some gratuitous spinning around the room elements in there, if only a few. But this is no Dark Side or ******* Brew is it!

Funny, I thought it was these two albums finally getting reissued that would just make my day but the unexpected 7.1.4 remixes of Waka Jawaka and Grand Wazoo just floored me and are still some of my favorite new 12 channel mixes. The 7.1.4 remix of Over-Nite IS very faithful to the original quad. The quad will be my go to for this one in the end though.

Frank's sarcasm... He didn't just say the things. He really knew how to pick just the right words to just absolutely trigger and enrage his targets! Man, I miss hearing that!
Oh man, EVERY Zappa/Mothers album must add up to 50-60 LP's, I'm guessing! I suppose it depends where you draw the line as to what's "in the clubhouse" or not, PLUS multiple duplicates of favorites in different formats/labels. My hugely influential older brother introduced me to Zappa/Mothers around '68, and I was captivated by Frank's blazing guitar skill AND his bristling attitude. As you know, those original Mothers albums on Verve went out of print for 10+ years while Frank tangled with Verve for the right to re-release them. I read an interview where Frank noted that diehard collectors should seek out the 8-track of "Lumpy Gravy," which unlike the LP, had full orchestral versions of the tracks. My understanding is that the dispute with Verve flared just as "LG" was coming out, so the 8-track had scanty distribution at best, however Frank declared that "they do exist"! I've never seen one personally, but it's an absolute "white buffalo" for us classic rock fans.
 
Well it depends on the quality of the 1974 live recordings.

More details on the two live concert recordings included on the CDs:
https://allabouttherock.co.uk/frank...th-new-50th-anniversary-super-deluxe-edition/



For the balance of the bonus live material contained herein throughout Discs 2-5, Travers explained that the goal was to represent what Zappa achieved during his live concerts throughout 1974 by focusing on shows at the beginning and the end of the year.

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. (The patches that fill in the gaps left by reels of tape running out were taken from The Mothers’ Salt Lake City, Utah show from March 18.)

For the ’74 tour run, Zappa constructed a number of new compositions and refinements. “Is There Anything Good Inside Of You?” (a.k.a. “Andy”) and “Florentine Pogen” were brand new, while the rarely played “Babbette” was connected to the still fairly new “Approximate” in a genius way. And, of course, “Inca Roads” underwent constant change.

As per usual, Zappa was recording every show on his ½-inch 4-track tape machine. 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 core group of Zappa, keyboardist/vocalist George Duke, tenor saxophonist/flautist/vocalist Napoleon Murphy Brock, bassist Tom Fowler, drummer Chester Thompson, and percussionist Ruth Underwood has long since been acknowledged as a fan-favorite and is largely considered one of the best and most popular groups Zappa ever compiled.

They were well-trained, as most of them had worked with Zappa off and on for almost two years. They had great chemistry and produced a special sound, with The Maestro leading the way as the singular guitar player.

By the time the Dayton show came around that November, there was only about a week and a half left before the tour was scheduled to end.

The Dayton show is the last surviving live document of an amazingly talented group of musicians—as witnessed by their expert execution of songs like “Penguin In Bondage,” “Dinah-Moe Humm,” and “Pygmy Twylyte”—and it’s the gig that also concurrently signaled the end of an incredibly successful chapter in Zappa history.
 
Amazon UK: : https://amzn.eu/d/02gaKV82

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