Frank Zappa: the 75th anniversary album by album thread

The best !!!!!

 

I'm a little late to the party, but does anyone know what songs Mac "Dr. John" Rebenac plays on in "Freak Out?"

Also, my understanding is that in the Sgt. Pepper shoot for WOIIFTM, that's the real Jimi Hendrix posing with the Mothers.

 

I think if someone feels the urge to make their own edit of LG and keep only the "real" music, then the work of Frank Zappa isn't probably the right thing for them.

IMO LG is a brillant collage and it works very well the way it is. It one of the best things FZ ever did.

 

Uncle Meat may be Zappa's most important record in terms of his legacy. Prior to this, the Mothers records were mostly a collection of songs. With Uncle Meat, Frank got to present the free nature of the Mothers' live shows in record form. It is simultaneously chaotic and tightly controlled. This would remain the standard MO for Zappa for the rest of his life. The main title theme, "King Kong", "A Pound For A Brown", and "Dog Breath" provide the glue that not only hold the record together, but anchored many of his live shows. The album is essential.

 

Thanks for the opinion. I get a huge amlunt out of the things I like that he did and am glad to enjoy things the way they bring most enjoyment to me whether or not others approve.

On a hot day I will also enjoy white wine with ice cubes, and I have also been known to use tone controls and activate Dolby surround and delay based surround effects on stereo or even (gasp) mono material to enhance my enjoyment.

I have enjoyed LG in its entirety but for me spoken word stands up less well to repeated listens than instrumental music, so I choose to listen to some parts more than others.

Unvle Meat is another album with some of the best music I have ever heard and some aural experiences, including eztended film dialog on the CD version, thar do not stans up as well to repeated listens.

 

I've never been able to work out whether it is or not.. some people say it's not as he's standing in the same position in the outtake photos, but it's hard to conclusively tell.

 

Freak Out has 3 killer sides of songs, last side is interesting but not as important as those first 1,2&3.

The instrumental and vocal tracks on the 4cd box are wonderful to behold. Had Frank lived he would not have let us have the raw tracks like that. Thank you ZFT for simply going for it! The world needed to have a deeper look into the production of this masterful debut regardless of what the composer thought.

 

Uncle Meat is to my ears a little too jammy. I know it has tight construction under the sprawling sides, but it still jams on too long on some cuts, where Burnt Winnie reels things in more perfectly IMO. Ripped Flesh is also more my type of thing with the shorter more concise editing/arranging.

Yet Uncle Meat is one classic double album, the blue Bizzare label era is one incredible run of albums.

I am interested in hearing the late reissue of this on. Vinyl, many positive reviews with listeners here saying that the improved the fidelity of the album, better than originals.

 

The early Capitol version of Lumpy Gravy is now available as part of the Lumpy Money set for those who prefer not to hear the dialogue. (However, it is in mono - a stereo mix, with one editing difference, circulates among fans but reportedly isn't in Zappa's vault.)

Lumpy Money also included a surprise vault find, a 25 minute instrumental titled "How Did That Get In Here?" including a few bits FZ used for Lumpy Gravy. Although I think he was wise to leave out the rest as it is mostly uneventful jamming, it is a very early example of FZ doing conducted improv with studio calibre players, which we would hear more often from him starting with Hot Rats.

 

It's been years since I listened to Uncle Meat and I'm not sure why. Maybe the penalty tracks. I'll have to correct this and listen today.

 

I'm still not used to hearing "King Kong" with a cold start because I got used to skipping ahead to CD 2, track 4 and hearing the bit of leftover noise from the movie at the beginning.

 

I have a 70's re-issue of the LP and the Zappa Records CD but the recent vinyl version blows them away. It is a huge improvement IMO.

 

Tan colored Reprise label reissues are no match for blue Bizarre originals.
I remember back in 1984, 85, and 86 I used to drive up to LA from my beach pad in Orange County looking for Zappa vinyl in the used stores. Blue Bizarre label Zappa/ Mothers LPs ran you $20 an LP. That was a lot of money back then and a lot of effort on my part. But for $20 that was nice clean NM copies with brown original inner sleeves. So I was able to complete my FZ collection of originals by 1986 including the Verve originals. I was cool, but nobody I knew cared about these prime Mothers blue Bizarres. I still have them and they are still NM and sound wonderful.

 

As I mentioned in another thread, I bought a tan Reprise Uncle Meat last year. It sounds very nice, except side two which may have been cut out of phase, since it sounds quiet and dull compared to the rest of the album.

 

Uncle Meat remains for me one of Zappa's greatest achievements--and along with Burnt Weenie and Weasels and bookended by Money/Lumpy at one end and Hot Rats at the other--the culmination of his early development as a composer, collagist, and studio manipulator. It's a work that sounds like nothing else and still sound fresh and full of mystery to me even after some 30 years of regular listening.

L.

 

My edit incorporates the unique instrumental parts of all of these, using stereo versions of segments where available.

 

Uncle Meat was my introduction to Zappa (well, excepting Valley Girl and stuff like that). Found myself backpacking through Europe (cliché, I know) with a bulky yellow "sports" Walkman and almost no cassettes. From a limited supply I got a Ryko copy of this on cassette (no penalty tracks) and also The Yellow Shark.

I gave both of them as good a go as I could but never really warmed to them. The short version is probably that Zappa's aesthetics aren't mine, and never the twain shall meet. But what I found most frustrating about the fiddly bits on Uncle Meat was how they were mixed in with moments of absolute brilliance. Both versions of Dog Breath are amazing for completely different reasons. Parts of King Kong are great. It's been a whole so I'm not sure what else to point to.

But it's mixed in with what, to my ears, just seems like self-indulgence. In-jokes, failed experiments, self-referential bits. I get that "that's what Zappa is", but it doesn't move me.

I try again and again with Zappa, but what I don't like seems to drown out what I'm quite fond of, again and again.

Obviously that means I don't belong in this thread, but since the album in question is Uncle Meat, I thought I'd chime in.

 

So if Freak Out was actually the first rock double album, it also beats out Blonde on Blonde by including the first Side-long epic on a rock album ("The Return of Monster Magnet.")

 

A classic! Hard to believe it came out in 1966. It was so much more musically unconventional than anything else in rock at the time. McCartney has acknowledged it as an influence on Sgt. Pepper.

 

Offhand I can think of Holst-The Planets, Stravinsky-Rite of Spring

 

No, you are mistaken on the last point, Dylan included a side long epic for sure, no doubt. Not an opinion.

 

I sort of agree with you on some points. I called some of it "jammy" in another thread, and was quickly rebuked by others saying it is not, oh well actually some of it is a little bit, they admitted.

I'm going to listen to it again soon because I am going to grab that reissue 2lp set, just so I know what the have done with it (to improve sound quality).

 

But which really came first? "Sad Eyed Lady" or "Monster Magnet?"

 

There was not a competition to get a side long epic out first, so your entire contest is childish play.

If Zappa was the first double rock album, that does not mean he beat Dylan to the mark of an album with a psych/comic cover too!

 

No competition and no childish play. Just a question about which was actually released first since there seems to be some discrepancy. This type of musical trivia has been a part of popular music journalism since the beginning, as well as divisions into musical genre. There were sidelong epics and double albums in the folk and jazz fields in the '50s.