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It's nice to hear Frank singing Hungry Freaks like he means it rather than how he sang Status Back Baby on The Ark, for example.

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"drums are too noisy, 'n you've got no corners to hide in"

Finally received my copy. Haven't listened to it yet but am looking forward to doing.

Loving this release, but wondering why it does not have the 92 on the spine. Another attempt to be intentionally misleading? I honestly assumed it was part of some other line, like Road Tapes would not be considered "official releases", until I saw the number printed deep in the booklet. Weird.

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“The power of pop music to corrupt and putrify the minds of world youth are virtually limitless."

It doesn't mean shit to me that it's 92 - or that FM is 94 - so I'm glad they didn't put that ugly balloon on the spine. Why can't they see that imaginary numbers exist only in the imagination of the imaginer?

More importantly - this is probably the finest new Zappa release this year, although Finer Moments is also very promising (I've only listened to disc 1 so far). Oh, In the Sky beats Mozart chicken ballet as MoI audio document... Road Tapes, yeh!

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If I'm not alone... How long have I been asleep?

This is a wonderful release and more enjoyable than Finer Moments, IMHO - although FM is not so sleazy, either.

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If I'm not alone... How long have I been asleep?

Now, where's Road Tapes #2!!

I was kinda hoping to get two or three of these a year.

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If we're dumb . . .
Then God is dumb . . .
(An' maybe even a little bit ugly on the side)

+1

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Oh No! I don't believe it...
You say that you think you know the meaning of love...

At LEAST! I was also hoping that they'd eventually be releasing a few each quarter since they probably need MINIMAL production to sound better than about 95% of the bootlegs out there!!

I'm hoping that even though Gail has given me crap about my asking for MORE in this sort of 'format' (road tapes kinds of releases) that they finally have come to their senses and started thinking that it IS time to release some of this stuff!

With everything new and old that happened last year, the start of this year seems extra quiet. Not even a peep about Roxy.

Yaaahhhhhhhhn

Been saying it for a while....Gail is dropping the ball BIG TIME!!!

You have to wonder if the lack of interest/overall disgust of fans about this Roxy/Proxy scam is holding back other releases like more Road Tapes.

Not only that. They are probably on hold to revise their plans for 2013. Including the reissue of the whole catalogue they had a huge amount of product to offer last year. I can't imagine that the stuff is selling too well. There was not much interest in the music press and still many people outside the hardcore group of fans don't know about all this.

Th.

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Active forum member since 2005 - R E T I R E D from this forum in 2013

They should be releasing these every other month, like Fripp used to do with the King Crimson Collector's Club. They can't be that expensive to produce.

MY THOUGHTS (and emails to Gail) EXACTLY!

Several things that bother me with this stuff:

They've pretty much OVER PRODUCED and OVER PACKAGED everything they've released until Road Tapes...Hammersmith was the MOST pathetic with a freaking balloon and all that!

Most of the pricing is WAY off the mark as far as what a typical release costs, not to mention the costs they soak you for shipping etc. Heck even their DOWNLOAD costs way too much! Case in point the Buffalo show is $20.00 to download Mp3, it costs $28.00 to download the loss-less .flac files! $8.00 for a little more bandwidth? Really Gail? I didn't see a CD version of Buffalo for sale, but Philly (which is the same amount of discs, and similar packaging it $30. (plus p&h) just $2.00 more?!?!

I GET it that you aren't "top of the charts" and only a select crowd BUYS this music, but to SOAK people like that? $48.00 for the Hammersmith show? WOW!

Trust me, if she dropped downloads of shows to something more reasonable, Or instituted a "Collectors Club" like Fripp did, and added a new show at the very LEAST once every month, you could almost guarantee better sales!

I've told her that people WANT Frank's music, and are so desperate to get it that they are trading/downloading/buying BOOTLEGS so they can GET more! If the bootlegs out there are of crappy quality, imagine what a show with minimal production would sound like...Heck, employ interns from Musicians Institute or Full Sail in Florida to mix and master them! (Especially since Travers is on the road all the time anymore)

Gail has NO business sense whatsoever!

(sorry for the rant, but she just pisses me off with this attitude!)

With work, wife, kids, moving etc. I'm on a very slow listening schedule, so it's okay for me that it takes a while, although it would be lovely to have a new instalment of Road Tapes before the summer. And it would make sense to keep up the momentum of fan interest instead of allowing us to catch up and remember that there are other exciting things in life than new/old Zappa music.

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If I'm not alone... How long have I been asleep?

I must say I didn't like Road Tapes. First of all, the sound quality leaves quite a lot to be desired. Secondly, the performances are (quoting FZ's words in Ahead of Their Time) fair, bout not outstanding. What about releasing the 1969 Royal Albert Hall tapes or the ones recorded at The Ark that same year? One of these days, a COMPLETE (and, if possible, weel-recorded) original Mothers of Invention show should be released. For me, the great Road Tapes drawback is its sound quality, it is a pity having complex pieces and arrangements trapped in a recording with poor instrument separation and lack of clarity. What really pisses me off is the fact that, meanwhile, better sounding quality tapes are surely lying in the vault.

There was a multitrack from Whiskey A Go Go earlier in 1968. Joe has mentioned releasing it. Since FZ only used a couple bits of it ("God Bless America" on Uncle Meat and "Meow" on YCDTOSA 5) perhaps it wasn't a great gig.

Royal Albert Hall 1969 could be a great release although it's possible FZ chopped up the tapes making a full release difficult.

While you're entitled to an opinion, I simply disagree - or rather, unlike you, enjoy RT1 as it is. More on why above. The premise is that the series presents interesting events albeit in less than perfect recordings. So complaints about sound quality are sort of redundant. I'd hate to see gems like Octandre locked in the vault because of sound issues, so I'm all for this kind of release

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If I'm not alone... How long have I been asleep?

I couldn't agree more. Words simply fail to describe the palpable waves of joy I feel washing over me whenever I hear that bone-shattering crash after FZ finishes explaining to the audience just what the hell's about to take place.

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Oh No! I don't believe it...
You say that you think you know the meaning of love...

Yeah, I love the Road Tapes for the same reason. What it lacks in sound fidelity it more than makes up in the performances themselves. I thought Road Tapes did a better job of showing what the original Mothers could do live than any of the material officially released by Frank on the YCDTOSA releases, and I do love those releases too.

To me THIS is what SHOULD be released! Performances, warts and all! Road Tapes is better than about 95% of the bootleg material that's out there...

I would love for at least one of these per quarter!

wow. what a dope!!

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Make your checks payable to QUENTIN ROBERT DeNAMELAND, Greatest Living Philostopher Known to Mankind.

I actually like the vocals on "Status Back Baby" on The Ark, but I get what you mean. He sounds really embarrassed.

As for the '69 Royal Albert Hall show, i have a boot of that and it's brilliant, unfortunately the sound quality on the second half of the show is seriously poor. Bad sound quality usually doesn't bother me but here it did. To me it seems unlikely that this performance will be officially released in full any time soon given that a couple of tracks from that show appeared on "Finer Moments". It would be cool if the '67 Royal Albert Hall show was released! Or any Mothers show from '67...

According to the Idiotbastard.com a new Road Tapes is coming out soon, apparantly featuring the 74 band! Sounds cool... would rather have had a Flo & Eddie era show, or an '88 show however.

Totally agree (seeing that we are in minority on this ). After the week it was released and I was listenning to it several times I didn't ever remembered to put it on the player again since - we have more recordings from the sixties that are better.

Anyway, it is a good thig that it DOES exist, but sometimes it would be fair (and useful) to know what the reason of picking a show was, are there any more from that period - etc. I've said a few times before that a really great project would be to present each tour on a CD. We almost have nothing from spring '70, summer '73, spring '74, a show from spring '75 and 80 would also be fine... And yes: with some informations.