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Thnx. I have guessed something like that. Once again an album wasn't realized but FZ hadn't forgotten all the years which pieces were worth to release.
IMHO it was a main stay of his art to know exactly which recordings should make it onto an album. That's the very simple reason why none of the "official bootlegs" like Buffalo or even Wazoo can stand any comparison to the original albums. We have to accept that there is no one left on earth who could treat the contents of the vault properly. Every release not choosen by FZ will remain controversial and include elements of disappointment. I welcome these releases anyway. The more, the better. Every fan should be free to decide if these additional "colours" are allowed to affect his "image" of FZs body of work.

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god, what a cheap bubble machine!!!

I really like this wording/ideology.

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+1 it does have a certain panache about it. {-

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I'm getting larger as I walk away.

It sounds like fake stereo with the higher frequencies at the right. Is this what everyone else hears?

It's not the question of "official" or not (it is), but more simple: there is music on it, and it can be judged. It's as simple as that. BTW I'm not at all satisfied by most of the postumus releases, but both you mentioned are excellent, better than some of the "original" releases, in my opinion.



Why? There is music in there, it can be judged - the fact that most of the selections nowadays are without real consideration, doesn't mean that it cannot be done well. Yes, it can.


I do some, do not others - it's not the question of being "original", but the question of quality.

simply a reply on the discussion between thinman and DC Boogie a few postings above. Thinman described FZs work as a painting that was executed by the use of different colours (=albums). And he compared the vaulternative releases as superfluos colours that destroy the original painting.

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god, what a cheap bubble machine!!!

I just wanted to say: It never will be a piece of art as the original albums are, for example in the term of "concept album". There will always something be missing, call it handwriting or whatever. I for myself call it "the art of choice". FZ did albums, today we only can do releases of material. These mustn't be confused. It would be presumptuous to consider titles like Buffalo or EIHN as FZ-albums. They are treasuries anyway. In this term of course it can be a proper release. But please never call it an album.

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god, what a cheap bubble machine!!!

I think I've always liked FZ's music because of the layers and textures that he produces with his pieces.His painting (on History's Detectives) looked like it was a collage type of expressionist art.He does this with his music too.I hadn't thought to put all the albums that he released together and you get the collage of FZ's lifes work.A musical artists life of multi-layered collages of sound,put together as only FZ could do.Interesting to think he was thinking that far ahead.I believe it's far more likely that each album was a seperate work of art until FZ saw a connection he could make between two of his pieces. Anyone else that trys to make that connection is just playing at being Frank.Nothing more or less.We should all love the fact that his familiy has seen fit to continue releasing his various incomplete works for us Zappaphiles to mull over. Thanks ZFT. {-

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Well, we might see it differently: to me, it's not "the albums" that are FZ's creations, those are only one form of it's possible release. (when time changed, he also changed to CDs, sometimes extending the "original" albums). The main thing is music - to tell the truth, there are some "original" albums that I do not like that much - and a very very interesting selection could be made from some particular tours, like spring '75, or summer '73... The music heard on unofficial recordings are far better (to me) than the albums of that time).

Unfortunately it's almost only the existence of bootleg recordings that show us how his band worked on this or that tour. Because yes: the main field for Zappa was the real stage: playing live, giving concerts.

So: why "fetish" the albums? Considering them the "only originals"? - NOW, as we see the phisical CDs dying? We should love and promote MUSIC itself, and there are lots of them: released and unreleased. The thing would be to 1.) think about the unreleased stuff, pick out the best ones, and 2.) release them, with as many informations as possible. (the funny thing: that is what fan-pages do... The official page, the ZFT should do this, I would pay for it!)

If we think about FZ as "someone on old albums", then he is dead forever, he is over. But we know: there are hundreds of shows to select from, hundreds of scores to play, hundreds of solos to listen - it would be for us to see the ouevre as full as it can be.

The way I look at all this stuff is like this. No one will ever have the ear that Zappa had, especially in the creation of his albums and how his material is presented to the public. He had discipline that made others shudder, and it there on the discs. Even when the music wasn't as perfect as Frank wanted it, the presentation was absolutely his vision. No release that was not compiled by the man himself can compare. Thankfully, we have a wealth of material that Frank left us in the "official Frank Zappa" cannon.

The vault releases are their own thing. They may not be the final vision of the artist, but they still have merit in their own right. The few I've listened to show the creative streaks that resulted in the "finished" work. It's fascinating to listen to. It might not be tweeked and tweezed by Frank, but it's still Frank pouring in all he has at the moment while forming his art. It's the equivalent to reading the private letters or notes of a master novelist. It doesn't effect the finished novel, but does add perspective and understanding while being fine to read on their own.

I'm in for more, and I have a more then a few vault discs to catch up with now that I jumped in deep with the remasters. Sounds like Buffalo is a good one.

Someone else mentioned that the booklet credits FZ and Kerry McNabb for "stereo tweakage" on this track.

(And, if I recall right, FZ mentioned in the "JABFLA second LP" liner notes that he had mock-stereo'd the mono recordings from Carnegie Hall.)

Sounds about right.

Props to Travers and Polito for preparing Carnegie Hall in true mono.

Good Stuff.
That solo in The Old Curiosity Shoppe is outstanding.

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Just like each and every
- show,
- ballett (puppet show)
- movie and
- unreleased album.

So: why "fetish" the released albums only? My suggestion: MUSIC instead of (the son of nesseccity) the albums.

This is a GREAT release - most tunes must have been among his favorites as they were planned for many comps - here - the 12 record set - mystery disc - lost episodes - JABFLA - who knows what else?

Point is we are not bound to purchase everything...you can make your choice - to me the more FZ music the better...since Frank is no longer here we must rely on others to make that choice.

We all know FZ always wanted to release more music - the 12 record set - expanded Zoot and expanded JABFLA - stopped only by the record companies.

I am grateful to the ZFT for all the post FZ releases - I hope they never stop.

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Bobby

That's right. To my ears, they're high-class supplements to the original body of work (exclude the Menage/Domage/One Shot triumvirate-of-the-evil, ) each with a fault or two, but wtf?!? I don't care anymore -- Esp. with Dance Me This scheduled for 2013 --

Agreed, though the couple of "joes" releases I got I thought were pretty decent ha ha

Glad to see you in better spirits.
Now to ruin it with an acute case of "devil's advocate": What years has the Roxy footage been scheduled for to-date?

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haven't heard anything about it

Gawd! I hope this IS finally coming out....before I die or something.

I'm in agreement with you here. Frank's ear for his own sounds ,and the way he layered them on Finer Moments makes me ,again,realize how much we lost. The vault releases are great in their own way,.....but this album is purely a construct filtered through Frank's peculiar brain and influences. No one else could have made this release move or sound like this. To me it still has that sort-of "itch" to keep things jumping that Frank alone brought to albums like Lumpy Gravy,Uncle Meat and other classics. It also is a nice template of how Frank would like to present his work to us....one side that's "entertaining" another that's a bit more "avant" ,and some just purely sound-abstracts. Each album side was made like some sort of dish at a meal.....or like ala-cart ...where you pick you favorite flavour of sounds (or music eras).

It is a shame this wasn't released back when he'd originally planned it. It seems to me that the synth "basement" stuff would have opened a lot of eyes to how much Zappa was experimenting with all sorts of sound straight from the beginning.......just as the Lost Episodes album reveals the many angles that he was experimenting in even before he was "signed" to any label. Now I hope that there's more releases like this to come! Thanks ZFT!

Well, it had tentatively been scheduled for a late-2012 release date somewhere in the gz sez section at least, I believe. Now, with the Universal contract and everything, I can't think of any excuse for delaying the thing for another 12 months or so... otherwise I'm really goin' to get angry with ya, ZFT, to you hear me?

Seeing how it's not part of the last bunch of Universal releases, I doubt we're going to see Dance Me This before the year is out.

A 12/21 announcement for a Jan - Feb release? Gee, it would be so nice!

Ordered for $15. I despise shopping from Wal-Mart but when they are $5 cheaper than every other place, and still guarantee free shipping by 12/24 it's hard to turn down. I tried finding it at ANY price in ANY store for 30 miles around, and no one has it. You would think someone near ATL would. Sure, I could spend a bunch of time on the phone arguing for a price match from BestBuy or others, but it's just not worth it, especially since they do NOT promise to have it here in time at $20.

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