Zappa.com

25 Years Ago on a Good Friday evening

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.h ... A967948260

I met Frank Zappa for the first time. As the story goes we discussed several topics at length such as, Stravinsky, Varese, Barfko Swill, his new label Barking Pumpkin Records, The Shut Up and Play Yer Guitar LPs, Zappa - Years Ahead Of His Time & finally the lyrics to the at that time unreleased Drafted Again.

Frank's response to my direct questioning of those lyrics, as spifnicently displayed in the Zappa Fall 80' Tour Book was

"Read It And Weep"

What I took from this was the knowledge that it is far better to use your Eyes and Ears regarding unreleased material or what is going on for an artist at any given moment in time than being a fanatical looser. Over analysis and speculation on unreleased material, where placing extreme amounts of fanatical energy into unreleased material may keep you from missing what is going on right in front of your eyes.

It's sort of a balancing act. For Example; As fans most of us fanatically look forward to The Roxy Video but if we put too much energy into that it can affect how we react to what is actually going on.

If only a few, do as Frank stated "Read It And Weep", had their curiosity piqued, then my venture preaching a No Time For Looser Philostophy has been well worth it.

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Gail Zappa - RELIX 2006

I decided that when the ten-year holdback period was up, we'd just start putting things out. By that time we had some info about what the vault had contained, and we divided it into three basic food groups. Category A consists of mixes Frank actually completed, although there's allot of variation and leeway. We'll release category A stuff you've never heard before, that was produced and mixed by Frank, on Zappa records. There's at least one concert project no one knows about we want to put out on Zappa, too.

Category B would be tapes Frank made, such as all the concert material. Quite allot of that has either been plucked through for the You Can't Do That Onstage Anymore series and other projects, or was set aside by Frank for something in Category A. So what remains in Category B has the best audio quality and potential as a whole project. And Category C is everything else.

The idea was that Vaulternative label would be the real deal, the stuff that lives in the vault. We'll release whole concerts on Vaulternative, but we like to keep that pretty quite. You might ask why. The answer is that once we announce it in advance -- and this is the un-fun part – we’re deluged with bootlegs. Zappa fans are seriously dedicated, but the people who want to mess it up for everybody else are pretty serious too.

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Hezzuz 2006

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Trendmonger's Moment Of Clarity

FZ "Read It And Weep"
April 17,1981

Frank Zappa left the ZFT in Control of his Vaults and Artistic rights.
We the fans are not in control. We have a choice to use our eyes and ears or read it and weep.

Is it just me, or does this seem overtly paranoid? I'm sure GZ knows more about the record industry than I do, but from what I gather, there's hardly a market for silver pressed boot cds anymore. Internet trading and tougher legislation pretty much wiped out the bootlegging for profit market (and that's a good thing, IMO). I also didn't see many FZ:OZ bootlegs on the market (in fact, I didn't see any) and that release was announced months before it actually came out.

It's also pretty well documented what kind of concert tapes are in circulation. Unless someone's sitting on a stack of uncirculated concert tapes in pristine quality, it shouldn't be so hard for the ZFT to put out stuff no-one has, or at least something that's miles beyond the sound quality of most audience tapes. Most of the stuff on Imaginary Diseases was already available on concert tapes, but in vastly inferior sound quality.

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"When you hear music, after it's over, it's gone in the air. You can never capture it again." -- Eric Dolphy

http://www.frappr.com/frankzappaforum - FZ Forum World Map

POST OF THE DAY - 04/14/2006

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

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"If Frank Zappa cut a fart and mixed it to stereo, I'd buy it!" - jimmie d