Non-Wacky Zappa POX, S&D, etc

I guess I'm realizing I like some wacky Zappa after all. I think, despite the thread title, I'm more put off by the "potty mouth" stuff than the truly experimental wackiness. I just don't share FZ's sense of humor, I guess (I'm a certified prude)

― Wimmels

not liking zappa's "humor" doesn't make you a prude. most of his "jokes" are both bad and creepy. that's the whole thing, he spends all this time going "IT'S FUNNY, WHAT'S WRONG WITH BEING FUNNY?!?", except that it _isn't_. like most of these sorts, he couldn't take a joke- see his reaction to "frankie's in town", a pretty accurate piss-take of circa-1980 zappa.

Oh man. I'm no expert but most of this sounds dead-on to me. Thanks for this!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJPK35hChAk

Dude certainly nails the guitar sound at around 2:28 (which is a guitar sound I really love btw)

Lets´s see. In addition to what´s been mentioned above I´d like to add:

*Second half of "Ahead of Their Time" is (mostly) an instrumental Mothers-set from 1968.
*Disc 3 of "Lumpy Money" starts off with a 25-minute orchestral piece that´s interesting (Disc 1 has "Lumpy Gravy" without the dialogues. I prefer this version to the later version(s). Universal now distributes it and it´s cheap (for a 3 cd-set).
*QUADiophiliac (a now out-of-print DVD-A)/Wazoo/One Shot Deal all have instrumental stuff on it that´s good (all from the 1970s)
*Road Tapes 3 has some very good FZ guitar work. It´s a concert from 1970 with Flo & Eddie but they sound nothing like they do on later albums. Lots of "Hot Rats" echos here in the solos.
* There´s a cd from the Ensemble Modern that focuses on Zappa´s instrumental music.
* The Lost Episodes has some nice instrumental stuff on it (esp. the 10+ minute version of "Sharleena" with Don Harris, a Hot Rats sessions-outtake).
* A track called "Bognor Regis" (YouTube)
* The Artisan Acetate - (some) unreleased recordingings from the 60s.
* "Joe´s Camouflage" is the title of that garage-recording of a Zappa-band that never toured. Has some unreleased songs on it.

According to Joe Travers in the latest Zappa-podcast, there are unreleased studio recordings of Zappa´s Hot Rats-band in the vault...I'd love to hear that.

Would recommend Imaginary Diseases over Little Dots. The latter does have some annoying vocal passages, and musically there's far too much bluesy twiddly soloing - albeit with horn section.

― everything, Monday, November 28, 2016 2:38 PM (four days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah, I hear this, but I really love the "Columbia, S.C." on here, and overall I like this recording. Still digesting Imaginary Diseases (I've been listening to nothing but Zappa since I started this thread), but my favorite new discovery is the Helsinki show rushomancy recommended upthread. Aside from a few silly bits (which I'm finding are more or less unavoidable in the Zappa corpus, with a few exceptions), this is what I want more of.

I've also discovered that I vastly prefer this period of the band over all the others I've heard. So fluid, funky, and fun.

Was a little disappointed in the "Village Of The Sun" from You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore, Vol 2, where it sounds like they are literally playing it at double speed. What was up with that??

apparently they played all their songs faster at that point because they had done them so many times that they just started cranking them out. I like some of the higher tempo takes on there, but it may just be because I heard that recording before Roxy