New zappa release

This is going to be interesting for Zappa fans...
http://www.zappa.com/flash/lumpymoney/index.html

ZW

 

It's just a box set through which people that own the rights to his songs are trying to get rich.

I disapprove.

 

Why? Because you can't download his shit for free?

It's the goddam Zappa family estate that owns the rights to that music and why shouldn't they get money for it?
It's Frank's wife and kids for fucksake...

I don't like you anyway ruben so fuck off!


ZW

 

Boxsets are gay.

 

well there's a big diff between trading and bootlegging. File traders are doing it for the love of the music. Bootleggers are trying to make $$ off of it. Besides, there's ton's of live stuff out there in its' raw form that will never, ever make it to a formal release. To me, that's da good stuff

and to veer back on topic:
how many discs in this set anyway, do we know? I wasn't seeing it on the website

 

Bootlegging and file sharing have exactly the same effect... both decrease revenue to the copyright holder.
It really doesn't take an M.B.A. to understand that...

Music doesn't just fall from the sky you know.
It comes from composers.
Composing, performing and producing quality music is expensive and time consuming.
The people involved need to get paid, and since there is no money in recorded music anymore (mostly because of file sharing) everyone can look forward to crappier and crappier music in the future because no serious musician or composer in their right mind is going to be willing to put their life blood and money into projects that will not provide the remuneration necessary to live and continue working in the field.
And the corporate industry will continue to back only the "safe bets.
Think more Kanye and Jayzee (uhh-yeeaa) and other lifestyle reinforcing crappola that can generate enough advertising revenue to make up for the loss in record sales.



"File traders do it for the love of music"

Yup, the road to hell is paved with good intentions...

For the love of music indeed... you idiots!


ZW Edit: not aimed at you personally 68impala...

 

I'm gonna go download as much music as possible now, just for kicks.

 

a great number of bands don't rely on slick over-processed albums... aren't signed to a major label... and make most of their revenue from touring and merchandise. and, i love zappa... but it's not like the man who made this music is going to profit from the posthumous sale of some box-set. and really, i play small places around my home all the time... not for money... not because i have a god complex... i just love playing music. maybe these people did, too. just a thought.

 

from an NPR interview with Gail Zappa

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102907874

(bold added for emphasis ZW)


April 9, 2009 - Frank Zappa was called many things during his life, but lazy wasn't one of them. He put out more than 60 records, and unreleased music is still trickling out more than 15 years after his death. It's part of an effort by his widow, Gail, to keep Zappa's legacy alive.

The most recent effort from the Zappa Family Trust is a three-disc set titled Lumpy Money. It combines music — released and unreleased — that Frank Zappa recorded in 1967. One session produced the Mothers of Invention album We're Only in It for the Money, the group's third release. The other was a surprise.

Zappa was a 26-year-old, self-taught composer with long hair and a funny goatee when he walked into a Capitol Records studio in Los Angeles and handed an orchestra charts for Lumpy Gravy.
"At one point, he turned to me when we were listening, just to playback," Gail Zappa says, "and he said, 'Did I write that?' It was so shocking."
It's almost as if Frank Zappa was writing avant-garde classical music in Top 40 segments, says Rolling Stone's David Fricke, who wrote the liner notes for the new set.
"It just blew my mind," he says.

Lumpy Gravy is a suite of three-minute movements, built on Zappa's love of 20th-century classical music (particularly that of Edgard Varese), R&B and jazz. The music is not easy to play. Some of L.A.'s best studio musicians balked at the parts Zappa had written — until he picked up his guitar and tossed off the sections he'd written for bassoon and bass clarinet.

Gail Zappa says musicians are still struggling to play what her husband wrote.
"I want people to play Frank's music," she says. "Go ahead; try. Don't hurt yourself, but just try it."
She insists that anyone who does try to perform it in public needs to pay royalties to his estate.
"I don't really care who's doing it, as long as they get a license," she says. "The people I'm going after are not licensing the music."
Legacy Vs. Controversy
Gail Zappa is going after cover bands she accuses of "identity theft." Her lawyers have sent scores of cease-and-desist letters. But many of the people who continue to perform Frank Zappa's music say they don't need permission.
"You or I cannot record that material and sell it for money. But we can perform it," says guitarist Andre Cholmondeley, who plays in a long-running Zappa cover band called Project/Object. "I'm not a lawyer, but that is the opinion and direction I've been given by probably a dozen lawyers at this point."

Cholmondeley maintains that as long as the venues he plays have paid for a blanket license from the performance-rights organization ASCAP, he is not doing anything illegal. Music lawyers consulted for this story agreed. It seems that Gail Zappa has never actually sued a cover band, but she has sued a 20-year-old festival in Germany called the Zappanale for trademark infringement. She lost but plans to appeal.

By all accounts, Frank Zappa was a perfectionist who liked to keep a tight grip on his business and his art. As he told WHYY's Fresh Air in 1989, he struggled with symphony orchestras — and his own bands — to get his music right.
"Goal one for a composer is to just hear what it was that you wrote," Zappa said, "because you like to listen to music, as well as write it. That's always been the main thrill for me, is to come up with a musical idea and have it performed some way, and I'm especially thrilled if it's performed correctly."
That's why Gail Zappa has a problem with some cover bands.
"Somebody goes out there, plays music — it's not played very well; it doesn't sound anything like what the composer intended," she says. "And they are telling the audience that's never heard it before that this is Frank Zappa's music. It's not. It's some wretched version of it."
There are cover bands that the Zappa family does endorse, including Zappa Plays Zappa, a band fronted by Frank's son Dweezil. Gail Zappa insists that she's not playing favorites. But some of the musicians who have been threatened by her lawyers have doubts.

What Would Frank Want?
Many fans point to a message that was left on the hot line for Zappa's record label shortly after he died of prostate cancer in 1993.
The message says, in part, "Just play his music if you're a musician. And otherwise, play his music anyway. That will be enough for him."
The message was read by Zappa's daughter, Moon Unit. Gail Zappa insists that it's not what some fans and musicians have made it out to be.
"We wrote something for Moon to say on the hot line," she says. "But it was not a statement made by Frank. He never said that. He never told anyone that."
Ike Willis would beg to differ.
"The main reason I'm doing this is because I love Frank," Willis says. "I love his music. And he asked me to do it."
Willis is a singer and guitarist who worked with Frank Zappa on and off for 17 years. He now tours with Project/Object and other unauthorized cover bands. Willis says he talked to Zappa a week before the composer died.
"He said, 'I would really like it if you could be one of the people that could actually keep my music played, in some way, shape or form.' Those were his words," Willis says. "He didn't want it to die."
There are performers who have decided that it's simply easier to work with Gail Zappa. Students from the Paul Green School of Rock performed at Zappanale in 2005. A few years later, Green got a threatening letter from Gail Zappa's lawyers. He decided to negotiate.
"I don't disagree with her right to do that — just her opinion on the matter," says Green, whose work gained a wide audience through the documentary film Rock School. "He wrote this music to be played. If Gail opened it up a little more, I think kids would latch on to this music, if it was more readily and easily available."
Rolling Stone's Fricke says the disputes don't help the legacy — which is unfortunate, he says, because Zappa's music deserves to reach a wider audience.
"The legacy hasn't been taken seriously enough since his death," Fricke says. "In a way, I don't think people really understand him. I'm still working on it."
So are other fans, musicians and family members, who insist that they want Frank Zappa's music to thrive. But that's just about the only thing they can agree on.




ZW

 

from my fave FZ era, so it cant be any worse than Ship Arriving Too Late to Save A Drowning Witch!

 

So music can only be played one way, no room for improvisation ? That doesn't sound like the spirit of Zappa's work to me.

On the other hand, "tribute" acts are spooky and maybe should be outlawed. Fine to reinterpret some of Zappa's stuff in your set - not fine to pretend you are Zappa.

 

I've seen the cover band with Ike Willis many times, they play it as true to the original as they humanly can. Except for the improv parts if you know what I mean. And I believe Ike when he says Frank gave his blessing to Go Forth And Play The Music.
As for Gail, well.... I'll stop here. I got nothin nice to say bout that

 

I confess, I have performed Frank Zappa's music in public, for money, and I'm pretty sure there is nothing Gail can do about it.
And yes, I took certain liberty's with the music, like leaving out some of the more complicated signature riffs.


But I have heard Project/object and quit frankly, I expected more from a
band full of Zappa alumni. :toetap05:
Ike Willis and Ed Mann should know better than anyone how tight this music should be. To me they just sound tired and a bit lazy for world class musicians performing Zappa.

I implore anyone who wants to try to play Franks music, put in the work and try to play it as accurately as possible.
And when you improvise on the solo parts...
try to play as authentically as possible!

Out of respect for Frank,
in the future I will respect Gails wishes regarding public performance.

ZW

 

Improv was never a big part of Zappa's music. Most of it was meticulously composed.

 

That is not completely true.
Every single guitar solo that Frank performed live was improvised.
I believe he also allowed at least as much solo improv for his virtuoso players.
There are tons of solos in Franks catalog from guys like Jean Luc Ponty, George Duke, Randy Brecker, Adrien Belew, Steve Via, just to name a few.

Yes, Frank was a meticulous composer, but I don't think he was a complete tyrant...he let his band have fun too.

ZW

 

Granted sometimes Proj/Obj can be a little inconsistant, it depends alot on how long they've been on tour and how hard they've been partying. The sweet spot seems to be mid-tour, the band is tight and nobody's voice is shot. I missed the boat and didn't see Frank when he was alive, so that is the closest I'm ever gonna get.

 

I think frank was a complete tyrant, even he himself admitted he didnt like a large portion of his fan base. His gigs paid well, so he was always able to find top notch talent, but I cant say i have heard alot of stories about how cool FZ was to work for. The stories about Zappa's exploits almost always include members of his band, but straight-laced frank usually only had music on the mind.


While he may have allowed some improv in places, he made sure the guys doing it knew HOW he wanted them to ad lib and just how long to do it. In fact, some of the players "improv" solos became so organized they become songs to themselves, which means it kinda ceases to be improvisational!


And they will be hard pressed to find a legal leg to stand on with cease and desist from playing cover songs. The guys doing the cover songs are only helping to sell more Zappa cd's. Not to mention complaining about how it doesnt sound the same.... any composer has to accept that people will play their compositions with their own interpretations! The whole thing makes Gail look foolish imho

 

Your right, I shouldn't be so hard on them...

It's just that when I hear a recording of a live performance on broadcast radio, I just assume that it is an authorized recording,
and that it represents if not the best, at least one of the best performances...

Bands have bad nights, I know, But when Frank released a live recording from a tour, it represented what he thought was the best performances of the tour.

Hehe, I bet those guys didn't party as hard while on tour with Frank. I understand he was a bit hardnosed about that.

Sorry you didn't get to see Frank while he was alive.

I saw him once, early 80s...I think it was his first "Shut up and play your guitar" tour.
Cosmic debris and Montana were the only pieces with vocals.
The rest was very dense complex avant-rock jazz fusion.
Way over my head at the time... couldn't appreciate.

Dweezil's "Zappa plays Zappa" is another good way to get a live Zappa fix...



ZW

 

Ensemble Modern plays "Outrage at Valdez"
Originally written by Frank Zappa for the Cousteau Society documentary,
Alaska: Outrage at Valdez


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjEXjiWonN4&feature=related


ZW

 

Even Frank admitted to being a tyrant, he demanded absolute sobriety at rehearsals and gigs, and heaped abuse upon thems that played sloppily. What the guys did afterwards was their own business. "I want my guys to find that elusive combination of a vaccum cleaner and a cocktail waitress"

And I'm surprised that there's no Zappa social group here, except for the fact that Frank hated hippies