For you Zappa fans

[MindGoneHaywire]

I ain't one, though I heard a few moments from this that I know I hadn't heard before & thought it was quite interesting.

Also interesting is the tactic used by the Zappas to beat bootleggers by releasing material officially that was making the rounds. I don't know the ins and outs of that, but I guess it was sort of a reaction to bootlegging that, like the Dead's strategy of allowing users to tape shows freely so long as they weren't profiting from the tapes, was better than anything the labels had in mind.

I'm intrigued enough by the little I did hear to want to hear more of this stuff.


http://www.nypost.com/seven/02012009/entertainment/music/zappa_to_it_153035.htm

[BradH]

Is that the whole article? I didn't see anything about bootlegging.

[MindGoneHaywire]

Sorry if I gave the impression that was covered in the article. The interview was done a few months ago, and that was just something SM told me about the interview itself that he, and I, thought were interesting.

[BradH]

Sorry if I gave the impression that was covered in the article. The interview was done a few months ago, and that was just something SM told me about the interview itself that he, and I, thought were interesting.

I can guess at the Zappa family's strategy on bootlegs; it's probably the same as when Frank was alive and they released tons of them as the Beat The Boots series. It was basically a hose job on Zappa fans. They did nothing to improve the sound quality and released them "as is". A couple of them sounded good but most of them did not. It was a classic self-righteous Zappa move, more concerned about the bootleggers making some money than about their own fans.

And not everything they're releasing from the archives these days should be full priced either. Joe's Menage is from a cassette recording of a 1975 performance.