google.com/search?q=zappa+wazoo:
I rest my case.
To be perfectly clear: I think the Zappa/Wazoo release is fantastic. However this is how the “official†page shows up in Google (and other search engine) results — “skipâ€, the link that allows you to bypass the introductory flash animation, being the only one single word that gets to be picked up, and therefor shows up in search results. Is it any wonder that people end up clicking on other search results?
Well if you skip over the skip and get yourself to watch the Flash, it does not represent the record well. In my view, the animation is pretty silly almost too boring to watch, nothing like when Frank was alive he project an art vision, unlike like this JibJab Flash immitation.
oh my god so much fucking bitching and bickering is driving me mental–
alright how about, in lieu of the recently banished friday boots, a boot, not of FZ but of LZ
not great quality, but what the fuck, it’s free and there’s no silly threatening lawyer bullshit supoenas
http://www.captainsdead.com/2007/12/25/sons-of-bitches-bumpuses/
i don’t know, it’s only rock’n’roll
BTW, check out the site, plenty boots for those who fancy that sorta stuff…
and no fucking lawyers!!!!!
preface – even the sound is terrible on that intro. My 128 kbps copy is better (for my mp3 player, from my official CD).
surprise – how can an album start with the word “afternoon”, in the middle of a sentence??? I’ve never experienced anything like this before. At first I thought my copy was wrong, or something. But this is the truth, it’s made this way. Why, why, why?
overjoyment – the album, the music is fantastic! I’ve just arrived home from a friend, we’ve listened to the CD on his super high-end stuff. Sounds great! I could even hear now the (to me otherwise mostly hidden) chello and percussion lines and whatever. Try it this way if you can!
A funny game: try to find out which parts are the written parts and which parts are (totally or halfway) improvisatons. (The whole thing reminds me the way Tom Trapp conducted the Modern Art Orchestra bigband at 100% Zappa fest.)
A few days ago I came to the conclusion that this album sounds to me like a huge steam locomotive, rushing along the plain, with TOTAL CONTROL of it’s driver. Wow, POWER! And, at the same time: the intimate parts!… Nice, really nice release, will listen to it a lot – even my (non-zappaescue) friend told me that we should repeat this listenning-session.
Ben Watson once said of the Zappa listener: one of the most over educated among rock and rock fans. Compliment or detriment? I don’t know. The “official†page seems to appeal to the lowest intellectual level in an attempt to garner as many customers as possible. Imagine them as this cyber asshole dumping crap wherever it goes… “Somebody get the distilled water! Get the canned goods! Get the toilet paper! You know we need it!”
commenting on what balint wrote above:
pso=preface, surprise, overjoyment
p: I hear what you’re saying about the *sound* of the flash, but I think it sounds nice, as in complimentary, in comparison to their flash for joe’s domage from a few years ago, which I also happen to love: the clip and the ceedee.
So, yes, a comparison of a rhearsal and a live recording, same year, same band(?), same piece of music, cool!
s: it seems that is all there is on the tape. So we get what they got. If that were altered, would we as fans be happier? Would you prefer a blend of an AUD for that 6-8 seconds of tape with the 2 track master that this release comes from that has no music for that segment? It’s jarring pop when it comes in? Is that what bothers you? Whatever happened to the joy in weasels ripped my flesh? hmmm?:)
o: the clarity and separation of the instruments on playback is a real joy for this music. Happy I am to hear the varieties in frequency. I like that game too!!! It will take years to absorb this, for me.
Maybe you are riding Skip a little hard there Beaver. Are you reading ‘skip’ like an imperative, a command, when in fact, anyone I can imagine coming to killuglyradio, in the first place, would *probably* be sceptical enough to overlook that aspect of the word skip as a command and . . . read on. I take it your point though in the post is that MOST people when googling ‘zappa wazoo’ would interpret the word ‘skip’ as a command and do just that, rather than click on the link in bold above it. Right? But if you click on ‘skip’, he doesn’t do anything, you just have that bold Zappa / Wazoo above it, beckoning. Plus, the second entry is for barfko/swill where you can purchase it. But you knew that. or is it just More gratuitous free advertisement?
:)
Like good little freaks, whenever an official release comes down the pipe, we all head over to barfko-swill to pick it up (regardless of how bad their site looks or is kept up). Why? Tradition? Because they’re FZ’s family? Because it’s the right thing to do? For whatever the reason, I think Barry is just pointing out how dedicated KUR has been to the official page (until they decided to kick him in the nuts, figuratively speaking). Hey, Barry, no good deed goes unpunished does it?
ha, note that the immediate entry (google) after the Rolling Stone write up is a place where you can download Wazoo for free. How convenient.
In another case of conceptual continuity, Skip is also the name of the owner of the Broadside (at East Holt Blvd in Pomona) who hired a band called the Soul Giants to play weekends…
This is absolutely unreladed to Wazoo:
My French sucks, so cannot make out too much on the Myspace page I found this on … but it seems more than one person is pissed at Missuse Z and her family jewels.
http://zappainfrance.free.fr/myspace/FZwantUposter.jpg
“how can an album start with the word ‘afternoon’, in the middle of a sentence???”
Maybe the hidden business plan behind this is to force the customers to look for complete songs in bootlegs. Then they can sue their customers in order to earn mo’ money.
urbangraffito says:
I’m just pointing out how user-unfriendly, poorly conceived and executed web-design/content can hurt one’s online business. In essence: if you as an online business are in need of more visitors (potential customers), don’t blame some unofficial fan site (ahem!) for “stealing” your traffic. Get your own act together instead.
Forgive me, Barry. I shouldn’t’ve said “dedicated to the official page.” I stand corrected. Thanks.
Hey now! That’s okay, no worries. Web development is my main trade and so my point tends to get a bit incomprehensible when talking about it to folks that have a more respectable profession. :)
Yes, Urban, this is a hand made blog.
Compare it with ” Diva Zappa founded ‘Hand Made Beauty’, a knitted and crocheted goods firm, in 2002.”
Question: Did the ZFT get permission from the Salvador Dali estate to use a derivative work of Slave Market with Disappearing Bust of Voltaire as an album cover?
this is a good question maybe it needs to be eaten. how about Peter Blake & we’re onlu in it cover – just a pastiche…
Free is when yu don’t have to pay nothing..
it is such ablessed release – still ai’n got WAZOO it seems lost in a postal whirlpool…
love & thanx for keeping it up.
The official website has always sucked. It was dormant for years and has never really gotten out of the late 90’s style of design issues. Plus, nothing is ever available to tell you what they are selling, just a title and some very silly, often unfunny, non-sequeitor words “about the release”.
The only way they can make money is for fans to buy the often less than wonderful vault releases and to write about them on fan sites. We are a part of their business plan, since they are seemingly incapable of the most basic of online retailing, apart from the taking of money, of course.
I was very surprised as well to see at a zpz show that the double live cds like Buffalo and Wazoo were $30. Any other band who sells discs at shows discounts them since they are selling direct to fans!!! Duh! We pay your salaries!! Kick down a discount and sell more cds!
So, I didn’t buy one, and I will get a copy 2nd hand now. They have enough money, and the musicians who play with zpz, or who played with fz, will get their royalties, for what it is worth.
How about a $40 T-shirt. My son bought one at the zpz show. It’s produced in Honduras. The shirt itself only costs about a buck here in Canada. I can only imagine what the cheap Honduran labour is being paid. Not very much, I imagine. It’s all profit, profit, profit…
I suppose that a CEO who refers to herself as a psychic witch doesn’t bother too much with business ethics, or ethics of any kind for that matter, besides the pursuit of the almighty greenback (doesn’t this entire business remind you of a really, really, really bad episode of Buffy…the tribute band/weblog slayer…).
Quite a lot of record labels are ofering exactly the same s what GZ is doing : free downmoads from 2007 highlights, for instance the courageous ( and poor)
Burning Shed.
The same as GZ is doing? Is she offering free downloads somewhere?
This is Earth calling Bernard! Earth calling Bernard!
Come back soon, the lack of oxigen is affecting your health!
OVER
I happen to very healthy & enjouying life. Thanks.
I don’t think G is offering free downloads. So far she happens to belong to the old commercial world of the US twentieth century period.
Meanwhile present day new artists…..
Erhm, Bernard, here’s what you said:
Emphasis mine…
Ok, G = great commercial mind.She happened to enter the 21st Century.
People, innovators, will now happen to combine their innovations with things (1) commercial, (2) for free. The shape of things to come.
On a Belgian note.
We the humble, hiding behind our little finger,however truly innovating people
Did you ever hear about the great Désiré Pâque, a Belgian? It’s http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A9sir%C3%A9_P%C3%A2que.
:?:
We just keep innovating.
Notwithstanding the commercial / academic/ muscal environment.
… and not at all bothered with what the original post above is about. Time to lay off the egg knock for a bit, Bernard.
Phil Lesh just released a series of free soundboard recordings from his band’s recent run in NYC. These are high quality concert recordings, again for free, distributed out to some of the share friendly torrent trackers, with Phil’s compliments.
Phil’s website has a large e-commerce component that sells concerts, DVDs, and all of the trinkets that you might expect. Preferences for his music aside, I’ll bet Phil’s making some good cash, and his fanbase continues to grow as he embraces the 21rst century. As other have said, bands such as King Crimson, Umphrey’s McGee, SCI, and the Allman Brothers, to name a few, are all selling shows, (at ABB shows you can buy the concert you just saw minutes after the concert is over).
Too bad GZ is so concerned about Zappanalle and KUR and great bands like P/O and Sheik Yerbouti… she ignores the models out there that would make her the cash she apparently craves…If the vault really has what they say, it is a gold mine…instead we get the same old shit from the ZFT website.
“G = great commercial mind”
hahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Head on over to http://www.americanmustacheinstitute.org/Default.aspx
They give 7 reasons why mustaches are coming back as a fashion statement. Number 2 is that “Copyrights held by Zappa, Hitler families finally expire.”
(I think they’re having a joke, Bernard.)
Why don’t all the KUR males grow zappa face fungus, and produce a gallery of copyright infringing folicles?
Bernard does not translate well from the original Belgian.
Maybe I’ll wait for the movie version.
and now back to the music
i recently heard a couple of cuts from FZ:OZ
and frankly, no pun intended), I thought Zappa’s singing was off
there seemed to be audible microphone feedback and the sound of the band seemed somewhat thin. If Zappa had intended OZ to be released I’m sure it would have involved massive overdubbage.
As someone who has purchased every zappa record starting with FO in 1966 and eagerly waited to be blown away by every new release, I find FZ:OZ somewhat questionable in content.
Rather than release questionable product, the music would be better served if the zft looked really thoroughly around the vault and revealed something truly mind blowing cause the last time zappa really blew my mind was december 4, 1993.
Anyway the Mind Blows.
Zappa isn’t dead, he just smells funny.
Back to music, yes, jane23.
РThe Belgian composer I mentioned actually invented twelve tone music, long before Sch̦nberg did. See: Solf̬ge Atonal, 1892.
– Back to FZ. Over here on this blog I now and then compared FZ with Wagner. There are similarities ( having rather hard core fans, a family trust, etc. ). Wagner pretended to create Music for The Future. Historically his legacy refers to the opposite: he closed the door of a period. What about FZ? It’s still a puzzling question. My guess is taht the ultimate question to be answered is : (1) for how long will his music keep being performed? and possibly more important (2) which new elements did he introduce and how are these currently furher developed?
We shouldn’t stop listening & thinking.
For instance: http://olewnick.blogspot.com/ Scroll down to the 4th December post.
” Me and Zappa – It’s apparently a law of the universe that, at any music-oriented discussion board, the Zappa question is obliged to rear its head followed by boisterous defenses and sneering dismissals of same…. As is increasingly the case over the years, much of it (to me) revolves around the age of the individuals in question and when they encountered the music. (This is a basic issue for most contemporary music criticism–not just music either, but other arts) ….Not, of course, that everyone’s going to enjoy any part of it even so, but more that it’s not appropriate to lump it all together under any single judgment, good or bad. As usual, it’s more complicated than that.”.
Point of departure for an asessment : the proof of the cake is in the “broader listening”, ie the wide range of music FZ fans are actually listening to.
My guess is that while exploring this ( which music do those people, FZ fans, actually like apart from FZ) you ‘ll end up being a walking encyclopedia.
Hi all – does anyone know who made the illustration for the Wözoe album – for the CDs themselves? I happen to like it a lot (CD 1), but have know idea who had made it. John Williams, maybe?…
Yo, Balint — the illustration for the Wazoo album is “Mundo Invisible” (oil on canvas, 60″ x 72″) by Christopher Mark Brennan, 2003. He also did the cover artwork for Everything Is Healing Nicely.
Nonono!! :-) I was thinking of the CD itself – see the link above. The “Mundo” painting is okay, I know the painter – but the graphic on the CD? I happen to OWN the CD (payed money for the ZFT!!!!! :-) ), but cant find out who’d made it…
I, too, happen to OWN the CD in question, Balint (plus doubles still in shrink wrap), along with the rest of the Vaulternative releases (muchos money for the ZFT). My guess would be (the graphic on the CD) Tracy Veal @ Creative Portal. She does a lot of graphic and layout work for Vaulternative Records and Zappa Records (though for Wazoo, no one is credited for layout). I could be wrong. Perhaps she, too, has pissed of the ZFT for some reason…
(urb – thanks for the guess!)
.
During the last few days (weeks) I’ve been listenning to Wazöö. Over and over again. I LOVE IT.
.
Now I tryed a boot from this tour again (London), and its not that bad that I ‘ve remembered (especially after the official, now that I know what is there to listen to). I might make a CD of the best show for myself.
.
Anyway: Waz̦̦ is fantastic. I love it as it is Рand would love some more: Dog/Meat, etc. etc. I might write a detailed review sometimes, maybe.
.
“So I say
Thank you for the music, the songs Im singing
Thanks for all the joy theyre bringing
Who can live without it, I ask in all honesty
What would life be?”