/r/Zappa - Dedicated to anything and everything related to composer and musician Frank Zappa (fl. 1940-1993)
Hi there! New to exploring Frank's discography (and trust me, I have a -lot- to say about it, holy shit) but I swear I remember hearing years ago that he had some kind of problem with the Mothers, and then re-recorded some of their parts? No idea if that's true or not, but if it is, what's commonly considered better: The originals or the remixes?
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Yeah. We're Only In It For The Money and Crusin' With Reuben and the Jets got brand new drums and bass in the 1980's. Zappa claimed at the time the masters were damaged and it had to be done, but subsequent reissues of both albums in their original mixes came out proving that wasn't the case. He was planning to release box sets of the old albums and I think Jimmy Carl Black and Roy Estrada sued for royalties so he removed them from those two albums.
Most of the original Mothers were suing Zappa for royalties in the late 80s/early 90s. I don't think JCB or Estrada were ahead of the pack in doing so, or any more aggressive legally than the others, so I don't think that was the reasoning. If it were, then you'd expect Zappa to have rerecorded the bass and drums on all the albums they appear on, not just these two.
Also- much of the drumming on Money was done by Billy Mundi instead of JCB; Zappa recorded new drum and bass parts for Lumpy Gravy- and Bunk Gardner is the only one of the original Mothers to play on that album; and JCB and Estrada's voices still appear on Money anyway, so they'd still be owed royalties.
So really, he just recorded new rhythm parts for these albums because he felt like it, rather than any other motivation.
I know Jimmy sued, but I don’t think Roy did, neither did Mundi or Ian. And what do you know, Gail says that those three just happened to be the only ones that played on the record.
That really bums me out about Jimmy Carl Black... but not Roy Estrada, fuck that pedophile piece of shit.
When I met and got to know Napoleon Murphy Brock in 1991, he was bitter about lack of royalties too, especially from the live recordings. But that's the nature of working for a composer and band leader who hired professionals for scale, rather than being a "band" like so many others.
The Mothers were not on scale until about 68/69. When they signed to Verve Records, it was signed by all members, which at the time was Frank, Ray Collins, Jimmy, Roy and Elliott Ingber. They were equal or near equal, at least in theory. I think it’s important to remember all of this when discussing the Mothers’ relationship with Frank compared to later bands.
Absolutely great points
Would you suggest I seek out the originals or the re-done ones? Either way.. That bums me out about Jimmy Carl Black, I fucking loved his drumming on the first record (listening to "Absolutely Free" atm, gonna slowly go through his discography chronologically, and I know that's a huge undertaking), especially on that last song. This is some really good shit.
Find the originals! The remasters are way better produced and the playing is so much tighter but squeaky clean compressed 80s new wave rhythm on an otherwise late 60s record makes zero sense.
I think for Ruben I had to download a vinyl rip.
I think the standard version of Ruben is still the '84 mix. The only way to get the original mix is to track down The Greasy Love Songs Project/Object or find an old Verve pressing on vinyl. The standard version of We're Only In It For The Money is the original mix though the first CD versions paired with Lumpy Gravy were the '84 mix.
A shame Greasy Love Songs is so heavily limited!
I only have the digital copies of these records (were given to me by someone else), is there any easy way for me to check which versions I have, based on the audio, track-lengths, etc?
If you have the 84 mixes, you'll know immediately upon listening to them- the drums and bass sound very "big" and extremely "80s," and they're noticeably much cleaner-sounding than the rest of the instruments. On the original 60s mixes, they sound basically as you'd expect- smaller, tinnier, grainy. There's also noticeable digital reverb applied to the original 60s tracks of the remixes. The 80s drums and bass also, on Money, noticeably play continuously over edit points in the original tracks, and in places there was no drums or bass in the 68 mixes- for example, the intro of Harry, You're a Beast is solo piano on the 68 mix, but has drums and bass overdubbed in the 84 mix.
Apart from that- Ruben doesn't have any major editing differences between versions, but in a few places Money is decensored. Most noticably, in Mother People, the second verse of the 1968 mix is a partial repeat of the first ("Lemme take a minute and tell you my plan...") while the 1984 mix is the uncensored version ("Better look around before you say you don't care...").
It's hard to say. This website can help you identify which versions you have.
http://www.lukpac.org/~handmade/patio/vinylvscds/index.html
THANK YOU! Jimmy May not have been a Vinnie Colaiuta, but he was far from incompetent. And it’s worth noting that he largely stayed off the kit during Mundi’s tenure as he found it difficult to play with Billy (though he held no personal ill will towards Billy) and largely focused on vocals/perc/trumpet.
If true that is horrible...and so disillusioning.
I know In It For The Money and Ruben & The Jets have been discussed here, but I should also point out that Lumpy Gravy underwent the same bass-and-drums remixing, though that version wasn't released until 2009.
Zappa In New York was also given brand new guitar overdubs for the 1992 remix, which I personally find to be incredibly out of place with the original material.
He overdubbed vocals onto some of the songs on Sleep Dirt when it was re-released on CD. The original instrumentals are on Lather. He also replaced drums on some songs.
He also had Wackerman redo the drum tracks on there. I don’t even mind the vocals much but the overplaying annoys the shit out of me.
I was tripped out when I got "Sleep Dirt" on vinyl and "Flambay" didn't have lyrics, I was use to the cd. What a pleasant surprise (not to knock the singer)
It's so much better without vocals.
Thana Harris is her name. Really good singer and I would have dug her doing more stuff with Zappa.
That said, I stick with the original mix.
For Crusin' With Reuben and the Jets it's just a matter of preference. The '84 mix sounds a lot more interesting and dynamic than the '68 mix (which is comparably flat) but the '68 mix actually sounds more like a 50's doo-wop album, which is what they were trying to tribute when they first recorded it.
For We're Only In It For The Money though, it's a no brainer - stick with the '68 mix. The '84 mix is genuinely one of the most terrible things Zappa ever released IMO. The newly recorded drums 'n bass are brought so forward in the mix that it distracts from every other instrument and it just feels so artificial.
I'm sentimental to the 1984 mix, just because the Lumpy Gravy/WOIIFTM two-fer disc was one of the first Zappa recordings I bought.
But the restored original mix is without question the superior version. It's a concept album about the social decay that was happening in the late 1960s, and only one version sounds appropriate for that era.
you re absolutely right — unfortunately WOIIFTM was my second CD (horrible ‘84 mixes) — it kinda made it more of a challenge to get into FZ... the newer release with the ‘68 mixes is x1000 better.
Ironic that one of FZ's rationales for recording the rhythm tracks on WOIIFTM was the 'today's kids' (circa 1986) didn't want to listen to 1960s drum sounds.
There's a version of Regyptian Strut with Chad Wackerman playing the drums. Also, somebody (Chad again?) had to overdub a new bass drum part for the whole YCDTOSA 2 album because it didn't record properly.
Actually the YCDTOSA 2 kick drum is the DBX "disco boom box" subharmonic synthesizer being triggered by the original kick recording. This was FZ in his full "let's fuck with everything" phase, and I'll bet he thought it sounded great. It kills the album for me personally though, but it's an interesting little box he was using to make that sound.
Just "tracks of my tears"
Good one.
I know the Dub Room Special live version of Florentine Pogen is the basiclly 90 percent of the album version. The live version is better in my opinion because where the studio version gets quiet and fades out, the live version has that same motif but then a slick drum fill right back into the song and an epic 4 minute face melting zappa solo.
In 80s Frank used the studio mostly for re-recording his old stuff. Chad Wackermann re-recorded drum tracks on various albums including The Man From Utopia or Sleep Dirt. Besides Money and Ruben, there also exists Lumpy Gravy with re-recorded both drums and bass (on Lumpy Money). Big part of Thing-Fish consists of re-recorded material from other records.