A Curious Bit of Good News

 

The date rarely figures in my dreams, so when it does, of course it goes funny. Dreamt that today is January 48th. You can imagine my puzzlement. Almost everyone I asked agreed that January should have 31 days, except one who suggested, "Maybe it was decided to have 50 days in January this year.
Porridger’s Almanack (Breakfast of Ganglions)

It’s depressing that “Secret Agent” has become synonymous with “Sex Maniac.”

— David Niven as Bond, James Bond in Casino Royale (1967)

Gentle Reader, I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve reported here on

this blog that my piece was not selected for whichever call I had submitted

it to. The fact that Lord of the Things actually succeeded in being chosen was therefore an instant rarity, and perhaps a kind

of landmark. Yesterday I received a message which, while it reported the

apparent disappointment that my piece could not be included in the program

driving the Call, was a highly encouraging

and unforcedly kind word from a conductor associated with the call:

I am reaching out

to you personally to express my admiration for your submission. Due

to practical limitations,

the organization was not able to program your piece for the upcoming

season. However, with your permission, I would like to add it

to my personal

repertoire and perform it at some point in the future, through the DNMC or otherwise. Please stay in touch. I’ll

let you know when I am able

to play your piece. In the meantime, I will stay alert for any

of your new works. [emphasis in the original]

The piece in question? Thoreau in Concord Jail. Highly gratifying, indeed.

The Unexpexted Zappa Orgy of 1Q25 Part IV

 

“But I won’t try driving over the George Washington Bridge the day before Thanksgiving. I would do anything for love. But I won’t do that. What, are you meshuggah?”
Porridger’s Almanack (Breakfast of Ganglions)

Gross and perverted am I, but look away you cannot.

— Yoda, performing “I’m the Slime”

A week ago, I was still dithering over whether to pull the trigger on

The Hot Rats Sessions. Could I find it cheaper anywhere? My first

thought was to try zappa.com. Natural enough, right? No dice.

Didn't find it there then, don’t find it there today. The only

apparently relevant search result was a three-CD issue, Funky

Nothingness. The blurb on zappa.com begins: ‘Funky Nothingness

is the “lost album” sequel to the iconic Hot Rats (1969)’

In the booklet, “Vaultmeister” Joe Travers writes: “With archival

releases from the vault it is normal to find different arrangements

of past tunes featured in live concerts and studio settings with other

bands, but actual NEW compositions are few and far between,

especially from within Zappa's golden years of the '60s and '70s.

Funky Nothingness delivers on all fronts showcasing Zappa's love for

rhythm and blues, picking up where Hot Rats left off with extended

instrumental workouts fusing rock, jazz, and classical elements into

music that can only be described as ZAPPA. The guitar work and

virtuoso musicianship are in full effect.” Expectations are therefore

high, and—to get briefly Meta—the Expectation is that those high

expectations will indeed be met. So, here we are.

Disc One is headed: Funky Nothingness, the album.

Disc Two: Zappa/Hot Rats '70—Session Masters and Bonus

Nothingness.

Disc Three: Zappa/Hot Rats '70—More Session Masters and Bonus

Nothingness.

Quick thoughts on Disc One:

I’ve listened to the first disc, which is the speculatively ‘reconstructed’

album itself. Enjoyable, plenty of good stuff. I’m suppressing a weak

tendency towards prejudice against the project. After all, in the first

place, recordings/performances which are worth hearing have been

made available to us. And in the second, the methodology is on the same

lines of Burnt Weeny Sandwich and Weasels Ripped My Flesh. I’m still

mulling. Welp, and when we got to track 12, the sound cut out several

times. Defective disc? I’ve ripped it, and am now listening to the track via

Media Monkey to check. The problem may be my machine? It’s very old,

to be sure. And now, it won’t even receive the disc to play at all. Other discs

still play fine. And the erstwhile uncooperative track plays on Media Monkey

fine. Do I really care if that one disc and my machine don’t get along?...

Now, there’s a certain You play the game with the team you’ve got aspect

to this, but I’ll go ahead and register as a disappointment the fact that

designating the “lost album.” and therefore this 3-CD release, “Funky

Nothingness” (a title which seems to promise so much) after a track which

runs less than two minutes. I’ll stipulate that it’s a highly interesting

108 seconds, but “Don’t Blink or You’ll Miss It” isn’t the spiffiest idea for a

title track. Much more substantial (and of correspondingly greater interest)

and equally new to us lay listeners is the 13-minute “Twinkle Tits.” Now, of

course, no one need enlighten me as to how poor advice it had been to title

the album thus—Heck, I almost physically wince to type those two words.

That technical disappointment noted, overall musically I find the album

a gratifying listen. 

First thoughts on Disc Two: all good. It’s possible that if you had asked me

before listening, which tracks I expected I should find the most interesting,

I might have trended towards the longer tracks, but this was, simply, my

experience. “Chunga’s Revenge” (Take 5) at 16 minutes and a quarter, the

18-minute-plus unedited master of “Transylvania Boogie” (fascinating for

all the musical material different to the 5-minute track which opens the

album Chunga’s Revenge as released, a 15-minute unedited master of

“Sharleena,” and—consistent with remarks above—“Twinkle Tits.”

First thoughts on Disc Three: all good, too. Take 8 of “Chunga’s Revenge”

features an especially tasty organ solo (either Don “Sugarcane” Harris or Ian

Underwood, I could only guess which) and if you need a reason for

another sinuous Zappa solo, you may be in the wrong place (I mean, you’re

welcome, all the same.) Compared to the 1:23 track as it appeared

on the album Chunga’s Revenge, we enjoy nearly 16 minutes of freewheeling

percussion in unedited masters of “The Clap.” “Halos and Arrows” is

a three-minute “guitar experiment” with Zappa playing all the instruments,

which, Travers writes, “was not meant to be saved.” “Moldred,” a wah-wah-

marinated composite of otherly bits. Most substantially, we have a 22-minute

unedited master of “Tommy/Vincent Duo” (whoever they might have been.)

The actual duelists are Zappa and Aynsley Dunbar, a drummer with whom

Zappa began working in 1970. From this mammoth master, about seven

minutes were excerpted for two tracks on the putative Funky Nothingness

album. And, also in the “otherly bits” column, Disc Three closes with

“Fast Funky Nothingness,” a 45-second bluesy shufflette which was “found

on a two-track reel full of snippets and oddities.” And truly, of course there

are no snippets and oddities in the musical world like unto Zappa snippets

and oddities.

Is this Phase One of Chunga’s Revenge?

Now, let me return to Disc One. Mitigating against the disappointment noted

above, following the 108 seconds of “Funky Nothingness” with 44 seconds’

worth of “Tommy/Vincent Duo I” is a creative solution, and as with so many

of FZ’s own musico-chemical alloys (that’s got to be a mixed metaphor, but let it

ride) the result is perfectly smooth. This album plays very nicely in toto,

indeed. Can’t play it in the CD player, but I’m not sure I care, ultimately.

There are bigger problems in the world.

Bashful notes

 

What if the first phrase your parakeet learns is “Alexa, pause”...?
With apologies to Ben Britten, I just misread that as “Our Hurting Fathers.”
A place called (or subtitled) The Sushi & Tequila Experience does set me to wondering, if it’s the sort of experience people wish to repeat.
Leave it to Facebook to highlight “catalogue” as if it were a misspelling.

– Postcards From Red Squirrel Trail

I had let her talk on, for her voice was like a solution of all musical sounds. I now told her that I could hardly say whether women were happy or not. I knew one who had not been happy; and for my part, I had often longed for Fairy Land, as she now longed for the world of men. But then neither of us had lived long, and perhaps people grew happier as they grew older. Only I doubted it.

— Geo. MacDonald

After a beginning (to the process) perhaps best described as tentative, I let O singer, bashful and tender, I hear your tender notes have a good long rest, because, I suppose, I didn’t hear enough of the tender notes as yet. The news, such as it is, is that there has been no dramatic change. I’m inching closer to hearing more of the notes, really is all, at present. I foresee more notes in a non-distant future.

The Unexpexted Zappa Orgy of 1Q25 Part III—Hot Rats Sessions B

When MGM Records neglected to exercise a contract option in 1968, FZ founded Bizarre Productions with manager Herb Cohen. This company mutated into Bizarre Records (with distribution taken care of by Warner Brothers' Reprise label) by October 1968. "Sister" label Straight Records was formed by FZ in the spring of 1969 to release material by slightly off-center artists, but these artists were not nearly as extreme as those on Bizarre (hence, the name "Straight" versus "Bizarre"). After Straight finished its independent run with Reprise and Warner Brothers-distributed stints, the DiscReet label was created in 1973.

— Zappa Wiki/Jawaka

Tryin’ to buy a grunt with a third-party check.
— Captain Beefheart, “Willie the Pimp”

There’s an unlikely, if  distant, connection to Ol’ Blue Eyes: the Reprise record label was founded in 1960 by Frank Sinatra. Warner Bros.

purchased the label in August of 1963. And now: back to our regularly scheduled programming.

It shouldn’t really surprise me that the music made during these

sessions which did not appear as tracks on Hot Rats would surface

on, e.g. Weasels Ripped My Flesh (“Directly From My Heart to You”)

Studio Tan (“Let Me Take You to the Beach.” here under the working title

of “Dame Margret’s Son to Be a Bride”) and Burnt Weeny Sandwich (“Another

Waltz,” here, 28 minutes of music-making would reduce and morph into

“Little House I Used to Live In.”) So, I waive any and all surprise pertaining

thereto. “Directly From My Heart to You” as released later on Weasels runs five

minutes and a quarter; the unedited master here runs five minutes longer, and I can

report that they are five toothsome minutes. Disc 4 sees “Son of Mr Green Genes

being workshopped, and more work towards “It Must Be a Camel.” The bulk

of the disc, though, is an almost 33-minute master take of “Big Legs,” which when

edited, will greet the world as “The Gumbo Variations.” I live for discoveries like these,

I freely admit. There’s more work on the jazz waltz here dubbed “Arabesque,” which

will see light on Weasels as “Toads of the Short Forest,” which was Zappa’s nickname

for “the crabs.” The disc closes with almost six minutes of Ian Underwood playing

keyboard overdubs which will appear on Burnt Weeny Sandwich. Remembering how

strong the final albums are, makes it a joy to hear these musical notions in embryo.

Since I had begun with Disc 5 whose mainstay was the 1987 digital re-mix of the album.

That leaves Disc 6, which takes us back further, opening with a two-minute acetate of the saxophone tune of “Little Umbrellas,” recorded at Studio Z in Cucamonga, “circa

1961-64.” Then 1969 mix outtakes of “Minuscule Umbrellas,” as Zappa says on tape,

“It Must Be a Camel,” and “Son of Mr Green Genes.” There are more sundries, perhaps

most notably a 1970 Record Plant mix of “Bognor Regis” (you may be pardoned if you

might not recall from earlier, substantially a showcase for Don “Sugarcane” Harris’

violin; cool, where “The Gumbo Variations” run hot.)

In sum, while nothing would have prevented me from observing so before, had I been

facing the right direction, the experience of passively “participating” in the making

of the album by listening to all the myriad pieces of the puzzle has put for me into sharp

focus the tripartite symmetry of Hot Rats: one-third of the album (that is, two of the six

tracks) is rhythmically straight—“Peaches en Regalia,” the number Zappa would jestingly count in for his bandmates when they visited him while he recovered in hospital after he

was attacked and pushed off the stage of London’s Rainbow Theatre, and “Son of Mr

Green Genes,” an instrumental timbral reimagining of a song from Uncle Meat, faithfully following the song’s form. Another third is the two compact jazz chamber music vignettes—“Little Umbrellas” and “It Must Be a Camel,” brightly polished jazz gems whose finished perfection gives no token of their volcanic birthing. And the remaining third is the

exultantly extrovert vulcanism of “Willie the Pimp” and “The Gumbo Variations”—vehicles

for the trading off of athletically virtuosic solos, not forgetting Captain Beefheart’s by turns gravelly and hootey vocalizations.

Insofar as recording my musings here has a purpose, I doubt that the purpose is to get the Reader to purchase this set. Presumably, if you are inclined to find such a cornucopia

of source documents for a seminal album by an iconic countercultural American musical master an engaging listen, you may likely already own the Sessions. For the other Readers, though (held in no less warm regard by the Author) I expect the principal end will be a renewed interest in hearing the album itself, an album, as one witty promotional spot

puts it “almost too psychedelic, almost too spiffy to listen to,” and to which I myself will

listen afresh directly.

The Unexpexted Zappa Orgy of 1Q25 Part III—Hot Rats Sessions A

These are the days of spherical and under, this is the long-defunct mall.
Porridger’s Almanack (Breakfast of Ganglions)

That’s where I got the idea for … the title of the Hot Rats album: There’s a recording that I picked up in Europe that had “The Shadow of Your Smile” with Archie Schepp playing on it, and he played this solo that just sounded to me immediately like there was this fucking army of pre-heated rats screaming out of his saxophone. That’s what it sounded like.

— Frank Zappa

A complete line of extras designed with your mind in mind.

— Philip Proctor as Ralph Spoilsport, a parody of Encino automobile salesman Ralph Williams

Plunging into the Hot Rats Sessions, I started with Disc 5, which includes the 1987 digital remix of the album, and closes with a sweet shuffle on which “Sugarcane” Harris shines. I then proceeded to Disc 1. It's not for everybody (obviously) but I am really enjoying hearing all the bits, the jams, the what-have-you’s. The details listed in the book are interesting and informative. If like me, you’re a fan of Burnt Weenie Sandwich, the first two tracks of Ian Underwood playing piano shine with glimpses of familiarity and are entirely engaging. The bulk of the disc’s running time is workshopping “Peaches en Regalia,” and while (sure) I get that not everybody will find it engaging, as a composer, I entirely enjoy this opportunity to be a fly on the wall as Zappa by turns takes part in the jams and guides the rehearsal process. This is not “aimless noodling” but highly directed noodling by superb musicians with a great sense of ensemble. Disc 2 workshops “It Must Be a Camel” and “Little Umbrellas” (whose working title was “Natasha.”) There’s a tasty eleven-minute violin blues, “Bognor Regis” with a nice wrangly guitar solo. Then, workshopping “Willie the Pimp,” as well as an unedited master thereof running quarter of an hour. From a cassette recording from preparing The Real Frank Zappa Book by Peter Occhiogrosso (I don’t recall this actually appearing in the book:

That’s where I got the idea for … the title of the Hot Rats album: There’s a recording that I picked up in Europe that had “The Shadow of Your Smile” with Archie Schepp playing on it, and he played this solo that just sounded to me immediately like there was this fucking army of pre-heated rats screaming out of his saxophone. That’s what it sounded like. To backtrack, the arrival of the parcel confused me quite. The Apostrophe (’) 50th anniversary edition is a delightfully compact affair, and I had allowed this to set my expectations for this comparable Hot Rats celebratory issue. So, this enormous carton arrived, and when I opened it up, I found an LP-sized box within. I mistakenly supposed that I was sent vinyl in error, but no, when I spoke to an agent to sort out (as I thought) the “problem,” I broke the cellophane, examined the contents, and discovered that yes, this is the compact disc edition. My initial trend to dismay at the unanticipatedly much larger footprint of the product has been completely reversed to pleasure that the book reproduces the LP artwork, hitting all the nostalgia buttons.

The Unexpexted Zappa Orgy of 1Q25 Part II

 

But, really... when the bee stings, who can think of snowflakes that fall on your nose and eyelashes?
Welcome to Hackensack
“A City in Motion”
Yet—it remained exactly where I knew to look for it.
(Just saying.)
Porridger’s Almanack (Breakfast of Ganglions)

Madness is rare in individuals—but in groups, parties, nations, and ages it is the rule.

— Nietzsche

Time for more Henning Paleontology. Back in the late ’70s/early ’8os,

a friend introduced me to Zappa with We’re Only In It For the Money (by then,

already out of print for some while) and One Size Fits All. At or about that time,

Sheik Yerbouti, Tinseltown Rebellion and the first instalment of Joe’s Garage

would be available at record stores, and “Dancin’ Fool” was a big single.

Another friend (of a friend) wound up making me a fan of the Sheik. I don’t

know exactly why I was standoffish towards the Rebellion and the Garage,

but I was. Because I was more interested in finding copies of out-of-print

Mothers titles, I discovered a nearby-ish used record shack somewhere

on Route 23 in New Jersey. I did not find any copies of the first three albums

(which were my especial target) so I “flew blind” leafing through what I did

find. Although I now know that I should not have gone wrong with any of what

they had available, I pored and picked, and wound up taking home Uncle Meat,

Burnt Weenie Sandwich, Hot Rats and Chunga’s Revenge. Collectively they all

opened up my ears good and wide, and thus they have all been great sentimental

favorites of mine ever since. Keeping in mind that what I had already heard of

his work was highly unsystematic, one of the big surprises for me was the Doo-wop

numbers. Another was the dazzling array of instrumentation and the amazing

textures. Of these four, my enthusiasm burnt least hot, perhaps, for Chunga’s

Revenge, but no record with “Transylvania Boogie (more proof that Zappa was the

unequalled poet of the wah-wah pedal) the exquisite insouciance of

“Twenty Small Cigars” and the momentary percussive anarchy

of “The Clap” could be bad. And, as mixed as I might ultimately find

the “comedy music” angle of the Flo & Eddie version of the Mothers, “Road

Ladies” makes a short, punchy case for it. Of these, my first four Zappa

LPs, Hot Rats stands out as being atypically homogeneous. There are no

non-musical comedic elements, and the album plays as consistently

earnest music-making, sort of a precursor to Shut Up ’n’ Play Yer Guitar,

if you will. “Willie the Pimp” was my introduction to Captain Beefheart,

and if his performance

struck me immediately as peculiar, even rather alien, it was also undeniably

visceral. “The Gumbo Variations,” especially “Sugar Cane” Harris’ violin solo,

knocked me base over apex. And I immediately loved the sweetly sculpted

“Little Umbrellas” (with Ian Underwood playing recorder, among other

winds) and “It Must Be a Camel,” miniature masterpieces, both.

The long and the short of it being that the one over-cautious corner

of my subconscious wasn’t fooling anyone: I was certainly going to fetch

in the Hot Rats 50th anniversary “Hot Rats Sessions” box. Today, in case

you

were wondering if some people who are apparently paid for their musical

opinion might not be dense as a sandstorm, I read this on Wikipedia:

“Writing for Rolling Stone, Kory Grow enjoyed the album but thought

that it was flawed, stating that while it was a very interesting listen for

those curious about the making of the album, it could feel like overkill

at certain times.” Grow apparently does not understand the difference

between an album and a collection of musical documents made in the process of creating

the album. Nice work, if you can get it. What a display of underqualification for the task. Moving on ….

Just before actually revisiting Les rats chauds, it dawned on me: just why I am

writing of this experience and of the unprompted recollections this writing process

has caused to resurface (I was half-afraid it’s been something of an exercise in

rationalization): Although I have long enjoyed listening to Zappa’s work, and have comparatively recently enjoyed the “deeper dives” afforded by the lavish releases

from The Vault, I had never before realized how deeply Zappa’s rich musical world

has insinuated itself into my composer’s brain, have not hitherto appreciated

the degree to which ZappaSound (no less than Stravinsky himself & al.) helped

form the rich musical backdrop to my own creative work. And this year, as I find

myself still wrestling with whether my own work actually means anything

in the Universe, I feel that this re-immersion into Frankreich (so to speak) is

a kind of going back to the well.

So, The Sessions has been delivered. The presentation misled me

into supposing that the vinyl version had been sent to me in error.

I soon discovered the mistake, which was mine own.