New Zappa releases

**Mister Triscuits** · 06-12-2016

Originally Posted by GuitarGeek

So your Uncle Meat Project/Object is probably scattered across Burnt Weeny Sandwich, Weasels Ripped My Flesh, and YCDTOSA Vols. 1 and 5, I think.

Nonetheless, Ahmet confirmed during the recent Kickstarter campaign that an Uncle Meat P/O was in the works. Zappa was prolific enough that there is still plenty of material from that era that has yet to see the light of day. For example, "Boogie for Berkeley" has still never been officially released.

**unclemeat** · 06-12-2016

From the July 20 1968 issue of Rolling Stone magazine:

"ROLLING STONE: Are you recording at all now?

ZAPPA: We have 2 albums in the can. [One is Cruising with Ruben & the Jets] The other is No Commercial Potential - a 3-record set. Six sides. It has such 8-minute tidbits as police busting our recording session. New York cops! Live! In person! You can't dance to it! It also has a piece where Jimmy Carl Black, the Indian of the group, is bitching because we are not making any money, and it's taking too long for the band to make it. 2 songs about El Monte Legion Stadium. A song about fake IDs. Another song about teats. A surrealistic R&B song called "The Air Escaping from Your Mouth". 2 other surrealistic things: "Mr Green Genes" and "Electric Aunt Jemima". Lots of instrumentals. On one song, we used 40 tracks and the tune lasts 90 seconds.That took us 4 days to put together. It'll probably be released in the fall."

http://www.lukpac.org/~handmade/pati...rcialpotential

**pb2015** · 06-12-2016

Originally Posted by GuitarGeek

Well, Envelopes could have been released on any album, it didn't have to be on Ship Arriving Too Late To Save A Drowning Witch. It could have been on Man From Utopia, or FZ Meets The Mothers Of Prevention, etc.

I just think that suite, as it occurred on the 81 together flowed together so well, it's a damn shame Frank felt compelled to break it up on the official releases the way he did. And there's never even been a live release that presents the music as it was played (maybe because Frank insisted on at least two occasions that I know of that Drowning Witch was never played correctly, and thus there's the view that releasing something like the Ritz 81 would entail releasing something that "isn't up to Frank's standards" or whatever.

Joe posted online a year or two ago that a Ritz 81 release could happen.

**GuitarGeek** · 06-12-2016

Originally Posted by Mister Triscuits

Nonetheless, Ahmet confirmed during the recent Kickstarter campaign that an Uncle Meat P/O was in the works. Zappa was prolific enough that there is still plenty of material from that era that has yet to see the light of day. For example, "Boogie for Berkeley" has still never been officially released.

Well, it'll be interesting what they can come up with.

I remember in one of his last big interviews, Frank said that with the conclusion of the YCDTOSA series, he didn't think there'd be many things archival things released after that, simply because he had exhausted all the unreleased compositions (or so he said at the time). He felt that anything he put out after that would be "just another version of King Kong" or "just another version of Pound For A Brown", and he wasn't sure how much of a market there was for something like that.

Of course, history has since proven that there is indeed a market for "just another version of..." archival live releases.

Now, whether or not Frank's assertion that "I've released all the compositions" is another issue. Obviously, there were plenty of Synclavier pieces that were still unreleased at the time of Frank's death, so presumably he was referring specifically to stuff that was played onstage by the various bands. But I think even there, there's stuff that's appeared on various releases in the last 10 or so years that hadn't been released before, right? Or maybe Frank felt that the sound quality on some of the stuff he didn't put out wasn't up to snuff. Anyway, I'm interested to know what the Uncle Meat P/O ends up being.

**GuitarGeek** · 06-12-2016

Originally Posted by unclemeat

From the July 20 1968 issue of Rolling Stone magazine:

"ROLLING STONE: Are you recording at all now?

ZAPPA: We have 2 albums in the can. [One is Cruising with Ruben & the Jets] The other is No Commercial Potential - a 3-record set. Six sides. It has such 8-minute tidbits as police busting our recording session. New York cops! Live! In person! You can't dance to it! It also has a piece where Jimmy Carl Black, the Indian of the group, is bitching because we are not making any money, and it's taking too long for the band to make it. 2 songs about El Monte Legion Stadium. A song about fake IDs. Another song about teats. A surrealistic R&B song called "The Air Escaping from Your Mouth". 2 other surrealistic things: "Mr Green Genes" and "Electric Aunt Jemima". Lots of instrumentals. On one song, we used 40 tracks and the tune lasts 90 seconds.That took us 4 days to put together. It'll probably be released in the fall."

Which obviously suggests that No Commercial Potential largely became Uncle Meat. But if it was originally a three record set, one wonders what became of the third LP.

But I was sure I had read that the title No Commercial Potential was eventually applied to a larger set that Frank intended to release a couple years later, around the time he disbanded the "original" MOI. Or maybe I'm getting titles mixed up, or perhaps I'm remembering something from a book where the author got the titles mixed up.

**GuitarGeek** · 06-12-2016

Originally Posted by pb2015

Joe posted online a year or two ago that a Ritz 81 release could happen.

That would be awesome! I've always wondered if they have an uninterrupted tape of that show. The version that circulates is mostly a great sounding FM tape, with a really poor quality tape (sounds like maybe someone holding a mic up to a stereo speaker) being used for patches. One assumes Frank probably ran 24 track on the show (since he did that on virtually every other show) and hopefully had two tape machines running (so as to cover any gaps that might occur when one machine runs out of tape).

**pb2015** · 06-12-2016

Originally Posted by GuitarGeek

Which obviously suggests that No Commercial Potential largely became Uncle Meat. But if it was originally a three record set, one wonders what became of the third LP.

The NYC cop track was on The Lost Episodes, and one circulating set of outtakes suggests that "Dwarf Nebula" was originally for Uncle Meat but later went to WRMF. Some other tracks may still be in the vault.

**GuitarGeek** · 06-12-2016

Originally Posted by pb2015

The NYC cop track was on The Lost Episodes, and one circulating set of outtakes suggests that "Dwarf Nebula" was originally for Uncle Meat but later went to WRMF. Some other tracks may still be in the vault.

Or perhaps they turned up on Burnt Weeny Sandwich, Weasels Ripped My Flesh, or You Can't Do That Onstage Anymore.

I don't remember ever hearing Lost Episodes> I kinda had the impression it was all pre-MOI stuff.

**mkeneally** · 06-12-2016