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  1. Heavy going, much? A tawdy story just took another slide downwards. Washing dirty laundry in public is a losing strategy for all concerned and reflects badly on the family, however obscure they are (and the obscure “civilian” Zappas are completely unknown to me). Frank would be you-know-whating in his you-know-what.

  3. His letter reads like a tedious blog forum comment. Lacks only the “ad hominem” bit.

    And this: “the new name of the band, Dweezil Zappa Plays Frank Zappa” – that’s a snappy band name! I wonder if he pared it down from “Frank Zappa’s Son, Dweezil Zappa, Plays Frank Zappa Music By Frank Zappa”?

  4. It’s always good to get the other person’s point of view. I found myself in agreement with Ahmet till I read this. Yeah he’s a bit tedious I suppose but it’s a tedious business. As I said on another post, his language reminds me of Frank.

    So much to marvel at in the USA today. This, Donald Trump, the Bernie phenomenon, who’s allowed in which toilet etc.

  6. The stuff about how the ZFT is millions in debt and how Gail mismanaged the Zappa catalogue after Frank’s death makes the saddest reading.

    Dweezil also seems very aware of how OTT Gail was in her “protection” of the Zappa copyrights and trademarks.

  7. There’s got to be a HBO series in this. I’m thinking about a family saga with the squabbling children of a high profile counter culture couple from the sixties fighting over their dwindling legacy. There can be flashbacks to the 60s and 70s and even to the 50s with the father growing up in Baltimore. It could be called “Let’s Make the Water Turn Black”.

  8. Following on from @Mousey ,here is a chronological list of Zappa albums, some left out- quite a lot would be interesting episode titles.

    Absolutely Free
    Lumpy Gravy
    We’re Only in It for the Money
    Cruising with Ruben & the Jets
    Uncle Meat
    Mothermania
    Hot Rats
    Burnt Weeny Sandwich
    Weasels Ripped My Flesh
    Chunga’s Revenge
    Fillmore East – June 1971
    200 Motels
    Just Another Band from L.A.
    The Grand Wazoo
    Over-Nite Sensation
    One Size Fits All
    Bongo Fury
    Zoot Allures
    Studio Tan
    Sleep Dirt
    Sheik Yerbouti
    Joe’s Garage
    Tinsel Town Rebellion
    Shut Up ‘n Play Yer Guitarr
    You Are What You Is
    The Man from Utopia
    Baby Snakes
    Them or UsI
    You Can’t Do That on Stage Anymore,
    Broadway the Hard Way
    You Can’t Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 6
    Playground Psychotics
    Ahead of Their Time
    The Yellow Sharks
    Have I Offended Someone?
    Everything Is Healing Nicely
    Halloween
    Imaginary Diseases

  10. Here’s some comments by “an industry insider” (no, really) made to a “private forum” (no, really) about the ZFT. First: the contractual mess of 200 Motels:

    “The ability to release the ‘200 Motels’ Soundtrack as part of the FZ Reissue Series at all was the happenstance of Rykodisc simultaneously having rights (through ownership) of released (and some other) ZAPPA masters and having a separate licensing arrangement with MGM/UA for soundtracks (MGM/UA, not The Zappa Family Trust, owns/controls ‘200 Mote;s’).
    The MGM/UA licensing deal allowed access to the delivered 2-track mixed masters as well as all other materials, visual and audio, created to promote the film.
    The working relationship, though at that time strained, with The Zappa Family Trust, was the basis for hoping they would co-operate with allowing access to recorded, but undelivered, masters/multitracks, made during the ‘200 Mote;ls’ recording sessions but, for whatever reasons, were never delivered to MGM/UA and remain in Mr Zappa’s own archive. This cooperation never materialized. So many, many alternate masters and unreleased compositions made for the film could not be used. The Zappa Family Trust cannot release them because they were paid for and are owned by MGM/UA and would need to be licensed by them (just as Rykodisc had to do) in order to release them.
    But for a moment in Archival Time, Rykodisc was ready, willing and able, because of the then-MGM/UA licensing arrangement, to cover all of the costs and undertake all of the risk and bother to review and prepare them for possible inclusion. Current marketplace climates, retail limitations and other Modern Day Record Label Realities all strongly suggest any opportunity to expand ‘200 Motels’ at any future point as was originally intended in 1997 will never again occur.”

    • 200 Motels was the last Zappa album to be released on CD, coming years after the rest of the catalogue was available on the digital format. It was also possibly the first FZ CD to be deleted.

      As it says in the above post this is because the 200 Motels soundtrack is owned by United Artists and not the ZFT.

  12. Here he is on Dance Me This (and again the ZFT being obstructive):

    “‘Dance Me This’ was one of the projects Mr Zappa recorded/assembled during his life. As he became incapacitated, he decided it, along with several other projects he recorded/assembled, should be released after his death.
    It was originally intended/scheduled for release many, many years ago. Advance promotional media, including copies of the entire project, were created and circulated. Fir a number of reasons, all having to do with The Zappa Family Trust deciding to withdraw their cooperation and access to the final mixed master, it was never issued.
    That it finally has both fills -and fulfills- A Big Empty Space in Mr Zappa’s known work. It may not be his ‘Smile’ and many people do not enjoy his Synclavier performances as much as his guitar performances, but it certainly is one of the generous gifts he created to be left for all of us finally officially unwrapped.

    Additionally, though it is entirely correct that this was the final complete album Mr Zappa created to be released (though, by the way, it was not the final of his completed projects), it is not the final of the unissued studio masters. As long as he could, Mr Zappa composed and recorded. Many of these recordings are in various stages of completion and none comprise an intended but unfinished album project where there is sufficient surviving recordings for it to be finished by others.”

  13. And on the absence of a comprehensive and new repackaging of Zappa’s most commercial work for a new audience (and again, the ZFT dragging its heels):

    “There has not been a more important or influential musician in my lifetime than Mr Zappa. Having the opportunity to work on the restoration, preservation and expansion of his catalogue was as wonderful and as rewarding as one might imagine. And these Wonders and these Rewards far, far outnumbered the problems, obstacles and silliness which often needed to be overcome in order to get the best work reflecting all of the talents of all interested parties accomplished.
    Mr Zappa’s work has, at the moment, no Jubal Harshaw who reminds The Outside World of either his ongoing importance for the work already released or the newfound importance of the work being released for the first time. There is no outreach to those who do not already know of him.
    Finally agreeing to allow his masters to be sold as digital goods in digital marketplaces, which after a decade of refusal The Zappa Family Trust finally began to allow only a few years ago, was neither innovation or visionary but rather only catching up with The Buying Habits already well-established a generation before.
    The Zappa Family Trust’s refusal, so far, to create product/packages/collections for the purpose of presenting easily digestible introductions/reminders of Mr Zappa’s best known, universally enjoyable, undeniably accessible work is the definition of A Fatal Error. The people who oversaw/oversee the JIMI HENDRIX catalogue or THE DOORS catalogue or the ELVIS PRESLEY catalogue or THE GRATEFUL DEAD catalogue or THE WHO catalogue or THE ROLLING STONES two different catalogues (just to name a few) understand the undeniable, essential importance of having compilations that are easy to listen to and put The Artist’s best feet forward available if only as invitations to New Listeners to introduce the most welcoming, verdant greens of the landscape and, hopefully, encourage their making their own maps to further explore the denser overgrowth at all of the edges.”

  14. The ZFT again:

    “The entire FRANK ZAPPA catalogue is now controlled by The Zappa Family Trust. Mr Zappa’s released catalogue and released masters as well as a certain number of to-be-delivered unreleased albums were purchased by Rykodisc several decades ago. Later Rykodisc ended up being absorbed by Warner Music Group. This was a project proposal made during the final year Rykodisc as a stand-alone, independent entity existed. Had Rykodisc continued as a stand-alone, independent entity it (or something very close to it) would have happened. (Cal Schenkel was even on board to create the package.) However, Rykodisc soon changes ownership and once controlled by Warner Music Group, the initiative and attitudes about originating this (or some similar multi-disc career-retrospective box set) suddenly change. This change happens because Warner Music Group, having had no dealing with The Zappa Family Trust other than the licensing of an occasional controlled master, believes they can persuade The Zappa Family Trust to form a working alliance. As Warner Music Group owned and controlled all released albums/masters and The Zappa Family Trust owned and controlled almost all unreleased albums/masters the notion was that collaboration was desirable on order to be able to present the complete and comprehensive series of expanded reissues possible.
    This was a proper and noble notion for Warner Music Group to have and the first few collaborative projects benefited greatly from it. But the “honeymoon period” of archival cooperation very soon deteriorated. And The Zappa Family Trust, who opposed compilations of existing masters for a number of interesting reasons and who had previously had a “hands off” but supportive view of a box set, now changed their view.
    In fact, the deterioration and combativeness of the relationship between The Zappa Family Trust and Warner Music Group becomes so bad that, when Warner Music Group changes ownership to its current Russian owner from its previous Canadian owner, the decision is made to allow The Zappa Family Trust to reacquire all of the Warner Music Group owned and controlled albums/masters. (There is a great story about how this decision and transfer happens and perhaps one days someone will write about it.)
    The current view of The Zappa Family Trust is that, bow that the FRANK ZAPPA catalogue is controlled by Universal and now that all albums are available as digital goods from which anyone can pick and choose their own favourire tracks, a curated “old school” compilation is fundamentally pointless. Perhaps they will change their mind one day. But their emphasis seems to be on releasing unissued masters no one has ever before heard rather than recombining existing ones already available. And there is nothing archivally wrong with that. But their “no compilation” attitude is, I think, short-sighted, both aesthetically and commercially, in keeping Mr Zappa’s work alive and vital fir new listeners to discover.

    This proposal was “transformed” into a US Radio Promo and serviced to key stations (for the reasons initially explained) after it seemed likely no box set would be soon, maybe ever, originated by either Rykodisc or Warner Music Group but before everybody at The Family Zappa Trust and Warner Music Group started communicating with lawsuits rather than handshakes. “

  15. On Zappa’s archives:

    “Mr Zappa saved everything. Or at least it seems so.
    At the time I was actively involved there were three major storage locations for his archives. His archives, like most, are divided between those recordings originally made on magnetic tape and those recordings originally made in zeroes-and-ones. The largest archive for those things originally recorded on magnetic tape was at his home in several different places. One of those places is a separate building at the bottom of the driveway that leads to his studio.
    I have seen and held, for example, reel-to-reel tapes Mr Zappa made in his childhood home, cassettes of him noodling around on drums, the original reels of location recordings (there are dozens) and session masters made for the WILD MAN FISCHER album, hundreds of reels of gigs, digital 1630s of abandoned remix experiments for the ‘Remastered’ editions, all of the ‘Hot Rats’ session reels, all of the BEEFHEART session reels for both ‘Trout Mask Replica’ and ‘Bat Chain Puller’ as well as his own collection of 7-inch 45-RPM discs (several rubber-stamped with the Record Store locations he purchased them from when in High School). “

  16. On Gail:

    “There are so many stories about The Zappa Family Trust being secretive and obstructive, most of them well-earned and accurate, that I think a perspective about The Archival Process with acknowledges these hurdles but also acknowledges The Humanity behind these processes and disagreements is often helpful.
    I still vividly recollect visiting Mr Zappa’s recording studio, located in his home, about a decade after his death and finding a pair of his eyeglasses, folded open and sitting upside-down and at rest atop a mixing console, exactly where he had last left them.
    Though I had spoken with her by telephone many times, I did not meet Ms Zappa in person, or begin directly working with her, until after Mr Zappa’s death. One day in a meeting, maybe the third or fourth time we had been in the same room together, while we were waiting for Other Participants to arrive she and I got to talking about Other Non-Musical Stuff. I used the opportunity to ask her how she first met Frank and how they fell in Love. For the next twenty minutes she told me the most endearing, most delightful and most loving story about their first meeting, first dates and courtship. At times in her telling, tears would come to her eyes with certain recollections.
    Whatever anyone likes or dislikes about what The Zappa Family Trust has done or not done and whatever anyone thinks about Ms Zappa’s actions or opinions about Mr Zappa’s catalogue, I think is it often overlooked that Frank and Gail were always deeply in Love, were each other’s Best Friends and Companions and were each fully and joyfully devoted to the other. And that Gail as a widow is no less devoted and loving to Frank since his death and still, decades later, keenly misses him being around the house and being a Husband and being a Dad. And often still mourns for all of the Understandable Human Reasons anyone would.”

    All for now. Going goggle-eyed.

  18. The old gentleman who wrote those comments hasn’t been on the forum for some months (these quotes are from last year) and it’s very much feared he might have died. He had an amazing fund of first-hand experience throughout the industry and is much-missed. Talking of hands, he wrote that when he first met Zappa, his impressions were of height, pallor, and thinness, and “hands like they’d been carved by Michaelangelo.”

        • Nothing on that, as far as I remember, Declan. There was a lot of comment about Van Morrison’s contractual situation, which boiled down to:

          – He has nothing to complain about
          – He signed everything himself in full legal knowledge

          On the Zappa commentary, I found his description of Gail very humane and moving. She’s an easy target, and no doubt made decisions which seem worse than contrary to us, but she had her own intimate perspective which Mr X brought out.

          • The comment I remembered – a long piece about exactly how Gail frustrated Mo Ostin (one of the industry’s truly Great Men) with her counter-productive attitude – is buried somewhere in the archives, and I haven’t been able to find it. But predictably, Gail acted – always – in nobody’s best interests, not even her own. The “Zappa Family Trust” (such a reassuring name) has always been as efficient and wise and fair as “The Hendrix Estate.” Two great artists whose families, through ineptitude and greed, have connived to squander vault material and virtually bury any remaining market possibilities for their music.

            “Curate” is a verb that’s received a lot of abuse recently (people like the academic sound of the word) but a true curator has always been lacking for both Zappa and Hendrix (and many others). There are many qualified to do it, but none will be given the authority. Because “estates” aren’t in the business of letting their cash cows out of the family barn.

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