The Artisan Acetate

Arranged, compiled, edited and produced by Frank Zappa, this acetate of original live recordings, engineered by Dick Kunc, was 
recorded between October 1968 and May 1969, and mastered at Artisan Sound Recorders in Hollywood, CA., in mid 1969. It contains unique original recordings of the Mothers of Invention performing “Wipe Out”, “East L.A.”, “Weasels Ripped My Flesh”, “Kung Fu”, “Igor’s Boogie”, “Passacaglia”, “Copenhagen Night Music”, “Help, I’m A Rock”, “Chocolate Halvah”, “Prelude To The Afternoon Of A Sexually Aroused Gas Mask”, “The Cookie Jar Lecture” and “It Must Be Your Breath”. This acetate, known officially as The Artisan RS 6406 Test Pressing (acetate), was ripped by it’s owner RJ and generously donated to Zappateers for torrenting (currently seeding).

Author: urbangraffito

I am a writer, editor, publisher, philosopher, and foole (not necessarily in that order). Cultural activist and self-described anarchist.

24 thoughts on “The Artisan Acetate”

  1. Apparently RJ paid $12,000 dollars for this rare acetate and then made it available the next day at Zappateers. Very generous move, RJ. Thanks!
    The sound quality is great and it’s worth having just for the hilarious track ‘Cookie Jar Lecture’.

  2. Boy, I’d love to hear this, but know nothing of torrents… couldn’t someone post it to an upload site (MegaUpload or the like)? I (and I assume others) would be most appreciative…

  4. Thanks to *9* seeders, the download rate currently is excellent, so get it while it’s hot!

  5. That was very generous of RJ. Would someone else be generous enough to translate the above post into English for those of us who aren’t tech-savvy? I looked at Zapateers and don’t see any reference to this recording …

  6. [quote comment=”9732″]That was very generous of RJ. Would someone else be generous enough to translate the above post into English for those of us who aren’t tech-savvy? I looked at Zapateers and don’t see any reference to this recording …[/quote]

    go to bittorrent.com, download the program. Go to Zappateers and sign up. Log into Zappateers and type in The Artisan Acetate into the site search OR click on “The Artisan Acetate” on this post. Scroll down till you see “download”. You should have a window pop up that says download or run torrent? Click ‘yes’ or ‘run’. A list of flac tracks should appear, click ‘okay’, and then you will see a window which will show the progress of the download. Once it is completed, you will see the progress change to “seeding”, you can now listen to it and you are now distributing it to other Zappateers members. You should be able to find the Artisan file in your downloads section.

    A wonderful find, any clue on what this is/was supposed to be? It could be the original Weasels Ripped My Flesh from the History and Collected Improvisions box set. Igor’s Boogie and Passacaglia are definitely highlights!

  7. Hey, another surprise from the unknown! Great!
    Though me too cannot use this torrent thing.. 🙂 Once I tried, but its far too much steps to make listenable files from it and I used it only once. So: 1.) downloading and 2.) installing the client (?), 3.) searching the file, 4.) downloading it, 5.) converting it to mp3 (I cannot use flac), and only after ALL THESE can I listen to it. 🙂
    Hm, will there be an mp3 download of it, maybe?… I’d be grateful!!!
    *
    BTW I used napster, WinMX and all other P2P things earlier to up- and download music, and once I triet torrent as well, so I really used it, but I still dont understand WHY is it, instead of “normal” p2p exchanges. (To me) its more complicated, in more steps, etc… But hey, maybe I only belong to the older generation now… 😀

  8. Having ‘fucked-up’ my Zappateers sign-up (changed e-mail, and have been screwed ever since!), is there anywhere else on the internet where I can bittorrent this?

  9. [quote comment=”9734″]5.) converting it to mp3 (I cannot use flac)[/quote]

    you could save a lot of time and tears by downloading VLC media player, this is a universal program that allows you to listen to flac, mp3 and avi (not all quicktime and no mp4 though). It also has more options re:DVD playback.

    [quote comment=”9735″]Having ‘fucked-up’ my Zappateers sign-up (changed e-mail, and have been screwed ever since!), is there anywhere else on the internet where I can bittorrent this?[/quote]

    Why not just bite the bullet and resign up? OR just create ann alternate email address.

  10. Balint, the easiest way to covert flac files is to download a copy of xACT 1.71 from the internet (it’s freeware) – it converts flac files into either avi or wav files. Once the tracks are in iTunes you can then convert the wav files into mp3 files for your own personal use.

    http://macupdate.com/info.php/id/14246

  11. Balint — I like to use Media Monkey as a media player. It can play FLACs without a plugin. To burn FLACs to CD, I like FLAC Frontend. It’s very easy to use and can convert FLACs to mp3s or WAVs

  13. hi all, thanks for the answers! – but it always means to me that YET another sofware and YET another format (AFTER DL-ing the torrent software AND teh torrent file…) 🙂 I really dont see the difference between HQ and 192 (OR 256) mp3, and the latter is much much smaller. Anyway, I prefer the older (=smaller, faster) versions of softwares, so I use Winamp 2.9, (I think), etc. The more elaborated a software IS the more problem it makes -> and the slower it works. I like tiny, fast things – and tiny files.

    So – whenewer I get one – I always convert losless things to mp3… 😉 But hey, this time I might try to explore new things…..

  19. [quote comment=”9743″]okay – guys like me might be pleased with this comment. I sure am! :-)[/quote]

    Hmmmm. Didn’t take very long did it, now? I suppose that means I can stop seeding now, too?

  20. Ok, so I listened to this thing. A majority of the tracks in whole or part seem to have ended up on YCDTOA and a few other places. What might have been the purpose of this acetate? A second disk to Weasels or Burnt Weenie? Or was this part of the “Collected History and Improvisations of the Mothers of Invention” he was putting together in the early 70’s. (I’m going from memory on the title of the mythical box set, but it’s close).

  21. [quote comment=”9743″]okay – guys like me might be pleased with this comment. I sure am! :-)[/quote]
    Thanks Bálint, Zappateers rejected my application, they must not like cats. Good stuff, I like that version of Kung Fu.

  23. Plooker – Zappateers has NEVER rejected anyone’s application – check your spam folder for the email.

    If all else fails email the Admins there – we don’t bite!

    Vince – likewise – email the Zappateers admins and we will reset your account.

    Bálint – take the cotton wool out of your ears and you may be able to hear the difference between MP3s and FLACS!!!

    EVERYONE – this was donated to Zappateers – where the Zappateers stalwart BengoFury spent many hours de-clicking and de-popping the digitalized recording. Read all about it here:
    http://www.zappateers.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=18544
    This provides all of the detail on all of the tracks.

  24. StatusBaby is right, Plooker. All are worthy (even if they do fall short of their upload/download ratio). Just kidding, guys! Zappateers is the BEST!

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