Pics: The Old Masters Box

Here are some pictures of the Old Masters Box I, from FZ In Hungary. Have you ever seen one of these?

The thing that is really interesting to me is the fact that it tells the story of the re-recorded tracks (We’re Only… Ruben), and indicates the names of the new musicians as well as the “old ones”. This is new to me, since the story was (or as I’ve always heard it before) that it all happened almost secretly.

Judging from these pictures this “Old Masters” must have been a fun thing – and while watching the pictures I”ll keep on looking for some Youtube clips to attach. 😉

Later that night: pictures of some Hungarian freaks going to (West-) Berlin to a concert in ’88… 1| 2 | 3

Author: Balint

architect.

11 thoughts on “Pics: The Old Masters Box”

  1. [quote comment=”5084″][quote post=”1626″]Later that night[/quote]
    LOL! The populace demands YT clips.[/quote]

    Some really nice photos, Balint. No wonder FZ hated rock ‘n roll reviewers, they hardly ever understood what he was doing (calling ‘Cruising With Ruben and the Jets’ a spoof album?).

    One of the reasons I’ve been posting so many Zappa related YT clips, Barry, is I have been getting the terrible feeling they won’t be available for very much longer. Your thoughts?

  2. [quote comment=”5089″]One of the reasons I’ve been posting so many Zappa related YT clips, Barry, is I have been getting the terrible feeling they won’t be available for very much longer. Your thoughts?[/quote]
    I really didn’t mean anything other than that the homepage has seen a lot of YTbery as of late (myself included!). No hidden message that “There Shall Be No More YT Clips On KUR!” 🙂 You do have a point in posting them “while they’re still available”.

  3. Does anybody at KUR knows more about the background of the release of “We´re only in it …” years after the remixed version? The explanation on the “Old Masters Box” insert tells about wrong storage on cheap tapes. But a couple of years later – out of the blue – there is the same album released with the original instrumentation. I for myself was more than happy that the orginal mix was released (although I have the vinyl anyway) but it was always a mystery, what happened there.

  4. Ah, one more surprise – i did not know the painting (I didn’ relaize before it was a painting…) on the box was made by Ronald Roller Wilson. Hehe – nice.

  5. Like so often, one can answer questions by going deep into the Matrix. So here is a link with informations “why” Zappa remixed it:

    http://lukpac.org/~handmade/patio/misc/why.html

    “The remix was extremely controversial to many fans, and it is safe to say that most people hated it. Zappa claimed he had to do it, because the original master had been stored so poorly that it was impossible to use it. (Perhaps he even wanted people to believe that the bass and drum track tapes were damaged as well.) However, the 1995 CD proved this wrong – it was taken from an original 1960s two-track Scotch 206 master tape. (Some bits were taken from the safety copy as well, as it had held up even better.)”

    “According to Zappa’s sound engineer, Bob Stone, the real reason was that Zappa was unhappy with the original performance.”

    Really? Never heard of this before. I mean it´s a brilliant period piece with the sonic state of the art of ´67/´68 including the abilities of the members of this band at that time. (This reminds me more or less of the work of George Lucas by redoing his Star Wars movies again and again.)

    And this is, what Spence Chrislu tells us:

    “The reason for not going back to the original and re-mixing it is a multi-faceted problem. The original multi-track was not assembled into a sequence or even a build reel. In those days, many many takes and passes were done on the multi-track and then it was edited, miniscule-piece-by-miniscule-piece, on the master tape itself. In fact, some of the spoken dialog pieces on the master are the original recordings. That’s why Zappa claimed that a lot of it was ruined. Those spoken word pieces are now of the “see-through” variety of tape, i.e. there’s no oxide left on them. Thankfully the safety was there to save them.

    I suppose that what I’m saying is this: it would take countless hours to re-create the master exactly the way Zappa did it. And besides, then you would have the Spence Chrislu version or the Dweezil version and that would lead to the endless arguments about how Frank would have done it had he lived. The fact remains that no matter how hard we try, there will never be another Frank Zappa. All we can do is try to preserve the legacy he left behind.

    (I also think that he was far too busy and far too sick to even consider going back and hunting down the original pieces to remix it from scratch and put it back together.)”

    So all this answers some of my questions, but not the one “why was the orginal mix released in 1995 with the orginal instrumentation”?
    I mean FZ himself said, the masters were unusuable. Was there a huge demand of this release, so that it was given to the public, even the sound quality wasn´t as good as the orginal vinyl (because of the bad storage of the tape material)?

  6. [quote comment=”5093″]Does anybody at KUR knows more about the background of the release of “We´re only in it …” years after the remixed version? … [/quote]

    The later release was probably made from a safety copy that suddenly had shown up or from a vinyl record. If you listen through headphones you can hear something that sounds like rumbling and crackling. I could be wrong, though.

    Th.

  7. Thanks for digging into the matrix, Roland. I think you have uncovered what I have suspected for quite some time: a revisionist philosophy towards the history of the original Mothers by both FZ, and after his passing, the ZFT. I mean, why else perpetrate such an obvious falsity as the “original master had been stored so poorly that it was impossible to use it.” Then, all of sudden, decades later, the original mix reappears in pristine condition? Whatever FZ’s personal opinion of the original mix, or the ZFT’s opinion of musical abilities of the original Mothers, I tend to agree with Zappa’s sound engineer, Bob Stone, “it´s a brilliant period piece with the sonic state of the art of ´67/´68 including the abilities of the members of this band at that time.” There is really something timeless about the original mix, whenever I hear it, I am transported to not just a time and a place, but a state of mind. Only the original mothers could have created those albums, or performed those concerts. One simply cannot edit them out (even if his name is Zappa).

  8. The quotes are put between quotation marks, so it´s quite difficult to see what is a citation and what not. The following quote ” … it´s a brilliant period piece with the sonic state of the art of ´67/´68 including the abilities of the members of this band at that time… ” are my personal thoughts about it and I´m honered that you, urbangraffito, share it with me and Bob Stone. 🙂

    Anyway, I always disliked the new mixes of “Money” & “Ruben” and I am glad, that I still have the vinyl. But FZ must have been in a remix frenzy at that time. Listening to the remixed “Lumpy Gravy” on “Lumpy Money” gave me the creeps.

    [quote comment=”5099″]There is really something timeless about the original mix, whenever I hear it, I am transported to not just a time and a place, but a state of mind. Only the original mothers could have created those albums, or performed those concerts. One simply cannot edit them out (even if his name is Zappa).[/quote]

    True enough, urbangraffito! I for myself am a bit of a traditionalist concerning music, art, books etc.! Did Leonardo Da Vinci retouch his Mona Lisa after 15 years, because he was not content with the colours? Did James Joyce rewrite Ulysses for some reason? Okay, probably the comparison is a bit farfetched, but as they say “a piece of art is never completed, the artist just leaves it”.

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