While the [Anti-Defamation] League [of B'nai B'rith] was harping, [FZ] was readying other projects: Warts And All, a double live album, was culled from performances at the 1978 Halloween show in New York and a January engagement at the Hammersmith Odeon in England; Shut Up And Play Your Guitar is an album of blistering Zappa guitar work, sans vocals, which he plans to sell mail-order. "It's just for fetishists," he says, laughing. "For those who want to hear my guitar work, that's the album for them." With these works completes (but as yet unreleased). Zappa moved into Village Recorders on April 11, [1979], planning to record a couple of songs and then split.
GW: Why did you include those voice segues?
FZ: Because I tried the album ... I edited it together with no vocal texture in it and I thought it was flat. I think it needed just a vocal distraction to set you up for the next thing, because one solo after another after another with no interruption is – to me it wasn't dynamic enough.
GW: Was that why you had those conversations and weird sounds on "Lumpy Gravy."
FZ: No. That was the composition on "Lumpy Gravy." In this case, it just served as punctuation, just to give your ears a chance to stop hearing a fuzz tone for a minute and hear another texture and then it set you up for the next thing. It just – it's structural.
I love music. I love to play. And I enjoy going on stage and improvising a guitar solo. You know, you can't do that at home. You can sit around and noodle on your guitar but it's the instant challenge of going against the laws of physics and the laws of gravity and going on stage and playing something nobody ever heard before. And nobody would dare to play. That's what I like to do. That's ... I mean, that's sex. It's better than sex. That takes you into a realm of science. And you can't do that sitting at home and you can't do it in the recording studios. It's not the same feeling.
["While You Were Out" and "Stucco Homes" were] originally one piece, but Frank edited it because it had different tonalities. It came about before his studio was built. I was playing along to a live solo of Frank's and he took my track and flew it over a live Vinnie drum track. Then Frank recorded over the top of that with his Black Widow. It was unbelievable. He did it in one take! I was there all night watching him put it together, and afterwards he gave me the guitar I'd used -- as payment. I used that for the next two years with Missing Persons.
Recording Date 2/17/77
Recording Location Odeon Hammersmith, London
Engineer Alan P.
Facility Manor Mobile
I know, it's not an authoritative source. But it gives me an opportunity to bring up the topic again. http://www.discogs.com/artist/Alan+Parsons?anv=Alan+P.&filter_anv=1
Alan P.
Real Name: Alan Parsons
Did Alan Parsons still take outside engineering gigs after the Project was running?
I asked.
On Mar 1, 2011, at 12:01 PM, <webmaster@alanparsonsmusic.com> wrote:
Hi Michael
Alan could have but he does not remember that concert:)
Thanks for writing.
AP Web
I'd also emailed the webmaster, and my reply has just arrived:-
Hi Steve The only information that we can get from Alan's office is that he did work on something a very long time ago - post production - and he has attended FZ concert in the UK.
Best,
Tab for AP Web
I asked if he planned to do another album with Ponty, this time producing and financing it himself. "Not in the immediate future but there is one thing that may come out on my next album, that's a duet that he and I improvised. I'm playing the bouzouki, which is a Greek mandolin, and he's playing the baritone violin and it's really nice."
Frank then went on to explain what a bouzouki is. "A bouzouki has a very long neck and it's tuned not like a violin, the way a mandolin is, but the same as the top four strings of a guitar down a whole step."
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