Frank Zappa - You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore. Vol. 1-6 [Purple Box] (1995) {Rykodisc}

Frank Zappa - You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore. Vol. 1-6 [Purple Box] (1995) {Rykodisc}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC+CUE+LOG -> 5.40 Gb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 186 mb | 5% repair rar
? 1995 Rykodisc / The Zappa Family Trust | RCD 1056172
Rock / Experimental Rock

To simplify my life considerably, I'm going to combine the "reviews" of all six Stage releases into a single entry, even though they were released individually. Also, to save a lot of time and effort, I'm not going to give complete track listings of the twelve discs, or do song-by-song reviews (hey, we're talking over 800 minutes of music here, give me a break). If you need to know the track listings, they're probably available through an on-line music sales site like CDNow, or an information site like the All Music Guide. There's probably a few other Zappa sites that list them as well. Maybe one day when I have the time, I'll come back and expand this section to really cover all twelve discs in detail. Until then, I'll just give some general facts and opinions, focusing on highlights and material unique to the Stage series.




It's hard to determine where to place this series in a chronological listing of Zappa's albums. For one thing, some sources site the first volume has having been released in 1988 while others say 1989. And the entire set wasn't released all at once, it was staggered out over a few years, with the last volumes not coming out until 1992. Then there's the fact that the series covers Zappa's entire career, from the earliest Mothers recordings in the mid-60s to the final tour in 1988. Just to keep things simple, I'm going to lump the entire series together and place them between Guitar and the live albums from the 1988 tour.

I should note that the Stage series was, to some degree, my introduction to Frank Zappa's music. I already owned a few of the studio albums, but after getting YCDTOSA vol. 2 for Christmas one year, and then finding vol. 3 in a used CD store a few weeks later, and then filling in vol. 1 to complete the set, I decided to just keep picking them up as they came out. Soon, I had the whole series. So to me, the live versions of many of these songs were the first ones I heard. This may or may not have been a good thing, since Zappa often changed the lyrics during live performances (substituting in a "secret word" chosen for each show), and just assumed that his audience would already be familiar with the "originals", and would get the jokes. On the other hand, Frank must have known that this series would introduce some new fans to his works, so he included extensive (but unfortunately not always accurate) liner notes with most of the series, indicating which album(s) each song originally came from.

Before getting into each individual volume, here are a few notes in general about the series. Ever since the days of the original Mothers of Invention, Zappa said that he wanted to release a live, multi-album set to document what his bands were capable of. I've read that Weasels Ripped My Flesh was originally intended to be part of such a set. The Beat the Boots series also comes close to fulfilling this idea. But with the 13 hours of music represented by the You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore albums, Frank finally realized his dream. And the music really does show his bands' abilities - the entire series features un-retouched, live performances. No overdubs. What you hear is what happened on stage.

Much to many fans' annoyance, Zappa decided not to present the material chronologically. FZ stated in interviews that his music was a single entity, and that each album just reflected a side of the total creation. He also had his "conceptual continuity" - the threads and quotes and remakes of songs, lyrics and ideas that recurred on album after album after album. So it's no surprise that when he put this series together, he decided to have the music jump from year to year, decade to decade, band to band, between songs and sometimes even during a song. Keeping that in mind, it's impressive how consistent Zappa's bands were. You would expect that in a song put together from different performances in different years by different bands, the edits would sound glaringly obvious. But they don't - the cuts are usually seamlessly smooth. The result is almost like a monstrous Mothers concert that includes every musician who has ever played in a Zappa band. It's as if Frank played an all-day music marathon, split up into six separate shows with two sets each. Frank even announces an intermission at the end of the first disc on some sets, and usually concludes the show by introducing the band at the end of each volume.

7: Prev 1 [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] Next

Disclaimer:
This site is a search engine of musics on the Internet and does not store any files on its server. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us to remove relevant links or contents.