Vaulternative Records has announced the Friday, September 26, 2008 release of the concert CD 'Joe's Menage,' continuing the Zappa Family Trust's mission to celebrate and protect the legacy of Frank Zappa. 'Joe's Menage' was recorded in concert at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, VA on November 1, 1975. This is all previously unreleased material. [...]
The album first germinated when Frank Zappa gave fan Ole Lysgaard several cassette tapes, including this one, in 1978. In 2004, Lysgaard sent the tapes to Gail Zappa and she decided to release the 1975 music. After a fruitless search for the original 'dub' sub master by Frank Zappa, the Vaultmeister made a transfer to recreate the 'compilation' per the original 1/4 stereo master. This was then cleaned up and mastered by John Polito.
The latest installment of the Corsaga series, 2008's Joe's Menage, might be near and dear to Gail's heart but possesses a convoluted provenance. In a nutshell: An obsessed Zappa fan from Denmark, Ole Lysgaard, was given three audio cassettes in 1978 by Zappa, one of them of marked "William and Mary." Lysgaard, who had held onto the tapes for 25-plus years, contacted The Zappa Family Trust when he recognized a section of his beloved concerts on a posthumous Vault release.
"The [third] cassette was . . . a 45-minute excerpt from a concert at The College of William and Mary in Virginia in 1975," says Travers. "Frank must have liked the show because he made a cassette dub from the reel-to-reel master, and he brought it around with him. . . . I went and got the master tape for the William and Mary show and I transferred the master tape digitally and made a mirror of Frank's cassette. So, basically, what you have on Joe's Menage is what Frank dubbed from the original master with better sound."
Ladies and gentlemen, I will now play a rhythm guitar solo.
I started off as a rhythm guitar player. I always liked strumming. I learned a bunch of chords so I had an appreciation for the people who can do that. And there is an art to it. And most people don't think in those terms anymore, everybody wants to be a lead guitar player.
. . . and yours truly, Tyrone Power on guitar.
When FZ introduced the members of the rocking teenage combo, he sometimes introduced himself by another person's name.
Research, compilation and maintenance by Román García Albertos