h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I desperately need my turntable back in working order. A few months back while in a wannabe disc jockey frenzy, I hit the stylus with the edge of the record and bent the thing horribly. When I tried to gently bend it back, it snapped off in my fingers. The last time this happened, I disconnected the turntable and took the whole thing down to the local electronics store. The guy put the new stylus in, I brought it home and it never sounded better. Now it happens again and I decide to simply pull the cartridge out and take that down and have him put the new stylus in and then bring that home and I'll be in business again right? I mean, what could go wrong, just four litte connections. Or so I thought; I slid the cartridge on the only way it could go on and one of the channels is distorted. I never touched the tracking or anti-skating. The moral of the story is, let the pros do it for you, then if anything goes wrong it's not your fault.

There's probably not much difference. It's just that I'm such a purist that when I hear that Frank went in and re did stuff, it makes me want to get the original mix vinyl. Funny how we have to call it vinyl nowadays to make the distinction.

The official discography says 71. There is a lot of unreleased material and I think that the Zappa Family Trust will be releasing one album/DVD every year. There are also many bootlegs out there and they can't be counted. Not only that but there are a few box set with more FZ stuff in (3 that are on the official discography but not counted) and a few "best ofs" like the "Cheap Thrills" albums on Ryko. An, but, also, some of the mixes are different, for example the vinyl version of "Hot Rats" is very different to the CD version, and a lot better.

If you do want EVERYTHING then you will have to devote your life to it and continue to search. I think I'll just stick to Ryko releases.

Civilisation 1 - 111 is the nly album by anyone I have ever taken back to the shop because it was so crap - good on Virgin for accepting it back without argument.

What could be more tedious than compiling a list of how many third and fourth and fifth... versions of songs Zappa released. If you like them listen to them. Get a life. So why am I replying at 11:30 this Wednesday evening? That's the Internet for you..........very sad people talking to very sad people they've never met about subjects that don't need talking about. Go and put Stucco Homes on now!

Good Night.

Back in my vinyl days I had 1.5 meters of Zappa, although I'm afraid that included some bootlegs. But there's one early compilation none of you have mentioned, called WORST OF THE MOTHERS, ca. 1970. It was probably only slightly official, but it had one song that I don't remember the name of now with one of my favourite early guitar soloes, which I haven't heard anywhere else.

I spoke with Jimmy Carl Black after a Grandmothers concert once (ca. 1993), and he said that FZ was so incredibly careful about all tapes and all the technical sides to all shows, that there was no chance that a soundboard tape from any concert could get into the hands of bootleggers without Zappa's knowledge. "The Ark" was of such a professional quality for the time (1967) that he figured this was a Zappa project that he kept hidden from both the band, record companies and IRS... So although The Ark is a bootleg, the contents were probably recorded, mixed and provided by the man himself, and its inclusion in Beat the Boots was the second time he made money off of the release. After hearing Jimmy Carl Black's very convincing (and quite bitter) rant about the olden days, I count "The Ark" as a true FZ release, whether or not it's included in the official zappa discography.

MGM put out several "unauthorized" (by FZ, that is) compilations drawn from the first couple of MOI albums. 'The Worst of The Mothers...' was one of them. I had a tape copy of it several years ago made from a friend's record. As far as I remember, all of the tracks, except for "Status Back Baby", were off of Freak Out! or We're Only In It for the Money.

There is actually a page devoted to all of the various permutations of FZ's catalog. It's called "Return of the Son of the Vinyl vs CDs FAQ". Look for it by name. It basically has a listing of all of the official releases in chronological order, then details differences between each version. And before one hoo-has the existence of said document, know that there is useful information contained within for those who are not driven to find every version of everything. For example, how to go about finding one the version of 'You Are What You Is' on CD that fixes the bad clipping/limiting problem that's on most versions of the disc.