Crabb Bits: Updates, , Zappa

Summer is winding down.  The rainy season never came and in the process killed off the morning glories and most of the corn crop around here.  Two months of blistering 90 degree temps and even a day or two of 100 didn't help.  Only rain we got were the monsoons that toppled trees and down power lines.  I tend to be one of the skeptics of global warming but thinking more of Mother Nature holding things off.  After all, four years ago it never stopped raining and everything was under water.  Now you can just about walk across the Red Cedar River but I wouldn't try it.  There's some deep holes in that peaceful water.  Some fisherman tried to do that on the Des Moines River and fell into a 20 foot deep river hole.

Wonder how the settlers managed to survive trying to cross these rivers on the way out west.

Weekend is Springville Days to which people come in, drink too much, eat too much and listen to Black Diamond cover country music.  As for myself, I'll be doing one more bargain hunt in Iowa City before the freaks come back to school.  Sorry Des Moines, I don't forsee the RS Crabb Bargain Hunting Network coming to your town, unless there's a new record store that you're dying to tell me that exists out there.  Not even sure FYE is worth going to your place since it's not in Moline.  That's all the updates for now, we take you back to the original blog already in progess.


From a Steve Gibbons song:
What Does It Take To Turn You On
It Takes All Kinds.


Must be a slow day in musicland when I talk about stuff like that.

The first round of Frank Zappa's remasters have made their way to the store via Universal but it's still on the Zappa label and not Verve as originally thought.  I really didn't see the need to replace the Rykodisc of Freak Out but I did buy Absolutely Free which seems to tie in from the Little Miss Toot segment.  Best Buy had a few other Zappa stuff but I only picked up the 1970 Weasels Ripped My Flesh after A.F.  Frank Zappa was way ahead of the times and perhaps his satire ranked close to The Fugs in terms of satire and filth, although Zappa's commentary on the L.A. hippie style would figure more into We're Only In It For The Money.  In some ways Absolutely Free owes more to the second record of Freak Out than Money (remember Freak Out was a two record set?) but even back then Zappa challanged the Mothers Of Invention to keep up with his music by adding different time changes on his songs as well as skits and more commentary, a good album but falls in comparison to the first album.

Weasels Ripped My Flesh was Zappa's final goodbye to the original Mothers and although the previous album Burnt Weeny Sandwich was more jazz doo wop than the avant-garde  fusion jazz of most of Weasels although highlights include Sugarcane Harris' singing the Little Richard Directly From My Heart To You which sounds very heavy metal to Zappa's My Guitar Wants To Kill Your Mama which did appear as a single.  Perhaps the best was Ray Collins' Oh No, which may have been the best two minute argument against Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band or All You Need Is Love.  And then the title track is Zappa's answer to The Stooges LA Blues which ended a concert in Birmingham UK and you had to be there.

To which afterwards, Zappa got rid of all the original Mothers (except Ian Underwood) and added Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman from the Turtles to form a new Mothers which Zappa took his smutty overviews to further extreme but before that gave the world Hot Rats, which some say was Frank's best loved album. And the most jazziest although I have yet to hear it.  If you have the Rykodisc stuff of these albums, you probably don't need the new remasters and Crusin With Ruben And The Jets has that cold crappy remix of new bass and drums from the 1985 sessions.  Next month promises more Zappa stuff of the 70s and Overnite Sensation but that's down the road and whenever Best Buy decides to stock the damn CD.

And Best Buy didn't have the new Redd Kross CD either.  Hard to really give a shit about new albums when there's hardly any record stores left in town and Best Buy is more miss than hit.  I seriously doubt if they will have the Complete Columbia Recordings of Johnny Cash, which has a whopping 63 CDs at a retail price of 395 dollars at Amazon.com.  Of course, some out there will pay for it since they want it.  I'll stick with what I had.

Rush continues to mark their Cds down.  Their Atlantic albums can now be had at 5 dollars at Best Buy or Wally World if they have them in stock.  A big IF mind you.

And if we make it far down the line, ZZ Top and Bob Dylan's new albums will be in stores on 9/11/12.  The Vaccines on October 2.