Saturday, December 20, 2003

Dental Hygiene Dilemma

This is what i bought yesterday:


And this is what i chose not to buy:


Even though it took me over an hour to choose.
Actually, i didn't even expect the Baby Snakes DVD to reach italian retailers. Imagine my surprise upon seeing it there. And imagine my despair upon discovering they *also* had that ensemble modern CD and that i could only take one. But the CD sounds great, the arrangement for trombone, violin and percussion of FZ's guitar solo on Revised Music For Low Budget Orchestra is enticingly lyrical, and the Civilization Phaze III tracks, which even i believed to be humanly impossible to perform, come out glimmering and without a scratch. The real treat, however, is the 20-minute-plus Adventures of Greggery Peccary, featuring Omar Ebrahim and David Moss(!) on voices. I'd only ever heard the piece in the version Zappa would perform with his Grand Wazoo orchestra in '72, where it was performed as a suite, the concluding section(New Brown Clouds) serving as concert-opener. The Greggery story is at the same time farce, social commentary, and nonsensical humor, but most of all it's very explicative of Zappa's fascinating idea of Time.
The only little flaw in the cd is the inclusion of Peaches En Regalia, which just feels out of place among these pieces. Don't get me wrong, it's one of my favourite tunes ever, but this orchestral version just doesn't click it in for me.
Lucky we also get a bonus track! Dental Hygiene Dilemma from 200 Motels! Looking forward to an EM reinterpretation of that masterwork!