Well, they pressed 5,000 sets to begin with, and they went immediately like that [snaps fingers]. So, they ordered another 7,000. It's kind of an unusual item since it is fairly expensive, it's in a box, It's hard to rack, and you wouldn't think there'd be much demand for it because it is instrumental music by some guy who is not normally recognized as being a musician. People think of me as some kind of deranged comedian. So, CBS was kind of surprised that there were that many orders coming in.
Reissued as a box set of three CDs by Rykodisc in the late 1990s, in a miniature version of the same packaging that the box set of LPs originally came in, the albums demonstrate just how versatile an electric guitar could be, in the hands of a man who was both a master player and brilliant composer, and was willing to play both roles simultaneously in concert. In 1984, Zappa told one interviewer:
I'm a composer, and my instrument is the guitar. If you like the composition, fine. My technique as a guitar player is fair. There are plenty of people who play faster than I do, never hit a wrong note, and have a lovely sound. If you want to rate guitar players, go for them. But there isn't anybody else who'll take the chances that I will take with a composition onstage in front of an audience, and just go out there and have the nerve, the ultimate audacity to say, 'Okay, I don't know what I'm going to play, and you don't know what I'm going to play, and that makes us equal. So let's go-we'll have an adventure here.' That's what I do.
Always On The Verge of Feedback
On the Shut Up 'N Play Your Guitar CDs, Zappa's tone is surprisingly varied, but on many songs it focuses on a thick, beefy, heavily distorted sound that's always on the verge of feedback. To achieve this sound, Zappa used a variety of amps, into which he plugged in every rocker's favorite guitars, the Gibson Les Paul and the Fender Stratocaster, but each axe was heavily modified to Zappa's very demanding--and very idiosyncratic--specifications. The Les Paul (which Zappa is shown holding on the cover of the Shut Up box set) in particular featured:
an onboard preamp/EQ system that was eventually installed in nearly every guitar Frank played. "They were identical parametric filter circuits," explains ["Midget" Sloatman, Zappa's chief guitar technician in the early 1980s]. "One of the filters was set for the bass frequencies from about 5oHz to 2kHz, and the other one was set for the top end, from about 500Hz up to 20kHz." The filters had a variable resonant frequency ("q") independent from the EQ gain. "You could find a tone and get right on top of it, tweak it. and nail it," says Sloatman. The Q ranged from .7 to 10, or a very wide dynamic range to a very narrow one, and was adjustable via a 1/4" screwdriver notch on the face of the guitar. This allowed Frank to control his feedback characteristics in any hall. He could basically tune his guitar to the room, find out how the room responded to the amplifier, and dial it up so he could have maximum control of the feedback. That was the whole point behind the equalizers. But Frank also played a lot with his left hand, and in order to hear the nuances-the string presence-he'd have to bring the treble up, which is another thing he liked about the filters. He could pick high frequencies anywhere from 4k to 8k and bring out the nuances of the strings, so you could hear what his fingers were doing, even if he wasn't picking every note."
Article comments
1 - Brian Linse
Nice piece of work, Ed! Great music that desrves to be highlighted.
2 - Eric Olsen
Hi Brian! Yes, Ed, another excellent one, thanks.
3 - Bill Sherman
This prompted me to bring the Rykodisc set into work this a.m. (currently playing in the background, "Treacherous Cretins"). A great piece - even if I am too sonically pig-ignorant to make heads or tails of talk about "parametric filter circuits."
4 - Ed Driscoll
Bill,
Sorry if I got too technical--I think I was hoping that readers would at least get some sense that Zappa wasn't just a "plug it in and turn it up to 11" kind of player. As I understand it, a big part of his use of EQ was to "tune" the guitar's sound to the acoustics of the room he was playing in, so that he could be right on the verge of feedback, without having a sound that's so distorted, it would be mud.
Ed
5 - Bill Sherman
No need to apologize for my denseness. Your piece accomplished what it set out to do: get me reconsidering and playing Zappa’s music. And as you note, it also established that the man was no dolt (something fans of the later “dirty panty” songs don’t always recognize) when it came to his sound.
6 - Mark Saleski
for more information it's worth checking out The Real Frank Zappa book. the guy was obviously pretty smart. very funny too.
i loved his ideas about music.
7 - jason cook
i just got into zappa 3-4 months ago,i like stuff from iron maiden too wishbone ash-pentangle-king crimson-ufo etc.my friend mike had two or three zappa albums and i "liked them" he moved out(would rather get fucked up?)so i bought freak out!after that my friend jason moved in.he had overnite sensation/(')/jab-from l.a. and an awsome album called sleep dirt(wow!!!)i'm 10 albums short of all of his 60's-70's lp's!!!my favorites (right now) are hot rats-waka/jawaka-the grand wazoo-one size fits all and sleep dirt.my favorite song(forever)is black napkins(makes me want to cry and cringe.i just sent away for the shut up 'n playyer guitar series!!!and the albums i'm missing(i love tax time!!!)i can't describe my love for zappa and his music other than he's swell!! thanks for reading this.feedback is goog!bye
8 - John Hoaas
The Shut Up discs are about the only Zappa I can listen to. Most of his lyrics remind me of the fake advertisement tapes me and a friend used to make in junior high. Fake ads for jock itch medicine and zit cream. That kind of stuff. His lyrics just remind me too much of junior high bathroom humor. The kind of jokes guys at that age tell because their embarassed when they get a hard on in class, or they just start to notice that their getting B.O. or the girl down the street started wearing a training bra. Anyway, that's what his lyrics remind me of. But I absolutely love his guitar playing. I wish there were more in the Shut up series. I also love Inca Roads from You can't play that on stage any more. I love his long guitar solo work. It transports me.
9 - mayia
eiiii:D
great music:D