Halloween

Halloween

OK. first, kudos to the Zappa Family for getting this thing out on time, unlike FZ:OZ 2002. The song selection is great except for the fact that I would've either removed the "Yellow Snow" excerpt or put the whole thing in. Now what's the deal with this sound??? I hear more audience noise than anything else in this recording on both mixes, stereo and surround. Vinnie's drums sound great, as does Frank's guitar in most places, but where are the keyboards, percussion and clarity in the vocals? We know that these tapes have great audio on them, listen to "Little Rubber Girl" on YCDTOSA Vol.4, and both "Thirteen" and "Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance" from YCDTOSA Vol.6, as well as the original single mix of "Ancient Armaments", all recordings from these same shows, and using the same source tapes. The music is UP FRONT. Joe Chicarelli, who recorded this stuff as well as engineered most of JOE'S GARAGE, turns in a disappointing mix. To be honest, bootleg recordings of these shows sound better. On the upside, the two videos are great(especially the SNL performance - I want more!) and the "Black Napkins/Deathless Horsie" solo is heart stopping in it's brilliance. Too bad Frank isn't around to mix this performance himself. Bring back Spence Chrislu - he has a feel for FZ's music. fter listening to this disc, I got the feeling that DTS may have given Dweezil and Joe Travers a warning to "Keep it simple or we won't put it out." For a surround sound release the content is rather tame. While it's nice to have some vocal numbers like magic fingers and Dancin Fool, Denny Walley just doesn't have the vocal power. Recent hire Ike willis is absent for these shows and is sorely missed. It would have been great to hear "Thirteen" or "Take your clothes off when you dance" from YCDTOSA #6 mixed in surround sound. The one moment of surround sound trickery is vinnie colaiuta's drum solo "zeets" which spins around from speaker to speaker. Zeets is the track which will make you new friends or send old ones running. The tour de force of this album is the final track "Black Napkins" which has some great moments of Improvisation between Frank and his friend L Shankar on violin.
The overall sound is stunning. Both the DVD Audio and DTS tracks have a teeth rattling but clean low end that you just can't get on a CD. There is virtually no tape hiss either. If you have a good surround system this is essential for your collection.