Join the march and eat my starch!

Even before Frank Zappa's death in 1993...

...it was obvious that there was a huge amount of unreleased material in what was termed "The Vault" at the UMRK. The guy recorded every gig and kept copies of all recording sessions. 

Since his demise a lot of this material has been released - sometimes in short squirts and sometimes in great floods. To date, there have been 62 "official" albums issued before his death and a further 62 released posthumously, with album #125 - Zappa '80: Mudd Club/Munich - set for a March release.

Given the sheer number of releases, it's not surprising that some of them have passed under the radar and, whilst some are of limited interest, others are, if not an indispensable part of the Zappa canon, certainly deserving of a wider audience.

So, from July 2016, here's Zappa album #104 - The Crux of the Biscuit. 

This was originally intended as a celebration of the Apostrophe album released forty years (forty-two years, in fact, after some delay) previously. Whether this was his best-selling album depends on what you read, but it was certainly one of the most successful in terms of sales.

It's described as a "Project/Object Audio Documentary" - the fourth such themed album after MOFO, Lumpy Money and Greasy Love Songs - and the idea behind this was to expand on previously released albums, with extra material that gave an insight into their creation and evolution.

Crux is a single disc with the first four tracks, in different earlier mixes, presented as an early sequence for the first side of the final Apostrophe release, although this plan wasn't followed. However, it's the remaining tracks which are the most rewarding.

The eventual title track appears in various forms, with Jack Bruce guesting on farty bass, but the real treasure is a live performance of "Don't Eat the Yellow Snow/St. Alphonzo's Pancake Breakfast" from 1973, Sydney, Australia. This is quite different from the cut and paste job which eventually appeared on the album and contains the "Mar-juh-rene" monologue. It's probably my favourite live version. 

 

There are one or two session snippets from the "Yellow Snow Suite" which never made the cut, and a basic track take of "Cosmik Debris", without vocals. There's also a five minute interview with Frank explaining the origins of the "Yellow Snow Suite" which is interesting. Strangely, however, there's no alternative version of "Stinkfoot".

So, warts 'n' all, that's Zappa album #104 - best enjoyed side by side with the finished Apostrophe release. 

So, get ready to eat that question!