Preliminary thoughts on Mini-Mofo

[Milhouse G]

"It Can't Happen Here" is definitely NOT the Mothermania version. It
has additional things mixed in and does not repeat at the end.

"It Can't Happen Here" on the four-disc version *is* the Mothermania
version, however.

Haven't had a chance to listen to the whole thing, but those are the
things i've noticed so far. The stereo separation on the first disc
is quite extreme. I can kind of understand why Frank felt the need to
remix it.

Unlike a lot of other Zappa albums, I have not listened to "Freak Out"
hundreds and hundreds of times. Listening to Disc 1 for the first time
tonight, what I was hearing for the first time was a bunch of stuff on
various tracks that sounds like it's going back and forth from one
speaker to the other a lot. Vocals, mainly.
--
Milhouse Guidry of the mWo
Empty barrels make the most noise.

"If it takes you more than two, *MAYBE* three posts
to say what you think needs to be said,
you don't know what you're talking about and should shut up."
--The Bede

mWo. It's not just the coolest, it's fa lyfe, so survey says
whether you like it or don't like it, never E-e-e-ver tell
me he did *not* just SMELL what mWo 3:16 reeks of.

[Milhouse G]

"It Can't Happen Here" is the full version with the piano/percussion
section present, but, also, includes the word "psychedelic" and the
"since you first took the shots" line, like the Mothermania version.
The last line does not loop at the end the way the Mothermania version
does. Basically, it sounds like an uncensored edit of the original
Freak Out! version, although why it may have been censored remains a
mystery.

Note for anyone curious, this gets explained in the interview track,
"Dope Fiend Music" which appears on disc four of the Big MoFo. I
transcribed a lot of those interview cuts for Roman's site today, so I
can (thankfully) copy and paste this...
For instance, today the word "psychedelic" is a great teenage, uh,
commercial item. Uh, MGM was afraid of that word in this first album. I
had that word in an echo chamber, just said once in the middle of one of
the tracks. They said "We can't have that! It sounds too much like
/*dope fiend music*/." They chopped it out. There was another line at
the very end of, uh, one of the selections, where the voice says /"Suzy,
we've been very interested in your devlopment since you first took the
shots."/ And she says /"Forget it."/ They had to take out /"since you
first took the shots"/, because it sounded like /dope fiend music/, when
actually all we were talking about is a little paraffin injection.

Was that for breast augmentation, or what?

Gary confirmed it in his reply to this, and I would add that I always
suspected that's what FZ was referring to, and hearing the interview
track and Googling "paraffin injection" finally confirmed it for me.
--
Milhouse Guidry of the mWo
Empty barrels make the most noise.

"If it takes you more than two, *MAYBE* three posts
to say what you think needs to be said,
you don't know what you're talking about and should shut up."
--The Bede

mWo. It's not just the coolest, it's fa lyfe, so survey says
whether you like it or don't like it, never E-e-e-ver tell
me he did *not* just SMELL what mWo 3:16 reeks of.