What's going on with the Zappa catalog?

I know that there is some sort of dispute between Gale Zappa and Ryko. I don't know the details. But I do know that Barnes and Noble and FYE can no longer special order Zappa titles. Both staff workers stated that whatever is left over in the back room will be placed on the sales floor. Short of that, there is nothing to talk about. No one seems to know if his catalog is being recalled due to a law suit. My question is......Is Gale remastering his entire catalog with bonus material from each session? Amazon has copies available and a few independent vendors are selling his releases for $7.99 A piece. Why are they trying to get rid of his stuff at such a cheap price? As if to say that the titles will be out of print soon. If his catalog is completely pulled, we might have to wait a few years for remasters. Anyone here have an idea as to what is going on with this? 

Strangely, Zappa CDs seem to be rather easy to find in France (thanks to Harmonia Mundi or Orkhestra?)

so Warner technically owns the Zappa albums? what irony!!!

what i want to know is, why dont they just release the Roxy DVD/CD already??? forget about reissuing the catalog, it's probably going to be botched anyway. and if there's bonus tracks, ill be annoyed, because i dont want to re-buy albums for (most likely) live tracks, or studio jams. that album that came out a couple of years ago, One Shot Deal,was basically a mix of unreleased studio stuff, and live songs. i thought it was a neat addition to the catalog, but they should get the Roxy set out before they do anything else.

i thought one of the reasons Zappa Plays Zappa was formed, was so enough money could be raised to release it. I just dont understand!

jammun wrote: According to the ever-accurate Wikipedia, Warners acquired Ryko in 2006.  This included reissue rights, which surely has FZ spinning in his grave.  The distribution rights were sold by Warner in 2009.  So there may be some dispute, but it would not be witth Ryko.  It would be between Warners and/or ADA (distributor) and probably the Zappy Family Trust.  In any case if they few remaining music outlets on the planet are dumping the Ryko discs, it is probably in anticipation of new releases of the catalog...I know, I'm being optimistic.  Maybe they are going to sell the whole works to iTunes.  Stranger things have happened.

Did you know drawings of Zappa's moustache are copywritten?

himtroy wrote: Whatever,  I really don't care about getting yet another series of remasters.  Everything is loud enough already.  Not to mention that Zappa was such a dominant producer/worked with the best so that the originals still top everything else.  Case in point Hot Rat's vinyl rip dominates all other mixes. And I agree that Gale has been mostly a negative factor.  Give me the damn Roxy video's.  They finally released a teaser from it, but it's just from the same shows, not anything that is on the album.  I NEED Village of the Sun>end of album in video format.

there's a couple of random tracks from the roxy shows spread out throughout his YCDTOSA series, like Big Swifty, Montana, I'm The Slime, and maybe one or 2 more i cant remember, but it's just not enough. i want to hear and see every song that lineup played!!!!


Edited by darkshade - October 26 2010 at 21:05

Triceratopsoil wrote: Did you know drawings of Zappa's moustache are copywritten?

Copyrighted.