I think I’ve mentioned this before… considering how much time I’ve spent listening to Frank Zappa’s music over the past twenty years, I’ve barely played any of it, given the vast quantity available. I put it down to a mixture of its complexity and my own perfectionist streak. You just don’t really “jam” or “busk” Frank’s music… if you play it wrong, it’ll sound *very* wrong.
However, I’m gradually chipping away. At last year’s annual UKMG social weekend, a few of us performed a version of “Peaches en Regalia”. The original features a very dense, multi-textured instrumentation, so I constructed an arrangement with the intention of fitting as many details as possible into three guitar parts (backed by bass and drums). A couple of people urged me to do a recording, so here it is…
Back in the home studio, with the infinite protection of the ctrl-z safety net, there’s no need to be quite so strict with the three-guitars rule, but I only took a few liberties with the arrangement.