Warner Brothers vs. La:ther

[Charles Ulrich]

On KROQ (12/77), FZ stated that "in several instances, Warner Brothers
interfered with those negotiations" to release Läther through EMI or
Mercury/Phonogram, but gave no specifics of how WB interfered with the
EMI deal.

Zomby Woof's article in Mother People #26 (quoted by Biffy at
<http://members.shaw.ca/francescoz/biffyshrew/press.html>) says:

> The first place Zappa went to look for a new deal was EMI/Capitol
> Records (now his new distributor, check out Them Or Us!), a supposed
> competitor of Warner Bros. Capitol agreed to sign Zappa but the day
> they were to close the deal Capitol backed out. It turned out that
> Capitol and Warner Bros. had the same law firm, Gang[, T]yre & Brown.
> Capitol also pressed all the records for Warner Bros. Pressure was
> placed by Warners, through the law firm, to Capitol not to sign
> Zappa.

Where do these details come from? Did FZ talk about them in some
interview?

(He mentions GTB in the audience participation portion of Baby Snakes,
but only in the context of Warner Brothers, not EMI/Capitol.)

--Charles

[Charles Ulrich]

The article in Mother People #26 also states

> According to one source, the unreleased DiscReet title DSK 2293 would
> have been a documentary recording about Robert Kennedy, not a Zappa
> album.

What was this one source?

Warner Brothers had already refused the RFK album once, when FZ wanted
to release it on Bizarre in 1969.

--Charles

[derek from the internet]

This is a pretty old message, so maybe you already have this sorted out.
But I think Mother People may have been conflating two things (the
earlier rejection of the RFK album with Warner Bros conflict in the
L[e]ather era], or just mistaken. There are other catalog numbers
"missing"(-slash- unused) in the DiscReet discography. I don't KNOW if
there is any particular significance in 2293 missing from the sequence
of pseudo-legal Zappa releases on the label, but I suspect not.

--derek.

[Biffy the Elephant Shrew]

On Tuesday, November 17, 2015 at 7:47:21 AM UTC-8, derek from the internet wrote:
> I don't KNOW if
> there is any particular significance in 2293 missing from the sequence
> of pseudo-legal Zappa releases on the label, but I suspect not.

Hi Milhouse!

The Discreet catalog numbers are simply part of the Reprise sequence. Reprise #2293 is The Essential Jimi Hendrix Volume Two.

Your pal,
Biffy the Elephant Shrew

[derek from the internet]

Well, that makes way more sense than "Warner Bros. assigned a catalog
number to a rejected Robert Kennedy conspiracy album in 1979."

And hi, Biffy!

--derek.
(who is still open to old nicknames because he never stopped using them.)