FRANK ZAPPA / MOI 200 Motels. RARE UK UA 71 COMPLETE LP

	£		51
	$		68

Hi, I am Mike, now 51. Old enough to remember the golden era of original, high quality music, bands, artists.

Also records from the 1960s and 70s bought from the shops from new, I have been a music collector and enthusiast for over 37 years now. We all wish we could turn back the clock and buy those wonderful brand new records from the 60s and 70s, but alas, this is not possible; so I always try to offer the finest and most accurately described and graded records I can find. No vinyl/music lover really would choose to buy second-hand, but this is only way now to own these valuable, prized and elusive items now. I pride myself on offering a variety of genres to keep my site as interesting as possible. I will rarely offer any record that falls below a true Excellent grading, unless its of a certain rarity which will justify offering a lesser grade. I try, to the best of my ability to describe as accurately and as honesty as I can all items I offer for sale with all the relevant information I can think of to help any potential bidder and collector. You may notice I only submit records sparingly on Ebay - on average ONEADAY, a couple more at weekends if time permits, hence the name - time rarely allows for more as I Play-Grade virtually every record I offer in their entirety, not just bits to guess a grade - visuals alone do not always tell a true or full story. I will mention any defects or flaws no matter how small that I notice to be fair as possible to any interested reader – I am very fussy and my buyers have the right to be too. Every record I offer, whether it be a common or rare item deserves the same respect as far as I am concerned and will be treated the same - just because an item is rare does not always mean its good. I get just as much pleasure offering a relatively common record in stunning near mint condition as the real rare items. All the pictures I use for your guidance are taken with a digital camera or scanned - they are NOT improved, cleaned-up or made better looking than they are with camera trickery or enhancing with digital programmes. What you see is what you get and scanned labels will give a more accurate representation of the genuine colour than flash photography where light is variable. I cannot guarantee one hundred percent is exact colour matching for covers - this depends on the lighting at the time and that is out of my control, but I feel sure most items will be very close to the actual real item. If any picture I take looks more flattering than the actual item for any reason, I will clearly state the fact in the advert and vice-versa. I hope the item below is to your liking - any questions can be emailed and I will do my very best to answer you. I am enthusiastic, and have a fair degree of knowledge about many genres and I promise quality items - bid with confidence - excellence comes as standard and so does Near Mint regularly. Please assume all records I offer have NO jumps, sticks, warps or writing on covers or labels unless clearly stated to the contrary. Thanks for your interest and Good luck – MIKE.

Deck: Linn LP12 with Ittok Mk IV arm and Ortofon Samba Moving Coil cartridge (tracks at 1.8 grams). Amps: Naim Nait 5i with Project USB phono stage and Chord interconnects. Speakers: B&W 704 Floorstanding 3-way Monitors (bi-wired). All records I offer on Ebay are cleaned on a professional Moth vacuum machine before play-grading for the cleanest and best possible sound and will include a brand new lined inner and protective cover too.

First-time, zero-rated bidders, who do not ask permission to bid, will be cancelled immediately and blocked – NO exceptions. For winning bidders who I consider excessively slow to make contact or submit payment, I will use my right to block future bids. If any bidder who wins in the final seconds is present to do so, surely they can at least email me to inform of intention and payment method? If swift or promp payment is a problem, please do not bid.

POSTING & PACKING: What You Get: I post all my UK items on FRIDAY every week, most will arrive Saturday to make signed-for delivery easier. All records are posted in professional boxes (NOT mailers) with the record(s) REMOVED from their main cover to avoid edge splits and placed within a brand new polylined inner. The record’s original inner will be included if available. The boxes are then reinforced with TWO massively thick stiffners for even extra protection and bubble wrap if deemed necessary. These stiffners are the thickest possible and custom supplied for ‘Oneadayrecords’ – these are NOT commercially available and you will not have seen thicker protection anywhere. The cover will be placed within a BRAND NEW heavy duty soft protective sleeve and the actual record will be professionally cleaned on my Moth Pro vacuum system to give ultimate clean grooves and playing surfaces and the best possible looks and ultimate sound quality. Printed address labels are used as well as ‘Fragile’ tape for that extra professional touch for the packet. You will NOT get tired, dull looking, dust infested records inside worn and foggy covers with tatty inners from this seller and that’s a promise and guarantee. Customers requests or special needs for P&P will be respected if at all possible but NOT surface mail abroad. I never make profit on posting and offer probably the cheapest and safest shipping possible. I will invoice any winning bidder as soon as possible after the auction ends, with the total costs including ‘standard’ or ‘optional extra insurance’ P&P – ALL UK and Russian packets go out non-negotiable Recorded Delivery. My ‘loss’ or ‘damage rate’ is less than 0.1 per percent based on over 3,500+ items sold in over 5 years of Ebay trading (I am now one of most established sellers via Ebay) and I consider that pretty exceptional.

PLEASE NOTE: I will now only send packets to Russia with Recorded Delivery at a cost of £7 per single LP. If this is unacceptable to Russian collectors, please do not bid. I only want my records to arrive safely and this gives packets a better chance to do so. Also ALL UK packets will be sent with either Recorded or Special Delivery as standard (both have to be signed for). All shipping costs and rules can be found after my description. If they are not acceptable, please do not bid.

Artist or Band: THE MOTHERS OF INVENTION

Album Title: Frank Zappa’s 200 Motels

Producer(s): Frank Zappa.

TRACK LIST:

Side 1: Semi-Fraudulent/Direct from Hollywood Overture; Mystery Roach; Dance of the Rock and Roll Interviewers; This Town is a Sealed Tuna Sandwich (prologue); Tuna Fish Promenade; Dance of the Just Plain Folks; This Town is a Sealed Tuna Sandwich (reprise); The Sealed Tuna Bolereo; Lonesome Cowboy Burt.

Side 2: Touring Can Make You Crazy; Would You Like a Snack?; Redneck Eats; Centerville; She Painted Up Her Face; Janet’s Big Dance Number; Half a Dozen Provocative Squats; Mysterioso; Shove It Right In; Lucy’s Seduction of a Bored Violinist and Postlude.

Side 3: I’m Stealing the Towels; Dental Hygiene Dilemma; Does This Kind of Life Look Interesting to You?; Daddy, Daddy Daddy; Penis Dimenion; What Will This Evening Bring Me This Morning.

Side 4: A Nun Suit Painted on Some Old Boxes; Magic Fingers; Motorhead’s Mighnight Ranch; Dew on the Newts We Got; The Lad Searches the Night for his Newts; The Girl Wants to Fix Him Some Broth; The Girls Dream; Little Green Scratchy Sweaters and Courduroy Ponce; Strictly Genteel (the finale).

Label/Format: United Artists – original cream and brown format. This is only album Zappa ever issued on this label. (Please see my label scan, all are practically the same).

Label Conditions: All four are in supreme condition, very clean and attractive with each only showing the odd ultra light and faint spindle trace and no wear around the hole area. This superb original UK double set looks little played.

Cat Number: UDF 50003.

Mode / Speed: Stereo / 33.3 rpm.

Warps: Assume all records I offer have no warping of any significance and all tracking is easy and effortless and should play on all turntables and even ‘budget’ decks.

Weight of these Records: 111 / 129 grams. [These days, many modern Audiophile reissues are pressed on super-heavyweight 180 gram vinyl. Only a small percentage of ‘vintage vinyl’ was ever pressed this heavy. Records pressed in the 1960s averaged around 140 to 150 grams. Records pressed in the 1970s were usually lighter and averaged more around 115 – 125 grams. Some records pressed around 1973 were very thin and light due an oil crisis and shortage around this time. Some records were even issued on recycled vinyl from this period and sounded poor with crackle and surface noise evident from the very first play. If any record I buy is deemed ‘recycled’, I will never offer it, I have a very simple test to detect these records if I suspect this to be the case other than audible imperfection. Some records from this period were even pressed on other materials the most notable was ‘Dynaflex’, used by RCA around this time. Although inferior to vinyl, this at least mostly sounded reasonably acceptable but pressings on this material were wafer thin and flimsy. Beyond the 70s, records often became thinner and lighter still but most played fine but were never quite the quality as from the ‘Golden Era’]. (This was based on ‘average’ weights for 20 records from these eras. Later pressings were usually lighter still).

Country of Manufacture: England. Many offered copies are French pressed and did not include the original inserts and invariably are inferior pressings.

Rarity: Original first pressed UK copies that include the book and giant poster are now quite rare and seldom offered complete especially with the magnficent poster still looking in fine condition. Although this one has been mounted, any damage is small and fairly minor. Available briefly on CD but now deleted again and even this is hard to find. The title itself on vinyl is elusive and many offered are French pressings.

Original Year of Release: 1971

Matrix Nos: UDF-5001-A1 / UDF-5001-B1 / UDF-5002-A1 / UDF-5002-B1.

Brief Artist & Album Info: “Ladies and Gentlemen” 200 MOTELS! One of Zappa’s most beautifully packaged albums, a double set including the super full size book with stills from the film and the giant movie poster, one of the most elusive inserts from his vinyl catalogue. Rarely seen often these days, finding the two major inserts complete with two little played records will be a major bonus to any FZ fan needing this album. Often not one of the very best pressed albums in Frank’s huge catalogue, this is generally a fine playing copy with just a couple of minor blemishes. A minor pressing mark on the first song on side two has minimal effect on sound and this is a quiet orchestral part but little unwanted is heard. The finale has two or three tiny marks and a few clicks were very briefly noted. But this is a very quiet pressing and one of the very best I have heard, most all plays superbly. I have never heard a copy of this album that will play dead silent through its entirity but this plays with consistently fine sound and will prove very difficult to find significantly better. ‘200 Motels’ is a unique and very interesting Zappa project - United Artists offered him a budget of $630,000 to make his first feature film proper. He decided to make in England and employ the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra - some 100 musicians at £1,000 a day. This gave him a chance to actually hear his own orchestral compositions while writing on tour. The film is a very surreal experience of being on tour, the movie, predictably, was not well received generally being far too avant garde and inpenetrable for most people’s tastes. Typically for early 70s Zappa this was very bawdy and the resulting tour of the UK at this time resulted in prosecution, a case which Zappa lost. Now back in print on DVD,, I still regard this as one of Frank’s most underrated albums. As the cover states, some of the music on the record is not in the movie and some of the music in the movie is not on the record.

The music and songs work beautifully on album. Zappa’s music has always been about the collision of social attitudes and genres and the action here is centred around ‘Centreville’ that’s almost portrayed as a concentration camp. The physical presence in Pinewood Studios of a symphony orchestra and genuine ‘pop stars’ (Volman and Kaylan, along with Ringo Starr as ‘Larry the Dwarf’, Keith Moon as a nun and trainee groupie, and drummer Aynsley Dunbar) allowed him to make the collision palpable. On the record, these forces are manifested in magnificent sequences between string-orchestra sensitivity and hard-rock fury. ‘Magic Fingers’ showed that Zappa had been listening to heavy acts like Grand Funk and Black Sabbath; the fact that his scores were finally being interpreted by a proper orchestra seemed to push him to the opposite extreme in his song-writing. The descending riff and his own live-on-screen guitar solo detonated new depths of heaviness. An orchestral version of ‘Holiday in Berlin’ from Burnt Weeny Sandwich provides the ‘Semi-Fraudulent/Direct from Hollywood Overture’. The original introduction - Ringo’s speech about how the rock revolution has putrified the minds of the young and meant retraining orchestral musicians for the modern world - is reduced to compere Theodore Bikel telling us that Larry the Dwarf is dressed up like Frank Zappa (in the film, Ringo was dangled on the end of a wire like a puppet. ‘Mystery Roach’ detailed drug/road fatigue (What are we singing about?...We must be flipping out...)’. Jimmy Carl Black, now sadly lost to us, plays the part of Lonesome Cowboy Burt - the hippie-hating redneck - with particular glee, the irony being that he was a Cherokee Indian. The next few tracks describe how band and groupies meet each other. In the film, ‘Lucy’s Seduction of a Bored Violinist’ used video technology to project Lucy Oferall’s erotic gesticulations over the obedient arm-movements of an RPO violinist. In this sature, no-one was left off the hook. ‘I’m stealing the towels’ and ‘Dental Hygiene Dilemma’ were the soundtrack to Cal Schenkel’s animations, emphasising the affinity Zappa’s’ music has for cartoons, with its swiftness, violence and humour. ‘Daddy’ was as tender a song as Zappa ever wrote, describing the allure of a confident groupie for sex-starved musicians. ‘Penis Dimensions’ mocked male anxieties over the size of their manhood and ‘What will this evening bring me this morning’ brought out the poignant contingency of sexual encounter. All this music is tightly organized, with Flo and Eddie’s vocals soaring over complex orchestrations. Devoid of the in-jokes and absurdism and chaos, this could have been hailed as a rock opera. At the movie’s end in a close-up of Zappa’s eyeball, Howard Kaylan says ‘he is the guy that is making me do all this s**t - it did not impress the film critics but followers of Zappa’s work generally loved it. It took rock music, satire and orchestration to new levels of intenseness, paving the way for future ideas in this great man’s career. What is for certain, there has been no other movie or album quite like ‘200 Motels’ and is dedicated to anyone who ever played for the Mothers.

The Mothers on this Album: Frank Zappa - Guitar, bass; Mark Volman & Howard Kaylan - vocals and special material; Ian Underwood - keybaords, winds; Aynsley Dunbar - drums; George Duke - keybaords, trombone; Marktin Lickert - bass; Jimmy Carl Black - vocals; Ruth Underwood - orchestra drum set; Jim Pons - vocals. Guest appearances in the movie include: Ringo Starr, Theodore Bikel, Keith Moon, Jeff Simmons, Pamela Miller (from the GTO’s), Don Preston, Motorhead Sherwood, Phyllis Bryn-Julson is the soprano soloist. The movie still gets an 18 rating and is currently out of print.

Cover Condition and Details: EX+, an unlaminated gatefold, printed and made in England by E. J. Day Group London. Comes with 16-page book and giant poster. A really nice cover in fine condition and one of the best ones I have seen for some time. This is often seen rubbed and worn and particularly prone to ringwear with the two records inside. The main faces on this one are really attractive and for a change it has hardly any edge rubbing. The original owner did remove the cover sticker, he thought it spoilt the front’s appearance – fair comment possibly.

Cover Front: Very colourful and highly attractive with superb artwork – a sinister looking Zappa overlooks the mayhem. This is very clean and fresh with hardly any wear at all and there is no evidence or traces of any sticker removals. Devoid of rubbing, ring marks and creasing, apart from the odd corner blemish, this front will take a lot of beating.

Cover Back: The purple ink rarely escapes rubbing and ringwear and is rife on most, again this has avoided it and is really exceptional. A few small corner area surface creases show little and this is possibly the best back I have ever had.

Cover Gatefold Inner: The odd minor small mark or trace of set-off but looking real nice. A very small and light stain is just evident on the right top edge but look hard to see it.

Top Edges: Barely any rubbing at all and rarely can I ever state that about this cover.

Bottom Edges: Very light rub traces only – incredibly hard to find with so little.

Right Edge(s), and Type: Clean, quite sharp with little wear and no feathering. Records entered on these right outside edges.

Spine and Text: Solid and thick, straight with minimal compression and square, both right edges meet up perfectly together. A light central crease has just formed from opening but barely any wear to the delicate purple ink and all text is present and unworn.

Corners: Small tip rubs and a little creasing on the bottom ‘resting’ corners, all retain fine shape.

Cover Summary: A strong all round example of this very fragile 70’s cover, one that will prove difficult to find much better. This still very attractive item should please many, if not most collectors.

Book Condition: Strong EX+. A very fine example, neat and clean and still stapled together strongly. This has 16 pages, a mix of colour and black and white pictures from the movie. No creasing and all pages have sharp edges. All the inner pages intact and undamaged or soiled, the matt finished paper on the outer covers show light handling traces but few will ever avoid minor finger marks.

Poster Conservatively graded EX because it has been mounted with a few pin holes on the corners and tiny bottom cornertip tears. Very big and spectacular (please see picture), clean and attractive and retaining rich colour – yes it’s been mounted but it has not faded. This triple folded giant poster is always the most elusive part of this set, so many were wall mounted and then ripped down, badly damaged or discarded altogether. The foldlines are solid and unstressed with no splits, this colourful and rare poster looks fantastic. Complete copies of this album with book and poster are unusual.

Vinyl Condition/Visual Grading: EX to EX++, clean and shiny and quite solidly pressed, most of the few marks present are ultra fine and faint surface traces that have no sound. A light pressing dull is only really evident on side two’s beginning when rotating on the deck, as stated above, it has minimal effect on sound, anything being brief, very light and minor. The album’s final song has two or three tiny marks (and I do mean TINY), two or three clicks were noted from each and these are the only really noteworthy blemishes on the entire album which is always a difficult one anyway. I feel certain most discerning Zappa collectors will enjoy this pair, a pristine perfect copy may arrive one day, but I will not hold my breath. These records included two lined inners which are both in superb condition.

Album Played For Grading: Yes. [I play ALL records I offer before submitting to Ebay, also the record is played in its entirety unless clearly stated otherwise. I do NOT play snippetts or joining grooves to check for sound quality and quietness – I play from the beginning to end via clinically revealing B&W speakers that include the legendary tweeter from their awesome Nautilus range that reveals every blemish or miniscule sound present on any record.]

Sound Quality and Audio Grading: This double set is always a tough one with so many quiet passages with dialogue and some delicate orchestral passages. This one must be one the best I’ve heard for some time playing consistently well and quiet for practically all. UA were not always the quietest of pressings but this one does this complex album near full justice, the brief clicks mentioned above on side fours final song being the only noteworthy sound blemishes. The sound quality is high, and the UK original pressings will always better the later French versions that seem to be far more abundant. Any orchestral music needs to be pressed supremely well to give anything like perfect repro, UA did not specialise in this type of music but that said this copy will be very difficult to find much better. A copy hardly played on all the evidence and my play-grade was very enjoyable again with more details from this demanding recording. No distortion and sound degrading this album should please most and with the super packaging too, this remains one of the most essential albums in the huge Zappa catalogue.

End Piece: I have probably gone OTT with my detail on this one, but a complex work like this needs some explanation for those less than familiar. As stated not an easy one to find now especially complete and this is a strong copy. If you have not experienced this album (or movie) your are in for some unique sounds from the mind of one of the greatest entertainers ever.

NOTE: First Time Bidders: I will cancel ALL first-time bidders with no feedbacks or excessive negatives who do not ask me if its OK to bid first – NO EXCEPTIONS.

Please Note: I will now offer any item to the runner-up after the mandatory Ebay 3 days if no contact is made by the winning bidder unless prior notice of any delay is given beforehand. The same applies if no payment is received within the mandatory 7 days so any bidder who has just lost out can still email me to reserve the item as priority second chance – it’s always worth asking.

SHIPPING COSTS & OPTIONS:

Posting & Packing: UK & CHANNEL ISLANDS all now sent Recorded Delivery:

1 LP (First Class Recorded Delivery with Standard Royal Mail Insurance) [Signed For] = £4 (OPTIONAL).

1 LP (Special Delivery with Standard £500 Maximum Insurance) [Signed For, Next Day] = £7 (OPTIONAL).

Posting & Packing: EUROPE & SCANDINAVIA (NOT RUSSIA, see below) (Airmail Only):

1 LP (Small Packet Standard with Standard Royal Mail Insurance) = £5.

1 LP (Small Packet ‘Signed For’ with included Insurance to Item’s ‘Sold’ Value, £500* Maximum) = £9 (OPTIONAL).

Posting & Packing: RUSSIA (Recorded Only, if this is unacceptable, please do not bid):

1 LP (Small Packet ‘Signed For’ only £7) = £9 (OPTIONAL extra insurance as above).

Posting & Packing: OVERSEAS (non-European) e.g. US; Australia; Far East; (Airmail Only: I NEVER use Surface Mail):

1 LP (Small Packet Standard with Standard Royal Mail Insurance) = £8.

1 LP (Small Packet ‘Signed For’ with included Insurance to Item’s ‘Sold’ Value, £500* Maximum) = £13 (OPTIONAL).

* If Rules allow for that country.

PLEASE NOTE: I always get a Royal Mail ‘Proof-of-Posting’ receipt for ALL packets that are sent out and I am happy to prove this to any customer who wishes to see it via email.

Payment Conditions:

I prefer PayPal or cheque from UK winning bidders. I can accept PayPal from overseas bidders.

The customer can choose their method of shipping with the exception of second class or surface mail overseas – these I will NOT use. The winner bidder chooses his/her posting method and if uninsured is chosen, its their decision and they have to stick with it, I can accept no responsibility if an item is lost in the post. I can only try to claim at standard levels if no enhancement is chosen (£35).

Potential Bidders: Please do not bid if you have negative feedback unless checking first, I will cancel any bids I feel are timewasters. A maximum 3 days for communication and 7 days for payment to arrive - if not I will relist the item or offer to the runner-up. Fast deals get great feedback from me. Any questions - please ask and thanks for looking.

My Guarantee: If any winning bidder is not satisfied with their purchase I will offer a complete refund minus the Posting and All Ebay costs as long as the item detail has been read and understood. I will not refund if any defect detail is clearly stated on the advert and missed by the buyer. If any overseas collector does not understand anything in my listing, please email and ask me to help.

SOME GENERAL GUIDES TO WEAR AND CONDITIONS TO HELP YOU DECIDE

My Use of Description Terminology: Surface Marks = Superficial, usually light marks, hairlines or light scuffs that rarely sound. Scratch = a needle mark that goes below the record’s surface, some will sound, some will not, my play-grade will inform. Original = a record that has been pressed with the first label design which does NOT neccessarily mean a very first pressed record. First Pressing = A record that I believe or know to be a genuine very first pressed record. I do not claim to always know for sure, and that’s why I state the stamper and matrix numbers if at all possible, for those who claim to know what they all mean, the information is there for the collector to decide. I prefer to use terms like ‘Early Copy’ rather than ‘First Pressing’ if I am not totally sure. Surface Sound = Mild, light sound, usually light crackle or similar. Distortion = Break up of the actual sound caused by groove wear or damage from a chipped stylus – the most undesirable form of unwanted sound, vintage mono records were the most prone to this happening but not exclusively so. The symptoms of distortion are high frequency clipping, moderate constant crackle or an echo type sound quality. Violin, piano and vocals are most prone to groove-wear distortion. Feathering = Fraying or softening of the entry edge of a cover. Covers with feathered entrance edges are more likely to have had the actual record inserted and removed more than a non-feathered, sharp-edged cover which are always far more attractive. Set Off, actually a printer’s term for dark ink leaving mild residue on pale or white ink when rested upon. e.g. when a gatefold cover has black ink closed against white, this can leave some black residue on the pale area – this is mostly unavoidable or course.

The Argument for Vinyl Original sound and mix (mono mixes are rarely available on CD), high quality sound on clean copies (played on a hi-end dedicated analogue system – breathtaking sound!), beautiful, large format covers, artwork, inserts and even full size posters etc; huge investment potential, and the pleasure of owning ‘the real thing’.