Sleep Dirt

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Sleep Dirt
Studio album by Frank Zappa
Released	January 19, 1979
Recorded	December 1974 & 1976
Genre	Jazz fusion, experimental rock, instrumental rock, progressive rock
Length	39:13 (vinyl) 38:39 (CD)
Label	DiscReet Records
Producer	Frank Zappa
Professional reviews
All Music Guide link Robert Christgau (B-) link
Frank Zappa chronology
Studio Tan (1978) Sleep Dirt (1979) Sheik Yerbouti (1979)

Sleep Dirt (also known as Hot Rats III) is an album by Frank Zappa released in January, 1979 on his own DiscReet Records label. It reached 175 on the Billboard Pop Albums chart.

It is one of three albums which Zappa's distributor, Warner Bros. Records initially refused to release. In 1976 Zappa delivered master tape copies of this album to Warner Bros. along with Studio Tan and Orchestral Favorites. Zappa attempted to fulfill his contract with Warner by delivering all three albums at once. Warner declined to release the albums at the time. The label failed to pay what was owed to Zappa according to his contract for the rights to release the albums. Zappa filed suit against Warner. A fourth album completed at the same time, Zappa in New York, was released first, though the content had been altered by the distributor without Zappa's permission.

Warner Bros., still holding onto the tapes, claimed they retained the right to release the albums as they saw fit. In 1977 Zappa re-edited most of this material, plus a few new items, into a 4 LP box set called Läther. A preliminary deal Zappa set up in 1977 with Mercury/Phonogram saw the Läther compilation get as far as the test pressing stage before Warner Bros. put a stop to the deal, citing ownership of the material. Again, Warner declined to release the recordings.

When the 1976 recordings were eventually released by Warner in 1979 Zappa had no say in the decision. Sleep Dirt was released with no musical credits, as Zappa had not supplied this information. Warner commissioned sleeve art by Gary Panter, which was not approved by Zappa.

Much of the material on the album was made available to the public again when Läther was finally released to the public in 1996.

Zappa had originally envisaged three of the album's tracks ("Flambay", "Spider of Destiny", and "Time Is Money") being used in his (abandoned) Hunchentoot musical, and thus, these songs were intended to have vocals. For the CD reissue of Sleep Dirt, Thana Harris overdubbed vocals on the aforementioned tracks, and Chad Wackerman overdubbed drums. The original, instrumental versions of these tracks can be found on Läther (though "Flambay" was greatly shortened; the full-length instrumental version of that can only be found on the original lp.)

The creature shown on the cover is Hedorah from the Godzilla films.

[edit] Track listing

All songs written by Frank Zappa.

[edit] Side one

1. "Filthy Habits" – 7:33
2. "Flambay" – 4:54
3. "Spider of Destiny" – 2:33
4. "Regyptian Strut" – 4:13

[edit] Side two

1. "Time Is Money" – 2:48
2. "Sleep Dirt" – 3:21
3. "The Ocean Is the Ultimate Solution" – 13:18

[edit] Personnel

• Terry Bozzio – drums
• George Duke – keyboards, vocals
• Bruce Fowler – brass
• Stephen Marcussen – mastering, equalization
• Patrick O'Hearn – bass guitar
• Gary Panter – art director
• Dave Parlato – bass guitar
• Bob Stone – mastering, remastering, equalization
• Chester Thompson – drums
• Ruth Underwood – percussion, keyboards
• James "Bird Legs" Youman – bass guitar, guitar
• Frank Zappa – guitar, percussion, arranger, keyboards, vocals, producer

• Thana Harris – vocals (CD remix)
• Chad Wackerman – drum overdubs (CD remix)

[edit] References