vinylNoah Meyerhansfrodo+blog@morgul.net/tags/vinyl/Copyright Noah Meyerhans2026-01-02T16:52:13-05:00Noah Meyerhansfrodo+blog@morgul.netHot Rats2026-01-02T16:52:13-05:00/2026/01/02/hot-rats/
<p>I’ve had a record player for some time now, but the listening situation has improved in the past year with the upgrade of my speakers. The new speakers truly fill the room with sound, and they’re perfectly happy to be driven at as high a volume as I’m interested in hearing. With the introduction of the new speakers, I pretty quickly exhaused my existing collection of records. Thus, over the past several months, I’ve made a few trips to various record stores, primarily <a href="https://www.recordconnectionme.com/">The Record Connection</a>, a self-described “eclectic experience” walkable from my house. They’ve got a decent selection of stuff, both used and new, and it’s always fun to dig through the stacks in search of an unexpected gem. Today’s score was Zappa’s <em>Hot Rats</em>, which is just mindblowingly great. Frank Zappa was a brilliant musician, and <em>Hot Rats</em> is widely considered one of his finest works. If you haven’t watched Alex Winter’s excellent <a href="https://alexwinter.com/projects/zappa/">Zappa</a> documentary, I highly recommend it. Look for some past interviews with him on youtube, such as this one discussing <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fam5wRXcoQE">fascist theocracy</a>, but better yet, just listen to his music. We’d be better off if he was still with us today.</p>
<p><img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/9b/Hot_Rats_%28Frank_Zappa_album_-_cover_art%29.jpg" alt="Hot Rats album cover" /></p>