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  • Zappa Plays Zappa

    OK, I wanted to avoid going to this show. I have heard some of the audience recordings, read the reviews, read the seemingly endless string of Dweezil “interviews”… I get it… But something about the Zappa Family propaganda stunk. Dweezil is talking about wanting to expose a younger audience to Frank’s music… saying that the only right way is to play “the notes that Frank wrote”… Dweezil saying that he isn’t trying to play like Frank… all of which, I suspected, were junk.

    A mere 6 hours before show time my phone rings, and my pal George has a spare ticket. Fate. The next thing I know we are off to the “Chevroley Theatre” in Wallingford, CT to see da show. It takes about two minutes to see that the “younger audience” bit is BS. The parking lot is full of aging tailgating stoners… A baby boomer convention with no more than a few “kids”. The $50 tickets probably didn’t help either.

    OK, the show is a Sunday night affair with an early start. ZPZ kicks off with Andy, one of my favorite pieces from One Size Fits All. Pretty much a by-the-numbers version. The next tune is “Call Any Vegetable” and the “notes that Frank wrote” rule dies and early death. It resembles nothing that Frank ever recorded. Dopey reharmonization arrangement, style-appropriate sections that seem to have been written from whole cloth. We can all relax now. The memories of the classic FZ lineups have noting to fear from this act.

    Upside: the band is very good. Nobody seems over their head, fine playing across the board. Joe Travers sounds like he can’t help but get cute with every passage. The ad libbing would be easier to take of it wasn’t stepping on the feel. Chad Wackerman can sleep easy.

    I’ve seen setlists for this tour (boilerplate setlist at the end of this post) and there are no real deviations on the menu. That is kinda sad. Frank mixed it up, and his bands had about 3 full shows worth of material under their fingers. According to Dweezil these guys are concentrating on the set, and not expanding it. That’s OK, but the static setlist is giving this show a “Vegas Revue” feel by the time it is about 45 minutes along. The banter that Dweezil provides is banal. Asking “who here has a copy of Hot Rats”??? Kid, it came out 34 freaking years ago. Let’s get the show rolling. As the guy behind me said: “Play Peaches and shut the fuck up”. Great advice.

    The “ringers”: Napoleon Murphy Brock is outstanding as usual. He takes a few tunes to get warm and is dancing his butt off for the bulk of the next two hours. The guy has a great work ethic, a super voice, and knows all of the horn parts cold. I’ve been on stage with the guy and I know firsthand that he is a total pro. His “real job” is to provide “gravitas” and “cred”, and I suspect he keeps the band from getting off the script. Terry Bozzio is amazing, and sings I’m So Cute, Punky’s Whips, and plays The Black Page, both the solo and the “hard version” with the band. Great stuff. There are a LOT of drum geeks here to see Terry. Steve Vai, same deal. Killer guitar, pretends to play rhythm guitar (just like the old days!!!), and slays the place on his solos. LOTS of guitar geeks there to see Vai. The guy delivers. He also provides contrast to Dweezil’s balky playing. Dweezil’s solo concept is to string licks together, occasionally clamming notes, not playing with a lot of confidence. Vai plays like the guitar is a body part. Blowin’ solos… He may have taught Dweezil some tricks back in the day, but…

    It is very clear that Vai and Bozzio are responsible for a large portion of the turnout. There is now way that they would put a crowd into a venue like the Chevy/Oakdale without them. If it was Dweezil, or Dweezil with Napi, I believe that ZPZ would be booked at Toads with 250 through the door, not doing much more in attendance than Project/Object. But Vai and Bozzio have the strongest post-FZ careers, along with (arguably) Adrian Belew, and Belew hasn’t played much Zappa since that very short stint in ’77 until a few recent shows with the Paul Green School of Rock. So the “younger audience” could be a euphemism for “Vai and Bozzio fans”… Who knows? But the whole show gets better, immediately, when they are on stage.

    OK, so it sounds like I hated the show? Wrong. These guys deserve high praise for getting Frank’s music out in front of *anybody*; young, geezerly, or otherwise. I am glad that I got to see ZPZ, if for nothing else than to compare this effort to the many FZ trib acts I have seen over the last few years, and heard via audience tapes, etc… ZPZ ranks highly with me interms of Zappa cover efforts, but that is what they are. Any attempt to disguise it behind Dweezil’s posturing, Gail’s rants, or other constructs, well it falls flat. This band is not doing what they would be doing with Frank at the helm. But they are doing a great job in keeping the music in the public eye.

    A few freeform notes:

    If the ZFT really wanted to get a young audience exposed to Zappa music, they would get on board with iTunes, or throw down with their own zTunes, etc… that younger audience is not going to plunk down large chunks of change for the overpriced reissues that are coming out of Zappa Records. The ZFT business plan has always been suspect, but if this tour was really about exposing a younger audience to FZ, then they need a new plan of some sort. Honestly, it smacks of a cover story to sweeten the deal for boomers with disposable cash.

    The secret word for the night should have been “eyebrows”, which were not in attendance. The band is competent, but nary an “eyebrow” was to be seen. If you don’t get this, try google for “zappa” and “eyebrows”.

    Dweezil’s solo on Inca Roads seemed like a disaster. The band seemed to realize that they needed to help cut it short and limit the damage. What made it worse was knowing that it would have made for a killer Vai cameo/entre’ and Vai would have been heart-wrenchingly excellent on it.

    Schiela Gonzales is the real goods. Sax, flute, keys, vocals… she rocked. Her playing with Napi, and keys guy Aaron Arntz on trumpet, were reminiscent of the ’88 band horn sound. Watch for her, because she is very, very good. See the lineup HERE.

    As a first step, ZPZ seems like a success. if anyone think that this is the pinnacle, they need to get out more. Frank influenced a generation of listeners and musicians, and they know the real deal. This was cute, but not the real deal.

    Setlist: (to be verified)
    1) Andy
    2) Call Any Vegetables
    3) Tell Me You Love Me
    4) Who are the Brain Police
    5) Can’t Afford No Shoes
    6) Sheila’s Kenny-G Jam
    7) Pygmy Twylyte
    8) Idiot Bastard Son
    9) Cheepnis
    10) I am the Slime
    11) A Pound for a Brown
    12) a. Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow
    b. St. Alfonzo’s Pancake Breakfast
    c. Father Oblivion
    13) Inca Roads
    14) I’m So Cute
    15) Trying to Grow a Chin
    16) Advance Romance
    17) Punky’s Whips
    18) The Black Page
    19) Peaches
    20) Montana
    21) Village of the Sun
    22) Echidna’s Arf
    23) Zomby Woof
    24) Black Napkins
    25) The Torture Never Stops
    26) More Trouble Every Day
    27) Introductions/Token of his Extreme
    28) Regypian Strut

  • photo bloggin’

    Check out my photo blog HERE.

    I’ll be putting up samples of what i am doing now, as well as samples of older stuff. The first photo post is definitely OLDER!

    hope ya dig it.

  • We had some company last night…

    A great horned owl paid us a visit and I blew my chance to get him on tape. Luckily he was still in the neighborhood this evening, but farther away. I managed to grab a sample of him, and thanks to digital editing i was able to isolate his call and get rid of a lot of noise. Owls have pretty good pitch! My feeling is: this is a big damn owl. It sounded like a linebacker calling out a defensive play last night when he was about 50 yards away. the neat thing is that I was able to call him and get him to respond. Sandy thinks my owl calling skills are pretty badass. The dog… well he isn’t too sure about owls.

    Here is a sound file. It is an AIFF and is about 750k.

    Enjoy!

  • Gamelan RAWKS!

    Ok, maybe not RAWKS, BUT DAUMMMM, I went to see the Wesleyan (CT) Gamelan Ensemble and the attendant Javanese shadow puppet play, and it was a really good time. 4 hours of uninterrupted gamelan music. The ensemble works in “shifts” and some of the musicians are at their instruments for hours. The only downside is that the venue was really uncomfortable for a not-so-flexible person like me. Next time I’ll nab a less cramped space. But still, this is the kind of music i can really sink my teeth into. I think that an ensemble like the New Haven Improvisors Collective could do a lot with this format. The pace is the opposite of rushed. And the puppeteer, Sumarsam,… he doesn’t take breaks. No.

    The performance was dedicated to the memory of David McAllester, who was a key figure in the creation of the ethnomusicology department at Wesleyan. I have to think that he would have been pleased at the crowd and the performance.

  • Are Doot! Experienced?

    On December 8th and 9th Doot! converged with Eugene Chadbourne for a few gigs in New Haven.

    See pics HERE

    We had a blast and despite the weather we had good turnouts for Eugene. The DOOT! Camera Crew taped the Cafe Nine show, and the Doot Micro Mobile recording studio managed to capture the Buttonwood show in stereo! So some of that may be making an appearance soon. Don’t hold your breath because DOOT! is now in deep R&D mode in anticipation of an appearance at Zappanale 17 in 2006.

  • DOOT!

    Yeah, that’s right. The latest thing in hard-ass psycho jazz is here. DOOT! is a band/project/lifestyle that I’ve been putting together with drummer Stephen Chillemi. Stephen and I played in Doctor Dark, and are having loads of fun making bass and drums sound like a full band. You can also check out Stephen’s promotion/label outfit, Cholly Hoss Productions and keep up with the Doot! experience there. We have a few shows coming up in early December, and you can get more ifo at the DOOT! homepage.

  • Be careful what you ask for…

    That is my advice “du jour” for Governor… uh… President Bush. With W’s latest collapse under duress I think that he might want to be careful about badmouthing the “soft bigotry of low expectations” because right now it is the country’s low expectations of him as a president that is keeping the enraged peasants with pitchforks and torches away from Crawford. It might be reverse bigotry, but it is bigotry none the less. Nobody expects a silver spoon fed chickenhawk to be a man when the time comes. We expect lies, excuses, and diversionary tactics. To me, that is the lowest of low expectations. Poppy might have bailed him out of bad business decisions, DUI charges, active military DUTY, and gawd knows what else… But a phone call to daddy ain’t gonna fix this mess. If I have a good piece of news for the president it is that I have been looking to God more often thanks to his incompetence. Faith based initiative, indeed.

  • It was the best of times…

    While on that topic:

    I got a lot of fantastic positive comments from fans at Z16 and I was flattered and proud to be part of bearing the Beefheart torch, but it was often difficult to absorb. The more I play the music of Captain Beefheart the more I realize that it is not jammy, or free form, or loose. It is very controlled linear composition. You change it, it isn’t the same. It loses power and it loses the message. I have never considered myself to be a perfectionist in any area, but this gig brought out my inner perfectionist.

    Playing in Doctor Dark was simultaneously one of the most uplifting and one of the most degrading musical experience of my life. I was able to attempt to play the parts of a man that I consider to be one of the true “lost greats” of the electric bass, Mark “Rockette Morton” Boston. I was able to attempt that with players who were also trying to fulfil the promise of other amazing musicians: John “Drumbo” French or Art Tripp or Robert Wiliams, or Bill Harkelroad, or Ry Cooder (yes, THAT Ry Cooder), and Don “Captain Beefheart” Vliet, and a lot more. All this despite a lifelong desire not to be in a cover band, or a blues band, or to churn out bass riffs behind some guitar wanker. That desire has been my mantra since the Carter administration, so it isn’t like I had some kind of epiphany last week.

    Ultimately I found that some of my strengths worked in a positive way, some in a negative way, and that if I didn’t watch myself my love of music could be used as leverage to put me in a position to betray myself.

    My fellow Doctor Darkians know the deal but for the record: Zappanale 16 was my last gig with Doctor Dark. The feeling is one of melancholy with an elation chaser. My hope is that by making the decision honestly and promptly there will be an overall avoidance of regret. I know. Fat Fucking Chance.

  • Bogus Pomp, redux

    I’m not retracting anything that I blogged about Bogus Pomp, but I feel like rounding that sentiment out after receiving a heartfelt email from BP member David Manson.

    I’m going to paraphrase this from my email reply because I think it gets to the matter directly: “We see a tiny tiny slice of a band’s existence when we see them perform. As fellow musicians we know the real deal of how much work and sweat and often tears goes into making that tiny slice happen.” I found that making the change from rabid fan to performer was the hardest part of Zappanale 16 and the same difficulty with transition from fan to performer bit me in the ass right here on this blog. I’m sorry if it sounded like I singled BP out. They are brothers in arms and I owe them better.

    Bogus Pomp is up against the same forces that faced Zappa, and then some. They play briliant, powerful, and often complex music with very little commercial potential. It has great meaning to a small but rabid fan base, and offers the musician the chance to be part of what could be the ultimate gestalt experience in the history of modern composition: To create the power of rock with the capabilities of an orchestra and the direction of a compositional genius. Not many people get that chance, and too few get the chance to see it happen live. With everything else aside, I was honored to have the chance to see Bogus Pomp perform and I think that didn’t come across well enough in the aftermath of the trip to Germany. I saw what I saw, and heard what I heard, and the good far outweighed the bad.

  • Magic Band Rides Again

    OK, so if you were looking into information on Don Van Vliet (Captain Beefheart) you may have noticed that his band was named “the Magic Band”. They truly were magic. An amazing blend of precision slide guitar, thundering bass that often borders on atonality, acrobatic drumming, and a very tight interplay. John “Drumbo” French is a master on the drums. His parts fill a lot of space but hold things together without a lot of downbeat emphasis. Some would say “none”! he also has an incredible voice and is the best that I have heard in emulating the Captain’s power and delivery. I have heard a few recordings by the 21st Century Magic Band and they are off the hook. Fantastic stuff, played by the originators. That band includes Zappa and Beefheart alum Denny Walley, Beefheart alum Gary Lucas, and has had Beefheart alum Robert Williams on drums (so Drumbo can sing and play harp), as well as drummer Michael Traylor. The gigs have all been in Europe. And by the difference in reactioon to Doctor Dark in the States vs. Germany, I can see why.

    Bass player Mark “Rockette Morton” Boston is a player who I have spent a lot of time listening to. Learning his parts might actually be impossible since some of them involve notes that I am sure aren’t on my bass. He played bass with steel fingerpicks and I get the feeling that there were some intonation issues with his bass. Maybe just blown out strings, but there is this tubby quality that I can’t duplicate. But I do love his playing. When the parts call for it he can play very straight, and his time works well with the band. But there are a lot of parts where the bass is its own lead line. I think that I subconsciously absorbed that as a youngster.

    So that is the deal on the current Magic Band. Lots more info just by trying your hand at Google, or doing a little creative web surfing.