Well it's that time again... time to hit the road. Since Australia we've had a plan in place for a new vocalist. It was a really good plan. An exciting plan! Have a great singer from a well known group spend a month learning all of the songs for the next tour and then get together in LA to get down to business. With leather...
His voice on recordings seemed to be quite a nice texture, something that would easily fit right in to our rocking teenage combo. We had 2 weeks of rehearsals planned and we were pretty psyched to begin. Enter our candidate. All smiles, everyone is looking forward to the downbeat, excited to hear the new lead voice in the group. Within a few moments it became obvious that our candidate had not done any of the required preparation for this gig.
We had a few days to work with our candidate and unfortunately the results were not what we had hoped for. A week went by and we started to get very concerned... no complete songs had been learned. It was now very clear that this wasn't going to work.
We then had ourselves a new problem... how would we find a singer for the upcoming tour in less than a week. How would they even be able to learn the required material? We made some calls and rounded up a few terrified singers. Imagine the call, "Hello, are you interested in auditioning for a really tough gig, with a highly critical fanbase - with a 5 week tour that starts in less than a week? Still there??? Ideally you'll need to learn 8 to 10 songs for the first week. You do have a passport, right?"
I told all of the singers that if they could walk in and sing the correct melody to "Inca Roads" without missing an entrance they would have a chance of being hired on the spot. The chances of that happening were quite slim considering we needed them to learn this song in the shortest time possible. For some only a few hours...
A few very talented singers gave it their best shot. We didn't even make it through the first verse in most cases.
Things were not looking so good but then it happened. A young blonde-haired guy walks in to audition, says he's heard the song before but never tried to sing until last night.
Joe rolls the toms and Billy initiates the classic marimba figure, first verse arrives - right notes, right rhythms, no mistakes! The song continues and gets increasingly more difficult. After the solo the vocal entrances are pretty tricky, once again no mistakes. After the interludes and keyboard solo we entered the home stretch - no-one made it this far before. The final entrance arrives and... He completes the entire passage on his own, not realizing it's actually split up into separate phrases between himself and Scheila. Ultimately making it much harder on himself because of the shear lyrical density.
After a slow mo "hollywood" triumphant hand-clapping sequence we hired the guy. Ladies and Gentlemen allow us to introduce you to Ben Thomas, our new lead singer.
He's got a lot of material to learn in the next few days but he's up for the challenge. We'll provide you with more details about Ben Thomas as we learn more about him ourselves. For now the most important thing is that he has a passport and is free for the next 5 weeks - oh yeah and the fact that he walked in and nailed Inca Roads.
See you out on the road,
DZ
POSTED BY DWEEZIL ZAPPA AT 2009-05-11 22:34:01
24 April 2009
Hello Friends,
I'm back home and exhausted. I'm planning to go into the studio to see if I can finish up Chicago 3 and check the progress on everything else. We have some rehearsing to do for the next leg of the tour and a decision to make on a singer! Rehearsals begin the first week of May. We need a singer to rehearse so it makes sense that we would be able to announce the identity during the first week of May.
I'm also making plans for the 2 live releases - one in a month or so and one in the fall. I mentioned them a while back. Still working out which material will be included.
By the way, for all Chicago show (1) 10-17-08 code owners/attendees, I have been thinking about a special bonus show for all of you. Haven't decided what it will be yet but there will be something.
I'll keep you posted on all of the above when I get a moment.
DZ
POSTED BY DWEEZIL ZAPPA AT 2009-04-24 11:48:57
15 April 2009
The Little Nipper...
Hello Everyone,
I wanted to share something with you. Since we started this Zappa Plays Zappa project we've had a lot of memorable moments on stage and off. We've had the opportunity to play this amazing music together as a core band and with great guests, we've won a Grammy, and we've had our fair share of silliness and emotional plateaus. Last night in Sydney there was a singular occurrence that brought about a sense of the connection of the new circle. I've been saying that we were looking forward to connecting with the the next generation of Zappa fans.
Last night in Sydney this undoubtedly happened. The venue was great, the beautiful old State theater built in the 20's. The crowd was very diverse. There was a strong youth contingent down front. There was an energy feeding frenzy going back and forth between the band and this particular portion of the audience.
We had special things going on all night. My friend Mark Lizotte - also known as Diesel - joined us on stage for a punishing version of Bamboozled By Love. He's got a great voice and he's damn fine blues guitarist to boot. Someone was saying they'd like to see a tour called Diesel and Dweezil.
Anyway at a certain point it had to happen, we had to have some of these aforementioned young folks join us on stage. The guys that came on stage were dancing up a storm and they were really feeling the music. This was not the average display of polite choreography, they were in a different world and the music was their master.
All of that was great fun but the highlight of the night and maybe the highlight of this whole on going Zappa Plays Zappa experience to date happened during the encore of Willie The Pimp. A father walked down the aisle with his young song in his arms. As he carried him to the stage the little nipper was furiously jamming air guitar! His father placed him on the stage and the little nipper brought the house down.
I sat next to him playing along and finally decided he needed a real guitar. I put my SG over his shoulder and turned him loose. This was indeed the connection of the new circle.
Thank you to everyone in that audience for making it this such a special night, especially the little nipper!
Regards, DZ
POSTED BY DWEEZIL ZAPPA AT 2009-04-15 15:34:08
13 April 2009
Australia is nice...
Hello Friends,
We've finally reached a day off here in beautiful Sydney Australia. Good timing too, we're all pretty tired. This is my favorite city in the world. I had such a great time with my wife Lauren and daughter Zola last December. Since then we've welcomed Ceylon into our lives. We'll need to bring her down here soon as well so she can get her Australia "on".
We started this tour in Byron Bay at the Bluesfest. The audience was filled with "youngsters". All in all maybe 6 thousand? It could have been more it's hard to tell with the lights.
One thing is for certain, they were highly energetic individuals. There was even a Paris Hilton look alike with a painted on bathing suit straddling a large pole that held up the tent. You need at least one of those at each gig. There's a good chance that many of them had never really heard most of the songs we played. It did not stop them from sending a charge back at the stage after each song.
It was a fun gig. We then moved on to Brisbane. That show was pretty unique. Something occurred that has never happened before and may never happen again. There was a woman in the audience who had been dancing in the aisle all night. She finally decided that wasn't good enough for her and asked if she could join us on stage. I agreed and she climbed up and resumed her terpsichorean rejectamenta. This obviously inspired some of the younger females in the audience. I say this because 4 of them hopped up on the stage moments later and began their own dance competition.
We've had people on stage to dance before by my own request but we had never been stormed by dancers before. The funny thing about this was that we were playing Cosmik Debris which is not necessarily known as a "dance" number. Just when we thought things were about to settle down it happened... A figure crept down the aisle and awkwardly mounted the stage. At first glance it seemed like it was an elderly lady. But then the stage lighting gave way to the somewhat less than pulchritudinous visage before us. A man in a dress with a painted face of make up was stood there, proudly displaying a pink bra for the world to see.
This was not that unordinary but what followed was. This individual thought it would be a good idea to spontaneously add a few musical contributions to the performance. The individual reached out and scronked a foul chordal mutation on Scheila's keyboard. Scheila had a look of concern and was guarding against that type of invasion of her space both musical and otherwise. She was in luck. The individual left in search of another instrument... my back up guitar. The individual was able to get my guitar around it's neck and do some "Mansonesque" maneuvers but was then escorted away by security, apparently uttering, "So now I'm the bad guy". Yes sir, something like that... Thanks for your enthusiasm. You just went a little overboard.
Anyway, I hear some this is on youtube. I have not seen it.
We hit Newcastle the next night and had a nice evening with that crowd as well. We did a little anthropoligical experiment and had mating calls on stage from men and women. There was one girl who did the robot and her mating call sounded a bit like an episode of tourettes. All that being said, it has been a lot of fun playing for the Australian audiences. We have a few shows left on this tour but we're already excited about the possibilities of coming back again soon.
When we go home we will be heading into rehearsals and doing a little playing with our prime lead singer candidate. Provided it all goes well we will have an exciting announcement to make very shortly.
Regards, DZ
POSTED BY DWEEZIL ZAPPA AT 2009-04-13 10:12:26
9 April 2009
The Next Chapter
Hello Friends,
We have just completed our second tour of Japan. Our numbers are fewer on stage but the goal remains the same. Perform the music we love to the best of our abilities and with the utmost respect. In the process we hope to be able to introduce a new generation of fans to this amazing collection of musical compositions. In about 2 weeks I will be making a very special announcement regarding our new SINGER for the upcoming European and American tours. Who will it be? Who Could it be? Wouldn't you like to know... More on that later - back to Japan.
It was fun to play for the fans in Japan once again. They are traditionally more reserved during the show than other audiences but they show their gratitude for the performance at the end just as well as any audience in the world. I had the opportunity to meet many of the fans and was surprised by how many women were at these shows. The 2nd night's audience was a bit more rowdy than the first night. There was a girl in the front row in a Suzy Creemcheese shirt and a school skirt singing along to all of the songs and headbanging away during the guitar solos. She sure had a lot of energy.
One thing I remembered from the last tour was a guy who played the recorder (flute style instrument). He played Inca Roads, Blessed Relief, Lumpy Gravy, even bits of Peaches En Regalia and The Black Page. It was very entertaining and skillful too. He danced around like Pan whilst playing. I saw him again at the end of the 1st night. I was hoping he would come back on the 2nd night because I wanted to invite him on stage to play with the band.
I called out to the audience but unfortunately he wasn't there on the on the second night. Next time!
This trip was a whirlwind. Prior to leaving for the tour I was spending an inordinate amount of time trying to program the sounds for my new guitar rig. The new system is pretty reliant on brand new technology. I needed to scale down the Twin Towers rig for travel over seas. I still wanted to be able to achieve the same detailed tones as the last rig or even improve on them. The new system is certainly capable of that and more. It takes massive hours of sonic exploration in order to figure how to replicate the kinds of tones Frank used on records. The Fractal Audio Axe Effects devices that I'm using allow me to store presets of multitudes of very accurate recreations.
Technology can be your friend or your enemy, sometimes both at the same time. I had that experience upon arrival at the venue. Somehow there was some corruption in the stored data and all the work I did back in LA was essentially rendered meaningless only 2 hours before showtime. There was not enough time to get everything sorted so needless to say I was at a slight disadvantage when it came to navigating through the sonic landscape. Levels were off and I had no way of retrieving specific sounds because I had no opportunity to program names of presets.
I actually wasn't able to pass any signal in the system until about 15 minutes before doors on the 1st night. There wasn't any time left for a soundcheck. The show must go on....
I managed to make it work on night one. Night 2 was greatly improved even though we didn't have much of a soundcheck that night either. In any case here are some audio examples of the new rig. These are FOH reference mixes.
We're off to Australia tonight. The festivals will be a lot of fun. See you on the road.
Regards, DZ
POSTED BY DWEEZIL ZAPPA AT 2009-04-09 10:33:37
1 April 2009
Hello Friends,
Here's a funny story... sort of.... So we're getting ready to leave for Japan and Australia and we've been rehearsing away like a good little teenage rocking combo. Diligently re-distributing parts and practicing our new musical responsibilities in the wake of Aaron Arntz's departure. We decide to stop for a moment and we say to ourselves where is Ray White?
He was supposed to be here today wasn't he? Yep today's the day for Ray. Let's call him. He doesn't answer any of his phones and they all say they are disconnected. Is he suddenly in the witness protection program? What has happened? We decide to look at our e-mails. I had one in my in box from Ray.
Ready for the hilarious punchline? Ray quit via e-mail with no advance "romance" notice whatsoever.
This sort of thing happened to Frank often. It never stopped him. While it is not enjoyable to deal with, it is predictable. History repeats itself.
As a band we have become even more galvanized by this odd turn of events. We have plenty of material to perform both vocally and instrumentally. We got a bit short changed on preparation time but we're professionals, we can handle this type of thing.
There has always been a plan to perform solely as the core band and now is as good a time as any. Quite frankly I'm looking forward to this experience. I have a lot of confidence in the core band. They are all exceptionally talented.
While we have enjoyed playing with our favorite alumni over the years it is time for a change. Yes folks, it's the end of a chapter for ZPZ.
The new chapter for ZPZ begins thusly...
'Twas the night before rehearsal and all through the studio every creature was stirring, clicking their mouses and searching the internet for new lead singers...
To be continued... ( We may have actually found one from a city far far away.)
In closing, here is the official word on the status of the upcoming tours and what to expect.
Zappa Plays Zappa will be performing as 6 piece band - until we find a few musical compatriots that will complement our line up . We will do what we always do - deliver our very best efforts to present the music of Frank Zappa with the utmost respect and have an excellent time in the process.
Please feel free to join us for the festivities.
See you on the road.
Regards, DZ
POSTED BY DWEEZIL ZAPPA AT 2009-04-01 17:30:04
26 March 2009
UPDATE 2009!
Hello Everyone,
Sorry to have kept you in the dark these past few weeks. A whole lot has transpired since my last update.
First off the downloads are still coming along, albeit more slowly than we all would like. I have not had a chance to finalize Chicago show 3 yet. A lot of progress has been made in the meantime on the rest of the shows.
I've been very busy making arrangements for the upcoming Japanese Australian tour.
In other news we have encountered a glitch in the matrix! ZPZ has suffered the departure of Aaron Arntz. Obviously that changes the material we can readily perform and requires some shifting of duties within the band.
Much attention is needed to rethink and redistribute parts in order to cover things properly. We plan to replace Aaron at some point but it's not exactly an easy gig. ZPZ has over 4 years of playing experience together and an extensive repertoire. A replacement would need a minimum of 4 months of solid solitary practice on all of the material before showing up to a single rehearsal with the band.
When we are actively looking for a new keyboardist I will post something. Just in case one of you out there is an actual mutant with the necessary skills, it is a requirement that you must already live in Los Angeles.
The other very time consuming issue I have had to deal with of late is the building/replacement of my touring guitar system. I like the way my current system sounds but it is far to expensive for me to ship to Japan Europe and Australia.
I have spent a lot of time researching/testing gear in order to build a more compact system. I have finally made some decisions and just in time too since the carnet is due tomorrow and I haven't actually assembled the new system yet.
At least I know what's going into the system. All this plus rehearsals and kids at home with the flu. Good times...
See you on the road, DZ
POSTED BY DWEEZIL ZAPPA AT 2009-03-26 10:38:01
24 February 2009
CHICAGO 10-18-08 Download error...
Hello Friends,
Somehow there is a download error with the song "Peaches En Regalia". It effects "Billy The Mountain" as well. There is an issue with the start ID's. It has already been corrected and re-posted on Nugs.
If you have already downloaded the show it is complete. In other words, nothing is missing from the show. There is only an error in the way a few songs are ID'd.
If you would like to download the corrected track please contact nugs again with your code and e-mail same as before.
Sorry for the glitch---itch---itchh....
DZ
POSTED BY DWEEZIL ZAPPA AT 2009-02-24 16:38:29
23 February 2009
CHICAGO 10-18-08 NOW AVAILABLE!
Hello Friends,
The 2nd Chicago Show is now available to download. I hope you enjoy it. It features the very first performance of Ray White singing "The Torture Never Stops." Show three will follow not long after I return from the road.
We're looking forward to playing a few new tunes this week!
Regards, DZ
POSTED BY DWEEZIL ZAPPA AT 2009-02-23 21:53:34
21 February 2009
Chicago 10-18-08 Update
Hello Friends,
I have been double checking the reference discs for Chicago show 2 on different speaker systems. I had to make some adjustments. There was a bit too much sub bass clutter. I had to tone it down on a few songs.
It's good to go now. The files are being converted to MP3's as I write this. I expect that the show will be available by Monday night or Tuesday at the very latest. There is a slight turn around time once it is delivered to nugs.
We're in rehearsals at the moment as well. We are learning an instrumental tune that to my knowledge has never been performed live by any of Frank's bands. (There certainly aren't recordings from live shows that we've found in the vault yet) It only appears on an early record. Hmmm... what could it be?
