| (no subject) |
[Jul. 5th, 2009|02:14 pm] |
On Friday night, I saw Zappa Plays Zappa for the third time, this time at House of Blues. It was a pretty good show. I will post setlist, etc. at some later point, but a few thoughts for now:
Dweezil is in some sense much too polite a guitar player to fill FZ's shoes, esp. in regards to his rhythmic approach whilst soloing. A lot of what he plays is pretty tidy on the beat. He doesn't do a lot of the stretching a phrase over some odd number of beats in a 4/4 vamp sort of thing. He starts a phrase or melodic idea on beat one and concludes it three or seven beats later. And when he throws in a crazy flurry of notes, it's very technique-y in a wheedly shred guitar sort of way. It doesn't feel or come across too wild and it's never sloppy. There isn't a feeling of risk or drama or adventure when he plays a solo, no matter how long it is. He's a very good player, technically speaking. But he's not FZ, and this was never more apparent to me than on Friday.
Dweezil apparently has no desire to do business with people who actually played with Frank. I read, at some point, a sentiment from him along the lines of "it was always my desire to eventually be able to do this without people who played with Frank, but a certain segement of the audience craves a sense of authenticity that comes along with having 'alumni' in the band." This is admirable in a way, and kind of puts a point on the fact that he doesn't want to live forever in the shadow of Frank and his bands (not like he has a fucking choice). But if you're gonna hit the road completely alumni-free, I think MOST people in the audience are going to want to see players and singers who are not only really, really talented, but can also give their performances a certain aroma that at least FEELS like they could have cut it in one of Frank's touring bands.
So, with Ray White having departed ZPZ, they found this cat name-a Ben Thomas to serve as lead vocalist on a number of selections (he doesn't play an instrument, at least not in concert.) He's a "good" singer in that way that "good" singers are "good", I just didn't find his performance very exciting for the most part. Something about his voice and stage demeanor has a very "white person with a sort of awkward and affected air of funkyness and / or soul-having" feeling about it.
I'm just saying, look, as far as this reporter is concerned, unless your name is Robert Martin from Philadelphia, Curtis Institute Graduate, 1971, you maybe shouldn't necessarily sing "Bamboozled By Love." Because this reporter first heard Ike Willis grunt out this little number around the age of 5 or so, and Ben Thomas is no Ike Willis (or Bobby Martin), having neither the soul, nor unaffected grit to pull off a song like that.
On a positive note, Scheila Gonzalez is a fucking ninja.
And Ben's interpretive dancing provided for "The Black Page #2" (and, later, "The Purple Lagoon") was, I would like to say, a delight.
===
A while back, I learned that Lines Across Lines, a band from the Cleveland area who I had previously seen open for Pattern is Movement and rock my socks in a way that is rare for "opening bands", was going to be playing their last show. As in, as a group, as in, ever. Then, uh oh, I noticed that said last show was on the same night I was going to see ZPZ. Shit. I held out some little germ of hope that I would, somehow or another, be able to see both bands on the same night.
For one, the LAL show at the Grog Shop was supposed to start around 9:00. And, of course, the Grog exists in a little customized micro time zone where 9:00 is more like 10:30. Plus also too, there were four bands playing, and I was assuming LAL would be playing last. So, yeah, I might have a decent chance of making it in time for their set after all!
I sent their guitar player, Nate, a message on facebook asking if he could, if possible, let me know what time they're actually supposed to go on stage, because I'm going to another show that night yadda yadda. He wrote back and said "Hey, I remember you! Give me your cell number, if you don't mind, and I'll send you a text and let you know what time we're going on." Lucky for me I actually just re-activated my stupid pre-paid cellphone so I could have it with in case I needed it for anything this weekend. I gave him the number, went to eat a bunch of food at Dave and Carla's, came back to Sharon's, got prepared and drove to Cle for ZPZ.
No more than a couple minutes after I leave House of Blues, my phone goes off. Nate sends me a message, "show was pushed back to 10, LAL should go on around 12?" I'm like yes, fucking yes, I can totally make it. I drive all the way down Euclid, stopping at what seemed like at least half of all the traffic lights at the beginning of the trip, then make it to the Grog with a decent amount of time to spare (the band before LAL, Stiletto, was still on and only played maybe two or three songs after I got there.)
So, for the first time I ever, I attempted and successfully managed to pull of the whole "two shows in one night" thing. Lines Across Lines were pretty good, and cost me literally eleven times less money to see than ZPZ did. I got to chat with Nate for a good bit after, as well as drummer Jeff, who remembered me from the PiM show, though not by name. When I went up to talk to him, I started saying "hey, I saw you guys when you played with Pattern..." and before I could really finish that sentence, Jeff was saying "dude! Husker Du shirt, Husker Du shirt! I saw you up front and I was like, oh shit, it's that dude. I'm terrible with names, but Husker Du shirt!" (all in reference to the shirt I was wearing at PiM show @ Beachland, and when I talked to the guys after their set, my conversation with Jeff began "hey, I like your shirt", "hey, thanks, I like your band." Precious memories.)
===
In about 3 hours, I'm going back to Cleveland to see Project/Object for the 9th time, @ Beachland as always (except for that one time they played the Agora for some reason, and I think they sort of hated it.) You can "look forward" (or not, because I assume you won't) to that setlist + commentary in a few days, I guess. |
|
|
hurting![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
pleased
sleepy
awake
curious
lethargic
still recovering
nervous
drained
hungry
