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By Leigh Buckley Fountain

Frank Zappa and his music are many things to many people. 

But it’s now been 65 years since he started composing music at age 14, 54 since his recognized 1966 debut with “Freak Out!”, and his music shows no sign of flagging in popularity.

Especially since his eldest son Dweezil spent an intensive several years re-absorbing the music and then started taking his crack band on tour in 2005. 

Since then “ZappaPlaysZappa,” as the touring show is known, has brought the gigantic catalog of Mr. Zappa to life in a purer and truer form than anyone since the man himself, who died in 1993.

ZappaPlaysZappa has succeed more than the 20 very talented bands throughout the world who have also attempted it for years, including the remaining members of the original Mothers of Invention, the band with whom Zappa first released rock recordings. The group toured and released albums as “The Grandmothers” off and on for nearly 30 years after Zappa dismissed them in 1970.)

Thursday night, Dweezil and band returned to the Lady Byrd Hat Building – now called The Hat Factory (they visited the defunct Toad’s Place in the same building in 2007.)  And as can only happen with such profound material and such talented players, the music has only gotten better with more time on the road. 

At 8:42 p.m., Dweezil casually stepped on stage, strapped on his custom Gibson SG, said hello and asked how many in the crowd had been at the 2007 show. 

He announced they would start with a relative rarity—that shouldn’t be – then launched into the percussive “Purple Lagoon.”  After a few minutes, the tempo abruptly changed and the band started tearing through a few of what could be called Zappa’s hits, if such a thing existed: “I’m the Slime,” “Jones Crusher” and “Montana.” 

These all featured the vocal stylings of a tall All-American/Midwestern-looking brute named Ben Johnson, whom the Zappas found starring in an independent L.A. theatrical production of the 1979 album “Joe’s Garage.”  He did an excellent auditory impersonation of Zappa in the low register, as well as a decent proxy of Ike Willis, Napoleon Murphy-Brock and even Mark Volman. 

He was helped by the amazing Sheila Gonzalez, star of the last visit, who in addition to angelic lead and harmony vocals, plays a very nasty keyboard/synthesizer and saxophone. 

She seems to cover all the infamous Zappa-esque xylophone parts, and an inspired section of each show is her nearly solo take on an early Mothers’ classic. 

This evening it was “You Didn’t Try to Call Me,” which she began plaintively with a slow bluesy shuffle, then the band kicked in, grooved it and consistently upped the tempo. 

It is this earlier work that Dweezil and the band seem to take the most liberties with, rearranging them sometimes pretty drastically.  In fact, another highlight of the show was the 1967 anthem “Trouble Every Day,” which Zappa wrote after witnessing the 1966 Watts Riots. It is the rare Zappa vehicle that is both lyrically compelling and completely accessible as a basic blues-rock tune, and the dark, slow arrangement the band has favored since their inception is very enjoyable. 

Let us not forget the other immensely talented players. Joe Travers, also the Zappa vault librarian since 1995, is the drummer. His cohort is Billy Hulting, who among other things, toured with Lou Rawls for 13 years. Then there’s ‘rhythm’ guitarist Jamie Kine – who only briefly proves his lead skills every show, but mainly lays back in the cut, letting Dweezil do the flashy work. Of course, there’s no Zappa like a Zappa. 

And Dweezil does indeed stand at the head of it all, always looking modest, sometimes even sheepish. But not when he’s playing.  And when he’s playing lead, what his father considered ‘spontaneous composition,’ well… that’s why most of us are there.  It’s truly awe-inspiring.  I’m not sure how he immersed himself quite so deeply in his father’s work, but it is something to hear and see. 

The end of the show featured more beautiful music, notably “Keep it Greasy,” and the thematic classic “Peaches En Regalia.” 

If you missed it, hopefully they’ll be back in two years or so.

 

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