Dweezil Zappa World

The tour officially started today. Chris Norton made his fine debut. We had some issues with rental gear not working, it took up some time so we had to cut a few songs. All in all it was a good experience.

After our show we were invited to play with MOE. We did what they call a hostile takeover, we all stormed the stage and took their instruments while they played San Berdino. Then we continued on and played Muffin Man.

The folks in MOE are very nice and we had fun. Thanks guys!

A few words about our Mexican Experience!

Wakarusa Festival. There was a special appearance of Smokey And The Bandit tonight. 2 actually.

We made it to Crossroads again... here's what went down.

Tonight was a fun show. The audience was really into it. We'll be happy to come back to Denver anytime.

Tonight was our debut in Salt Lake City. What a great audience! We'll have to return on our next tour. Thanks everyone!

Last night in Ventura we were joined on stage by Scott Thunes. He finally got to play Echidna's Arf. During his tenure in Frank's band that song was never played. He described the experience afterwards as "The most rewarding difficult piece of music to play."

The bass line on that composition is filled with challenging diminished runs, whole tone runs and chromatic runs as well as fast major scales.

Also of note, Ian Underwood was in the audience. He is an exceptional musician and we were all excited that he was able to see the show. I spoke to him after the show and his comments were very complimentary. He also had very good suggestions, Thanks Ian!

Update: I've been told we go on at 7:30 tonight and that we can play for 2 hours.

Update #2

The band that just went on hit the stage 40 minutes late. We'll likely be delayed as well.

Update #3

We did get delayed quite a bit. We still played a decent length show though.

We finally made it to Eugene. It was a fun show.

Another show back in Portland. A return to the same place we shot our 2006 DVD. Great crowd. Lots of youngsters in the crowd!

Tonight we had a few deviations from our planned setlist. We even dragged Jeff Simmons on stage for an impromptu performance of "Wino Man."

Fun was had by all...

Right before the show we discovered that the bus toilet was leaking into the luggage bay... lovely. No real time for laundry or new before flying to Richmond...

Fun times.

Fun Outdoor show. I loved seeing all the little kids rolling down the grassy hills while we were playing.

We invited a girl named Danielle to dance during Keep It Greasey.

This was an historic venue. Lovely place but difficult to play in because it doesn't have the appropriate PA system for our type of band.

They apparently are unable to add the necessary PA because of the building's historic status.

In any case, that is the main reason it was a challenge to get things to sound good in there.

Great audience, great venue! Happy to return any time. Off to Dweezilla.

We filmed this show for a DVD. There were some pretty unique moments!

Fun Show. Good audience.

We love this venue. The staff is great. The catering is the best in the US if not the world.

Always a great energy from the audience.

Had a lady dance on stage with us and young kid from the audience came up and played my guitar on Cosmik Debris.

His name was Evan. He was quite good.

Tonight I got to try out a few new guitar sounds I have been working on. I might put a clip on the Fractal Experiments page when I get a moment.

We always have a fun time in Hampton Beach. Great fans, great energy.

Tonight we went off the deep end and started the show with something we've never played anywhere - Canarsie!

That's a fun one for the kids...

Short Show. 60 minutes. The special individual who announced us said, "and now... Zappa Eats Zappa"

We were quick to correct him.

George Clinton and P-Funk played after us. They played a part of I'm The Slime. Afterwards they said, "Zappa Plays Zappa that s**t was on, you know whatI'm saying?"

Nice theater, nice folks in the audience. Quite a few young ladies. Who knew...

We played our show about 2 hours ago. Another great turn out. Had a dance contest on stage during Keep It Greasey!

A few technical problems... electricity was turning on and off. Hard to play a show without electricity.

Chris's keyboards kept losing power. I played part of Eruption while he was rebooting. Then the power went out on my rig just as we were starting to play Peaches... Festivals always have this is a possibility.

Ultimately we were able to make it all work. I had to move songs around a lot and adjust for time. Our show was only an hour and we probably lost at least 8 to 10 minutes for technical problems.

The crowd was a good mix of generations and they were chanting for us to play a few more songs. We couldn't unfortunately, we were not granted any more time.

Taylor Hawkins and the Coat Tail Riders played before us. They were quite good and had a nice shout out to us during their set.

What a nice little outdoor theater. The only problem with it was our sound restriction - nothing above 93DB. The drums on their own are easily that level without going through the PA. One wonders why they would book a rock act in the venue.

The other thing was the mosquito infestation. I liked that even less...

Nicely mixed audience though.