Dec 6, 2007, 11:41 GMT
Sydney - Could a father be prouder of his son than the late rock music maestro Frank Zappa?
Dweezil Zappa performs at the Circus Krone in Munich, Germany, 30 September 2007, during his first concert of the world tour 'Zappa plays Zappa' in Germany. The son of Frank Zappa will in Germany also perform in Frankfurt, Dueseldorf, Stuttgart and Erfurt. EPA/TOBIAS HASE COLOR
Dweezil Zappa, 37, is touring the world as lead guitarist with Zappa Plays Zappa, a tribute band bringing to public performance music that would otherwise be confined to recordings played on home sound systems.
Zappa died in 1993 at the age of 52 after releasing 80 albums of songs so challenging to play that pub bands don't cover them.
It takes amazing virtuosity to play a piece like Peaches en Regalia from 1969's Hot Rats album. 'It's almost like being an athlete in top form to be able to play this stuff,' Dweezil said.
Dweezil is centre stage through the three-hour concert. Two former Zappa sidemen - vocalist Ray White and guitarist Steve Vai - are guest artists with the six-member band.
On a big video screen Zappa himself appeared three times when the band played Sydney's Enmore Theatre. Father and son traded guitar licks, the mentor seeming to look into his votary's eyes. It was emotional stuff.
Having Zappa on screen served to emphasize which genes were lost and which were passed on. They are both bravura guitarists and competent band leaders. They are an odd couple in that Dweezil is calm rather than charismatic, shy rather than a showman, and unlikely ever to come up with a song entitled Titties and Beer.
Dweezil is relatively conservative. He named his daughter Frank, a safe moniker compared to the one given his sister, Diva Thin Muffin Pigeen. Dweezil, who doesn't easily inhabit the limelight, is worshipful of a musician he sets out to celebrate rather than channel.
'He was very understated but also very commanding as a performer,' Dweezil said. 'He had something to say, he had a great sense of humour, and musically he was daring and incredibly impressive every step of the way. What's funny to me is that if people are to criticize any (aspect) of the show, they say I don't have the same kind of stage presence as him, but I work very hard to do this in a completely egoless manner.'
Dweezil, who played onstage with Zappa only a few times, likes to describe himself as a curator of a great body of work who is careful not to come between the artist and his audience.
Like his father, Dweezil doesn't take drugs or turn to alcohol for inspiration. But unlike his father, he doesn't see other band members as dispensable.
Biographer Michael Gray said of Zappa: 'In the end, perhaps, Zappa came to see musicians as purchasable units, like editing suites or amps: part of the baggage the composer needs to finance and deploy.'
Some classical music buffs think Bach sounds best on a Moog synthesizer because it captures the clinical aesthetic the composer was striving for.
Perhaps it's the same with Zappa, and Dweezil is doing fans a service by performing the work without clouding it with the showmanship and the controversy that came with liking dressing up and talking about running for president.
What stands out for Dweezil is the music itself. 'That's the key to people's appreciation: it's as authentic as it can be without him standing there with a baton.'
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