Reviewed by Rusty Pipes
It was foggy on the drive up to Santa Monica-am I going back in time? You betcha, we're going to be hearing what Frank Zappa sounded like in the past. Actually, at many different points in the past, the Sixties, the Seventies and the Eighties, all at the hands of Project Object and their friend, former Zappa lead vocalist, Ike Willis.
The show was at the Temple Bar, a small venue on Wilshire all done up in a Buddha motif, mostly black inside with a dash of red and huge murals of singers adorning the walls. At 8:35 the six regular members of the Project Object band donned their hats--bras and panties--and launched into the night's program. Ike came out halfway through the first number saying. "Hi Honey, I'm Home!" to the hometown LA crowd. Wait a minute, eight? Yes, Chris Opperman, heard recently on the new Keneally-Beer For Dolphins CD was handling the brass section single-handedly.
Other mystery guests kept adding to the band as the set went on. When they did Broken Hearts Are For Assholes there was this old guy on keyboards, no, could it be Don Preston of the original Mothers? Indeed it was, adding his special sauce on the Roland in a blazing rendition of King Kong. Later he was joined by another early Mother, Bunk Gardner, on sax for Brown Shoes Don't Make It. Other famous Frank tunes included Son Of Mr. Green Genes, The Idiot Bastard Son, Easy Meat, Peaches In Regalia, Enchidna's Arf, Away The Wind Blows, Advance Romance (with KROQ DJ Jed The Fish donating a Timex at the appropriate lyric) and the crowd responding faithfully to "have you guessed me yet?" in I'm The Slime.
Project Object proved their musicianship in song after song. Andre Cholmondeley on guitar, who looks a lot like a 7/8ths copy of Zappa, that is, stringy & thin but not nearly as tall, showed note-for-note runs of complex Zappa licks in every song. He even has a lot of the same head-down-and-bobbing movements Frank did as he plays but in this show he mostly hid behind the PA on stage right. More up front was Wes Paich on percussion, vocals and keyboards, who also functioned as bandleader in the make-a-jazz-noise-here sections. He occasionally gave Mumbo a breather on drums, but most of the night man-mountain Mumbo pounded out all the rhythms and time changes. Stuff that would make most drummers faint. And of course up front there was Ike, who seemed to relish singing the Frank Folio again. He was in excellent voice all night, showing off an almost operatic tone in Florentine Pogen and then in Zomby Woof he surprised everyone with an excellent guitar solo. I guess when you are hiding in the shadows of Zappa, Vai, Cucurullo, and Keneally you don't get many chances to show off your chops, but it certainly came together here.
There was a lot more going on here than a simple recitation of the old masters. My favorite moment came in their rendition of Cosmik Debris. (Gee, that name sounds awfully familiar. Where have I heard it before?) Updating the lyrics for the recent unpopular election of the President they sang "Look here Dubya, who you jiving with that cosmik debris?" Now is that a real election or a Sears election?
And that was only the first show! During the break I asked some of the crowd how long they had been listening to Zappa music. Two older guys in crowd dated their love of Frank's work to 1967. One was still dressed like a hippie with long hair and a beard and a floppy broad brimmed hat. He had first seen the Mothers in Chicago and had followed all Frank's work over the years, even seeing another Zappa tribute show The Band From Utopia. The other longtime fan looked completely opposite, like a straight grandfatherly type, but he boogied through all the songs at both shows too. He said his first Mothers show was at the Shrine here in LA. Me? I had my first Zappa record in 1967, but my parents wouldn't let me go see the show that year. I had to wait until 1973 when he showed up in Hawaii with Jean-Luc Ponty, George Duke and Ruth Underwood in tow. But enough of my sordid history.
At 11:30 Project Object and friends launched into a completely different set that featured a whole side from Roxy and Elsewhere. First was Frank's salute to 50's science fiction flicks, Cheepnis-with a monster called "Dubya", then Son Of Orange County-with another great Willis guitar solo, and More Trouble Every Day-with a sax solo from Bunk morphing into a duet with Chris. The set rolled on with favorites like Baby Don't Cha Wanna Man Like Me-"her favorite group was Christine Aguilera!", I Have Been In You, Flakes- "got charged double for the Supreme Court!", Baby Snakes, and Thing Fish-with Ike singing in German. Then they were joined by another Zappa alumnus, Arthur Barrow on bass, for a long set of tunes from You Are What You Is. And more. And more. A full night wallowing with my fellow Frankophiles. Right down to, as Mumbo pointed out, the Temple Bar having Black Napkins for everyone.
Any member of Project Object is good enough to have been in a real Zappa lineup; together they are as close as you can get to the real Zappa experience. Time travel indeed. A must for every hungry freak, daddy.
The author and the editor would both like to express their extreme gratitude to Randy Alexander of Randex Communications for going way above and beyond the call of duty to make last minute arrangements that made this article possible. And when we say last minute, we're talking inside sixty seconds. We owe you the next battery for your cell phone, Randy. We'd also like to thank Ike Willis for being such a gracious host at the venue, not to mention providing a great night of musical entertainment.(C) 2001 - Rusty Pipes
