Dweezilla!

Looks like Dweezil is branching out into new territory. From the inbox:

Get ready to expand your harmonic horizons and ignite your musical creativity this summer at DWEEZILLA! DWEEZILLA is a unique five-day experience where musicians will be surrounded by Dweezil Zappa and members of his core band for a musical bootcamp. From June 21-24 in the Catskill Forest Preserve in upstate New York, DWEEZILLA offers aspiring musicians a wide range of master classes at all skill levels in addition to one-on-one sessions with Dweezil himself.

DWEEZILLA

Quoth The Dweez: “I decided to create a diverse music boot camp for people of all skill levels hoping to increase their musical prowess. It would make me very happy if I could help a fellow musician take their skills to the next level.”

Pricing? Here’s the cheapest admission as stated in the Dweezilla press kit: $485 — Day Use (No Accommodations/Camping): Includes all daily activities and workshops from breakfast to the evening activities.

More Dweezila info here.

Ahem… is this the beginning of the end of ZPZ?

22 thoughts on “Dweezilla!”

  2. cool great get to meet ZPZ something new on the horizon of the music
    good move on DZ part that is interesting wish i was living still in the us i would go there…….maybe there is one comming in europe. cheers up for you DZ and ZPZ ……………or rather the pretty shiela gonzales .:)

  3. It’s nice that he’s got the time to do this, seeing how he still hasn’t delivered on the promise of a downloadable show from a year and a half ago.

  4. Well, one hopes ZPZ will come to an end soon. Is it just me or is there just no mojo left in that group? It sounds wooden and without much by way of humor or zest. I saw them with Bozzio, Vai and NMB twice and there was no problem with any of that. I saw them again with just (sigh) Ray White and it was incredibly dull. I left early! Imagine that.

    Anyone else tired of their lifeless performances and obnoxious rhetoric of authenticity?

    Thanks for sharing this announcement, though! And nice to hear it’s to take place in upstate New York, where it all got started for me.

    Best,
    Dan

  5. [quote comment=”9495″]Well, one hopes ZPZ will come to an end soon. Is it just me or is there just no mojo left in that group? It sounds wooden and without much by way of humor or zest. I saw them with Bozzio, Vai and NMB twice and there was no problem with any of that. I saw them again with just (sigh) Ray White and it was incredibly dull. I left early! Imagine that.

    Anyone else tired of their lifeless performances and obnoxious rhetoric of authenticity?

    Thanks for sharing this announcement, though! And nice to hear it’s to take place in upstate New York, where it all got started for me.

    Best,
    Dan[/quote]

    Well. I saw them a few weeks ago and they were fantastic.
    It was a large venue (Ram’s Head in Baltimore) and you
    couldn’t walk through the crowd…the place was packed.

    I thought it was great.

    Lifeless performance? You don’t have the slightest idea
    what you are typing about. The negative tone of your post
    suggests that you have some kind of personal axe to grind.

    Whatever Danny.

  6. Well. I saw them a few weeks ago and they were fantastic.
    It was a large venue (Ram’s Head in Baltimore) and you
    couldn’t walk through the crowd…the place was packed.

    I thought it was great.

    Lifeless performance? You don’t have the slightest idea
    what you are typing about. The negative tone of your post
    suggests that you have some kind of personal axe to grind.

    Whatever Danny.

    I agree Danny, ZPZ are unbelievable, these knockers should have a go at what there doing and put it up on the web to show how they say its done, in my opinion these people should put up or shut up.

  7. [quote comment=”9494″]It’s nice that he’s got the time to do this, seeing how he still hasn’t delivered on the promise of a downloadable show from a year and a half ago.[/quote]

    Good point, I have wanted to hear a recording of the Billy The Mountain I saw in Ann Arbor. He hasn’t released any of those shows yet? To much hiss in between the notes to delete I guess.

  8. DWEEZILLA? wtf?
    (Is this guy just so full of himself–or does he really think that is a clever name for a “musical bootcamp”?) Listening to all that ‘hair metal’ must have inflated his ego to Yngwie Malmsteen proportions!
    Gotta give him props for his marketing skills–daddy would be proud–or would he? (Capitalism at its finest…?)

  9. [quote comment=”9495″]Well, one hopes ZPZ will come to an end soon. Is it just me or is there just no mojo left in that group? It sounds wooden and without much by way of humor or zest. I saw them with Bozzio, Vai and NMB twice and there was no problem with any of that. I saw them again with just (sigh) Ray White and it was incredibly dull. I left early! Imagine that.

    Anyone else tired of their lifeless performances and obnoxious rhetoric of authenticity?

    Thanks for sharing this announcement, though! And nice to hear it’s to take place in upstate New York, where it all got started for me.

    Best,
    Dan[/quote]

    I know many people who would agree with you (including myself) but most of them have no intention to share their opinion on the internet. They simply are not interested in a thing like ZpZ or any other cover band (though being Zappa fanatics).

    Th.

  10. I don’t see anything evil in this project. Seems pretty much like any of the clinics offered by other professional musicians. The Dweez of course uses his name&heritage to get a broader audience. He would be dumbass stupid if he didn’t, if you ask me.

  11. [quote comment=”9518″]… dumbass stupid if he didn’t, if you ask me.[/quote]

    If you were to ask me, I’d tell you HE IS!

    “I can’t tell when you’re telling the truth . . .
    I’m not.
    How do I know anything you’ve said to me is . . .
    You don’t.”

  12. I guess I was pretty glib, but I was honestly really disappointed when I saw ZPZ on Long Island two years ago. I also don’t think the standards of discourse on this or other blogs are all that elevated to begin with, but I apologize if I subverted even these.

    If they are more enjoyable now, that’s a good thing. Gosh, I sure hope they are. Well, the crowd where I was were pretty into it, although I found the repertoire much less variegated than before — likely related to the limitations of Ray White as a contributor and the weirdness of leaving him out on the more virtuosic tunes, which they by and large left untouched.

    This was a problem for my enjoyment because Dweezil would just take a long and usually dull solo on just about every song. They sing a few verses with little character to the vocals and then Dweezil would saw away. It’s a cheap trick and there was so much less mustard and window dressing and drama to the show. It frankly smacked of routine; they seemed on auto-pilot. Was it unwatchable? Of course not. Was it better than Project/Object without Ike Willis and Robbie Seahag? Of course it was. But it was dull and I felt like I got taken for a ride.

    I guess I do have an axe to grind, and perhaps that accounts for some of my glibness. I went all the way out to Long Island and was bored out of my mind while the lead singer and bassist from a band I really don’t like sat in front of me and worshiped at their altar I’m not a troll. We all need to flame every once in a while. Call the fire department and write back or ignore me 🙂

    What was so great about the recent performances besides so many people crammed into a room and apparently enjoying it? That’s not a reason about why a performance is good! It just means a lot of people are in a room. Feel free to defend your position by adducing substantive observations about the music you witnessed.

  13. Oh, and as for obnoxious rhetoric of authenticity? Anyone?

    Sorry, Barry. I’ll leave you guys alone for a while : /

  14. Well, there’s a guy who might have done or said some controversial things, but at the same time he is a musician, he might not be the best one ever but he definitively has some skills, and he really had spent a whole lot of time on practicing FZ tunes and set up a band that plays it pretty well. So: what’s the problem with him making a kind ot a training or course?

    It’s quite an everyday thing for a musician to teach or play together with other musicians, right? This is what happens here, and I guess they’ll play and practice FZ tunes. Hm, it’s nice – as I see it… 🙂 It’s not the question of „right” or „wrong” or “evil”, it’s just one more possibility for some people to play FZ’s music and to be together with a band with high skills (even if one doesn’t like their attitude in some ways – BTW I happen to listen to their DVD more and more).

    You don’t like it? You don’t HAVE TO attend. 😉

  16. I was at the same Ram’s Head Live show in Baltimore a few months ago, and I thought it was rather lifeless compared to the tours with Ray White (which I thought were fantastic, unlike Dan). The energy level seems way down from what it was before.

    The new singer, Ben Thomas, can sing up a storm, but he isn’t a front man or maybe isn’t allowed to be. Dweezil also doesn’t have the same onstage presence his father had. Sure, they can play nearly note-perfect renditions of old FZ arrangements, but the entire band don’t seem as excited about doing it anymore.

    The departure of the old keyboardist really hurts, too. It isn’t that Scheila Gonzalez can’t play keys, it’s just that being stuck being the keyboards the entire show reduces her ability to have an impact by play saxophone and singing.

    Dweezil’s self-imposed limitations on repertoire also are a problem. After this many tours, they basically played the bulk of the new music that the mid ’70s FZ bands did. And since Dweezil doesn’t want to get his hands dirty with much of the lyrically focused music or original Mothers material, he’s limited in what he do.

    Based on what I saw, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if Dweezil decides to move on to the next thing.

  17. WE THANK YOU WITH ALL CONSIDERATION TO DOWN THE EFFORTS
    OF DZ AND GZ WHAT WOULD WE DO WITH OUT YOUR SO OBJECTIVE AVERTISEMNET OF HOW REALLY YOU NEEDED TO COMINICATE HOW BAD THE ZAPPAS ARE SINCE FRANKS DEAD I FEEL FOR YOU AND I WANT MISS YOU WHEN YOU DIE !

  18. I saw one show of the first ZPZ tour, and I was happy. It was a lot better than I suspected it would be. Unfortunately, I just didn’t feel motivated to see any of the subsequent ones. I didn’t think they would get me any closer to The Real Thing than they already had. Better to leave ZPZ a happy memory than a disappointed one.

    As for “Dweezilla” – as someone else said, he’s not the first to do this, and I don’t think it necessarily sprouts from him being “full of himself”.

    I’d be curious to hear about this course from the perspective of any takers. I can’t imagine that it would be on the same level as Fripp’s GuitarCraft, but it would still be interesting.

  21. Hey dude, airbrushing my photocredit out is not cool. Please put back the original non-edited. Thank you.

    Simon Houle
    Photographer

  22. [quote comment=”19920″]Hey dude, airbrushing my photocredit out is not cool. Please put back the original non-edited. Thank you.

    Simon Houle
    Photographer[/quote]
    Simon, I didn’t “airbrush out” anything; this is how I found the picture online. I appreciate your concern though and have added a watermark with your information. Cool?

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