NOISE

You've described this tour as a grassroots movement to bring your father's music to new people. How do you feel that's going?

I think it's gone really well. I was expecting to see a largely 50-and-over crowd at these shows, and certainly they're there, but there have been some younger kids and even parents with their very young kids. I love seeing 8-year-olds with "Titties & Beer" T-shirts in the front row. When I was that age, and I was exposed to this kind of music ... it just gives you a sense that there are so many possibilities with music. And I don't think kids get that these days.

A lot of people assume Frank Zappa was just a comedic rocker and miss out on his skills as a guitarist and a composer. Are you trying to set the record straight?

That's precisely what I deal with all the time—people who have the impression that he's kind of like "Weird Al" Yankovic or something, the jokester guy with kids with wacky names. That's one facet of him; he definitely incorporated humor in music. But that doesn't mean he didn't take music seriously. He made almost 70 albums in less than 40 years, and there's a huge amount of variety and depth to his work. That's why I'm doing what I'm doing. It's a three-hour show, so you get to hear a lot of different stuff, all with his unique vision and personality in the music.

What did Zappa Plays Zappa require from you in terms of guitar preparation?

I'm playing the solos on the songs that would typically have solos from Frank, capturing the same kind of style and incoporating his techniques and phrasing concepts but not playing note-for-note solos. And I'm also doing stuff on guitar that was never intended to be played on guitar because it's not humanly possibly, or wasn't until I worked on it for two years solid. I'm playing parts that are meant to be played on marimba or keyboards, instruments that are set up in a way that makes this stuff infinitely more playable than on guitar. That gives the audience the perspective of how maniacally hard this music is. And it also shows my real dedication to this project.

Songs in which Counting Crows singer Adam Duritz mentions feathers or circus imagery (a very partial list).

August and Everything After (1993)

"Round Here": "Just like she's walking on a wire in the circus"

"Rain King": "I think of flying down into a sea of pens and feathers"

"Raining in Baltimore": "The circus is falling down on its knees ..."

"A Murder of One": "I am feathered by the moonlight falling down on me"

Recovering the Satellites (1996)

"Angels of the Silences": "Well, I guess you left me with some feathers in my hand"

"Goodnight Elizabeth": "Some of us are clowns, some of us are dancers on the midway"

"Children in Bloom": "Where's the funhouse this year? The fairground's deserted"

"Another Horsedreamer's Blues": "Margery's wingspan's all feathers and Coke cans"

This Desert Life (1999)

"Mrs. Potter's Lullaby": "I am an idiot walking a tightrope of fortune and fame ..."

"Four Days": "They descend and then they climb, feathers falling through the night"

"St. Robinson in His Cadillac Dream": "Down the length of the evening to the carnival side, in a house where regret is a carousel ride"

Where: Mandalay Bay Beach.
When: June 17, 9 p.m.
Price: $75-$85.
Info: 632-7580.

And then, some eight months after their show at the Joint last October concluded, and while I was yet descending from the stupor in which they'd had me suspended, I thought:

My Lord, my Lord: Them boys can rock. Them—the Black Crowes: That band that has since 1990 provided not just classic rock 'n' roll riffs and nourishing melodies like Sunday-morning brunch, but music that serves as an infallible companion, like Southern Comfort or remedy after a storm; that Marc Ford that rolls you into his guitar's diabolical splendor and that Chris Robinson who talks to angels; that euphoric and heartlifting reminder that music is the height of all arts, for nothing else on this side of heaven or hell can get your soul singing with such incorruptible felicity.

Which is the exact reason I will be sure to watch them again, when they perform this week at the Hard Rock.

The End of Silence


Ugly People Ugly Problems (2 stars)

Lame metal with an occasional System of a Down influence and a grating lead singer. There's a decent riff or two, but mostly it just makes you wish the silence hadn't ended.

Gary Hoey


Monster Surf (2 stars)

Guitar show-off Hoey covers surf classics, to predictable effect. He takes all of the looseness and charm out of songs like "California Dreamin'" and "Surfin' USA," turning them into bombastic hard rock. He sure does play a lot of notes, though.

RADEMACHER


Heart Machine (3 stars)

The Fresno four-piece's spiraling melodies are evidence of music's continued global cross-pollination, recalling Canadian contemporaries Wolf Parade and Stars far more than Central Valley indie slackers Pavement and Grandaddy. After three four-song EP hore d'oeuvres, Rademacher sounds ready to record the main course.

MORNING 40 FEDERATION


Ticonderoga (2.5 stars)

Katrina's deluge hasn't crashed the party for these horn-aided 9th Warders, who lace a dozen stylistically varied cuts with enough drug and alcohol references to give listeners a contact high. The live show promises to be at least as unpredictable as, to quote the lyrics, Jenna Jameson at a poetry reading.