The Prague Post: Just another band from L.A.
Hoodoo
Dweezil Zappa pays lively homage to his father's music
By Frank Kuznik
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
May 17, 2006
http://www.praguepost.com/P03/2006/Art/0518/calen1.php
http://www.praguepost.com/P03/2006/Art/0518/60517cale1.jpg
Dweezil, center, is flanked by Zappa alumni Napoleon Murphy Brock,
left, and Steve Vai.
It's no light undertaking playing the music of Frank Zappa, even for
one of his sons. Dweezil Zappa played guitar in his father's bands
occasionally when Frank was alive, but that wasn't enough to prepare
him to lead a Zappa revival band on a 29-date tour of Europe and the
United States.
"It's something I've been thinking about for a long time, but I needed
to raise the level of my own skills to play the music properly,"
Dweezil says from his home in Los Angeles. "I had to learn a lot of
stuff about theory and harmony and ways to express musical concepts,
which I've been doing for the past two years."
The result is Zappa Plays Zappa, a group of young unknowns assembled
by Dweezil who will be joined by three stars from Zappa's stellar
bands of the 1970s and '80s: singer and horn player Napoleon Murphy
Brock, guitarist Steve Vai and drummer Terry Bozzio. (Dweezil's
brother Ahmet will not be along on this tour.)
There's been no shortage of similar bands featuring Zappa alumni in
recent years. The Grande Mothers, with Brock singing and Roy Estrada
on bass, played Prague two years ago, and Project/Object, fronted by
Ike Willis, regularly tours the United States. But neither meets
Dweezil's exacting standards.
"I have nothing good to say about either of those bands," he says.
"There's some history between some former band members and the family
that is not pleasant. And Frank wrote the music to be played in a
specific way. You don't get to change it just because you were in the
band."
Dweezil is being beyond scrupulous in trying to re-create his father's
original intent and sound. "We're playing the same notes and the same
arrangements and, in a lot of the music, using the same equipment or a
very close re-creation of the equipment," he says. "It is as
detail-oriented as it can be. We've spent a lot of time and effort
getting the music the way Frank would have done it."
Dweezil also emulates his father's work habits. He auditioned members
for the band by making them transcribe and play difficult songs like
"The Black Page" and "Inca Roads." And then he drove them in three
months of rehearsals before hitting the road.
"A lot of material has to be prepared for a tour like this, so we did
quite extensive rehearsals," Brock says. Of his new bandmates, he
says, "They're good musicians. There's going to be a lot of very
surprised and pleased fans when they hear this version of the band."
The material was culled mostly from the '70s, in particular the
Apostrophe and Roxy and Elsewhere albums. "That's my favorite period,"
Dweezil says. "Frank was working on those records when I was a young
kid, and the rehearsals and concerts left a huge imprint on me." There
will also be forays into earlier albums like We're Only in it For the
Money, and showcase pieces for the stars, such as Punky's Whips
featuring Bozzio.
This is all a wet dream for Zappaphiles, who know every lick of every
song on the 63 albums Zappa released during his lifetime. But that's
only part of the audience Dweezil hopes to attract. "We're hoping
younger people will be inspired to come," he says. "Parents who are
fans should bring their kids."
That was one of the reasons for putting together a fresh, young band —
to attract a new generation of listeners. "We want new people to
experience Frank's music," Dweezil says. "One of the things I want to
impress upon a younger audience is that it's possible to go beyond
what they know about music."
And Zappa's music in particular. "People say and write inaccurate and
irresponsible things about Frank all the time," Dweezil says. "My goal
is to have to have his music speak for him. It's the best way to
understand what he was all about. Anything else is just clouding the
image."
Zappa Plays Zappa
When: Tuesday, May 23, at 8
Where: Sazka Arena
Tickets: 799?1,100 Kc through Sazkaticket, Ticketportal, at Sazka
shops and at the door
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Billy's Daddy
The Hoo...@spamcop.net Troll is a composite troll. The account is
owned by an emotionally-disturbed individual named Bill Cmelak who
lives in a mobile home in rural Wisconsin. However, much of what is
written is actually written by an old woman named Karen Anderson who
lives in Washington State. This pair have stalked several people over
the last several years, usually online but in some selected cases
Anderson has been known to real world stalk. Why they stalk certain
individuals is often unknown even to their victims, although failed
relationships, imagined or otherwise, motorcyclists (Cmelak was once a
motorcyclist and now feels inferior because of his financial and
physical handicaps that prevent him from riding), motorhome enthusiasts
(Anderson once owned a travel trailer and is frustrated because she
cannot travel), and people whose politics they disagree with are common
denominators.
This Cmelak asshole is:
William Cmelak
N9340 Pickerel Creek Rd
Pearson, WI 54462-8140
More info on the 450 lb., bisexual, genuinely insane Cmelak Troll can
be found at:
http://www.buccaneerpublishing.com/Cmelak.htm
Cmelak has a dialup account with Frontiernet. Drop a line to
Ab...@Frontiernet.net and let them know what you think about his
spamming.
Here's a photo that another one of Cemlak's "fans" posted in the Zappa
newsgroup, saying that this was Fat Billy Cmelak, a/k/a the Hoodoo
troll. Charming, isn't he?
http://www.zonicweb.net/badalbmcvrs/handsomebeasts.jpg
Described by his neighbors as looking like Haystacks Calhoun with bad
teeth, and smelling like the north end of a southbound yak, Bill Cmelak
lives a lonely existence in the woods inside a 20 year old mobile home.
Except for the part-time minimum wage job cleaning floors that he is
too embarrassed to admit that he holds down Cmelak's only contact with
the outside world is through newsgroups and email. Cmelak drives a 20
year old Ford pickup and has several other junk autos around his hovel
in Wisconsin. He has been known to brag about his financial resources
but the reality is that his so-called estate in Southern Florida turned
out to be an inherited mobile home lot valued at $10,000, of which he
only has a 25% interest. Basically, Cmelak owes everyone in the little
hick county that he lives in money and doesn't have any friends.
Consequently, he doesn't get out much.
Cmelak barely got out of high school and flunked out of his local
community college, so consider the intelligence level of this idiot
when you read his nonsense. To this day his high school classmates
still joke about him.
Cmelak was married at one time but his wife left him. Following his
divorce in the late 1990's he incurred large debts, which were
suddenly settled, presumably through a bankruptcy filing. Since then
his life has been on a downward spiral.
>From the Psychology of the Stalker:
" Stalkers tend to be unemployed or underemployed ... They often have
a history of failed intimate
relationships. They tend to devalue their victims and to sexualize
them. They also idealize certain people, minimize what they are doing
to resist, project onto people motives and actions that have no basis
in truth, and rationalize that the target person deserves to be
harassed and violated. "
Cmelak is one sick fuck, which is precisely the description given to
him by a detective that investigated him when he threatened to run over
and sexually assault motorcyclists at Daytona Bike Week in 2005. His
neighbors and anyone that associates with Cmelak needs to be warned
about him.
~~~
Details on Karen Anderson, who writes much of the garbage that the
Hoodoo Troll posts:
Karen Anderson
3590 Narrows View Lane NE #102
Bremerton, WA 98310
As posted by one of her victims:
I and several other guys over the last decade have been stalked by a
woman named Karen Anderson. She claims a residence in Bremerton,
Washington (and, indeed, the Bremerton police found her there last
year) as well as connections to Wisconsin. I HAVE NEVER MET THIS WOMAN.
She stalks and trolls online and I lost count after discovering over
100 identities that she uses, along with tales of dozens of her
victims.
In my case Anderson developed a crush on me after telling me that she
had cancer and was depressed and suicidal. After two years of
correspondence during which she would repeatedly confess that she was
in love with me, and I would repeatedly tell her that I was NOT
interested in her in that capacity but was concerned for her mental
health, she insisted on meeting me when she claimed to be visiting
Florida to see other folks. One thing lead to another, I REFUSED to see
her, and she subsequently followed me and my new girlfriend around for
several days, taking clandestine photos.
In approximately May of 2004 I received a package in the mail with
Anderson's return address containing the clandestine photos of my
office, my house, and my girlfriend, and about 40 pornographic photos
of Anderson and her vibrator. You also have to understand that I have a
long history of doing charitable works. I have been an active Red Cross
Disaster Volunteer, have been actively involved in a local breast
cancer charity for several years, and it is not out of character for me
to try to encourage someone who tells me that they are depressed and
potentially suicidal.
Following the receipt of the package of photos I received several
online death threats from a clown in Wisconsin who was hiding his
identity but who checked out as a character named William Cmelak. His
newsgroup provider verified that the threats were coming from the
Antigo, Wisconsin area.
Cmelak went on to post in public newsgroups how he had a desire to
sexually assault men during Bike Week. Really strange, psycho stuff.
The police in three states investigated and interviewed Anderson and
tried to interview Cmelak, who vanished for several weeks, but were not
able to make a case. Yet.
Since then I have discovered that Anderson stalked a handicapped
gentleman who lives in New Orleans. Her methods were very similar in
that case. He has MS, is confined to a wheelchair, and was another
sympathetic correspondent to Ms. Anderson, who at the time claimed to
have MS. According to this gentlemen she showed up completely
unannounced one day after driving from Washington to Louisiana. This
gentlemen went on to say that Anderson seemed to be talking to herself
and answering herself, and scared him so badly that he excused himself
from his own house, left her behind, and was afraid to return until
sometime the next morning when he was sure that she had left.
I have also since heard that Anderson was a mental patient and
hospitalized for about 2 years in the general Pearson, Wisconsin area.
There have been a string of other guys that have been haunted by this
crazy woman. In fact, there are a couple of newsgroups where, for a
while, the chief form of entertainment was to tell their horror tales
about Karen Anderson. But I think that the reader gets the picture.
This woman is simply not 'normal' by any stretch of the imagination.
Considering the rambling writings and murky logic of both Cmelak and
Anderson, one has to wonder if they aren't both escaped mental
patients, which was the rumor in the case of Anderson a few years ago.