Published on Jul 10, 2001
My first reaction, upon putting this disc in the player, was
“Dweezil Zappa hasn’t released an album since 1996 and it only has
39 minutes of music on it?!” Sure, he did that show with Ahmet on
USA, and he’s been showing up randomly to play with Lisa Loeb, but
from such a seemingly endless font of Guitar Prowess at the Dweez,
I expected more.
Automatic certainly starts off in the right direction.
“Fwakstension” is his first step away from the stereotypical
“Dweezil’s rippin’ off Eddie Van Halen again” style. It dips in and
out of what I call the Rotten Tooth tone quality, and messes with
some of his dad’s style, and plays with the tapping & zipping
around style he used to be so fond of, but somehow it melds them
all together and creates something
entirely original. No longer do we have Dweezil the
derivative Guitar Wanker – we have Dweezil who can create Melody
and Rhythm and Style.
“Automatic” is another experimentation with style and tone. The
melody is distinct and musically intriguing, and Zappa manages to
pull off just about everything he tries. The beginning of my
disappointment began to creep in when the covers started. “Hawaii
Five-O” is good – totally orchestrated for guitar – but more of a
novelty than something I want to hear. The Grinch song, which was
supposed to be in the Ron Howard flick, is amazingly good, despite
somewhat weak source material. (Ok, ok, it’s
good source material!) He manages to make it his own without
resorting to Me First and the Gimme Gimmes style mangling of the
original intent. Ahmet Zappa covers vocals ably on it, the only
part of the entire CD with a true vocal part, although it is still
a cover tune on a CD that is one-third cover tunes.
“Therapy” is difficult to describe. My knowledge of guitar is
somewhat limited, but I can tell that this piece features loads of
guitars on top of each other. It succeeds, although it seems a bit
directionless at times (which may very well part of its charm.) The
tone sounds a lot like one that Frank Zappa used to cull out of his
guitar on occasion, although Dweezil is certainly not mimicking his
father at this point. The disconnected, disembodied notes forced
out of a distorted electric guitar work well, jarring the listener
back and forth.
“12 String Thing” and “Secret Hedges” continue the polished-solo
trend.”12 String Thing” has a hook that sounds like a leftover from
“Therapy,” but it’s underneath weird sound effects and some very
intriguing playing. The melody is a bit more melancholy, more
thoughtful, than the other tunes on this album, and shows that
Dweezil’s emotive side is certainly out in full force. It does
sound like it ends before it hits its mark, but that works with the
context.
“Secret Hedges” plays with the lower tones of an acoustic
guitar. The album notes say that the electric guitar on top was
improvised, and overall it combines to a very moving sound, despite
being a bit short. “Habanera” and “Les Toreadors” are both good,
but again, somewhat novel rather than interesting. “Shnook” sounds
like the title. It’s very loose, and evokes in the listener’s mind
all the connotations. I get the image of a big giraffe with a loose
neck, wiggling all around on top while very firm and sure-footed on
the ground. The guitar sounds distant, alone, and almost like a bit
of a throwback and tribute to his father’s style. If anything on
this disc sounds like Frank, it’s this tune.
“Dick Cinnamon’s Office” is great – deceptively complex and
“deranged” guitar parts played as hold music while Lisa Loeb
annoyingly keeps Dweezil in waiting for his manager. The final
track from the album, “Purple Guitar,” has evidently been around
for a while, played in concert and whatnot. This track alone is
worth buying the album. It features the Rotten Tooth guitar tone –
oodles of it. I can’t help but find my fingers reaching
toward an air guitar when I hear this piece – it’s got a great drum
part; probably improvised to some extent, and an amazingly
well-done guitar hook. The transitions
really excel, however, dropping into minor and major and
going all over the scale. This track is ten minutes of
excruciatingly painful joy.
This album has 30 minutes of the most beautiful guitar I’ve
heard in a very long time. The time during which it was recorded is
difficult to tell; since as near as I can find, Mike Keneally and
Dweezil haven’t had a working relationship since 1995 – and Dweezil
and Scott Thunes haven’t worked together in even longer. But
whenever the tunes were recorded, they are heart-wrenching,
heart-felt and
meaningful in a time when the guitar seems to be an
overlooked and even scorned art-form.