Dweezil Zappa edits using Sony Vegas Pro

John_Cline wrote on 3/11/2010, 11:00 PM
I have always been a huge Frank Zappa fan and met Frank on a couple of occasions and was good friends with the original Mothers of Invention drummer, Jimmy Carl Black. I have become an equally big fan of Frank Zappa's son, Dweezil. I first saw him a couple of years ago playing Frank's music with his band, "Zappa Plays Zappa" and it was literally the most amazing live musical experience of my 30+ year career in the music business. His talent and artistic integrity along with the players he has assembled is astonishing. Zappa's musical arrangements are incredibly complex and these guys (and a gal) make it look deceptively easy

Dweezil released a live two-disc DVD of Zappa Plays Zappa and Dweezil personally directed mixing the audio and editing the video. Today I found out that a second video will be available soon on Blu-ray and Dweezil edited it himself in HD using our favorite NLE, Sony Vegas Pro. Quite frankly I'm way more impressed by this news than if I had found out that James Cameron used it to edit Avatar. Here is a link to Dweezil's blog where he discusses it:

http://www.dweezilzappaworld.com/posts/231-dvd-update

Comments

Grazie wrote on 3/11/2010, 11:09 PM
I know! I just the eMailshot too! - It looks as if you guys, again, are gonna have a BALL!!!

Great fun.

Grazie
Yoyodyne wrote on 3/11/2010, 11:19 PM
That is kind of cool. I've been a huge fan of Dweezil since his "My guitar wants to kill your momma" record. He's an incredible guitar player.
Grazie wrote on 3/11/2010, 11:22 PM
It's in the Jeans - sry couldn't resist . . . "Don't touch that dial!"

- g
BudWzr wrote on 3/12/2010, 12:07 AM
Don't eat the yellow snow.
farss wrote on 3/12/2010, 1:04 AM
I saw Frank down here in my much younger days. No question he was a musical giant.
If I ever do retire I'll be raising crops of dental floss.

Bob.
John_Cline wrote on 3/12/2010, 1:43 AM
In the "for what it's worth" department, here is a video of Frank Zappa that sat in my vault and hadn't been seen in public until I posted it on my YouTube page about a year ago. It was shot here in Albuquerque on October 12, 1980 and features my buddy, Jimmy Carl Black, performing with Frank for the first and only time since the Mothers. That's why Frank gave us permission to get on stage and videotape the event, he even gave us a board audio feed. By the way, Jimmy passed away last year.

(WARNING: there is very mild profanity in the second song but nothing you haven't heard before.)



This was probably one of Frank's best bands ever. Of additional historical significance, it was Steve Vai's second night ever with the band.
farss wrote on 3/12/2010, 4:07 AM
I guess by now everyone has the email from SCS?
Dweezil will be speaking at the Vegas NAB party.

Pity I'll not be there this year :(

Bob.
cbrillow wrote on 3/12/2010, 7:33 AM
Thanks for the link, John!

Fortunately, or unfortunately, I'm old enough to be a Zappa fan since Freak Out and saw his bands in concert several times over the years.

My wife's Father's Day gift to me in 2008 was an evening with Zappa Plays Zappa, which was a wonderful, loving tribute to Frank's music, performed by top-notch musicians who did an amazing job of capturing the essence of studio recordings made by larger groups than the one that appeared onstage. It wasn't note-for-note, but the arrangements and instrumentation were very close to the originals.

Cool to hear that Dweezil uses Vegas!

Not to veer off in another direction, but if you're intrigued by Zappa's music, you might enjoy the VH-1 Classic Albums episode feature analyses of Apostrophe and Overnight Sensation, with Dweezil at the mixing console providing glimpses inside of Frank's master tapes.

Edit: It's available from NetFlix, so you don't have to wait for it to show up on VH-1.
TorS wrote on 3/12/2010, 8:20 AM
I've seen FZ several times in the 70's. I have interviewed him, too. Different bands every time but always top perfomances, always total delivery and focus.
At one time I went to see two shows on the same day. Both were about two hours pluss 20 min encores and guess what: Apart from the opening ditty and one song (I think it was Stink Foot) no songs were played on both shows! How's that for a touring band?
I am sure a band like Creedence could have done it - with their great number of hits and straight forward music, but Zappa? I mean they were playing Igor's Boogie! Interestingly with FZ himself helping out Ruth Underwood on xylo (or vibes).

Another sign of a true star: At one time the show was delayed because the power supply in the hall was not what the contract said it should be. The crew had to rebuild a lot of transformers and stuff and people were kept outside waiting for an extra hour in the cold February Oslo evening. But when FZ came on stage he took the blame himself. "I am sorry to have kept you waiting out in the cold but now let's play some music to warm you up". Not a word about this being not the band's fault - which would have been the truth.

For the sake of the topic: No wonder his son wants the best NLE he can get. He is the son of a quality freak.
Tor
MarkWWW wrote on 3/12/2010, 12:01 PM
I was lucky enough to see what I think was Dweezil's first ever public performance, in 1982 at the Hammersmith Odeon (as it then was) on the "Ship Arriving" tour.

At the end of the show FZ announced a special treat for the audience. He said that Dweezil had been taking lessons from Steve Vai and would like to play something for us, whereupon this young lad walked out from the wings, plugged in and gave us an incredible display of Vai/Satch-style shredding, before joining the band for the final number. He was 12 years old.

Mark
jwcarney wrote on 3/12/2010, 12:12 PM
I've yet to receive any email from Sony about NAB.
What gives?
John_Cline wrote on 3/12/2010, 4:15 PM
Cool stories about the young Dweez, Mark and Frank, Tor. That was a really confusing sentence. Everybody got that?