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I was really pleased when I found out these guys were playing in Richmond again. We did a little three-show mini-tour with them back in the spring and it was absolutely wonderful. For anyone who hasn't heard of Project/Object, they play music from Frank Zappa's entire catalogue and some original material of their own. The band includes three Mothers Pf Invention Alumni: Ike Willis, Don Preston, and Napoleon Murphy Brock. On this occasion, Project/Object had their "stunt" guitarist, Robbie "Seahag" Mangano, back in the pack as well. Robbie's been away with his other band, Sound of Urchin, for a good while, and his re-addition made the group a lot tighter and really brought things together.
The night's festivities were kicked off by Special Ed and The Shortbus Bluegrass Band. These guys put on a great show and really set the tone. Don Preston, who can be considered one of the founding fathers of the synthesizer world, started Project Object's portion of the night off with some of his original material. The rest of the band then took the stage. They spent the remainder of the evening covering some 25 years of Frank's career. Some of the real highlights for me were an incredibly jammed out, "Big Swifty" from Waka/Jawaka, "Stick it Out" off of Joe's Garage (including the first verse sang in German), and "Advance Romance" (My favorite version of which is off of Bongo Fury as sung by Captain Beefheart). These guys played for over two hours and then came back out for a monster encore that included "Village of the Sun," "Echidna's Arf," and "Don't You Ever Wash that Thing?" done in grand Roxy and Elsewhere form, capped off with "Montana."
It was a real thrill to see all this Roxy material, since Napoleon Murphy Brock did the original vocals on that classic 1974 live album. This venue has the acoustics of a civic center during a monster truck rally, but the talent of this band really overcame the awful sound quality. You owe it to yourself to check these guys out if you haven't seen them yet and they're a great way to initiate yourself to Frank Zappa's music if you're not familiar with it!
Ryan Blair
JamBase | Virginia
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