Project/Object have simultaneously created one of the more scorching guitar albums and the scathing political albums of the past year. It is this powerful one-two punch of mesmerizing musicianship and political/sociological satire that makes "Absolutely Live" one of the strongest albums released in 2000.

Frank Zappa composed some of the most musically and lyrically complex songs ever written. Project/Object (P/O) is a Zappa cover band that faithfully recreates the sounds and words of the master musician. Ike Willis, longtime guitarist and vocalist with Zappa, joins P/O on this album and adds authenticity and validity to the music. But P/O certainly leaves their own mark on the Zappa song cannon with their incredible improvisational skills shown on this CD.

And they don't just improvise with music -- they often improvise the lyrics as well. Throughout the CD the band makes wisecracks about George Bush, Republicans, buying and throwing votes and rotten elections. These lyrical improvisations also prove clairvoyant as this CD was recorded live at Wetlands on August 5th, 2000, three months before the election.

But don't worry, if the brief forays into politics happen to turn you off. The political gags just represent a small fraction of this CD. There are three guitarists in P/O and two songs feature special guest guitarist Gary Lucas. Luckily since you will be listening to this CD at home, no ear plugs are needed. The guitars are heavy, loud and blistering but also smooth, flowing and melodic. Certain instrumental passages actually sound like progressive heavy metal. But then again that makes sense since Steve Vai did play guitar with Frank Zappa for several years.

Zappa fans will be interested to know the setlist for this live album. The songs contained on "Absolutely Live" are: More Trouble Every Day, Easy Meat, Filthy Habits, the Evil Prince, I Have Been in You, Flakes, Latex Solar Beef, Willie The Pimp, Inca Roads, Cosmik Debris and King Kong.

"You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore" was the name of a series of live Zappa albums. But with all due respect to Zappa, P/O has proven that you can indeed do that on stage today. But P/O is probably the only band that can pull it off right. And they have Zappa alumni Ike Willis to help tap into the time machine. P/O can be compared to the 1981 and 1982 Zappa bands that are heard on Volumes Three and Four of the YCDTOSA series. Those were heavy electric rock and roll bands with multiple guitarists and keyboardists. I've already mentioned the guitar army that P/O has and they also have two keyboardists/synth players to help make their big electric machine run. The keys/synths add both lead and rhythmic parts to the music. But they also contribute all kinds of fills and sound effects to help paint the picture of the lyrics.

More Trouble Every Day opens the album and sets the tone with that one/two punch of blistering guitar and politically charged lyrics. This song about political and racial unrest appears on Zappa's first album. Here on "Absolutely Live" it opens with a wall of distorted guitars cranking through the speakers. The guitars grab your attention, slap you on the side of the face and seem to say "listen up because I've got something important to say." P/O added some updated, improvised lyrics: "I was watching the Republican convention and saw the cops out on the street. I was watching them throw votes and stuff and choking in the heat." But there is nothing political at all about the next two songs. Easy Meat is a blazing, roaring, futuristic keyboard/guitar workout. Filthy Habits features Ike Willis on guitar and is an instrumental with a slightly dark and mysterious feel.

P/O shows the diversity of both their band and Zappa himself by performing the Evil Prince, which is similar to a modern Broadway show tune. I Have Been In You is a zany love song featuring great vocals by the entire band. This is followed by another stab at George Bush Sr. and Jr. in the song Flakes. In the middle of the tune there is a short spoken word section that says: "I asked as nice as I could if my dad could somehow help me get elected president. (Wouldn't be prudent.) But the whole damn 80s came and went but we didn't learn nothing and then I charged you double for something...And if you do not vote, I'll get one of them mandates who will make you so crazy so your head goes through the roof."

Gary Lucas adds his extraordinary guitar to Latex Solar Beef and Willie the Pimp while Inca Roads is performed identically to the original version. Close your eyes during this tune and you will swear you are listening to the real Zappa band in concert. It is, as a fellow music journalist likes to say, "an incredible simulation". This song soars into the stratosphere as it describes a UFO that lands in the mountains of an Indian reservation. Then the election fiasco makes a reappearance during Cosmik Debris. Too bad Zappa wasn't around to observe the election fiasco. But P/O would make Zappa proud as they added the lyrics: "The mystery man got nervous and he fidgeted around a bit. He reached into the pocket of his mystery robe and pulled out his Republican kit. Well I thought it was a candidate and a can of foaming goo...Well you might not believe this candidate but he will cure your crabcakes too." And later in the song someone yells out "Is this a real election or a Sears election."

King Kong was one of Zappa's most played and most beloved instrumentals. But this is one song that P/O makes all their own. After briefly playing the main melodic theme, the band launches into an extended improvisational section that is completely original. In fact, it is the only song on the CD where they give themselves a writing credit in the liner notes. The improv section crosses over several different genres of music. There is a honky tonk/western section, a lounge section, a section with kazoos, and a section featuring chaotic, quick, slice and dice, cut and paste wacky improv. Keyboardist/drummer Wes Paich conducts the band through this insanity.

The band is extremely tight throughout this live album. There are no musical or lyrical flubs which is all the more impressive because of how complicated both the music and lyrics are. Usually cover bands are for second rate musicians who have very little original talent. There are very few Zappa cover bands around. And because Zappa's music is so difficult to learn and play, it is a tribute to how great the musicians in P/O really are. They are not embarrassed to be in a Zappa cover band, they are proud of it. They should wear a giant Z on their chest as a scarlet letter of their dedication to Zappa. That they are able to pull everything off without a hitch proves the incredible ability and talent that each and every member of P/O has. They add their own unique touches to Zappa's songs while playing some of the most difficult music ever written.

Mostly as an introspective venture, the Paul Wertico Trio has released a musical statement that I think may be of interests to the jazz purists out there. Through instrumental form, with thought and emotion they go about sketching a release that appeals to the listener on a new level with the introduction of each cut.

The train motif on the CD jacket is for the self-described locomotive style that they were after with this recording. Paul Wertico, the drum and percussion force behind this trio, crafts one of the most unique styles that I found of late, notably on such songs as African Sunset, and Taliaville. His is more the style of a separate instrumentalist rather than a time-keeper, where most drummers tend to fall into; exploring his own nooks and crannies for that just-right rhythm, mixed in percussion, to accent to scales and sonnets of John Moulder.

Moulder, the guitarist who is ever-present on this album, has a crisp, clean sound that can only be attributed to a life of playing jazz. He knows when to take over, and when to fill in the colors. One such place is behind the soulful trumpet playing of Eric Hochberg, who leads a triple life here on the many basses, the trumpet and second guitar.

This band of non-traditional artists go so far as to explore the heavens during cuts like Just A Little Tuna, and back to a funk and groove in Testament, only to touch go and launch off again. Never once do see any one member stepping up to take the leads, but rather the whole follow each other down corridors of creativity... testing the waters by diving in.

As for the front namesake, Paul Wertico himself is a seven time Grammy Award winner/Modern Drummer Magazine & DRUM! Magazine Reader's Poll winner, and has recorded with such jazz greats as Pat Metheny. It is, however, difficult to have much to say about such an experimental music form, nor is it the desired way to experience it. All I can say is that if you are a jazz purist or tend to have an inkling in that direction, check out the Paul Wertico Trio, they are what jazz bands spawned from.

Mix calypso, the blues, jazz/funk, country and bluegrass together (with the use of washboard, fiddle, guitar, bass, accordion and pedal steel) and what does the listener receive? Alright, Leftover Salmon, yes, but actually you get the equally talented and definitely more musically austere Michigan based Steppin' In It, who on their debut release "Children Take Your Shoes Off," play an assortment of musical genres with remarkable panache and sincerity. While Steppin' In It can jam, the band prides themselves on writing remarkably concise songs, which avoid excessive pentatonic noodling or show-off soloing. Instead, the band actually follows the standard blues cliché "just feel the music," and as a result "Children Take Your Shoes Off" should unquestionably be considered the sleeper album of 2000.

Commencing the album, Plenty reveals the bands conspicuous zydeco/cajun talents, as Joshua Davis, who has a Ben Harper-esque voice, sings with his sweet tenor, and Jonathon Price adds some festive fiddle playing. Add to the zydeco sound, Andy Wilsons harmonica and penny whistle push the song into a bridge resembling an Irish jig. After another verse, the band jams on the zydeco rhythms, with Wilson's harmonica an atonal counterpoint to Price's fiddle playing. After about three minutes, the listener will be consumed by Bourbon Street's redolence, only to be pulled to the green, beer swigging pubs of Ireland.

Post the original Plenty the live version of the Harry Belafonte hit Jamaica Farewell will make the listeners jaw drop. Of course the calypso sounds are authentic, and Davis's voice complements the musical genre perfectly (and excludes any of Vince Herman's annoying gibberish) as the band flies through the song. Once again, Andy Wilson's harmonica stirs the melting pot a bit more, as his effect laden harmonica sounds foreign, but not entirely out of place in the calypso rhythms. Add in some mandolin to give a steel drum influenced solo, and the listener will begin wondering, "Why have I not heard about this band before?"

After two startling songs, Steppin' In It moves into the bluegrass genre with integrity and honesty, as the calypso and cajun rhythms give way to pedal steel, banjo, and acoustic guitar. The aptly titled Achin Bones, Worried Mind conjures up the memories of old bluegrass/country tunes, like Little Maggie and Darlin Corey. Davis should be commended for his emotional singing, which fits the weary, travelling inspired lyrics, as Davis croons:

So I pack my bones
And head out upon that dusty road
As I think of May
I should never have left my share
And I'm yearning for those lazy days of old

About ten years ago, a review of Uncle Tupelo lambasted the band for singing about coal mining. The reviewer conceivably missed how genuine and tear-filled Jay Farrah's voice sounded; thus transcending the boundaries of age and experience. When the lyrics, the music and the emotion combine, the music works, and Steppin' In It successfully creates accurate dustbowl ambience.

After the jazz/funk of Stagnationland and the high octane zydeco of the Crunch, Davis and his band mates return to the country genre with Kate, If You're Listening. Again the band gets the elusive country/folk sound correct, as Davis's voice floats along with Price's plaintive fiddle. Eventually a Wilson takes a rather austere and restrained harmonica solo, before Davis voice returns. More impressive might be how Davis's lyrics recall the work of Bob Dylan, as he sings:

And I hope you can hear this song
And it brings a little peace
And I hope that she is playing again
Singing "I Shall Be Released"
Without him.

Combining Davis's vocals, the fiddle playing and then Joe Wilson's dobro, and the result becomes a remarkably simple, but stunningly accurate musical ode to love and loss. However, rather than singing about Looking for Love, the band finds a far more intelligent and subtle way to reveal their sentiments.

Stopping here, the reader should discover the other tracks, like a perfectly performed Wayfaring Stranger, a humorous Fishin' Blues, a great calypso original Chained to Another Day and the slow waltz(featuring dubiously the albums greatest lyrics) The Second-Hand Waltz. In fact, barring some unprecedented industry problems (or the continued stupidity of the modern music scene), Steppin In It should become a fairly prominent name in 2001, as "Children Take Your Shoes Off" readily proves. A must own album.

Swimming in a bottom heavy and brassy swill of deepest funk, this septet from Seattle (pronounced Fat City) brings the funk grooves deep and phat. "Slingin' Hubs" is a compilation from their three previously released albums, and the first three cuts available for free download at Freedom Zone.

The first four cuts of the album burst at the seems with so much agressive energy, embodied best by the throaty growl of frontman Ernest "Sweets" Pumphrey Jr. and Brian Ray's crunching Les Paul, that the old school soul balladry of Changes is almost startling, and that is just where it starts to get eclectic. Phreaky Deaky is a creeper full of smooth but far out keyboard sounds that hearken back to P-Funk and a guitar heavy chorus that is more akin to Fishbone's crunch heavy funk-metal exercises that began with "Give a Monkey a Brain". In the same vein, Ahh is so funky you gonna wanna call yo' mama just to howl about it.

Phat Sidy's sound is crisp, murky and ballsy. The drums are air tight. The bass is weighty. The trumpet and sax are blaring. The guitar swings from the requisite wacka-wacka to unexpected crunch that makes the first four tracks so agressive. The horns show off on I Want You as the lines intertwine, separate, and retwine, and the keys glue it all together.

The early tracks, where the crunch often over shadows the funk, don't grip like the later cuts where the reverse is true, but those of you have been lamenting the fact that much of today's "funk" sounds like funk's equivalent to smooth jazz should step inside the Smokehouse.

OPIA: 1.) A feminine form of the infamous narcotic opium.

2) A band from Santa Cruz creating music after tearing a hole in the space-time continuum, thus allowing the sounds of 1966-1969 to be transported clearly into our current year.

A while ago I read a quote about the Grateful Dead circa 1969 which said "if the Beatles would have performed 'Sgt. Pepper's' live, the result would have been the Dead in 1969". Whether or not the comment can be proven or scoffed at becomes arbitrary, the main reason for citing the quote concerns Opia's latest release "Welcome To My Head," which sounds like a potent mix of thick guitar soup, spacey lyrics and plenty of mind altering feedback. Eventually the psychedelic cauldron, to advance the metaphor initiated by the band's title, approximates a mix between Pink Floyd, the Beatles and the Grateful Dead, where hints of Hendrix and modern alternative rock surface.

The way "Welcome To My Head" begins, with feedback and swirling, knob-twisting outré-ness beckons the listener to prepare for a psychedelic adventure; thus reminiscent of Jimi Hendrix's "Electric Ladyland". Post the effects, some jangling guitars and vocals about exploring the synapses and crevices of the mind ensue, and the title track Welcome to My Head, moves and swirls, revealing all of Opia's influence. As the track continues, backwards effects(creating a Hendrix-esque sucking sound) are complemented by a megaphone-esque voice spewing commentary about oceans and society. Close your eyes and Opia takes the listener back.

After the chemically addled introductory track, Opia then continues with the Hendrix allusions, as a guitar strums almost the Little Wing intro to start Into a Dream. Again effect laced vocals combine with the sucking back effect and some other bizarre guitar pyrotechnics and organ to make a very pleasing, and to reiterate an archaic sound. Singing, "I close my eyes and slip into a dream," the lyrics are almost bubble-gum, but the musics intensity and synaptic obfuscating nature adds some much needed depth.

Skip forward, past several alternative-band jams, and Opia's true talents surface on All Grown Up. Certainly the guitar chops and blues changes are recycled from Big Brother and the Holding Company, but Opia's playing and singing fits the late 60s, Ballroom sound perfectly. As a whole, All Grown Up contains the albums finest harmonies(extremely Beatle-esque), best lyrics and most fluid guitar solos. Sophists will cry foul, but Opia does something here, which works, despite avoiding modern musical nuances.

Being skeptical myself, I wonder how long Opia will play such dated music. Despite being well played, perfectly using effects and containing solid vocals, the music never moves beyond the sounds created thirty-one years ago. Blues-players can get away with such a retrospective approach, but very few rock bands, unless they are filling some tribute band niche, can conquer the current advancements of modern music.

Let me start off by saying that I had a few initial questions on this recording that I never really got answered. My instinct tells me that this is Andrew Riggs first release as is evident by the raw sound that is apparent. I didn't, however, have the "old reliable" website to fall back on for information on an artist I am not familiar with. Never did I think that the Internet would become so indispensable in so many different ways.

What is evident is that Andrew know his way around a guitar, and fancies himself a bluesman. He also seems to have written and arranged the majority of songs on this CD, 12 of them to be precise. He then records a couple amiable covers of such blues staples as Trouble In Mind and Broke Down Engine. But here is where the best ends.

Singing is not one of Andrew's strongest points, I would delicately like to point out. He has a distracting habit of "talking" his lyrics mostly in time with his guitar licks. Also his lyrics are not what I would call "awe-inspiring". They sound somewhat tame, and contrived. Anytime one can predict the next rhyme more than 50% of the time, it's time to explore new writing talent. That is not to say that he doesn't have some notable songs, but most of those are for their guitar work, not their lyrical structure. The two that stand out most to me are his version of Blind Willie McTell's previously mentioned Broke Down Engine, and his own Icewater which sound distinctly as though is directly inspired by Jorma Kaukonen's Water Song. Though saying anyone resembles Jorma's guitar playing in any form is hardly an insult.

The impression that I got was that Andrew would do best in a song writing duo, with a more poetically oriented lyricist. Somehow enabling him to concentrate more on the guitar and melodies, and less on the entire song, where the entire rhythm section of the songs suffer at being considered background to the all mighty guitar. That and someone with a tad more range in the vocal area, to lend the songs more weight. The blues should be for portraying the artist's suffering, not the listener's.

While Ken Burns "Jazz" will awaken non-jazz aficionados to one of the most important and inspiring American artforms, the series never progresses into the jazz made in the late 1960s and early/late 1970s; all of which are far more germane for conversations about free jazz. Very few people, by ignoring the movements of John Coltrane's "Crescent," John Zorn's "Naked City," Marc Ribot's "Yo! I Killed Your God" or Ornette Coleman's "Shape of Jazz to Come" have the mandatory vocabulary for discussing or analyzing the modern, Hegelian-philosophical equivalents currently being created.

Meaning a band like Birth, who on their eponymous debut eschews the socially predicated vocabulary used in most standard jazz-based conversations; whether in the jamband scene or the hip NY downtown scene the Post-Structural vocabulary necessary for relevant exegesis remains nonexistent. The bulwark of Burns critical analysis, Wynton Marsalis, forces all of the conversation back in time, to the playing of Louis Armstrong and Bobby Bolden, rather than the conceivable apotheosis and social freedom (like the blues were before the bastardization of the artform by white players. As Miles Davis once stated to Quincy Troupe, "Fuck the blues, let the money grubbing whites have it. We need to find another avenue for freedom") available through the creation of free jazz forms.

Enter Birth, a band outside of Marsalis versed, New Historical vocabulary. Something radiant, and nihilistic exists in Birth's music which combines the elaborate dissonant, punk-jazz aspects of John Zorn's "Naked City" with the free trio meandering of Branford Marsalis "Dark Keys"(irony here?) era into an acumen initiating entity. Mixing EFX and electric bass into the nascent sound, Birth then moves even beyond their influences, formulating an ambivalent sound which at times succeeds and fails, an experiment like an aberrant isthmus protruding from the norm.

Given the nature of the art being constructed by Birth, the following commentary should be placed in quote marks, as the statements only deserve perlocutionary treatment. Certainly based on the pervious comments, any other attempts would bring the writer into the philosophically and socially crass environs of Burns and Marsalis, whose commentary becomes accepted as fact, and as such kills the entity they hope to save.

[quotes begin]

Cover Art: Splattered blocks of black in varying degrees of darkness, similar to DNA and assorted other lab experiment results. The notion of DNA, along with the title Birth instigates the rational argument about creating something new, yet with society's already pre-established thesis or DNA. Whether or not the black blocks create a discernible figure becomes purely irrelevant, and beside the point, as the band plays with you, the viewers, expectations from the beginning. How to prepare, becomes the next consideration and involves two conceivable preparations: 1) a stiff drink for an adequate initiation or 2) complete sobriety allowing for a more academic pursuit of the trios (saxophone, bass and drums) sonic explorations.

The Music: A gamelan, begins the album, with Joe Tomino playing something sacred, inspiring temples, simple minds, pleasure and contentment. An effect enters, and the gamelan swirls for a split second before Subliminal Link launches into a full-scale musical assault. Moving from pious gamelan to basically punk rock with a lead horn: a synthesis of mosh pits and tattered dissonant jazz. Sweaty bodies, reminding the listener of running through the streets, mentally stripped and angered, fury instigating worn, war wounds, searching for a bed, a home, faces glowing, a wood floor, or asphalt? Windows glimmer in the night, the passing passenger cars focus back on to you, you who run now, the whirlwind keeps moving, the horns, the faces, Joshua Smith mimics your hollering, your blues now become voiced by the instrument, like they did in New Orleans 130 years ago. Then it stops.

A quick breath. The isthmus awaits and you stand, preparing to venture forth, into the cool night 4/4 banter. But comprehending and analyzing the event, did the rhythm really follow such preplanned, clearly discernable rhythms, or did the trio disguise their rhythms, add a beat here, drop one back there and make you feel a state of ataxia?

And what kind of link enters into the eternally inspiring arena of perfection?

A brief internal question arises:
Two black spots, violence, and disappear into a well of time. Height is not the problem. It all changes when you get back down. When you hit with your weight. So which is the lie? Hard or soft? Silence or time? (Wallace 15-16).

Saunter down to the pub/bar/juke joint. A lonely voice speaks, softly, in a rather comprehensible manner. As Smith continues on 2 Pho two others join his solo solace, where the music prods and examines every orifice. Penetrating? Absorbing? Seemingly a conflict arises, here on the bar stool, where miasma rests, people with colitis, ileus and god know what resided. Again the ambience and aura are overwhelming, to the point of effacing all around, until drums die, slow to a crawl and Smith punches through the mist and dank, pungent brume, conspicuously obviating your adequate exegesis of self. Quicker, the search becomes far more frantic, "2 PHO???" and the drums respond "Say what?" and somewhere, walking in the back alley, Jeremy Bleich, shooting craps and chatting with the {finger flexion} boys, in a rather mellow manner, paces now. "You!" and the drums return, and a breakneck, concise pace arises again: rave and bass, drum and rave...

Concluding analysis of the subject: In many ways, "Birth" pushes the listener, through a warped drum and bass, acoustic jazz, punk rock festival. The quirky nature of the music enters into the subconscious and draws out the most ambiguous noumenal thoughts. After reaching a level of saturation, the music then hits points where things are comprehensible, knowable symbols are constructed in a completely socially relevant manner(i.e. Cows reaches a heavy funk almost James Brown section, including some of Smiths most interesting electronic effects, post a free jazz intro). However the movement and capricious nature with these forms throughout the album, exhibits Births genius. When specific passages beg for a certain vamp or chord progression, the music seemingly moves forward in a breakneck manner, or enters a hauntingly frightening solo section; frightening because the listener has no idea what rhythm and to what amplitude another instrument may enter.

[quotes end]

Over the past few years, Wynton Marsalis has often complained about the dying nature of jazz and how the music lacks new voices. Although an examination of Marsalis recent career shows him re-recording the works of Monk, Ellington and Armstrong, and avoiding Davis, Lee Morgan and Wadado Leo Smith. By merely recreating aged, archaic jazz traditions and refusing to embellish the arenas where new jazz forms could be created, Marsalis, on his own terms, sets out to destroy jazz. Therefore, in an enigmatic way, Birth (and similarly avant-bands) must force their sound and philosophies beyond the money-making endeavors of their predecessors and as a direct result, pull the newly educated Burnsians beyond the Marsalis dictated boundaries of jazz. Only be looking forward, can a new "Birth" occur, which acknowledges the floozies and pimps on Beacon St., instead of residing with them in their time period.

Works Cited

Wallace, David Foster. Brief Interviews with Hideous Men. New York: Back Bay Books, 1999.