G. Love and Donavon Frankenreiter Mohegan Sun Wolf Den 1/28/23

 Great duo gracing the Wolf Den stage at the casino. These shows are free and have a strict time control, starting at 8pm and ending at 930. The casino wisdom says to get bodies on the floor and the money will fly from the wallets. We arrived a little late but caught a decent amount of the set. Love and Frankenreiter are veterans of the jam rock scene and was good to see them on the stage at the same time. G. love is the mush mouthed homie from Philly. I first saw him in Memphis at a festival some 20 years ago and was captivated by his vocal style and harmonica chops. Donavon put out a few critically acclaimed platters back in the day and sprinkled some hits into this set. Guest axe-wielder Christone Kingfish Ingram played a national steel for the recent Guitar Man. G. said Kingfish has a forthcoming Dan Auerbach ( Black Keys) produced record, which is a pretty big deal. Wiggle Worm, Baby’s Got Sauce, Cold Beverage, were highlights from the G. Love catalog. Donavon plays a mean guitar, the highlight from his catalog was It Don’t Matter. He had the bright idea of pulling a fan onstage to sing the refrain. Not sure if it was planned or he got lucky, but this big fella fan was A) not trashed, and B) had the blues vocal chops of Canned Heat. Enjoyable show for free. These two were heading to Irving Plaza the following evening which definitely would be a different price point for entry.

The Z3 1/14/23 Spaceland Ballroom

 Z3 is a trio of Tim Palmieri on guitar, Beau Sasser on keys, and Bill Carbone on drums playing “funky takes on Frank”, Zappa that is. All three have a pedigree of the regional jam band scene playing in Kung Fu, Lotus, and The Breakfast. East Havenite Palmieri has been playing guitar in New Haven since the 90s playing all of the Gathering of the Vibes Festivals, so you can imagine our paths have crossed. For me, his most memorable stint was that of the solo axe-wielding troubadour residency at the front room of Bar. In that capacity, he was called upon to take requests from the pizza munching masses. The wide range of patrons asked him to play anything from New York New York to the Black-Eyed Peas, and he happily obliged. On one occasion, an obnoxious listener, me, asked him to mash Cindy Lauper’s Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, with John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme to which he did an admirable job. He literally came to those gigs with a huge book, a Funk and Wagnalls bible of songs, on the rare chance he got stumped. So, what do you do when you can play anything, even layering multiple tunes? Dive headfirst into the maelstrom known as the Frank Zappa catalog. Guitar pyrotechnics, sophomoric lyrics, impossible chord changes and time signature jumps create a springboard to further his craft, without breaking a sweat. I’m a little rusty, and certainly missed some references, but here goes a stab at the setlist. Peaches En Regalia, Joe’s Garage ( with forays into Tequila and Louie Louie), Baby Snakes, an excellent lengthy bluesy Willie The Pimp, Muffin Man (reimagined with a crab cake),  Excentrifugal Forz, Apostrophe, an excellent take on Titties and Beer (complete with Carbone donning a devil mask for the deal with the devil sequence). They even sang a tune in German, Frank was much beloved in Eastern Europe. Some sequences just seemed to run off a Zappa riff, noodling their way through a cavern of organ fueled krautrock at one point. The teases were also plentiful, I heard Blackbird and While MyGuitar Gently Weeps, and a beautiful take on Blue Wind (RIP Jeff Beck). The packed house was glad to welcome Tim home as he recently relocated to the Florida Keys. Encored with Zombie Woof and then Montana from the Overnight Sensation record, Tim closed out the evening with a strict reading of the surf chestnut Apache, which must have some Zappafied significance. If the Z3 come to your town, don’t be a naughty Eskimo, get out and see them.