Zappa (pictured), the son of guitarist and composer Frank Zappa, has been touring and playing his father's music for the past decade using the name Zappa Plays Zappa, with his last performance in St. Louis having been in October 2016 at The Ready Room.
Since then, he's become involved in a dispute with the Zappa Family Trust, the legal entity that controls the rights to Frank Zappa's image, music, and other intellectual property and that now is headed by Dweezil's brother Ahmet and sister Diva.
Though a complete recounting of the details is beyond the scope of a short blog post, the gist of the problem is that the ZFT wants Dweezil Zappa to pay to license future live performances of his father's music, as well as a cut of his merchandise sales. Dweezil, understandably, finds this unfair, since in recent years he's dedicated most of his working life to keeping FZ's music before the public via frequent touring, while bearing all the expenses of putting a band together and taking it on the road.
The immediate result of the disagreement was that Dweezil stopped using the name Zappa Plays Zappa for his group, and instead toured in 2017 as "50 Years of Frank: Dweezil Zappa Plays Whatever the F@%K He Wants." This fall, the latest twists in the saga have included a new proposal from Dweezil to resolve the situation, and an announcement from the ZFT sanctioning something called "Frank Zappa – Back On The Road: The Hologram Tour" that supposedly will begin sometime in 2018.
Will the Zappa family's internal dispute be resolved by next May? Only time will tell, but in the meantime, tickets for Dweezil Zappa at The Ready Room are $25 in advance for general admission, $50 for a "VIP Soundcheck Party" that includes a 45-minute event before the doors open and a show poster, and are on sale now via Ticketfly.
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