VA - Frank Zappa: 21 Burnt Weeny Sandwiches (2010)

We set off on a journey through time and space some time back in 2008. We belatedly fastened our safety belts in 2009. And we had a smooth landing on Thursday 17 June 2010, around tea time. ‘Twas Fraz Knapp what came up with the wizard wheeze of following-up the qualified success that was the 20 Extraordinary Renditions CD. And Cordelia Records was happy to do the biznis again. So for many months, I poked and prodded 20 artists until they condensed the whole of the Burnt Weeny Sandwich album into a 3-5 minute bite-sized snack, with a pinch of artistic licence (they didn’t have to use a bit from every song, but at least something/anything from this wondrous album). Once done, Pete Brunelli of DOOT! twiddled some knobs of butter to concoct a mix of extracts from the 20 resultant pieces, inadvertently creating a whole new 21st interpretation of the album. And, as luck would have it, another wonderful sleeve concept ejaculated from the foolish young mind of our Hazel. We had a CD. And a free download. Here’s what’s what:



1. Igor’s Holiday In The Little House By The Sea – Hans Annellsson. Hans was part of The Vegetarians last time out. His solo piece is a bloody great way to start things. You’ll agree.

2. Burning Of The Sand Witch - Lee Rosevere. The artist formerly known as Fudge contributed his haunting ditty, having appeared on the CD that started all this madness (Lemme Take You To The Beach) with his surf version of The Orange County Lumber Truck. You can also hear him on Cordelia’s Further Beyond The Sea CD performing Donna Lewis’s I Love You Always Forever.

3. Radiouverture - DOOT! Features Annemarieke Schoonerwaldt (viola); Stephen Chillemi (keyboards, percussion); Kilissa Cissoko (piano); Pete Brunelli (percussion, programming); Voice Of Cheez (performing WPLJ); and the New Haven Improvisers Collective, conducted by Pete Brunelli. It includes portions of the following non-FZ compositions: WPLJ (Four Deuces); Never The Same (Cissoko); and This Is The Casbah? (Brunelli/Chillemi).

4. Opus One (Little Garage I Used To Live In) - Nigey Lennon. An FZ-approved master, based on Ian Underwood’s improvised piano introduction to Little House, written by the Old Master. Recorded back in 1970, “before my college career fizzled out in a tepid burst of ennui.”, and recorded for her composition class. The track was ‘sonically cleansed’ for the CD by Dave McMann.

5. Jimmy’s Little Dreamcatcher - Michel Delville. Michel is of course a member of The Wrong Object, who appeared on the previous two discs in this unholy trilogy. On this track he plays guitar, piano, synth and electronics. It’s kinda mellow, yet incendiary also.

6. Fried Sausage Butty (Old Grey Mix) - DJ Goat. Better known as Oldgreygoat (and sometimes Roddie Gilliard of the Muffin Men), DJ Goat has edited together performances by The Four Deuces, Jackie And The Starlights, Tony Whittaker and the MufFinZ (1995 version: Rhino, Waco, Jumpy, Roddie, Mike and Naraish). It was compiled in Megala Spilia, Crete and Birkenhead, England during December 2008. It makes me smile. A lot.

7. Pink Eazy Weeny – ZAPPATiKA. The band delivered this to me live on stage. In London. It’s strange. But very true.

8. Jimmy Chile – Carl, Fraz & Ed. Former Muffin Man, Carlo Bowry, was FrazKnapp & Ed Newton’s surprise special guest stunt guitarist at A Concert For Jimmy in London on 9 November 2008. He has edited together some pieces from their wonderful power trio set, which references songs connected to JCB. The almost-legendary Gamma makes a brief appearance. Please remain calm.

9. Fraudulent Free Jazz Extrapolations On White Port And Lemon Deuce - Evil Dick And The Banned Members. Mr Dick took the BWS album and squeezed the whole thing down to a five minute sound file. It sounded like a Nancarrow player piano piece. Using that as a template, he then ploughed through the notes and selected the ones he liked, in the ranges of the instruments he was arranging for, and The Banned Members – that is, Evil (drums/sampler), Jools Street (guitar/violin), Brett Richardson (bass/bassoon) - recorded them. “Then I decided there were too many notes, so slowed everything down again. Apart from the bassoon part, which I kept. It works out that the violins, guitars, bass and drums ‘cover’ WPLJ, whilst the bassoon covers about ⅔ of the album!”

10. Aybe Sea - Caballero Reynaldo. I was introduced to Luis Gonzalez in Paris mid-November 2009 and asked if he’d like to be involved; by 2 December, he had sent me his specially recorded C&W contribution, featuring oZcar McCuenca on trombones - and Luis G, all the rest. It’s wondrous.

11. Return Of The Son Of The Hunchback Duke - Whip It Out Ensemble. Michael Green & Co return with a rousing live rendition that makes me all sweaty.

12. BurEenIch - In Uniform. My buddy David Bruce put together a temporary band, comprising himself (on sax, keyboards, vocals and drums), Adam Camm (guitar, harmonica, vocals, drums), Ian McEwan (bass) and (another old friend) Mark Barrett (guitar). Together they munched their way through a piece which sticks very closely to Fraz’s original vision. It’s a reet tasty little sucker, I tell thee.

13. The Weenie Zapp - The FrazKnapp Fusion Project. Fraz is to blame for all this. Here’s what he said when first floating the idea: “Imagine…Burnt Weeny Sandwich (anniversary)…the entire album in one song x by 20 artists or so...each artist creatively fits in all the melody’s and arrangements into a 3-4 min piece, then a choice producer compiles his choice of each piece from all of the contributions to compile his own version of the album...may sound a bit weird but I’ve been playing with it and it could work…ie. set out some of the grooves from the album and go about fitting the melody’s etc. over the top and inbetweens?” And he and his Fusion Project – that is, Fraizer (drums/percussion), Martin Greenlee (keyboards), Ed Newton (bass), Jason Marcus (guitar), WezTax (turntable/sounds), Jon Todd & Chris Moxey (vocals) - came up trumps. It knocked my nadgers off. Literally.

14. Burnt Weeny Sandwich, Phaze 21 - J21. AKA Joseph Diaz, J21 whipped out his blistering ditty in his new studio. It rocks. Seriously. You should check out his debut solo album, Yellow Mind : Blue Mind (featuring Ed Mann) on Voiceprint Records.

15. Banger Carbonara (Slow-Burn) - Low Budget Research Kitchen. The boys worked long and hard to produce their track. Arranged and sequenced by Tony Carbone, it includes instrumental excerpts from improvisation sections of two different LBRK concerts (so in the opening segment, Lou Serdozza is playing keyboards, while in the closing one - from another concert - it’s Tommy Marks). The musicians of the LBRK are: Pete diMosso (tenor sax); Guido Soprano (baritone sax); Kubilai Khan (guitar); Dexter Greenberg (guitar); Johnny Edgar Zim (keyboards); Lou Serdozza (keyboards); Tommy Marks (keyboards); Frankie Figueroa (bass); Tony Carbone (drums). And for this project, they recruited special guest Miguel Amaral, who played some splendid Portuguese guitar. And finally, a snippet of Richard Milhous Nixon’s ‘State Of The Nation’ address from 22 January 1970. Belter.

16. Burnt Weenie Sandwich Remnants - John Tabacco. After his rather splendid extraordinary rendition, John knocked this off “while waiting for a client”. You won’t believe it. I still don’t.

17. Variations On Little House - Richard Walshe & The Pboys. This is quite mad, and surprised me a lot. In a very good way.

18. “Take that uniform off, man!” - Black Bastard Jenkins. Who they? They be Jimmy Carl Black (all thanks to Jon Larsen), Andrew Greenaway (never heard of him), and Alan Jenkins (of The Thurston Lava Tube and Cordelia fame).

19. Holiday Little House - The Bogus Pomp Low Budget Semi-Acoustic Orchestra. Recorded in Hamburg in 2008 and beautifully edited by Jerry Outlaw and Bill Ehrsam at Mindshaft Studios in Tarpon Springs Florida.

20. Themes From Burnt Weeny Sandwich - The Todd Grubbs Group with ANT-BEE, Bo Smith and Tony Arnone. An epic featuring a ‘percussion wash’ by Billy James (which is a piece called Return Of The Knick Knack People in tribute to Frank’s Revenge Of… from Läther) and made the hairs on the back of my neck tingle.

21. Weenyization Phaze 21 - Pete Brunelli & All Of The Above. This is the afore-mentioned megamix, made up of excerpts from the above 20 tracks, with a few outtakes and other bits and bobs thrown in: onesuch being from that-man-again, Gamma, recorded at Tami Studios by Michael Lorek in the company of Buzzo Landi.