Customer Reviews

Burnt Weeny Sandwich

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4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(0)
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This album contains a mix of studio recordings and live material blended together masterfully. Like 'Weasels Ripped My Flesh' it was released after the breakup of the original Mothers of Invention.

The first cut, WPLJ, is a doo-wop number originally written and performed by the Four Deuces. The Mothers show their considerable skill with this musical form while they sing the praises of drinking White Port and Lemon Juice. Roy Estrada flavors the song with some off-color Spanish commentary.

The instrumental Igor's Boogie appears in two different forms; Phase 1 and Phase 2. Both are short tributes to Igor Stravinsky, one of Zappa's great influences and bear some passing similarity to 'Histoire du Soldat' by that composer. The phases contain strong saxaphone playing by Bunk Gardner and honks by what might be a bicycle horn.

Both the 'Overture to A Holiday in Berlin' and 'Holiday in Berlin, Full Blown' are strange, beautiful melodies with a feeling of something out of 'Caberet'. There are also lyrics to 'Holiday in Berlin' on other recordings that describe a riot staged by Berlin revolutionaries and their attempt to coerce Zappa to help them. There even seems to be a theme in these songs that later appears, only slightly modified, in the Star Wars soundtrack, written by John Williams many years later! The Full Blown version contains one of the most accessible of Zappa's guitar solos, very melodic and to the point. There is an almost worshipful atmosphere created by the Mothers as they back Zappa in this live recording that was spliced onto the preceding studio material.

The 'Theme from Burnt Weeny Sandwich' is a long guitar jam with various percussion effects and organ backing. It is beautiful and danceable.

'Aybe Sea' which used to close side one and open side two of the original vinyl release is a very fine, haunting solo which segues nicely into 'The Little House I Used To Live In', one of Zappa's finest tunes. The full power of the Mothers is evident in this mixture of live and studio material. The music can scarcely be contained, it is so joyous and flamboyant! Highlights are the violin playing of SugarCane Harris, Zappa's manic guitar work, Don Preston's piano solo and Zappa's concluding frenetic organ solo. This nearly-nineteen minute piece is the highlight of the album.

Before the concluding doo-wop number 'Valerie' with Roy Estrada singing a very fine falsetto, there is a short live recording of Zappa 'interacting' with an audience member which should be heard to be appreciated. Zappa makes one of his straightforward statements that shoots an arrow of truth for those who will see it.

All in all this is a wonderful album, very well recorded and well played and is one of the finest albums that Zappa produced in his long career.

I've been a Zappa fan for a very long time. I've owned Burnt Weeny Sandwich (on LP) for a long time. The odd thing is that I didn't figure out until just recently that Burnt Weeny Sandwich is one of my favorite Zappa albums. I think that part of the problem is that I didn't really understand the album when I was a kid--although I certainly didn't dislike it. It was one of the last ones I picked up on CD, so that after not really hearing it for years, I mostly heard a song at a time in isolation with the disc in my CD changers on random shuffle.

But as someone else mentioned, this is really a concept album of sorts, and needs to be listened to in its entirety to "get it". It's an odd concept, because it's not linked by lyrics or music so much as it is by a structural meta-concept--that of a sandwich. The first and last tracks, two pseudo-doo-wop songs, serve as the bread. All the songs up to "Little House I Used to Live In" are the toppings, condiments, and so on, and "Little House I Used to Live In" is the meat . . . well, er, the big burnt weeny. What's remarkable is that the basic tracks consisted of Mothers of Invention "outtakes", but Zappa, being a skilled Dadaist/collagist, could turn "outtakes" into beautiful, cohesive, seemingly composed from scratch works faster than you can say "Max Ernst". At any rate, let's look at the tracks.

Track 1: "WPLJ" 5/5
This has been performed live on a number of occasions--it appears on the Does Humor Belong in Music? disc, for example--but without a doubt, this is my favorite version of the song. Zappa achieves an appropriate 1950s-sounding production, including the female backup singers, and the music has a great, grooving looseness, including the horns. Roy Estrada's falsetto makes it even better, as does the Cheech-Marin sounding chicano dialogue over the end.

Track 2: "Igor's Boogie, Phase One" 5/5
No one, not even Zappa, loves/loved Stravinsky more than I do, plus I love Zappa just as much, so this "L'Histoire du Soldat" tribute/spoof works brilliantly for me.

Track 3: "Overture to a Holiday in Berlin" 5/5
. . . and it leads beautifully to this severely bent-intonation wonder. God I love that brief sax solo. And the outtro melody is gorgeous and orchestrated gorgeously.

Track 4: "Theme from Burnt Weeny Sandwich" 5/5
It begins as a guitar solo track, but with an extension of the orchestration from the previous track creating multiple layers underneath. It segues to some tape-speed manipulation percussion, ala that heard accompanying the Bruce Bickford animation in Baby Snakes. There it piqued your interest, but here it grows perfectly, organically out of the composition until it consumes everything in its path. Something like a melodic Tony Williams-on-a-ton-of-acid-and-speed drum solo.

Track 5: "Igor's Boogie, Phase Two" 5/5
The bookend (within a larger bookended work) that matches Track 2. Shorter, but just as good, and not just because of the added honking, although that rocks.

Track 6: "Holiday in Berlin, Full Blown" 5/5
Later used again on 200 Motels. Here it's a bit like "Peaches en Regalia's" mellow cousin. Gorgeous melodies, wondrous orchestration, and an amazing soprano sax solo leading to more tape-speed manipulation percussion. It ties a lot of the elements of tracks 2 through 5 together very nicely, then moves to one of Zappa's more lyrical extended solos.

Track 7: "Aybe Sea" 5/5
Speaking of lyrical guitar work, this is a mostly delicate, almost kinda traditional classical piece for guitars, keyboards and a bit of percussion. Of course, there's lots of twentieth century stuff in there, too, and in a surprising change for this album, the piano solo that closes it gets pretty quiet, sparse, and not so surprisingly, increasingly "outside", as it segues to--

Track 8: "Little House I Used to Live in" 5/5
In a very smooth transition, the continuing solo piano is suddenly more jazzy--kind of a cross between Gershwin and Copland's (underrated) piano pieces. It's contemplative and moving. Then the whole band joins in a Zappa-ish fusion groove. After the drum break, there's a great 11/8 groove that turns into some wicked carousel orchestration. Then more complex, fusiony, uptempo 3/4 stuff becomes some extremely skilled interplay between Zappa and his drummer (probably Art Tripp) before the extended, burning and soulful Don "Sugarcane" Harris violin solo, interpolated by a typically odd Don Preston piano solo. There is a couple of short, interesting "stomping" vamps to listen for here--one halfway between 3/4 and 5/8, one halfway between 4/4 and 7/8. I love those kinds of "in-between" grooves. It's difficult to say how intentional they were here, but they work. The end of this track becomes composed 20th Century classical again. The transition between a melancholic hurdy-gurdy block chord structure and a spastic carnival-gone-haywire groove is primo. Although the ending pretty much remains in 4/4, there is a lot of creative rhythmic and playing-with-tempo stuff between the keyboards and drums. After the track is over, we get the Zappa's infamous quote, "Everybody in this room is wearing a uniform, and don't kid yourself".

Track 9: "Valarie" 5/5
This is the bottom piece of bread, the second pseudo doo-wop song. It has an appropriate and enjoyable lazy, sloppy--maybe even "skanky"--groove, enhanced by the guitar fluttering through Leslie speakers. Especially with the vocals, it sometimes sounds like we're trudging through molasses. In other words, holy cow we're pleasantly stuffed after eating all of that Burnt Weeny Sandwich!

This is, by far and away, my favorite album from the Mothers of Invention. I completely fell in love with it the first time I heard it and will probably stay in my top-ten favorite list until I die.

Starting with the fifties doo-wop of "WPLJ" and ending with the fifties doo-wop of "Valerie", Burnt Weeny Sandwhich is a beautiful recording of live and studio instrumentals that is further proof that Frank Zappa, was indeed, WAY ahead of his time. He and good buddy, Captain Beefheart, presented the world with some of the greatest and most eccentric music ever recorded. No, Beefheart is not on this record (please check out "Trout Mask Replica"), but what we get here is some great musical arrangements and some damn fine guitar playing (wait till you hear track 4).

Among many other things, I believe that this album (or any album by the Mothers) enhances creativity. Billy Bob Thornton once said that "if you listen to this stuff while you write, no matter what you're workin' on, it's gonna come out a little different." He was right. He listened to this over and over while writing "Sling Blade" and that screenplay won him an Oscar. I believe he knows what he's talking about.

Anyway, if you still have some doubts, just get the album and let the music do the talking. They really don't make music like this anymore. I miss Frank Zappa...

The doo-wop numbers that open and close this album are pretty neat (especially "WPLJ"), but the instrumental numbers in between are truly fascinating, and show The Mothers Of Invention at their best. The "Holiday In Berlin" suite is very humorous in parts and really runs the stylistic gamut. BURNT WEENY SANDWICH on the whole eschews the tape manipulation and free-form skronking found on much of UNCLE MEAT and WEASELS RIPPED MY FLESH, relying instead on the compositional and instrumental virtuosity of Zappa and the Mothers. "Little House I Used To Live In" starts with a haunting piano intro that segues into the main theme (one of Zappa's best for my money). From there, a long jam ensues featuring some wicked violin soloing from Don "Sugarcane" Harris which never fails to make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Certainly one of the top five Zappa albums of all time. Check it out, y'all!

When the great man died, the college radio station for M.I.T. played a two hour tribute to Frank. The program ended with Aybe Sea, with the piano notes drifting away. I've listened to this wonderful album many times since first owning it in the mid 70s, but hearing those fading piano notes that day made me cry because, to me, they represented Frank fading away from us all.

The album is, indeed, a sandwich, as the title indicates. Sandwiched between two wonderfully performed 50s style doo-wop songs are some serious Zappa compositions! A mix of studio creativity (Zappa was the consumate chef in the Utility Muffin Research Kitchen) and live Mothers playing, this recording, along with Hot Rats, Waka/Jawaka, Uncle Meat and The Grand Wazoo show Zappa as the gifted and other-worldly composer/player/arranger & conductor of some of the most challenging music of that late 60s - early 70s era.

Anybody who dismisses Frank Zappa as simply a good guitar player who sang some funny or stupid lyrics really doesn't know the man.

The title comes from one of Zappa's favorite food items. He used to fry up a hot dog, slap it inside a slice of bread, dip it in some mustard and scarf it down. Of course the title is suggestable to the suggestable listener, but this one is as simple as that.

Buy this CD and any or all of the above listed for a real excursion into another universe. Good night, Frank... wherever you are!

If Igor Stravinsky, Eric Dolphy, The Platters, Spike Jones, and Jimi Hendrix had ever gotten drunk together and decided to record an album commemorating their meeting, this is probably close to what would have come out. Some of Zappa's finest instrumentals are sandwiched between two vintage doo-wop numbers (hence the album's title). Like a (somewhat) more accessible second cousin to UNCLE MEAT, this album runs the gamut from Stravinskyian marches to acid-rock jams to gypsy dances to snide lounge music, usually within the same song. While I certainly wouldn't call this album "mainstream", it is too lighthearted to be considered "avant-garde"; Zappa always turned his prominent nose up at those who would turn their own noses up at others for any reaon, and for Zappa that included both the mainstream and the avant-garde. Thus, his music was always essentially unclassifiable. BURNT WEENY SANDWICH, along with WEASELS RIPPED MY FLESH, comprises the swan song of the original Mothers of Invention lineup; the next two albums in this "transitional" period would point to two distinct new directions in Zappa's music: CHUNGA'S REVENGE introduced Flo and Eddie (aka Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman, late of The Turtles), who would become prominent figures in the next Mothers lineup (and would feature in the film 200 MOTELS); and HOT RATS was Zappa's first solo album since 1967's LUMPY GRAVY, and introduced a jazzier, more melodic side of the composer 9this album remains a favorite of many fans as well as some non-fans). This disc is something of an apotheosis of Zappa's early jazz/classical/avant-garde experiments. Like the other albums in said "transitional" period, it is indispensible for Zappa fans, and may possibly even appeal to non-fans. Overall, this album is important for showing us that music need not have silly lyrics (or any lyrics at all) to make its listeners laugh. Listen to BURNT WEENY SANDWICH the way it was meant to be heard: in good spirits, with open ears and mind. If you let it, it will blow you away.

Frank Zappa was well known for his interweaving of live and studio tracks on his recordings, often within the same song. Burnt Weeny Sandwich does this for the first time with recording transitions much smoother than with earlier recordings, and it was a technique Zappa would only improve upon with future releases.

The album is also more accessible than earlier recordings, carrying a, albeit arcane, theme more recognizably throughout the tracks. In terms of sheer enjoyment, this is among my favorites. Zappa's ingenious use of atypical instrumentation (Ie bicycle horns accompanying more traditional horns), along with the eviscerating electric violin by virtuoso Sugar Cane Harris and the splendid piano set-pieces performed by Ian Underwood, show how FZ was able to meld his own musical direction with that of the jazz fusion impetus of the time. And besides, FZ plays some awesome guitar on these tracks as well, some of his best jams in my opinion. Afterall, I primarily begame a Zappa fan first because of his incredible skill on guitar. As FZ was quoted to say: "Jazz isn't dead. It just smells funny."

My my my. Words fail me. I must listen to this album at least 20 times a year. It is a true work of art.

A true aural "sandwich," two doo-wop songs surrounding a tantalizing blend of improv. Like it says on the back of the album, this is a TASTY little sucker.

"Little House I Used To Live In" is my favorite Zappa song, I think.

In some ways, the Mothers of Invention's BURNT WEENY SANDWICH picks up where HOT RATS, the fusion masterpiece their leader and guitarist Frank Zappa had released under his own name a few weeks earlier, left off. Both albums feature lengthy, largely improvised instrumental tracks, and both cross musical boundaries freely. But where HOT RATS was very much an exercise in jazz/rock, WEENY tends to showcase Zappa's modern classical influences a bit more, whether overtly (as in self-explanatory titles like "Igor's Boogie" and "Overture to a Holiday in Berlin") or more subtly (as in Ian Underwood's entrancing piano solo on "Aybe Sea"). Nevertheless, there's plenty for everyone in both of these albums, and while HOT RATS is ultimately the stronger of the two WEENY is likewise a top-of-the-line offering which never disappoints.
Although the original Mothers had already disbanded by the time Zappa compiled and released WEENY in late 1969, the band's spirit is still evident in the sometimes jarring juxtaposition of styles, the insertion of brief "interlude" pieces between longer compositions and, inevitably, the humorous touches which adorn the album. Two doo-wop covers (a real rarity in Zappa's usually entirely self-composed musical universe), "WPLJ" and "Valarie," bookend WEENY beautifully, with Zappa proving as effective a pop vocalist as former Mother Ray Collins and bassist Roy Estrada providing a stunning falsetto on the latter tune. In between these two worthy tributes to 1950s teen culture are some far more "serious" works, most notably the eighteen-minute "Little House I Used to Live In," assembled from several studio sessions and a concert recorded in England, which features jaw-dropping violin work from Sugar Cane Harris (another hero of HOT RATS), piano fantasias from Underwood and Don Preston and - get this - an onstage organ solo by Zappa himself. The title track and "Holiday in Berlin, Full-Blown" give the leader a chance to display his guitar chops to good effect, while the various short numbers highlight different facets of his unique compositional bent. The result is an album nearly as impressive as, if somewhat less cohesive than, its esteemed predecessor, and one no fan of serious experimental music should be without.

This is the Mothers of Invention's seventh album. It, along with Weasals Ripped My Flesh, were compiled by Frank Zappa from old material recorded just before the original Mothers disbanded. It is a combination of live and studio material. The original Mothers are featured on some parts. But other parts are more like a Zappa solo album, featuring Ian Underwood, Sugar Cane Harris and Lowell George (who went on to form Little Feat). Some of the material was taken from the same sessions as Zappa's first solo album, Hot Rats. The CD is 41 minutes long, which is long by Zappa standards. (Many of his albums were under 35 minutes).

The first and the last track are do-wop, 50's style songs, like the MOthers had played on earlier albums. The rest is stunning instrumentals. Every instrumental track is simply fantastic. It ends up with the amazing Little House I Used to Live In. There are great guitar and organ solos from Zappa, violin solo from Harris, and piano and sax solos from Underwood.

On this album, Zappa seamlessly edits live and studio material into one track, making it sound as if the piece were played during one sitting. It is difficult to tell what was done live and what was done in the studio. Zappa would continue this practice of mixing live and studio material throughout his career. On most of his later "studio" albums, the majority of the music was recorded live.