BUY THE ALBUM
… THEN WATCH THE PROMOTIONAL VIDEO
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. This is available
for download only (from here). Read
Pete’s blog about it at http://petebrunelli.com/2010/04/12/burn-that-weeny/
Sadly, since the project commenced, our
very good pal Jimmy Carl Black – who appears all over The Mothers’ Burnt Weeny album
– passed away. The disc is now dedicated with mucho love to his sweet memory.
20 Extraordinary Renditions – available now