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 met 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
country contribution, featuring oZcar McCuenca on trombones - and Luis G, all
the rest. It’s wondrous, and makes me want to listen even more to The Grand Kazoo: Unmatched Vol. X.
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.
Variatons 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. Read Pete’s blog
about it at http://petebrunelli.blogspot.com/2010/04/burn-that-weeny.html
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