THE MOTHERS OF INVENTION: BURNT WEENY SANDWICH

Like Focus eased my fear of yodelling with their "Hocus Pocus track, Frank Zappa's Mothers have lessened my hate for doo wop with the songs that book end this album. Not that I'll be running out to purchase the Cruising With Rubin And the Jets album just yet, or probably ever for that matter. No. I am certainly no Zappa freak, that's for sure. I don't think I have the patience or money to get engrossd in the murky world of becoming a complete Zappaholic. It was the interest in jazz/rock fusion which led me to the path of Frank Zappa's Hot Rats album, which was probably inevitable really as it is probably the pioneering jazz/rock fusion album and therefore a must for many collectors, even if only from a historical standpoint. After having and heard and lived with Hot Rats I was eager at that point to see what had floated around the album, as I knew that it hardly just came out of the air, but there had to have been progression. Hot Rats, to me, was a complete and very well executed album. Zappa merged and weaved the music to a fine fix. So after obtaining Uncle Meat, a real eclectic and at time both frustrating and engrossing affair I went the whole hog by completing my own personal Zappa trilogy by getting my grubby hands on a Burnt Weeny Sandwich. So the doo wop numbers "WPLJ" and "Valerie" were interesting, typically Zappa like humorous, but between the posts of those tracks was the real core of the album, the music which I was drawn to as if by magic. The music is wild and haphazard, witty, fun. Some of the pieces come across like moments from Hot Rats, but underdeveloped, poorly played perhaps by this incarnation of the Mothers Of Invention, whom I'm unsure of the actual personnel as I'm really too lazy to check the liner notes. I'm also unaware of most of the titles of the tracks, but when it comes to instrumental music that is just the way it is with me. But lets just say it was enjoyable, a little quirky and wild but very easy to play over and over. But I really bought it for the album cover.