Author: Peter Podbrežnik
Artist: Zappa, Frank
Label: Rykodisc Records
Release: 1970
Rating: 4.5/5
“Weasels Ripped My Flesh” was, after “Burnt Weeny Sandwich” (1970), the second of two posthumous releases Frank recorded with the original lineup of his backing band The Mothers Of Invention, which in the minds of most Frank fans still enjoys a reputation as the most beloved and also the most “off-the-wall” of all his backing bands. One glance at a strong contender for queen of bizarre album covers is enough to tell you the music is hardly any less bizarre, and that this is definitely not an album for the musically narrow-minded, pigeonholed hardheads. Frank got the idea for this near-famous cover after he came across the cover of “Man’s Life”, some old men’s magazine from the 50s. It showed a half-naked guy, bloodied, fighting off a pack of weasels. After showing the cover of that magazine to his illustrator at the time, Frank asked whether he could come up with something even more grotesque.
The main feature of the album is that it’s a mix of live recordings and studio creations. Most of the latter were probably recorded in the first takes and completely spontaneously, although with Frank there are usually no accidents, even when it comes to the most absurd creations, and even the weirdest noise has its precisely determined place within a given composition. Whereas “Burnt Weeny Sandwich” had relatively structured pieces, mostly based on jazz rock fusion and the product of Frank’s usual studio perfectionism, “Weasels” is a total avant-garde cut-loose that, in both execution and atmosphere, sits closer to his early avant-garde work. On most of the recordings the band was caught live in the middle of chaotic improvisations. Most of these were tied to various free-form styles of avant-garde jazz. For all fans of that kind of jazz, this album has some real treats. On “Weasels” you’ll also find a not insignificant dose of the grotesque sounds typical of musique concrete, plus electronic effects courtesy of keyboardist Don Preston. You could say that, almost as a rule and in contrast to each other, the more avant-garde pieces and the noticeably more structured songs follow one another. No need to guess that Frank’s trademark half-toilet, half-socially-satirical humor is here in abundance again, and some of it was surely highly provocative at the time for all the self-appointed guardians of American public morals.
“Did Ya Get Any Onya?”, recorded during a show in Philadelphia, is a veritable explosion of free avant-garde jazz improvisation, with inarticulate dramatic sighs thrown in and rhythm guitar from Lowell George, who went on to found his own band Little Feat after Frank showed him the door. The wild woodwind improvisations bring to mind a dance march of Turkish dervishes, and at times even the howl of an elephant’s trunk. While George at one point tells a funny anecdote from his childhood, wild, almost operatic howls chime in, the kind that even a band like Magma wouldn’t be ashamed of. Some of the jazzy woodwind improvisations also recall the sounds of old cartoons, which Frank generally loved doing throughout his career. If he hadn’t always had such a nonconformist approach, he’d surely have worked with some big film studio at some point writing music for cartoons. Next comes a “sleepy” little number that will surely delight all devoted bluesers – “Directly From My Heart To You”, where Don “Sugarcane” Harris shines with bluesy violin passages and an excellent vocal performance, plus suitably, deliberately pathetic lyrics. The sleepy rhythm and monotone guitar with repeating lines are surely a treat for the average lost bluesy soul, but the excellent violin solo will probably spoil the appetite of those same folks. On the other hand, all the prog lovers will surely smirk along to it. The big oddity is that this is a cover, with the original belonging to one R. W. Penniman, since it was generally quite a rarity for Frank to take on covers. As in this case, he usually turned them into fun parodies.
“Prelude to the Afternoon of a Sexually Aroused Gas Mask”, as its goofy title already tells you, is a pretty bizarre creation, even by Frank’s usual 60s standards. It’s a grotesque mix of free jazz improvisation and bizarre musique concrete sounds, such as deliberately annoying screeching vocals, crazed laughter, sobbing and Native American war cries, performed by bassist and singer Roy Estrada. The peak of bizarreness arrives when a lovely piano motif appears and, in between, there’s some sonically manipulated dog growling, courtesy of Motorhead Sherwood. This bizarre experiment was recorded during a show at London’s Festival Hall, and I hope the mostly eccentric English community managed to take it with open arms, unless they were frozen stiff from shock, because for some it was surely the most bizarre musical experience up to that point. “Toads Of the Short Forest”, recorded in the studio, is yet another avant-garde jazz experiment (or jazz rock fusion, if you like) with numerous rhythmic variations. Despite a relatively melodic intro on mellow percussion, woodwinds and bluesy guitar, it eventually turns into a pretty bizarre drum solo with a heap of improvisations on woodwinds, piano and guitar. “Get a Little”, which opens with one of the band members coughing, contains a document of Frank’s guitar mastery, with excellent, wailing bluesy guitar improvisations (if he weren’t such a multidimensional musician, he could have made an excellent blues guitarist).
Next up is “The Eric Dolphy Memorial Barbecue”, dedicated to Eric Dolphy, the late, legendary American jazz musician known as a great innovator and an excellent alto saxophonist, flutist and bass clarinetist. Dolphy was supposedly one of the first jazz musicians to bring free, avant-garde forms into his own expression, and as such he certainly ranked among Frank’s important influences. As is only fitting in Eric’s honor, the piece is full of avant-garde jazz improvisations with plenty of assorted percussion. In the second part, Ian Underwood leads the woodwind party on alto saxophone while he’s joined by Bunk Gardner on tenor saxophone, Motorhead Sherwood on baritone saxophone and Buzz Gardner on trumpet and horn. The finale brings some unusual improvisations on bass, woodwinds and organ. The mood of this avant-garde jazz fusion composition could be described as somewhere between a funeral procession and a circus march. “Dwarf Nebula Processional March & Dwarf Nebula” (once again a title only Frank could dream up) sounds like a tune from some wacky cartoon where garden gnomes set off on a rocket trip. Here the listener runs into a pile of electronic sounds and bizarre musique concrete noises that really do recall the chatter of mischievous gnomes.
Then comes the fun pop rocker “My Guitar Wants To Kill Your Mama”, one of the best-known creations of Frank’s career, more than likely because of the lyrics, which were without a doubt pretty controversial for the time. It’s one of Frank’s first direct jabs in the face of the American guardians of public morals, whom he fought through most of his musical career, if not his life. Here Frank also takes the lead vocal role, and his sarcastic vocal finds just the right spot in the middle of the jokey melody. Despite its apparent accessibility and rhythmic simplicity (in my opinion the most accessible piece on the album), it contains quite a few complex sections on guitar and woodwinds, plus an interesting barroom motif on Preston’s piano. The far-reaching mark this excellent song left is proven by the fact that many years later, the three guitar virtuosos Eric Johnson, Joe Satriani and Frank’s student Steve Vai, in the form of the lineup G3, played it during their live shows. It’s also worth mentioning that Frank’s eldest son Dweezil named his first solo album after this song. “Oh No”, with an excellent but mocking vocal from Ray Collins, is another shorter, fun and almost breezy pop piece with a jazzy rhythm and witty woodwinds and percussion, still carrying that spirit of the psychedelic 60s that Frank always loved to satirize so much. The finale brings two more live recordings. “The Orange County Luber Struck”, recorded in London, is even one of the best pieces on the album. After a relatively easygoing tempo in the intro, the composition unexpectedly makes a complete turn in the second part. Here comes a bluesy/hard rock section with plenty of witty guitar passages and all kinds of drum transitions. Even though Frank was mostly enthralled with jazz in that period, he never forgot his rocker heritage. The album closes with the title track, recorded during a show in Birmingham, which is nothing more, nothing less than the hiss of an oscillator. In the finale, Frank and his comrades compete over who can make the most noise on stage. No wonder these barbershop-clipper sounds gave Frank the bizarre idea of a weasel that, in the form of an electric razor, rips open the user’s flesh. The peak of this album’s grotesqueness? Not quite, because that comes right at the end. After the noise ends and Frank thanks the audience for coming, you can hear one of the audience members yell “more”, and in my opinion that’s without a doubt the most bizarre moment on the whole album.
“Weasels Ripped My Flesh” is without a doubt a veritable relic for all fans of Frank’s early years with the first incarnation of The Mothers Of Invention, and none of them should go without it. Many people, even years after the first version of the Mothers had become distant history, still nostalgically claimed that this was the best period of Frank’s career. I wouldn’t agree with that myself, but it was certainly the most revolutionary period, in the sense that his music still had a major influence not only on the development of popular music and (progressive) rock but also on the social events of the day, especially in the modern Babylon, that is, the USA, where his lyrics were constantly on the agenda of overwrought congressmen, while on the other side of the Iron Curtain his music was banned anyway until the end of the 80s (most rock music in the then USSR and its satellites was simply called “Zappa”). As the final act of Frank’s early period, “Weasels Ripped My Flesh” nicely rounds off the creative output of that time and at the same time contains some of the finest gems he created with the original Mothers. Those who prefer a rounded structure and melody in their music should only tackle this album after a good while, once they’ve explored Frank’s more accessible albums, since “Weasels” is for the wider audience surely one of his “harder” albums.
Lineup
Frank Zappa – guitar, vocals
Ian Underwood – alto saxophone
Bunk Gardner – tenor saxophone
Motorhead Sherwood – baritone saxophone and snoring
Buzz Gardner – trumpet, English horn
Roy Estrada – bass guitar, vocals
Jimmy Carl Black – drums
Art Tripp – drums
Don Preston – piano, organ, electronic effects
Ray Collins – vocals on ‘Oh No’
Don “Sugar Cane” Harris – electric violin and vocals on ‘Directly from my heart to you’
Lowell George – rhythm guitar and vocals on ‘Didja Get Any Onya?’
Production
Frank Zappa
Track list
1. Didja Get Any Onya? (6:51)
2. Directly From My Heart to You (5:16)
3. Prelude To The Afternoon of a Sexually Aroused Gas Mask (3:48)
4. Toad Of The Short Forest (4:48)
5. Get A Little (2:31)
6. The Eric Dolphy Memorial Barbecue (6:52)
7. Dwarf Nebula Processional March & Dwarf Nebula (2:12)
8. My Guitar Wants To Kill Your Mama (3:32)
9. Oh No (1:45)
10. The Orange County Lumber Truck (3:21)
11. Weasels Ripped My Flesh (2:07)
Album length: 43:03
