Weasels Ripped My Flesh
Mostly live and improvised Mothers recordings assembled after the split, under a Neon Park cover.
The Mothers Of Invention, 1970
- Released
- 10 August 1970
- Recorded
- December 1967 to August 1969
- Label
- Bizarre
- Producer
- Frank Zappa
After the Mothers split in late 1969 Zappa assembled this album and Burnt Weeny Sandwich from unreleased studio and live recordings. Weasels Ripped My Flesh is mostly live and loose, and Zappa said in 1970 that about 80 percent of it was group improvisation. The recording sites range from the Philadelphia Arena on 2 March 1969 (Didja Get Any Onya?) and the Royal Festival Hall in London on 25 October 1968 to Town Hall in Birmingham on 30 May 1969, where the title track was caught. The Eric Dolphy Memorial Barbecue is a tribute to Eric Dolphy, named in the Freak Out! liner notes as an influence. Directly from My Heart to You is a Little Richard song, with Don "Sugarcane" Harris on violin and lead vocal.
Neon Park painted the cover from a September 1956 Man's Life magazine cover story with the same title, as a parody of a Schick electric razor advertisement. The record reached 189 on the Billboard 200. Rolling Stone called it a random collection of editing room snippets in 1970, and AllMusic later gave it 4.5 stars out of 5.
Track listing
- Didja Get Any Onya?3:44
- Directly from My Heart to You5:17
- Prelude to the Afternoon of a Sexually Aroused Gas Mask3:35
- Toads of the Short Forest4:48
- Get a Little2:35
- The Eric Dolphy Memorial Barbecue6:53
- Dwarf Nebula Processional March & Dwarf Nebula2:12
- My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama3:35
- Oh No1:46
- The Orange County Lumber Truck3:18
- Weasels Ripped My Flesh2:05
Personnel
- Frank Zappa lead guitar, vocals
- Ian Underwood alto saxophone
- Bunk Gardner tenor saxophone
- Motorhead Sherwood baritone saxophone
- Buzz Gardner trumpet, flugelhorn
- Roy Estrada bass
- Jimmy Carl Black drums
- Art Tripp drums
- Don Preston piano, organ, electronic effects
- Ray Collins vocals on Oh No
- Don "Sugarcane" Harris electric violin, vocals on Directly from My Heart to You
- Lowell George rhythm guitar, vocals on Didja Get Any Onya?
- Neon Park cover art
More from The Mothers Of Invention
Freak Out! (1966), Absolutely Free (1967), We're Only in It for the Money (1968), Uncle Meat (1969)
Sources
- Weasels Ripped My Flesh, Wikipedia
- Weasels Ripped My Flesh: Notes and Comments, Information Is Not Knowledge