I heard Push Th' Little Daisies and just thought it was wierd, heard Voodoo Lady and kinda liked it. For some reason I was always very suspicious of them, and I don't know why. I bought Quebec for some reason and it didn't move me very much. A year later I tried the Mollusk and it totally blew me away. I still think it's their best album. I gradually got a few more albums, and I discovered that the more albums I heard the more I liked them overall. It is very hard to get a sense of this band from only a couple of albums. A few days ago I went on a binge and bought everything I was missing, so I've been drowning in Ween. I haven't listened to anything else in about two weeks, which is something that has never happened with me. All day long at work on the ipod, all night long on the stereo. At some point, the wife is going to put a stop to this.
― Joseph Cowart (Joseph Cowart), Saturday, 12 November 2005 10:20 (eighteen years ago) link
I dunno. I originally got involved with this band in a kind of collegiate-stoner scene and sense, thanks mostly to a friend who geeked out on them more than I can ever dream to. What keeps them from every being a "joke" band -- and what I think has been spelled out by the progression of their albums -- is that no matter what kind of song they're attempting, they tend to commit to it absolutely and entirely. Often they're joking, but it's incredibly rare that they're actually parodying a sound. This is possibly why Chocolate and Cheese works well for me: it was the first moment where the really leapt beyond the fun of their recording process, and the songs managed to come out fully functional without really changing much at all. "Freedom of 76," or "Joppa Road" -- the lyrics joke (a little), but is there really anything about these songs that doesn't function really well within the styles they're adopting? And from there to, umm ... "Ocean Man?" It's only really after The Mollusk that I feel like they've dedicated themselves more than I like to their "proper" songwriting, and in the process lost a little of the imagination and breadth of the stuff before.
I'd actually say the same of a lot of the lyrics, but that's a little more complicated -- something about how a "weird" song will read as funny, intentionally off, even when it can more interestingly be read as (theoretically) serious. E.g. as a light example, what makes "Freedom of 76" so far removed from a "real" tribute to Philadelphia? (And for a heavier one, isn't it kind of fun to imagine "Mister Would You Please Help My Pony" as an actual situation and problem? Kid's pony is in mortal peril!)
Anyway yeah: it helps to try not to read "weird" as "funny," because in a lot of cases, with these guys, it's actually just wonderfully imaginative, especially when it comes to the songs and the sonics -- which are rarely half-assed "joke" performances, and are often written for total earnest effect. I'm surprised more people don't cover these songs, to be honest: I know Phish have adopted "Roses are Free" as practically theirs, but there are loads and loads of great fascinating songs beyond that kinda begging for various interpretations.
The White Album reference from before is a really terrific one -- styles and novelties thrown on out of sheer imagination, and delivered in a way that's not "kidding" but fully-committed and just incidentally fun. And if you think everyday Ween fans are freaks, then whoah Jesus you should have seen the crowds that showed up for their country tour! I have some some weird-ass people in my life, but nothing tops the country contingent at their Chicago show for that one.
― nabiscothingy, Saturday, 12 November 2005 18:49 (eighteen years ago) link
Axes: Bold as Boognish - 5.5God Ween Satan - 9Pod - 9.5Pure Guava - 7.5Chocolate & Cheese - 712 Golden Country Greats - 9Mollusk - 8White Pepper - 7Quebec - 5.5Shinola - 7
― LoneNut, Thursday, 9 February 2006 21:45 (eighteen years ago) link
― mom, Thursday, 9 February 2006 23:54 (eighteen years ago) link
flies on my...........DICK!!!
― mom, Thursday, 9 February 2006 23:56 (eighteen years ago) link
― Mr. Snrub (Mr. Snrub), Friday, 10 February 2006 03:44 (eighteen years ago) link
― Mr. Snrub (Mr. Snrub), Monday, 31 July 2006 17:45 (seventeen years ago) link
― Marmot 4-Tay: The root cause of dragon hatred among power metal bands. (marmotwo, Monday, 31 July 2006 17:52 (seventeen years ago) link
― Mr. Snrub (Mr. Snrub), Monday, 31 July 2006 17:55 (seventeen years ago) link
Classic
― J. Grizzle (trainsmoke), Monday, 31 July 2006 17:56 (seventeen years ago) link
― Marmot 4-Tay: The root cause of dragon hatred among power metal bands. (marmotwo, Monday, 31 July 2006 17:59 (seventeen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 31 July 2006 18:10 (seventeen years ago) link
― Mr. Snrub (Mr. Snrub), Monday, 31 July 2006 18:14 (seventeen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 31 July 2006 18:15 (seventeen years ago) link
I wish them the best of luck in everything they do.
― fuckfuckingfuckedfucker (fuckfuckingfuckedfucker), Monday, 31 July 2006 18:18 (seventeen years ago) link
― Marmot 4-Tay: The root cause of dragon hatred among power metal bands. (marmotwo, Monday, 31 July 2006 18:27 (seventeen years ago) link
― the doaple gonger (nickalicious), Monday, 31 July 2006 18:30 (seventeen years ago) link
― danzig (danzig), Monday, 31 July 2006 19:19 (seventeen years ago) link
yesssssssssssssssssssssssss.
― Emily B (Emily B), Tuesday, 1 August 2006 03:18 (seventeen years ago) link
ween are better now at singing and playing guitar but worse at making records. -- ¨?¨?¨?¨?¨?¨? (chaki.time...), June 20th, 2006 1:17 PM. (chaki)
― Supercalifragilisticexpiala Brosius (chaki), Tuesday, 1 August 2006 03:22 (seventeen years ago) link
Let us all anticipate the new Ween FRIENDS EP (due 06/19) and untitled album (due sometime this fall)!
http://www.chocodog.com/chocodog/ween/ween_new/ween_thefriendsep.jpg
Roxor.
― Mr. Snrub, Thursday, 7 June 2007 22:00 (seventeen years ago) link
"what deaner was talking about" is the shins but better
― M@tt He1ges0n, Thursday, 7 June 2007 22:06 (seventeen years ago) link
HOLY BALLS I AM SEEING THEM LIVE ON SUNDAY.
taste the waste!
― Emily Bjurnhjam, Thursday, 7 June 2007 22:54 (seventeen years ago) link
My cat's name is Captain Fantasy.
― Davey D, Saturday, 9 June 2007 17:03 (sixteen years ago) link
"Don't Laugh (I Love You)" is all the twee most people will ever want.
― Cunga, Wednesday, 24 February 2010 23:25 (fourteen years ago) link
Jesus ChristPainTake oneYeah! Pain
Last time I saw you, I was holding your handAnd I couldn't wait for you to leaveI knew right then that it was over and doneAnd I couldn't believe that I was free
Help me now, I'm going downAnd I don't know if I'll be okI'll be around, I'll be in townIf you need a place to stay
When the wind blows and there's a chill in the airI hope that someone is taking care of youI'm alright, yeah, I'm really okJust so you know I'm always there for you
― Anton Levain (jdchurchill), Thursday, 25 February 2010 00:27 (fourteen years ago) link
Just had a thought, could "Buckingham Green" be a reference to Lindsey + Peter? Or is it just a cool English-sounding name?
― R. Stornoway (Tom D.), Friday, 16 July 2010 11:42 (thirteen years ago) link
I always thought that it was a reference to the Buckingham Green Shopping Center located a few miles down the road from New Hope, PA.http://www.buckinghamgreen.com/images/pagelayout20_04.gif
― bmus, Friday, 16 July 2010 17:47 (thirteen years ago) link
Seeing these dudes tomorrow again! Hope they go light on the La Cucaracha album, the only dud in their catalog IMO...
― ColinO, Saturday, 17 July 2010 04:48 (thirteen years ago) link
Where did the motherfucking cheese go at?
― lol @ dog w/ sunglasses (Pillbox), Tuesday, 28 September 2010 17:12 (thirteen years ago) link
(i don't know)
― lol @ dog w/ sunglasses (Pillbox), Tuesday, 28 September 2010 22:37 (thirteen years ago) link
Ween, the eternal:
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/music/la-et-0129-ween-20110129,0,6390254.story
― Ned Raggett, Saturday, 29 January 2011 02:59 (thirteen years ago) link
ween, the clusterfucking (from what I hear): http://www.straight.com/article-369810/vancouver/ween-completely-blows-it-bizarre-vancouver-show
― symsymsym, Saturday, 29 January 2011 03:06 (thirteen years ago) link
Hope they go light on the La Cucaracha album, the only dud in their catalog IMO...
people keep putting down La Cucaracha, but the two tracks I have heard from it (Woman And Man and the divine Your Party) are both amazing.
Particularly Your Party, which is plainly the best song ever recorded by anyone.
― The New Dirty Vicar, Friday, 30 September 2011 11:19 (twelve years ago) link
are there really standouts from that album? maybe i'll give it another shot.
― billstevejim, Saturday, 1 October 2011 00:44 (twelve years ago) link
dirty vicar otm. "woman and man" is ween's "sympathy for the devil." the sax on "your party" kills. "spirit walker" could have been on 'white pepper.' "friends" is one of their best songs. all in all have to say this album is better than 'quebec'
― reggie (qualmsley), Saturday, 1 October 2011 00:56 (twelve years ago) link
single version of Friends >>>>>>>> album version of Friends
― robocop last year was a 'shop (sic), Saturday, 1 October 2011 02:08 (twelve years ago) link
I think quebec is maybe their best, so I cant agree with that, but La C isn't as terrible as you've probably heardI dig "Blue Balloon" quite a bit, it's a really dumb song but I like it
― frogbs, Saturday, 1 October 2011 02:11 (twelve years ago) link
by the way it's 2012 now and they still haven't released a follow up, now I'm getting sad (especially considering how prolific these guys used to be)
― frogbs, Thursday, 5 January 2012 19:56 (twelve years ago) link
solo Gene Ween coming soon...
http://www.aaronfreeman.net/
― billstevejim, Friday, 13 April 2012 17:26 (twelve years ago) link
If I'm reading this correctly, it's produced by the same guy who did 12 Golden Country Greats...
― billstevejim, Friday, 13 April 2012 17:30 (twelve years ago) link
this is actually pretty good. completely dissimilar to Ween outside of maybe a few tracks on White Pepper. just kind of a lush, upbeat pop album, kinda of intentionally campy, but really catchy and fun
― frogbs, Wednesday, 9 May 2012 18:44 (twelve years ago) link
a lush, upbeat pop album, kinda of intentionally campy...
It's an album of Rod McKuen covers. So there you go.
― Hideous Lump, Thursday, 10 May 2012 02:43 (twelve years ago) link
classic Deaner:
me and carlos sort of collaborate-------I think enough time has passed where I can finally tell my favorite Ween story of all-time. The businesses and the people involved have long since closed their doors and moved on for good and hopefully the people involved (and Carlos himself, if it comes to that) will have a good sense of humor about this story. In 2003 Ween released our album “quebec” on Sanctuary Records. We worked on the album for 2 years in our beach house in Holgate,NJ, a rented house in the Pocono Mountains of PA, the garage behind Aaron’s house in Pt. Pleasant, PA, my upstairs guest room, and finally Andrew Weiss’s living room in NJ. We also worked at Water Music in Hoboken, NJ and Graphic Sound Studios in Ringoes, NJ. It was not a great period in our personal lives, Aaron was going thru a divorce and I was partying way too hard myself—it was some dark shit. The record is one of my favorites, but it is a depressing album lyrically. It was not an easy record to make either, as evidenced by the amount of places we worked, trying to find the right environment. There are demos available online that I posted where you can hear the process at work, we racked up our normal batch of like 6 dozen songs or more before whittling it down to what was finally released, 15 tunes. I am a huge fan of Carlos Santana. He is one of my favorite guitarists of all-time. He is playing better these days than ever before in my opinion. His music is more radio friendly, for sure, but as a guitarist he has aged like a fine wine. Only Neil Young, Prince, and a small handful of others can make that claim as they become members of the AARP. We were working in Andrew’s living room on the song “Transdermal Celebration”, our drummer Claude Coleman had just gotten into a horrific car crash and left us w/o a drummer for the recording and ensuing tour. Eventually it worked itself out where the record took so long to complete that Claude made enough of a recovery to do the world tour with us supporting “quebec.” In the meantime though, even though Claude had played on some of the demos, drumming on the album was left up to me, Josh Freese, and Sim Cain. “Transdermal Celebration” had been recorded 3 times by this point, with a drum machine, with Claude playing drums, and the final take on the album which features Josh Freese. It was the eventual single from the album. So, we’re in the middle of this session and I get a phone call from my roadie (nameless) who also worked for a backline company (nameless) that supplied amps, drums, lights, etc. to bands touring in the Northeast. My roadie told me that Carlos Santana’s equipment (including his guitars) had arrived via a trucking company that night at their depot. Carlos was recording an appearance on “Good Morning America” the next morning and his equipment was to be delivered to the set in NYC in a few hours. What needed to be done was immediately clear to me, I had an opportunity to play the solo on “Transdermal Celebration” through Carlos Santana’s amplifier and guitar. I had one shot at it, it meant taking a hard disk recorder to a storage space where all of Carlos’ stuff was sitting in transit. I arrived at 2am. We (very carefully) unpacked his equipment and set up his stage gear and in one take I recorded the guitar solo for “Transdermal Celebration” (the one that appears on the album, playing thru Carlos Santana’s guitar, pedalboard, and amplifier. The whole thing took 10 minutes and we were terrified we were going to get caught. A lot of people would have lost their jobs. We got the fuck outta there really fast after that. So the solo on “Transdermal Celebration” was played thru all of Santana’s shit in what resembled an early morning bank heist or something………. Of course a story like this requires visual proof, so here it is. Don’t tell anyone about these please. -Dean Ween 6/14 an afterthought: regarding the Carlos post, i'd like to add that we handled his equipment as if it were the Mona Lisa. We photographed the way his roadie had his cables wrapped and positioned and put everything back exactly as it was found. The whole process was over as quickly as it happened. Also, the respect that I have for Carlos and the depth, spirituality and stamina of his playing is held by me in the highest regard. I am not just a fan of Carlos, I am a believer and follower of everything he has done, and yes that includes the pop singles. I felt it was important to have this be known, there is no one I hold in a higher regard. Also, I have a lifetime of experience of handling equipment, as did the other person involved, it wasn't two drunk buffoons manhandling a legend's gear, the furthest thing from it. I think it's important to clarify that. -DW
In 2003 Ween released our album “quebec” on Sanctuary Records. We worked on the album for 2 years in our beach house in Holgate,NJ, a rented house in the Pocono Mountains of PA, the garage behind Aaron’s house in Pt. Pleasant, PA, my upstairs guest room, and finally Andrew Weiss’s living room in NJ. We also worked at Water Music in Hoboken, NJ and Graphic Sound Studios in Ringoes, NJ. It was not a great period in our personal lives, Aaron was going thru a divorce and I was partying way too hard myself—it was some dark shit. The record is one of my favorites, but it is a depressing album lyrically. It was not an easy record to make either, as evidenced by the amount of places we worked, trying to find the right environment. There are demos available online that I posted where you can hear the process at work, we racked up our normal batch of like 6 dozen songs or more before whittling it down to what was finally released, 15 tunes. I am a huge fan of Carlos Santana. He is one of my favorite guitarists of all-time. He is playing better these days than ever before in my opinion. His music is more radio friendly, for sure, but as a guitarist he has aged like a fine wine. Only Neil Young, Prince, and a small handful of others can make that claim as they become members of the AARP.
We were working in Andrew’s living room on the song “Transdermal Celebration”, our drummer Claude Coleman had just gotten into a horrific car crash and left us w/o a drummer for the recording and ensuing tour. Eventually it worked itself out where the record took so long to complete that Claude made enough of a recovery to do the world tour with us supporting “quebec.” In the meantime though, even though Claude had played on some of the demos, drumming on the album was left up to me, Josh Freese, and Sim Cain. “Transdermal Celebration” had been recorded 3 times by this point, with a drum machine, with Claude playing drums, and the final take on the album which features Josh Freese. It was the eventual single from the album. So, we’re in the middle of this session and I get a phone call from my roadie (nameless) who also worked for a backline company (nameless) that supplied amps, drums, lights, etc. to bands touring in the Northeast. My roadie told me that Carlos Santana’s equipment (including his guitars) had arrived via a trucking company that night at their depot. Carlos was recording an appearance on “Good Morning America” the next morning and his equipment was to be delivered to the set in NYC in a few hours. What needed to be done was immediately clear to me, I had an opportunity to play the solo on “Transdermal Celebration” through Carlos Santana’s amplifier and guitar. I had one shot at it, it meant taking a hard disk recorder to a storage space where all of Carlos’ stuff was sitting in transit. I arrived at 2am. We (very carefully) unpacked his equipment and set up his stage gear and in one take I recorded the guitar solo for “Transdermal Celebration” (the one that appears on the album, playing thru Carlos Santana’s guitar, pedalboard, and amplifier. The whole thing took 10 minutes and we were terrified we were going to get caught. A lot of people would have lost their jobs. We got the fuck outta there really fast after that. So the solo on “Transdermal Celebration” was played thru all of Santana’s shit in what resembled an early morning bank heist or something………. Of course a story like this requires visual proof, so here it is. Don’t tell anyone about these please. -Dean Ween 6/14 an afterthought: regarding the Carlos post, i'd like to add that we handled his equipment as if it were the Mona Lisa. We photographed the way his roadie had his cables wrapped and positioned and put everything back exactly as it was found. The whole process was over as quickly as it happened. Also, the respect that I have for Carlos and the depth, spirituality and stamina of his playing is held by me in the highest regard. I am not just a fan of Carlos, I am a believer and follower of everything he has done, and yes that includes the pop singles. I felt it was important to have this be known, there is no one I hold in a higher regard. Also, I have a lifetime of experience of handling equipment, as did the other person involved, it wasn't two drunk buffoons manhandling a legend's gear, the furthest thing from it. I think it's important to clarify that. -DW
http://i.imgur.com/RhJNhiY.jpghttp://i.imgur.com/85V2fsv.jpghttp://i.imgur.com/UyUfy1F.jpghttp://i.imgur.com/OY1ppaX.jpg
― Maggie killed Quagmire (collest baby ever) (frogbs), Tuesday, 17 June 2014 14:16 (nine years ago) link
haha that's incredible.
― piscesx, Tuesday, 17 June 2014 14:23 (nine years ago) link
Classic.
― how's life, Tuesday, 17 June 2014 19:43 (nine years ago) link
Amazing. I'm calling the cops
― PaulTMA, Tuesday, 17 June 2014 21:02 (nine years ago) link
new freeman album is vintage
― reggie (qualmsley), Wednesday, 16 July 2014 17:52 (nine years ago) link
It's definitely at least rather good, possibly moreso.
― PaulTMA, Wednesday, 16 July 2014 17:54 (nine years ago) link
yeah I guess I better order a copy
― Maggie killed Quagmire (collest baby ever) (frogbs), Wednesday, 16 July 2014 17:59 (nine years ago) link