Classic or Dud: "Ladies and Gentlemen..WEEN!"

Ween, not Beck! ;-)

I'm with Dave Q to a large extent, though comparing them to Bruce Springsteen is a bit like saying a really good filet mignon is on par with Del Taco meat product. Regardless -- ever since friend EJL raved about them to me back in 1991 and made all of us listen to them, I've always found at least a little time for them somewhere. Haven't seen them live in a long while, since 1996 or so, but my sister, who claims them as her fave band, takes up the family slack there. Long may they wibble.

O my goodness. Their fans are effing lunatics. I saw them play in 97 during their "Push the Little Daisies" fame, and all the front row of people did was yell and curse and flash body parts and even urinate on stage, and this was in front of 2k people! They have got some of the most messed of fans on the face of the earth, and I love it.

I hold that Pure Guava, Chocolate and Cheese, and The Mollusk (esp. The Mollusk) are three underrated masterpieces.

I know New Hope, PA (from whence the Weeners sprung) quite well ... their vibe is very much of that town. If anyone cares - - it's a nice day-trip from Philly.

Travel Tip. Just avoid nearby Peddlers Village or Lahaska. Its like and overpriced version of New Hope without the charm. It's Martha Stewarts Wet Dream. But it funny to see an entire city who's only import/export is antiques. 300+ antique shops...in...a...row...

Speaking of Rollins picks, anybody remember Die Cheerleader?

"Sarah" or "She's My Baby" for sure. Very beautiful songs.

My favorite thing about Ween, among the countless other reasons, is that they're the only band that can be so retardedly stupid (in a good way) one minute (aka "Pumpin' for the Man", which is also a very appropriate song to listen to if you work hard for $5.50/hr), and the very next be playing a completely gorgeous amazing song the next (aka "Sarah", which is just stunning), with ZERO tongue-in-cheek factor.

IMHO, they're the REALest band this side of Fishbone, and I personally believe every album they've made so far has been even more amazing than the next. Plus, they're one of the best concerts I've ever experienced.

Some more serious good non-threatening upbeat songs with very-little-to-zero mention of prostitutes for piscesboy:

"Exactly Where I'm At"
"A Tear for Eddie"
"Freedom of '76" (okay, a little silly, but still beautiful)
"Take Me Away"
"Buckingham Green"
"Flutes of Chi"

And if the phrase "novelty band" had existed back then, you'd better believe the Beatles would have been one. "Buffalo Bill" anyone?

come on this is the *fabs*
we're talking about here -
have some respect.

Ween rule, and they are also a beam of guiding light for anyone who's former bandmates live 400 miles away and all you gots is a 4-track, drum machine, mic, and a few guitars.

Jeez, here I am looking at all the mp3s I have of this band, and I'm thinking why the hell doesn't anybody like them??? These songs are fucking fantastic!!

1. Sarah
2. She's Your Baby
3. It's Gonna Be Alright
4. Cold Blows the Wind
5. If You Could Save Yourself (You'd Save Us All)
6. Right To the Ways and Means of the World
7. Exactly Where I'm At
8. Buckingham Green
9. Chocolate Town*
10.It's Gonna Be A Long Night

*(it is often presumed that this song is a reference to anal sex, but I contend that it is a tribute to Hershey Pennsylvania)

"You Were The Fool" and "It's Gonna Be Alright" are without a doubt the 2 best "serious" Ween songs. Definitley both are in my top 5 ween songs, and they're both fucking gorgeous.

You mean the Prince cover?

1 Madonna "What the Fuck Do You Think You're Doing?"
2 Millie Jackson "The Fuck You Symphony (Live)"
3 The Coup "Lazymuthafucka"
4 Beck "Fuckin' With My Head"
5 Sleater-Kinney "Write Me Back, Fucker"
6 Liz Phair "Fuck and Run"
7 Missy Elliott "They Don't Wanna Fuck Wit' Me"
8 Fischerspooner "Fucker"
9 Tupac Shakur "Fuck 'Em All"
10 Ol' Dirty Bastard "You Don't Want to Fuck With Me"
11 50 Cent "Fuck You"
12 Jay Z "Fuck That"
13 Three 6 Mafia "Get the Fuck Out My Face"
14 Ween "Where th' Motherfucking Cheese At?"
15 Jon and Al Kaplan "Put the Fucking Lotion in the Basket"
16 Trey Stone and Matt Parker "Shut Your Fucking Face, Uncle Fucker"
17 Peaches "I Don't Give a Fuck"
18 Rage Against the Machine "Fuck Tha Police (Live)"
19 Dub Narc "Fuck Shit Up"
20 Eamon vs. Sinead O'Connor "Fucking Compares 2 U (DJ Fancy Dan MiX)"
21 D'Angelo "Shit Damn Motherfucker (Live)"
22 Magnetic Fields "How Fucking Romantic"
23 Belle and Sebastian "Fuck This Shit"
24 Bernie Mac "Motherfucker"
25 Black Sheep "For Doz That Slept"

If I may suggest:
26. Eminem - "Just Don't Give a Fuck".

Classico amigo.

Of those bands, how many name said demon god "Boognish?"

They were classic the first time I heard "You Fucked Up" and the were classic the last time I heard the 6+ minute long version of "Where'd the Cheese Go?" on their fan-request live album. Which was this afternoon.

I do have to disagree vehemently that they've anything in common with They Might Be Giants other than being a band with a core of two guys both of whom have severely under-noticed musicianship and songwriting ability. I completely get why some folks don't "get" either or both of these bands, but I still maintain that it's really easy to overlook facts like the fact that Dean just fucking shreds.

Fact.

On a related note: Moistboyz... C or D? Cause I had reservations (though I probably still wouldn't have said Dud right off), but now I have heard Moistboyz III on vinyl, and I'm gonna have to say Classic.

It's late.

I mean, the narrator is sinister, but Ween aren't trying to promote pedophilia or anything.

Spinal Meningitis is probably the worst one they have along those lines...not offensive but really really bleak. I heard someone try to cast it as them making fun of people with the disease but I can't read it that way at all.

That's the first one that comes to mind when I think 'potentially offensive Ween song'.

it goofs on horror for sickly lols. that solo tho.

^ apt description of every Ween song ever

who is expected to be offended by Spinal Meningitis, very stupid Christians?

Parents of children with spinal meningitis?

People who can't, or at least don't like to, deal with unpleasant subjects bluntly?

social justice worriers?

it's not blunt, though. it's expressing careful, crafted empathy to sufferers of, or adjacent to, the condition.

if parents of children with spinal meningitis were fans enough of Ween to make it to an album track on their fourth LP, they had probably been through enough tough times to find mordant charm and gallows humour in the song

getting xposts on zing but can't see them obv

although I just checked and it was track two side one, they didn't have to make it too far

was thinking it wasn't until side two

That song is really disturbing (regardless of being offensive or not), gets to me in a way that none of that type of music does.

yeah I have a real difficult time listening to it. kinda hate that they perform it live so much.

The 33 1/3 book on Chocolate and Cheese gives a lot of insight to how they think about they're lyrics. Jumps from from the sincere to the stoned through a range of quite personal points of references. It's kind of what makes their lyrics great; once you tune into the language and attitude you start to understand it.

'their lyrics'

yeah I have a real difficult time listening to it. kinda hate that they perform it live so much.

Don't get this tbh.

what part of it? it's a song about a small child going through medical treatment - it disturbs me

You're obv. a lot more sensitive than me!

Disturbing is a feature, not a bug.

Yeah it's nothing against them, just hits me in a weird place is all

The first time I heard Spinal Meningitis I wondered if I had made a huge mistake by getting into Ween and could ever listen to that song again

Don't get this tbh.

― Larry 'Leg' Smith (Tom D.), Wednesday, June 8, 2016 12:59 PM (Yesterday)

eh, most people have a vaguely-defined threshold past which enjoyably weird & creepy becomes upsetting, not funny at all. first time i heard "22 going on 23" by the butthole surfers, it threw me quite forcefully over that line, and i've never since wanted to hear it again. to say nothing of throbbing gristle's "hamburger lady"...

You will probably not be surprised to learn I love both those songs.

Kind of draw the line at "Slug Bait" though.

yeah, there's no shortage of unpleasant tg lyrics

I was thinking of that Butthole Surfers song. There's a few things about it.

In the sample a woman talks about being sexually assaulted and having bad dreams about it. According to them it was a woman who kept phoning into a radio show with different made up stories that contradicted each other. They said the track is a big fuck you to her for making up all these stories. But listeners have no way of knowing this unless they know this trivia and it simply sounds like they are using the account of a woman who's been sexually assaulted for shock value and listeners are likely to feel sympathetic towards her.
Even if a most of her stories were made up, it's very possible she was sexually assaulted and/or suffered from mental illness.

There's also the Lisa Germano song

The song 'A Psychopath', which samples a real 911 call where a woman confronts an intruder in her home,[6] was inspired by an experience Germano had as a child, when she was riding her bike and a strange man exposed himself to her.[5] The song was written about the general feeling of powerlessness that women can experience, especially with regard to sexual predators.[5] She obtained the 911 call recording from a rape centre (with their permission), after originally encountering it in a documentary about violence.[1] She was initially hesitant to use the recording, thinking it was "too intense", however ultimately decided it was something worth saying.[4] Germano has said that making the song was scary and very upsetting, and that she had trouble sleeping after recording it.[1]

Obviously Germano is well meaning but I wonder if the woman in the sample was asked, because if not, I don't think she should have used it.

Then there's some sampled interviews about people's horrible lives in Swans.

Even if all this stuff was used with the best construcive intent in brilliant music, a lot of people wouldn't like their traumas to be used like that.

re: "22 Going On 23" thank you for explaining that. I like the song a lot better now. Definitely felt uncomfortable the last few times I heard it.

i don't listen to them at all as far as their CDs go - last one i probably heard all the way through was the pod when that came out - but sometimes i will flip through stuff on youtube and i feel like i can point to some of their genre homages and say: okay, that's better than any phish/neutral milk hotel/destroyer/of montreal/paul mccartney/etc song i've ever heard.

and they are also weird in the way i can listen to a song by them and say: okay, that's better than any latter-day tears for fears song i've ever heard.

who else could i even say that about?

i feel like i can point to some of their genre homages and say: okay, that's better than any phish/neutral milk hotel/destroyer/of montreal/paul mccartney/etc song i've ever heard.

― scott seward, Tuesday, March 7, 2017 6:12 PM (two minutes ago)

yup, same here. also with you on the listening approach. a song here, a song there, but i never sit down & listen to a ween album.

oh wait, shit, you had mccartney in there?

haha, well, just thinking of examples off the top of my head. i've heard some mccartney-esque ween that i would probably rather listen to than a lot of mccartney though.

a ween tribute album done by serious singer-songwriter types playing the songs straight with modern digital folk-rock production would be cool. to me.

Ween are one of those bands where the live recordings almost always shred the studio albums. Archive.org has a zillion live shows you can download for free, some of which have stellar sound quality. You could spend months and months going through those.

it's funny that two burnout kids who met in typing class ended up like living a rock and roll fantasy... they really turned into an amazing live band

yea especially since they weren't exactly talented chaps to begin with. I doubt anyone who heard their early recordings was thinking "it's rough, but damn they've got potential!"

i did! kinda. i mean i thought god/ween/satan and the pod were really ambitious but i guess that's not that early. they obviously had song-writing ability.

i kinda think of them as an oingo boingo i would listen to. and later a jam band i would listen to. even though i only listen occasionally on youtube. i can even imagine seeing ween on acid would be fun.

i do see weird (science) parallels. O.B. even had acoustic interludes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYfjDyGPt4g

i have never actually listened to an oingo boingo album. did ween ever have horn sections on their later albums?

scott you should check out the white pepper some time. it is a stone-cold kinks are the village green preservation society / who sell out-level classic

i did! kinda. i mean i thought god/ween/satan and the pod were really ambitious but i guess that's not that early. they obviously had song-writing ability.

oh no, I'm talking about the stuff they did before that - GodWeenSatan was the culmination of like six years of writing and recording

does the Cake cult intersect with the Ween cult at all? seems like it might.

was not aware there was a cake cult

there really is.

Trust me on this: all of Ween's pre-GodWeenSatan albums are TERRIBLE. But they do make you appreciate what an astonishing leap in songwriting chops they made in such a short time.

which reminds me, the recently released front-to-back live recording of that album from 2001 is GREAT. don't think I'll ever listen to the studio album again.

just stumbled upon my copy of All Request Live, I forgot how good it was. still think it's hilarious that they let the fans vote on the tracklist, who responded by filling it with a bunch of bizarre non-songs like "Pollo Asado". it's actually quite nice because practically nothing on here is part of their regular live set, other than maybe "Cover it With Gas and Set it On Fire". and the Pizza Hut jingle rules. can't believe they passed on it.