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

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.

Moistboyz -- I enjoy them, my sister, the ultra-Ween fan mentioned above, LURVS them.

It goes like this (scale from 1-10):

GodWeenSatan - 7
The Pod - 8
Pure Guava - 7
The Mollusk - 6
White Pepper - 5

Yes I would say that, I would say that.

Ha ha. Thanks Ned!

I have it on VERY good authority that the haze on The Pod has less to do with Scotchguard than it has to do with the fact that both Dean and Gene had mono during the recording of it.

There is a toss up for my favorite Ween song. It's like a battle... Captain Fantasy vs. Doctor Rock.

FITE!

Do it before you get Chocolate and Cheese, too. Cause when you get Chocolate and Cheese it'll be the only thing in your CD player for quite a while.

"AIDS"

On the other hand the new in-studio live one does feature a couple moments like this in spite of the recording quality being terrific.

Get it? GET IT???? Everybody thought the other guy killed his brother, but it was actually the narrator of the song!! And now he'll never tell anybody the real truth, because now he's gonna kill him too!!

What a classic song. Best Ween song ever (and therefore one of the greatest songs ever written)!

"Piss Up a Rope" alone trounces everything on Quebec!

Bah!

I also don't get the preoccupation so many folks have with "Buenas Tardes." To me it's one of the few Ween songs where the joke just isn't funny after repeated listens. That, and it's too fucking long for what is a seriously weak punchline/twist after you already know the story.

"Mister Would You Please Help My Pony" on the other hand rocks, is bittersweet and funny as fuck.

He coughed up snot in the driveway, and I think his lung's fucked up.

Man I changed my mind. Three way battle for best song.

No wait, four way battle: "Sketches of Winkle".

She was a meditative hooker all strung out on Sinatra.

o.nate otm.

I remember buying Pure Guava in high school (b/c of “Daisies”) on tape, listening to on the bus, walking around the neighborhood, in my room, everywhere. Twas in love. Thinking about it now, it was the first of many sprawling, sloppy records I would become enamoured of as the years unfurled. I could sing every word, without messing up, of any song from that record...and that’s not true of many others I was into in ‘92/‘93/’94. (somehow I never got around to buying the earlier stuff)

So then Chocolate & Cheese came out and I flat out HATED it. It was too competent and not funny enough and there were other musicians involved that were pros. Owned this for perhaps a month before hocking it. (I did love Freedom of ’76 and a few others) Then I sorta gave up on ‘em.

When White Pepper came out I decided to give it a chance...only to discover that it was more boring than C&C had been (“Even If You Don’t” was the only song I liked). Heard C&C in a store recently and it sounded a lot better than it did when I was 17. Eventually I’ll give ‘em another go....

That's the criticism I don't get unless you just mean the engineering/production was too competent. The musicianship has improved, yeah, but they were always competent musicians. Part of what I find so brilliant about them is how they've managed somehow to hide that from people so much. I mean the guitarwork on "Sketches of Winkle" is very competent. (To be honest the early Ween stuff is also amazingly well-recorded for something done on a four track too. Pure Guava especially.)

Absolutely -- the 1991 Trouser Press entry for them summed it up perfectly: "poorly disguised musical skills"

GodWeenSatan The Oneness 8.8
The Pod 9.8
Pure Guava 10.0
Chocolate And Cheese 9.0
12 Golden Country Greats 9.7
The Mollusk 10.0
Painting The Town Brown 8.1
White Pepper 8.3
Quebec 8.6

And I suppose if they ever release a 4-CD boxed set with all the best b-sides and rare tracks, that would obviously be a 10.0.

Oh shit, also..

Moistboyz III 8.3
Z-Rock Hawaii 8.8

Haven't heard the first 2 Moistboyz records yet.

But it's NOT a joke!! It's an honest-to-God straight-up murder ballad! Ween are honestly trying to emulate certain styles of music that they happen to enjoy! Hell, with a couple exceptions, I bet you will not laugh out loud ONCE during the entirety of Chocolate and Cheese and all the albums afterward. You want to laugh, go listen to "The Stallion Part 1" or "Nan" or "Common Bitch" or "Up on the Hill."

competent? dean is a great, really expressive, blues-rock guitarist, and gene is a spectacularly elastic singer, and if they tried to hide it on their records it was always plainly evident from their live shows. i haven't paid close attention in several years, but i used to love 'em partly BECAUSE of those skills.

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.

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.

Axes: Bold as Boognish - 5.5
God Ween Satan - 9
Pod - 9.5
Pure Guava - 7.5
Chocolate & Cheese - 7
12 Golden Country Greats - 9
Mollusk - 8
White Pepper - 7
Quebec - 5.5
Shinola - 7

flies on my...........DICK!!!

Classic

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.