Dream Punk

Already a fan of his long-running Rocket Science blog, I was pleased to read curator Dave G’s involvement in the promotion of local record label Killing Horse Records. Himself the once-owner of a DIY indie label defunct for nearly two decades, Killing Horse launched in 2010 and focused primarily on northern NJ bands (half of which the guys were friends with). One of the earliest records Dave G reviewed was 2012’s self-titled debut by NJ’s Wreaths, a refreshing genre-spanning album which quickly brought to mind flashes of Ween and the Flaming Lips. At a time when Ween had just broken up (and, to be honest, I never found La Cucaracha terribly satisfying) this was exactly what the doctor had ordered. Clear Quebec influences aside (shit, half the songs have a weird "Chocolate Town" groove to 'em), Wreaths exudes a wonderfully trippy vibe that gives the record an almost ethereal quality (and makes you want to instantly drink/smoke yourself into a stupor just to immerse yourself in it). The opener, "Coke Straw" would make the Boognish proud, a cosmic pounder that is probably my favorite track, although nearly every song stands out on its own. Heavy use of the reverb pedal here folks, nearly every rhythm chord is stretched for maximum sustain - a space rock sludgey-ness which really sounds cool. The latter half of the record is more akin to an alien instrumental space dirge spanning one track to the other - "Love Me, Dark Wizard" reminds me of something the Black Keys have done and is a fitting close to the LP, a looping feedback overdub spanning the stereo channels to wrap up the 50-minute acid rock trip. The band has a few other releases floating around out there, your best start is with Discogs, Soundcloud and their Facebook (oh, and buy the record here). Good stuff for sure. Enjoy.

In case you’re interested (or an incredibly esoteric vinyl collector), info on Dave G’s circa-90’s Rocket Science Records can be found here. Killing Horse Records is still actively releasing records and you can check out their bandcamp page here. Lastly (for those who are not tired of links), while Dave G’s blog isn’t really updated anymore you can still noodle around the pretty cool archives here.

Leaves On The Leaves

Chocolate Town

Undeniably Ween's finest hour. 2003 was both the best and worst year in my life (besides signalizing my turning 30 that is). Best: the girl I absolutely loved at first sight from the day I ever layed eyes on her actually took me up on my standing 2-year offer to grab a drink. Our whirlwind relationship (which is a whole other demented blog post) started at that point and never let up for one second over the next two years. Worst: My crazy ass dog - a giant Shepherd/Collie mix who was the most loyal friend I ever had needed to be put down after struggling with hip dysplasia for so long I can barely remember him being normal. I also watched my career collapse right in front of my eyes and had two good friends kill themselves within weeks of each other. For the latter half of this crazy year I had Ween's Quebec as my constant audio ally. Alternatively depressing, uplifting, happy, sad - the seemingly innocent songs on this album morph into whatever you want them to be. Starting with the barnstorming "It's Gonna Be A Long Night" (Deaner's cock-rock bar band ode long before it got tiring) and including such New Hope classics as the goose-bump inducing "Happy Colored Marbles" (possibly their best song ever?), "I Don't Want It" and the ultimate closer "If You Could Save Yourself (You'd Save Us All)" - Quebec is less of an album than a good friend. I have listened to a million LPs in my life and this one is truly at the top of the list. Even the outtakes and B-sides are show-stoppers - I included the epic "Mountains and Buffalo" as well as "Ooh Va La" for completists out there. The brownest Ween album since the Chocolate And Cheese days - and the musical pinnacle from a band I had figured had already done it all. In 2011 Deaner released Caesar online - a 2CD collection of outtakes and demos from the Quebec recording sessions - what a treat to hear. Who knows why some of the tracks didn't make the cut - "Hello Johnny" being a personal fave - but such is the enigma of the Boognish. Ween slowly unraveled after Quebec both personally and musically - 2007's odd The Friends EP left a lot to be desired. But seriously though - how can you top perfection? God, I wished I'd married her...

Studio                                                              Demo

The Dude abides...

Awesome record from Detroit one-man musical extraordinaire Dude. Shit, this motherfucker flies solo, dig? You only wish your home-grown 4-track recordings could lick the guava like this fucking guy. If you haven't realized, I was pleasantly surprised by Dude's amazing debut of which I stumbled upon after many drunken hours surveying the tripe on bandcamp. Influenced by a myriad of bands ranging from the Beatles to the Bee Gees (c'mon tell me you can't envision the "Spicks & Specks" chords during the opening to "In The Next Pocket"), Dude is channeling the vibe Ween and Beck brought to the forefront a decade ago. An easily listenable album worth some of your hard earned duckets. Enjoy.

iamdude

Bryn Mawr Stomp

A friend and fellow Ween fan recently brought up this gig and I thought I'd pull it from the archives and revisit it in its entirety. Recorded at The Point, a small quaint coffeehouse in equally tiny Bryn Mawr, PA (population 4000 which is mostly college students). Sadly the establishment closed in 2005 but this gig, recorded in 2002, captures a very intimate, mostly acoustic evening with Ween at a time they were near their musical peak. Quebec was a year from release, their creative spirits were flowing and hearing the band jam some of the old "hits" broken down slow and lazy is a real treat. The small crowd yells out request after request (I seriously think they cover Ween's entire catalog) and the band tries to keep up with a smile - managing to belt out some obscurities like "Right To The Ways And The Rules Of The World" and "Scrape The Mucus Off My Brain". My favorite is a very personal version of "If You Could Save Yourself (You'd Save Us All)" - Gener sings the lyrics over his own strumming acoustic - a really nice take of one of my favorite songs by the band. The encore is great - the mellowness of "Birthday Boy" played acoustic really enhances the love song it's supposed to be. "El Camino" is awesome as well, they somehow morph "cuando, cuando" into "White Rabbit" - fucking hilarious. And they play "Someday" twice to boot. A great gig from a truly legendary band. Someone actually had both a video of it and the good sense to upload it to YouTube - check it out.

Someday

24 Songs For Teens And Non-Teens Alike!

Waaaay back in 1987 a young 15-year old Aaron Freeman sat in his bedroom and crafted an hour-long acid trip of an album - an amazingly astute precursor to what his alter ego Gene Ween would co-create a few short years later on Ween's epic The Pod. The material for Synthetic Socks' eponymous debut was culled from two cassettes recorded over six months by the New Hope, PA native - the "best of the best" were chosen by Aaron and Teen Beat Records founder Mark Robinson. What you get is a strange amalgam of instrumental odes created on a Korg Poly-800 (my favorite being "Tree"), surprisingly humorous teenage ramblings ("Weenstock"), good ol' garage band noise ("Cops" and "Collectives"), sweet "Birthday Boy"-esque love songs, prank phone calls and KISS. From the liner notes:

"Sprouted out of deep psychological problems and blossomed into a young virgin sound just waiting to be heard. It's all recorded in my bedroom with my tape deck and whatever else I can borrow off people. Synthetic Socks consists of me, and various guest stars. This cassette has been recorded over a span of about 10 years. I'm still in high school and plan to move where the trees live."

The guest stars include future Ween brother "Mike" Melchiondo on guitar (his acoustic untitled ditty to close out Side A is probably my favorite track on the album) and Ken Everett who both played (along with Aaron) in the jam band Pine Sheep. All in all, Synthetic Socks is a welcome addition to the Ween catalog - I sleazed out a copy when Teen Beat reissued a scant 55 cassettes in 1998 and it's been the holy grail of my dusty tape collection ever since.

On a side note, I just picked up a copy of Aaron's new CD Freeman. Twenty-seven years since Synthetic Socks yet there's a strange similarity to both records. It took me a while to get over Ween's breakup (and in that weird non-involved sort of way I was siding with Deaner) but Freeman is a solid forty minutes and is much more reflective of what Ween was morphing into than Deaner's "My Own Bare Hands" type of stuff. Worth a listen.

Proto-Ween

Brown Town

Man, one of the best things about Ween in the 90's was the amount of material they released. Calling them prolific is almost an understatement. From soundtracks to guest appearances to non-US singles, the wealth of songs and remixes the band released outside of legitimate albums is impressive. Unfortunately, as with most "underground" band discographies, compiling all that stuff can be elusive. Thanks to Ween being early friends of the internet, various mp3's of the material surfaced with relative frequency on FTP servers, albeit of varying, often extremely rough quality (were talkin' muddy 32kbps rips here). More recently, thanks to the innovation of music-ripping software (as well as the speed of the internet), a few good souls have dusted off their extensive Ween collections and made available excellent new rips of the material - resulting in a compilation entitled The Brown Sides: Official B-Sides. From sources as obscure as the Australian CD-single of "Push Th' Little Daisies" to their Sub Pop released "Skycruiser" single, the record compiles original, non-LP tracks by the band. Some are hits, some misses, my favorites are the instrumental "Bakersfield" (from the "I Can't Put My Finger On It" CD-single), the heart-wrenching "I'll Miss You" (from the Beautiful Girls soundtrack) and amazing "Mountains And Buffalo" - a dropped track from Quebec which is probably my favorite song by the band. You can't listen to this without finding something you'll love - play loud and enjoy.

Jambon ou deux Schweppes, bebe

Weencognito

Here's a random live show that popped on my iPod today bursting with all the quality that you'd expect from late-90's 56kbps mp3's. Ween was at odds with Elektra at the time - the major had just assumed control over a live album Dean had compiled; intended to be the first indie Chocodog release, the label quickly packaged it as Paintin' The Town Brown. In response, Ween "leaked" their quasi-album Craters Of The Sac to the internet as a free mp3 download, much to money-hungry Elektra's chagrin. All of this leads me to assume it didn't take much for the guys to play gigs under a pseudonym, especially on the tried-and-true stomping ground of the New Jersey shore. I'm sure there's a anecdote-laden back story as to who Michael Carbone is - without it, all I am left to say is that the band rips a solid 45-minute (opening?) set packed with lots of stuff forthcoming on White Pepper, a Beatles cover, the cooly obscure "Beacon Light" and everyone's favorite, "The Rainbow." Enjoy.

You Fucked Up

Hurricane Relief

The few long-time followers of this blog surely know of my affinity for Ween, Moistboyz and pretty much anything Mickey "Dean Ween" Melchiondo has contributed his considerable talents to. In addition, his expertise as a fisherman and undying devotion to his home town and east coast shoreline is nothing short of an already cool musician keeping it totally fucking real. Sadly, friends and family of his were directly affected by the Hurricane Sandy disaster of 2012 (some significantly) and things are still far from fully recovered. Hosting two benefit shows in 2012 and 2013 under the moniker Dean Wean & Friends (mostly local pals from Moistboyz, Ween and Chris Harford's Band Of Changes), Mickey has truly gotten his feet wet and hands dirty trying to help the community which gave so much to him. He can tell you about it better than I can here. He recently released a "best" of live mp3 containing choice cuts from the two shows - you got some Bowie songs, a Dead cover, even The Carpenters as well as "She Fucks Me" and some other Boognish favorites. Enjoy.

Take Me Down

Put Your Boobs On...

These days on the ol' internet it's rare to have an actual "rarity." Most of the time it's just leeching off one blog after another vainly trying to showcase something a little different then the rest. With that being said I present Ween's 2000 demo Long Beach Island. Evidently recorded to cassette then promptly stolen from Deaner's car, the abducted tape contained a few embryonic tunes which would eventually make their way onto White Pepper as well as a some other tracks destined to wallow in the unreleased limbo that Ween fans obsess over. "Back To Basom," "The Grobe," "Bananas And Blow" and "Baroque Jam 3" (otherwise known as "Ice Castles") made the Elektra cut. As for the other obscure-ish flotsam? Here they are in no particular order or bitrate, these are mp3s as good as I could scrounge from the online wastelands. Enjoy, my boognish brethren.

Fish On

 
Currently watching: Mulholland Dr.

Currently listening to: Black Flag Family Man

Boognish, we hardly knew ye...

It's been a few days since Aaron Freeman announced he is "retiring" Gene Ween, and the news still hasn't sunk in. Ween was probably the most influentially important band in my life (especially throughout my drug-addled 20's) and to acknowledge their end is really like the passing of a friend. Of course the internet pundits are already speculating on reunion gigs and to be honest, the band hadn't recorded a whole lot since Quebec that I thought was up to earlier standards but it was still Ween mang and it was still better than most of the other stuff in any other genre coming out at the time. Ween played a soundtrack to my life for so many days, weeks and months...whether sitting up throughout the nights, coked off my ass, playing guitar to the entire God Ween Satan album for hours, driving to Florida (14 hours) to my grandad's funeral with only 12 Golden Country Greats in my CD player or taking my new girlfriend (and current wife) to see them on tour for the first time and watching her face turn from "what the fuck are these guys doing?" to "holy fuck! what are these guys doing!" There will never be another band like them. Seems fitting that some archived material from bassist Dave Drewitz's old side band Instant Death was upped on Ween's forum yesterday, seven tracks from an unreleased 2004 EP called Egyptian Mystery School. In honor of Scott Byrne's posthumous 51st birthday. Enjoy dudemangs.

R.I.P. Gene Ween

Currently watching: Sanctum

Currently listening to: Gnod Three Sticks A Penny

I'd like a basket of chips...

Recorded by Dean and Gene Ween on a Tascam four-track cassette recorder between January and October 1990. All songs recorded at the Pod, where we lived for a year and 10 months (with our cat Mandee). The Pod was scenically located on Van Sant Road in Solebury Township, Pennsylvania. Our apartment was a haven for flies because it sits in the middle of a horse farm. In the time this album was completed, we filled up 3,600 hours of tape, and inhaled 5 cans of Scotchgard. This album was then produced and mixed by Andrew Weiss (our pal) at the Zion House of Flesh, Hopewell, New Jersey. Straight to DAT Mang. Mean Ween played the bass on "Alone" and that's him on the cover doin' up some nitrous oxide powered bongs. We got evicted on October 1, 1991. But Dave Ayers says he's gonna help us out. Cover and art designs by Logorhy.

If you have never heard this album before you need to look yourself in the mirror and ask yourself why you continue living your pathetic life. Essential.

For hither not, I am the stallion
Come fear, come love, I am the stallion
You know that I am the stallion, mang
I am, I am the stallion, mang
You know that I am the stallion, mang
I live, I walk, I am the stallion, mang
Hair-throng, goo-tongue, stallion, mang
A, 2, S-T-A-L-L-I-O-N
I am the stallion, mang
One, I can drink
Two, I get groomed
Three, I go for a walk
I am the stallion, mang
You know I am the stallion, mang
Deaner! Deaner! Dude! Where can you be?
Come hither, who are you? The stallion? What's goin' on?
Who are you, Deaner? I am, I am the stallion
You are the stallion
A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P-Q-R-S-T-A-L-L-I-O-N
I am the stallion, mang!
I can be what I like to see in you and me, I'm the stallion
I can play, I get to take the water, 'cause I am the stallion
O-P-L-G-H-M-F-S-T-A-L-L-I-O-N
Stallion, mang
Stallion, mang
Stallion, mang
I am the stallion
I am the stallion
I am the stallion
Goodbye
The stallion
The stallion
Goodbye Stallion! Stallion! Stallion! Stallion! Stallion!

 

Currently watching: King Frat

Currently listening to: Mötley Crüe Theatre Of Pain

Let's Get Wet...

Followers of this blog are no doubt aware of my undying adoration for all that is Ween, so it was a nice surprise to discover the side projects of guitarist extraordinaire Dean Ween actually eclipsing what his namesake band was doing at the time. I speak, of course of the Moistboyz. Whilst the 'boyz have released four listenable albums over the last two decades, like Madden NFL, the even-numbered ones are the keepers. Moistboyz II was recorded during the 12 Golden Country Greats sessions and is almost a Ween album... if the boys were angry coke addicts with political agendas. Drum machine backbone with layers of guitar overdubs, vocalist Guy Heller spits his venom at whatever regime he's pissed at for the moment: anti-smokers, gays, liberals, conservatives, crackers, blacks, you. While the synth drums kinda cheapen things up at times (it would be nice to hear a real band tear some of these songs up) it is still is a great thirty minutes of pissed off hardcore. Flash forward to 2006 and Moistboyz IV which blows Ween's subpar La Cucaracha off the fucking planet. Pulling together a full band (Ween drummer Claude Coleman and bassosaurus Andrew Weiss (Rollins Band) joining the crew) the album is a fucking masterpiece. Heavy as fuck and angry as a bitch, who knows what could ever cheer these guys up but there's enough political, social and psychological angst in this one to make any nihilist cream in his braces. But ignore whatever the fuck I say about anything, soak in the definitive history of the Moistboyz here. Fuck off and enjoy the tunes you pussy fucking faggot. America's dead.

II                                                                               IV

 
Currently watching: Edge Of Darkness

Currently listening to: Ween Quebec

OK, OK, time for a change of pace...

Back in 1992, Princeton native Chris Harford and his band the First Rays Of The New Riding Sun (Hendrix influence anyone?) was about to hit it big. His debut album Be Headed was dropping on Elektra Records and with that comes all the riches and royalty a major-label musician expects to imbibe. Twenty years and eight indie albums later, most of the world outside of New Jersey still has yet to be introduced to the man who called his debut album a "major label record which vanished into the system like the black hole of the industry will do to so many a band. Someday there will be some great jams that will emerge from that black hole." Remember what the music world in 1992 was... without a supporting video, Be Headed was dead on arrival. Yet Harford forged ahead, convincing Elektra to sign Ween (the boys Boognish were only too happy to contribute voice and guitar to his debut record - other guest appearances include Richard Thompson, The Proclaimers, and Toshi Reagon) and emerging post-contract as a songwriter with more ideas then most major labels are comfortable with - an guitarist who can pick up fresh with other artists to create music spanning genres. For me, Be Headed is like a pistachio: hard open and close; soft inside. The opener "Raise The Roof" is a tight track of bluesy rock and the dénouement "Sing, Breathe And Be Merry" is a touching, harmonic revelry in optimism. Completely opposite of most of the shit I tend to listen to, the rest of the album works, albeit somewhat disjointedly but fuck it, I dig it. Check out what Chris is doing here. Enjoy.

Sing, Breathe

 
Currently watching: The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, And Her Lover

Currently listening to: ABACABB Survivalist

Live Jihad

Man, the first half of the 2000's was fucking awesome for Ween fans. Starting with the wonderful White Pepper at the start of the millennium, the brothers built up to the incredible Quebec in '03 amongst a bevy of rare live CD releases through those sweet years. Additionally, Deaner jump-started his long-quiet side project Moistboyz and let loose two releases in '02 and '05 (the later Moistboyz IV easily emerging as their greatest achievement) as well as the above DVD, Live Jihad. Mickey and Dickie (a.k.a. Guy Heller whom astute Ween fans will recognize as the vocalist on Pure Guava's "Flies On My Dick") channel the Stooges to a tee in their amazing 75-minute audience assault. Recorded at NYC's Bowery Ballroom, the boys tear through 18 choice tracks showcasing their entire back catalog, including some of the primitive drum machine epics ("Carjack", "U Blow") from their days on Mike D's long gone Grand Royal Records. Man, how punk is that? Anyways, audio ripped direct from DVD, blah, blah, best quality I can figure out how to get. I would love to hear a Moistboyz V someday, shit man, just as they were getting interesting...

Mickey and Dickie

Currently watching: The Disappearance Of Alice Creed
Currently listening to: Proclamation Advent Of The Black Omen

Live Shellfish

Another oddity from the brothers boognish, a live jam from July 15, 1991 playing as the Green Lipped Mussels. There seems to be some ambiguity between Ween fans as to the true moniker of the band; what little info I did find seems to suggest there already existed a jam band called the Green Lipped Mussels (composed of Dreiwitz, Guzda, Di Gesu and Harford) and the addition of Gene and Dean technically morphed the whole thing into the Jimmy Wilson Group (supported by the fact that everyone calls each other "Jim" during the gig). Regardless of what you want to call them, the guys on stage that hot Monday night two decades ago were Gene and Dean playing with Dave Dreiwitz (bass, duh), Matt Guzda (drums), Greg Di Gesu (guitar) and Chris Harford (guitar, vocals). Bassosaurus Andrew Weiss guest stars during Ween's "The Stallion Pt. 3". Recorded at New Brunswick, NJ's famous Court Tavern, the Mussels rip through a bunch of covers, Ween tunes, Harford tunes and Mussel originals with the same tenacity and humor you'd find in any Aaron and Mickey performance. My guess behind their pseudonym is this was some unannounced/surprise/private show for friends and for whatever reason (record label) they couldn't advertise themselves as "Ween". Deaner called the band "a white version of Kool And The Gang" and they supposedly reunited in 2009 for a couple shows with Harford (whether they actually played as the 'Mussels is anyone's guess though). With all that being said, my only gripe with this recording is the crappy mp3s. I originally pulled them from some random FTP site nearly a decade ago so the fact they are 128kbps isn't all that surprising but there is a LOT of hiss and compression noise, even for a bootleg. It doesn't take that much away from the performance but fair warning. I also discovered a CD cover I created way back in the day that I think looks pretty cool. It's included in PDF format with the music file.

8/20/14 update: A solid reupload with the most complete recording of the show I could find - culled from old Lostwave mp3's, FLACs from archive.org and a few other sources. Sadly the lossy limitations are still evident but it sounds as good as it probably ever will. I also updated the above post with some more factual info. Enjoy.

Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim and Jim

Currently watching: Redacted
Currently listening to: Electric Wizard Black Masses

Bbbrrrblababrbrbrbrbleeeeeeyaaaaaaaa!!!

Back in their Pure Guava days, the brothers Boognish, still new to their "big label" contract with Elektra, were still openly jamming (and recording) with whomever they could find (Frente!, Kostars, Green Lipped Mussels, Chris Harford, etc.) with styles that weren't necessarily what Ween's record label endorsed. Among those bands were Japan's institutional Boredoms, four abrasive noise-core gods with whom Gene and Dean recorded eleven strange, quasi-listenable "songs" that start like a typical Ween track and morph into a screaming, blathering cacaphony of noise and babble. I love Ween, but do I love Z-Rock Hawaii? Well, yes and no. It's fun hearing Dean do his best George Thorogood impression while eYe is screaming bloody murder in the background, but to be honest it gets old really fast. It's just too fucking annoying. Sweetly delicate tracks like "I Get A Little Taste Of You" (which thankfully became a sans-screaming staple of Ween's shows in the mid-90's) get lost in the screeching and feedback. I'm sure the whole project was a big joke by two bands who happened to meet in the studio one afternoon and my annoyance is the punchline they're all laughing at but whatever. Boredoms are fine, for like two minutes. So listen to Z-Rock Hawaii one track at a time, it's a lot more digestible.

Chocolate And Cheese Synthesizer

 
Currently watching: Colors
Currently listening to: Cunt Sludge Jane Doe

Even If You Don't

More house repairs and all the CDs are slowly getting shoved into storage.... but I just revisited this great Ween video for White Pepper's "Even If You Don't". Directed by the Southpark boys Trey Parker and Matt Stone, it's one of the funnier vids I've seen in a while. Maybe it's because I tried to learn Queen's "You're My Best Friend" for a girl I used to date once and in the time I was teaching myself the song she started fucking some other dude.

No One Here But Us Chickens...

Rarely does one encounter a two-piece that is just a bass and drums combo. While admittedly a huge fan of Ween (and almost everything they do) my apprehension was high when I saw this record, I wasn't sure what bassist Dave Dreiwitz was going to accomplish with only a drummer backing him up. Boy was I wrong. With a thunderous down-tuned bass that almost defies logic in its heaviness paired with Scott Byrne's booming percussion, Instant Death surf the boundaries of pop, funk, sludge, fuzz and noise with their middle finger firmly inserted up their ass. Goofy lyrics and vocals make this one a real treat - no one's taking this one too seriously and if you do you're missing the point. Enjoy.

R.I.P. Scott Byrne

Hit me again...

Another random collection of live material from brothers Gene and Dean Ween, this compilation has some real gems. A wonderful, 30-minute rendition of Pink Floyd's "Echoes", an Allman Brothers medley, and nice covers of "War Pigs" and "Stella Blue". It's a shame the mp3's are rather crappy ("Echoes" is at, get this, 32 kbps... really?!? 32?) but the music still shines through, including a requisite "Poopship Destroyer" dirge and some relatively obscure Ween originals ("Shalom Absalom" and "Junky Boy"). Enjoy another taste of a band who is obviously playing for fun - they're gearing up for their East Coast tour as I write this so catch 'em if you can!!!

You Know What To Do

I AM the stallion, mang!

Ween is one of those ridiculously huge bands that eschews the Billboard Top 100, MTV, Grammys, etc. and instead exists as an institution of its own. Their sound? They sound like.... well.... Ween. Disparagingly compared by some to past acts as the Grateful Dead and Phish (more likely due to their perpetual touring then their actual music), such an association is a real disservice to the brothers of Boognish. Not only are they better musicians then the aforementioned clones; but they are bolder, more diverse, and, in a nutshell, more fun. What band, after grinding it out in the Trenton trenches for a decade, would follow up their cusp-of-a-mainstream-hit "college radio" album Chocolate And Cheese (1994) with 12 Golden Country Greats (1996); a true, legitimate country album that both alienated old yet attracted new fans?? Elektra Records didn't think so either and dropped them soon after. Ween are the ultimate "working guy" band; cool, approachable musicians who are the absolute antithesis of the typical rock star. They play for their fans and themselves. They earn enough to stay on tour and feed the family. Who could ask for more after 25+ years? Vegetable Soup is an internet series of compilation albums culled together from the millions of mp3's Ween has floating around the Web. Volume 3 touches on some of their collaborative work with Frente! and the Kostars - definitely worth a listen. Unfortunately the kbps are a little thin on some of these but you'll still feel the love. Ween has earned their diehard legion of fans - time to join the fucking bandwagon bitch.

Dudemang!