{"id":161,"date":"2012-07-08T18:33:14","date_gmt":"2012-07-08T18:33:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theworldprovider.net\/site\/?p=161"},"modified":"2016-09-26T14:08:32","modified_gmt":"2016-09-26T14:08:32","slug":"ween-an-appreciation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theworldprovider.net\/site\/an-appreciation\/ween-an-appreciation\/","title":{"rendered":"Ween: An Appreciation"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Upon the recent news of the Ween breakup<\/a>, I was sad, but couldn\u2019t deny the simple truth of Aaron Freeman\u2019s quote: \u201cIt\u2019s been a long time, 25 years. It was a good run.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was only upon listening to this playlist<\/a> from Montreal\u2019s tireless compiler DJ Luv that I had the occasion to truly reflect on the band\u2019s greatness and what they meant to me over the years.<\/p>\n

I must have first heard of them through the punk rock media. That seems improbable now, but this was before the term, and concept, of “indie rock” had coalesced, and anyone vaguely DIY or underground could find themselves squeezed into the punk box. I do remember reading a great interview with Dean Ween in Flipside <\/em>magazine. True to the punk-rock model of the time, it was a long, sprawling, seemingly unedited transcript of a conversation. One quote has always stuck with me, which I can\u2019t find online so will paraphrase here: \u201cYou know, when you jam for three hours and then realize you\u2019ve just written \u2018Sweet Home Alabama.\u2019 Those are always the best songs, man.\u201d<\/p>\n

I bought Pure Guava <\/em>on cassette. My initial reaction, typical for the time, was something along the lines of \u201cHey man, this isn\u2019t punk rock.\u201d But I gave it a few more tries. The absurd lyrics and skewed vocals roped me in, but it must have been the pop hooks that kept me listening. And there was something so evocative about the photo of them on the porch of their house, surrounded by local weirdos.<\/p>\n

Then I bought The Pod<\/em>, which a lot of people seem to think is for hardcore fans only, but which still remains my favourite to this day. There was just something about how they synthesized a catchy, melodic pop sensibility with a twisted, alienating, noisy attitude that I loved, and still do.<\/p>\n

Detractors claimed that Ween’s stuff was the kind of thing that \u201canyone could do.\u201d Some of my musician friends argued that their stylistic pastiches, inside jokes and vocal fuckery were no different than what every kid does with their first 4-track. But to me, this quality was an asset: maybe anyone could <\/em>do it, but these guys were the only ones with the nerve to actually<\/em> do it\u2014to not only record, but release these damaged, homespun pop gems.<\/p>\n

Shortly after Chocolate and Cheese <\/em>came out, something funny happened. All of a sudden a bunch of \u201cnormal\u201d people (i.e. not just stoners and nerds) were into the band, even though they hadn\u2019t really cleaned up their approach much at all\u2014the production was slicker, but the sense of humour was just as sick and the music was still all over the place. I couldn\u2019t figure out how they\u2019d broken through to the mainstream, but as my friend pointed out, \u201chot chicks like Ween,\u201d so it was all good. This was at a time when genuinely weird, original and creative artists like the Melvins, Flaming Lips and Daniel Johnston were getting major-label deals in a post-Nirvana fervor for all things “alternative.”<\/p>\n

Around this time I saw them live for the first time, at the Phoenix in Toronto. The show was sloppy to the point of chaos, yet somehow incredibly engaging. \u201cIf you only knew,\u201d Dean proclaimed at one point, wild-eyed. \u201cIf you only knew about the last 24 hours!\u201d<\/p>\n

For the finale, they started off with one of their own songs\u2014I believe it was \u201cI Can\u2019t Put My Finger On It\u201d\u2014then segued into a bout of jamming with Gene doing a kind of pseudo-Eastern chant on top. This led into a more or less straight cover of \u201cDazed and Confused,\u201d back into the chanting jam, back into their song. They turned on a drum machine and all left the stage except for bassist Andrew Weiss, who proceeded to perform a solo for about 10 minutes. Then the band came back on and did a cover of Prince\u2019s \u201cShockadelica.\u201d Between the announcement of the last song and the actual end, it must have been an hour.<\/p>\n

It was a bit too close to a waking nightmare I used to have as a kid\u2014lying in bed, I\u2019d imagine a band or orchestra playing out their last note, but I couldn\u2019t get the note to ever stop\u2014so I skipped their next Toronto show, for the country album: a decision I\u2019ve always regretted since my friend described their performance, supplemented with a pro Nashville piano player, fiddler and steel guitarist, as one of the best he\u2019d ever seen.<\/p>\n

Although I like it a lot now, the country album seemed a bit too jokey to me, and this marked the beginning of my moving away from heavy-duty fandom. I saw them live again a few years later, this time at the huge Warehouse. They had progressed into a tight ensemble, albeit one prone to incredibly long jams. But their audience was bigger than ever and they still seemed to be having fun. I left when it seemed like they were about to start an interminable jam, with warm feelings intact.<\/p>\n

For the next few years, the band was like an old friend that you only check in with from time to time. I heard bits and pieces of their later albums\u2014they had some good tunes and I was happy to hear them still doing their thing, but I didn\u2019t feel any urge to buy the records or see them live. So when I heard about the breakup, I felt some sadness, but it was just another sign of the passing of time. It seemed like towards the end, their legendary appetite for debauchery had caught up with them, as it does for just about everyone.<\/p>\n

But listening to the Luv playlist, there was so much to appreciate. The nasty, noisy early stuff; the pastiches of soft rock that approached pop perfection, then subverted it with a gleefully juvenile lyric; the songs so goofy that the band couldn\u2019t even control their own laughter; the unexpectedly beautiful ballads, and the country songs, as ambitious as they are absurd: it was all so good. Like Guided by Voices, another one of my big 90s influences, they inspired with their audacity (wow, you could do that<\/em>?), their progression from a lo-fi perversion of anthemic rock to the real deal; the fun they had onstage, and above all, their capacity for head-sticking hooks.<\/p>\n

So RIP, Ween. Thanks for the memories, the inspiration and the tunes. See you on the reunion circuit\u2014we may all be geriatric, but I’m sure you’ll find a way to make it work.<\/p>\n

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  Upon the recent news of the Ween breakup, I was sad, but couldn\u2019t deny the simple truth of Aaron Freeman\u2019s quote: \u201cIt\u2019s been a long time, 25 years. It was a good run.\u201d It was only upon listening to this playlist from Montreal\u2019s tireless compiler DJ Luv that I had the occasion to truly … Continue reading “Ween: An Appreciation”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[221],"tags":[94,27,93],"class_list":["post-161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-an-appreciation","tag-dj-luv","tag-nostalgia","tag-ween"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldprovider.net\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldprovider.net\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldprovider.net\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldprovider.net\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldprovider.net\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theworldprovider.net\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldprovider.net\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldprovider.net\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldprovider.net\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}