I’m in middle school, watching Beavis & Butthead. Some video comes on about Daisies. My friend and I go ape shit over it. It doesn’t have the credit though. Somehow, in the South, without the internet, we figure out that it’s a band called Ween.
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We thought they were funny. Songs like Poop Ship Destroyer and stuff. And they said naughty words a lot. But then when Chocolate & Cheese was released in 1994 I began to realize there was a little more to this band. Then came The Mollusk, 12 Golden Country Greats, White Pepper. These were jaw droppingly amazing albums. (White Pepper! Fuck!) I caught them live a handful of times before Phish covered Roses Are Free at Hampton, and it was quite the experience. We weren’t able to snag an interview or listening party or anything, so here is a little playlist I whipped up of some of my all time favorite Ween tunes. And yeah, these guys have an enormous wealth of quality unreleased and rare stuff, but they really do save their best work for the major releases, so keeping this pretty mainstream. Enjoy! |
- What Deaner Was Talkin’ About - from Chocolate & Cheese, pretty much the quintessential 2 min self-referential psychedelic Ween song.
- Gabrielle- from the rarities comp Shinola, Boy’s Club is another fantastic cut off that one.
- Mutitlated Lips- from Ween’s proggy concept album The Mollusk. Maybe this is my favorite, I dunno, every track on that album is great.
- Your Party- the standout track from 2007’s La Cucaracha. One of my fav songs of the year.
- Don’t Get 2 Close (2 My Fantasy)- didn’t they play this song in that SNL Pat movie? That was weird.
- Stay Forever- Are they fucking around? Who knows. Who cares. Oh, and that guitar effect 2 min in get’s me every time.
- Birthday Boy- wanted to throw in one track from Ween’s first official release God Ween Satan: The Oneness. They were mostly jerk-off kids on this album getting stoned and hitting record, but there are a few quality moments like this one.
- You Were The Fool- from 12 Golden Country Greats (containing 10 tracks BTW), for this album Ween hired veteran Nashville musicians like Buddy Spicher and Bobby Ogdin. Many of the tracks are straight up country with psyche lyrics, this beautiful gem hidden towards the end was always my favorite.
- Tried and True - from the underrated Quebec, the call and response part is brilliant.
- I’ll Be Your Johnny On The Spot- from Live in Chicago, good example of Deaner’s ferocious live guitar work.
- Exactly Where I’m At - put on headphones or at least crank this one up to eleven, the 1 min mark where it envelopes you is just about my favorite Ween moment of all time
- Spinal Meningitis (Got Me Down) - from Chocolate & Cheese, that guitar solo still blows my balls off 15 years later. And still creepy as hell.
- Baby Bitch - Classic. A song even non-Ween fans have to admit they love.
- Don’t Sweat It - One of the many great psyche tracks from The Pod. You can hear the mushrooms.
- I Can’t Put My Finger On It- from Paintin’ the Town Brown, stay with it, the pay off is totally worth it.
- Where’d The Cheese Go? version 1 and 2 - Pizza Hut hired Ween to write a little jingle for some shitty new pizza invention. It was rejected, so they sent in the second version instead.
Catch Ween tongiht at DAR Constitution Hall. Watch out for hippies.
http://www.dar.org/
http://www.ween.com
I love ween too.
that’s all I wanted to say.
January 23, 2008 at 1:11 pmMick - that probably would have been track 18 on the playlist. Or maybe Joppa Road. Or The Mollusk. Or Captain Fantasy. Or Chocolate Town. Od Freedom of 76. Maybe I’ll just make a Ween playlist that contains every song they ever wrote.
January 23, 2008 at 1:17 pmThe day The Mollusk came out me and my friends took the day off, took a bunch of shrooms, listened to the album, stared at the cover, and had our minds blown.
Another great ween story, I got God Ween Satan in high school, and my mom found it. She took it from me and when I asked her about it she read the lyrics from the first song on it which go like this:
You fucked up
You Bitch
You really fucked up
You fucked up
You Bitch
You fucking Nazi Whore
Nothing like having your mom read those words to you.
One more for good measure: The first club show I ever went to was Ween on the Pure Guava tour at the old 930. They smashed all their instruments, then came out and played Little Birdy. amazing.
Ween and I have a lot of history together.
January 23, 2008 at 1:31 pmi definitely only learned of ween after hearing phish cover them when i was 18. on phish tour. also, i am an asshole.
January 23, 2008 at 2:04 pmliking Phish is ok. going on tour with them is not.
January 23, 2008 at 2:10 pmthis is the last year, i swear.
January 23, 2008 at 2:16 pmahem. Liking Phish is NOT ok.
January 23, 2008 at 2:51 pmTonight will be my first time. hee. hee. should I be nervous?
January 23, 2008 at 5:50 pmtrue, Phish sucks.
First semester of high school, freshman year (I guess it was ‘93) my friends and I sign up for the school-wide talent show for a laugh. Our talent? Lip synching a blasted version of ‘Push the Lil Daisies’ (complete with all the “SHITs”) while synchronize dancing in extreme hot pants. Let me tell you what, it. fucking. ruled. Ween!
January 23, 2008 at 6:16 pmpeople who think that liking phish is not ok are not ok. ye hipper-than-thou!
January 23, 2008 at 6:32 pmThe Mollusk, featured in the skate video 5 Flavors by Mad Circle. I remember it well…Karl Watson’s part.
January 23, 2008 at 6:45 pmPhish definitely sucks, as do the people who were too young to follow the Dead but wanted to live the experience by following Phish (as well as the people who followed the Dead AND Phish, as well as people who like the Dead.)
Ween sounds like it would suck but I’ve never heard of them until now.
The name “Ween” definitely sucks.
January 24, 2008 at 9:14 amMichael - dissociate the scene from the music and you have some good albums in there (and some bad ones, don’t get me wrong): American Beauty, Workingman’s Dead, Billy Breathes, etc. But alas, it’s almost impossible to do that.
And I bet there are a lot of Ween tunes you’d really like (and a lot you’d hate)
PS. I hate hippies.
January 24, 2008 at 9:44 amabby: phish?
Last night Ween dropped some solid hits. The live take on “Your Party” was exceptional.
January 24, 2008 at 9:50 amThe show was awesome! I was pleasantly surprised. Hurting today though from lack of braincells.
January 24, 2008 at 10:17 amI saw Ween for the first time in maybe 1991 or 1992 when they opened for The Dead Milkmen at the original 9:30 club. I went on Phish tour starting in 1994. I also went on Depeche Mode’s 1990 Violator tour. I’m a fucking Punk Rock Raving Hippie-Hipster. if you got a problem with that, I’ll put a tick on your head and in the morning you’ll be dead.
Live on Douche bags!
January 24, 2008 at 10:34 amKriston? i told you never to blog me here.
January 24, 2008 at 12:38 pmWow, I’m so glad Ween is here on BYT. 2 things
1- Where the muthafuckin cheese at bitch?
2- The Fucked Jam isnt on here-make a playlist with every ween song KTHXBAI
also, liking Phish is socially unacceptable. It’s like having a goiter the size of a grapefruit on your johnson and still expect to get decent action.
January 25, 2008 at 1:46 pm
don’t call your mother - don’t call your priest
don’t call your doctor - call the police
you bring the razor blade - I’ll bring the speed
Take off your coat - it’s gonna be a long night
fucking radical
January 23, 2008 at 1:10 pm