WEEN...

Ween is an amazing band. I could do the whole 'drop to your knees and worship them' bit but Henry Rollins did it first and he did it better (cuz he's Rollins) and I'd rather recommend You hunt down that spoken word piece of his (or ask me for a copy) and listen to it.

It's not just Rollins' delivery this time though, he speaks the truth here. Ween is possibly the greatest living rock band in the world. Now I know that's a bold statement but let's look at it, shall we?

You get two fuck off stoner misfits who went from spending their ingenuity on rigging gas masks into scotch guard bongs and recording fuck off comedy music with a few heart-felt breakup songs scattered in for personal development issues to the fellows that hired a troup of living Nashville legends and wrote the best country album of the last decade (those who don't agree wither have not heard 12 Golden Country Greats or regard Deana Carter and keith Urban as country, which they ein't!!! From there the 'brothers' Ween gave the world The Mollusk, the perfect fusion of their old funny/catchy/quirky scotch guard era comedy music and a mature beyond imagining assortment of breath taking rock songs, from the title tracks Beatle-esque simplistic beauty to the magnum opus immortality of the faux 70's Brit rock of Buckingham Greene. I remember the day The Mollusk came out, I ran to the old record swap in beautiful downtown tinley park and traded in a NIN cd, along with some more forgettable titles because I knew the new Ween album was coming out and wanted to sit down with my friends Brown and Sonny to partake but I had no dough. After a quick record swap (perfect naem for the now defunct independent franchise, eh?) I headed over to Sonny's where the three of us smoked ourselves into a fucking coma and sat down to listen. NONE of us were prepared for what we heard, esp. Buckingham Greeene.

After that we learned not to expect anything from Dean and Gene because they were clearly able to do ANYTHING. So a few years later we get White Pepper and BAM! Wow, it was as if the bastard sons of ELO, ELP, XTC and a tour bus of Jimmy Buffet impersonators were squeezed into those scotch guard bongs now. I pictured Dean using a plunger to push Andy Partridge's arms and Keith Emerson's legs deep into the modified tubing of the apparatus while Gene flicks the lighter on em and takes a massive, lung-filling inhale.

Did I forge the live album, Paintin the Town Brown. No I didn't. Up there with The Who Live at Leeds and Slayer Decade of Aggression. I usually hate live albums. Not these, and definitely not ones that show case a band that can not only play any one of their songs a hundred different ways but has such a back catalogue of gems that ANY time you see them they are able to pummel you with something you've never heard before and make it sound like it was their number one hit accross the Universe. Such is PTTB and a priceless gem like COVER IT WITH GAS AND SET IT ON FIRE.

Another thing about Ween is they have SOO MUCH MATERIAL. I mean, I'm not about to go through their whole catalogue right now or I'll be running on at the mouth in front of you worse than on the Drum Off post. Suffice it to say up through the years (and now I'm getting kinda weirded out considering how many albums, and thus years, I've been with this band. Brown must be even more weirded out, as he's been into them since the first fucking album!) Ween has consistently defied all expectation, all convention, and still managed to put out the funniest, catchiest, most unique and memorable rock music I've heard. There are many other rock bands I love, but there is only one Ween.