Boognish Transmissions

  From Nude as the News , written by Jonathan Cohen. Their wildly disparate major-label catalog (albums full of demented voices singing disturbing tales, tender fuck-yous performed by a full Nashville session band, etc.) should probably have gotten them dropped years before they actually were. But the members of Ween managed to hang on to their Elektra deal for most of the '90s, creating one memorable sonic platter after another. It came time for a change after 2000's excellent White Pepper, the smoothest (and only profanity-free) album Ween had yet released. Without a deadline to work toward and with literally no strings attached, Aaron "Gene Ween" Freeman and Mickey "Dean Ween" Melchiondo began working on new material at a leisurely pace, with an eye on recapturing the extreme weirdness of early albums like The Pod and Pure Guava . What they came up with was Quebec , released in early August by Sanctuary. What follows is the story of its creation. NATN : ...

From Star Ledger , written by Lisa Rose. When Aaron Freeman and Mickey Melchiondo first teamed up to form Ween, they were middle-school classmates noodling around with a tape deck. Freeman had yet to learn how to sing, so he screamed. Melchiondo didn't know a single guitar riff, so he randomly thumbed the frets, generating a blood-curdling din. The New Hope, Pa., teens wrote hundreds of songs through their school years, including such gonzo compositions as "The Refrigerator That Wouldn't Close," "I Hate Snuggles," "Boobs (Parts I and II)," and scores of unprintable titles. After a series of house concerts, they landed shows at clubs like City Gardens in Trenton, places they were not old enough to frequent as patrons. Backed by just a tape recorder and guitar, they opened for such cult heroes as Fugazi, Killing Joke and the Butthole Surfers. Ween was an all-consuming project, but back then, they never imagined making a living of it. "It was som...

From Facebook , written by Dean Ween. I just found the bio I wrote for "quebec" in 2003---the label never used it. some of the sentiments are outdated now as things have drastically changed--but it's funny to read where it was at back then, at least according to my sorry ass: WTSR (Trenton State College's radio station) was the central source of all things music in my life from 1984 to 1988. Trenton, NJ is about 12 miles south of where I grew up (and still live) in New Hope, PA today. Trenton also had a now legendary club called City Gardens that hosted every important band of the 80's many times, and after 1984 I don't think I missed a single show there. I saw every important band of the day there many times. the Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, Husker Du, the Replacements, Fugazi, the Butthole Surfers, Sonic Youth, the Ramones, the Pogues, the list of bands goes on forever and I saw them all. The promoter at city Gardens was a man named Randy Ellis, a legendary an...

From ESPN , written by ???.   Ween is Aaron Freeman and Mickey Melchiondo. They have released eight CDs and their ninth will be out next April. Last week, I took my Ween collection of CDs, jumped in the car, and drove to Philly to sit with Mickey for the Flyers game against the Canucks. As we were about to enter the row to our seats, I notice this attractive woman is looking at me like she knows who I am. "She must be an NHL2Night fan," I say proudly and confidently in my slowly bloating head. "Now, that's the kind of fan base I was hoping for." As I make my way towards the woman, who would turn out to be Mrs. Eric Weinrich, she says: "Are you Trevor Linden's brother?" Sa-wing batta!!!! Melchiondo, Ween's guitarist, is as big a hockey fan you will find. His family has had season tickets dating back to the Flyers' glory years in the Spectrum. Like most Flyers fans in their early 30's, Melchiondo's biggest recollection is Bobby Clarke...

From techtv , written by ???.   Equal parts fantasy rock, prog, metal, country, and bass-heavy space funk jams, Ween brings its wild, energetic concerts to life with a jet-powered smoke machine, megaphone, and Peter Frampton talk-box effects. Formed in 1984, the New Hope, Pennsylvania band - which has released seven studio albums and one live album filled with brilliantly satirical and sometimes controversial lyrics - receives minimal radio airplay. Still, Ween is revered by fans, many of whom keep up with the band via the Web. AudioFile had the pleasure of talking to two of the most enigmatic and absurd talents in rock 'n' roll, Ween's Dean (Mickey Melchiondo) and Gene Ween (Aaron Freeman), about serious issues -- the group's super website and making music in the Digital Age. TechTV: What is the highlight of the official Ween site? Dean Ween: Ween Radio. It's hosted by a kid in Boston named Jeremy Carr. It's a Shoutcast radio station, which means it's strea...

From Nude as the News ,  written by Jonathan Cohen. Their rabid fanbase is second to none in its zest, their musicianship boggles the mind, and they get to release their wacky albums on a major label. Ween are a real music phenomenon, and on the duo's latest Elektra album, White Pepper , a whole new host of genres are sliced and diced in typically proficient fashion. From the narcotic-tinged tropical fantasy "Bananas And Blow," the lumbering prog-rock of "The Grobe," the tart, jazzy "Pandy Fackler," and the lighter-waving anthem "Exactly Where I'm At," the new album is another welcome helping of Ween-ness. Dean and Gene Ween, or Mickey Melchiondo and Aaron Freeman to their families, recently chatted track-by-track about White Pepper with NATN Associate Editor Jonathan Cohen. "Exactly Where I’m At": Gene: Well, that song is kinda, I don’t know. That song is kind of incomplete. You’ll notice it just has the two verses, and the dr...