Country Songs, Scotch-Guard Bongs

From The Varsity Review, written by Stuart Berman.

There are essentially two kinds of people in this world: those who would sell their souls to Ween and those who just don't get it.

For people in the latter group. the duo of Gene and Dean Ween (nee Aaron Freeman and Mickey Melchiondo) are a couple of chain-smoking, meat-eating, foul-mouthed freaks, making music for the sole purpose of annoying the fuck out of anyone who comes into contact with it.

But in the other corner are those who consider Ween's pastiche of retarded voice effects and subversion of genre conventions to be a gift from the gods. For these loyal few. Ween's records - GodWeenSatan (1990), The Pod (1991), Pure Guava (1993), and Chocolate And Cheese (1994) - are holier than the books of the Bible and are a lot more fun, too. In total, the boys have released well over a hundred songs and have recorded literally hundreds more, taking stabs at screeching noise metal ("You Fucked Up"), overblown Bowie-inspired melo-dramas ("Right To The Ways And The Rules Of The World"), Prince covers, Paul McCartney goof-pop ("Don't Laugh I Love You"), obnoxious Beastie Boys-likerants ("Old Queen Cole"), pretentious prog-rock ("Squelch The Little Weasel") - and that's just on the first two records.

But just when you thought you could start predicting Ween's next move, they've hurled the mother of all curveballs: 12 Golden Country Greats. But apart from the title (there's only 10 songs on the album), this is no joke: Gene and Dean have created a genuine chunk of honky tonk, with help from true-blue Nashville session players like Charlie McCoy and the Jordannaires. But then again, not too many country records give props to Mohammed Ali and Yoko Ono, refer to crystal meth, or have songs called "Piss Up A Rope." Are Gene and Dean pulling a fast one at the expense of line-dancing experts and faithful viewers of The Nashville Network?

"There was no real statement about our country record," insists guitar god Dean Ween. "We're not trying to pull a trick or joke on people by making the record - that would be pretty sad. We don't want to punish people with our music. We want them to like it. I know it got played a lot or it is getting played a lot still on [country radio] morning shows or shit like that. It's sort of like a novelty record to country people, like they hear 'Piss Up A Rope' and think it's really funny."

It's the use of humour that makes detractors write off Ween so quickly. A band's just not supposed to be able to do country on a whim, or funk, or punk, or metal. or soul, or write songs about inhaling Scotch-Guard, or spinal meningitis, or do an upbeat klezmer tune and call it "The HIV Song." But Ween's efforts aren't calculated by some master plan (their spiritual attachment to their chosen demon god, the Boognish, notwithstanding). According to Dean, Ween are just two guys with amazing record collections.

"We're not about like 'Oh, we can do any kind of music, we can write any kind of song, [and] next we're going to make our fucking metal record or something.' It's weird: by making the record of all one thing or all one ethic, like our country record, it's really weird how people completely don't understand what the fuck we're doing. They just miss the point entirely. They think it's like a 'National Lampoon Does Country' record, or it's like a big comedy record: 'Ween Does Country!' And then everybody says 'Hey, I'd like to hear you guys do a rap record! Wouldn't that be funny! What kind of crazy, zany record are you going to do now?'"

Ween's first taste of what kind of reaction they could expect occurred back in 1990, when Gene and Dean played one of their first gigs with legendary straight-edge ultra-politically correct art-punks Fugazi. Needless to say, things didn't go over too well.

"That was a legendary gig." recalls Dean. "That is definitely the pivotal landmark gig, where 1,200 people booed us. Of all the gigs I've ever played where anyone ever threw shit at me - which is a lot - that was the most severe case, where nobody was digging us at all. And nobody knew who we were anyway - they never really heard GodWeenSatan - so it didn't matter that we were busting out. In a way it's cool, because even though we have, like, five albums out [now], people still don't know who we are really, so we can go out in front of thousands of people and still have people boo us and throw shit at us."

Ironically, the only fans Ween made that fateful night were Fugazi themselves.

"Yeah, actually I know those guys pretty well. [Fugazi guru] Ian [MacKaye], he knows what fucking time it is, you know what I mean? He's a nice dude. He's not going to not talk to us because we get fucked up."

In fact, the list of Ween fans, while still relatively small, includes such luminaries as the Foo Fighters (with whom Ween toured with this past spring), the Beastie Boys (who release Ween's vinyl on their Grand Royal label), and none other than Yoko Ono and Sean Ono Lennon, who called in Dean and Gene to remix a track from Yoko's Rising album.

"Sean is really into Ween and that's how we got hooked up on it," explains Dean, a huge fan of the queen of noise. "Yoko's been making ill music and fucking with people's heads forever, long be fore people like us were. She's like the original punker. I mean, she's way more fucking punk than Rancid."

In addition to the Yoko gig. Ween have got a lot on the go: a fall tour with the Nashville players in support of 12 Golden Country Greats will be followed by the spring release of the next "real" Ween record, tentatively titled The Mollusk. Ween fans befuddled by the country experiment can rest assured: Dean promises that the upcoming double album "is pretty fucked up." And then there's the matter of Dean's beloved side band, the super-repugnant Moistboyz. Probably the only band against Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the Moistboyz are set to release the follow-up to their vicious EPs Moistboyz and O.G. Simpson.

"Our record's done, it's about to come out," says an enthusiastic Dean. "It's really good: Moistboyz II. That's a great record. That record actually has the best guitar that I ever did on it, it's a really intense guitar record. It's a little bit more severe. It's almost like Back In Black or some shit. It's extremely heavy. Our record is fucking massive.

"The Moistboyz are the best fucking band in the world! Seriously, wait 'till you hear our record. It rocks so completely, so over-the-top, it's hilarious."

Ween play the Phoenix Concert Theatre Wednesday, Oct. 23 with special guests Doo Rag.