Newspaper Page Text
April 1, 1992
Flagpole Magazine
Page 21
Postmodern Blues by Jim Winders
Ween’s World...Excellent!
I have seen the face of God, and tattooed right in the
middle of it is the word Ween." Gods are supposed to come
bearing gifts, and Ween, as they sing “Laura,' have "somethin*
for all the people in the world." Depending on who you are,
they have more than enough to interest, amaze, mystify, or
outrage you. Some groups these days seem to feel that the
use of an outrageously offensive name will suffice to qualify for
membership in the musical avant-garde. Then, all too often,
they deliver music that is not all that remarkable. Ween give
themselves a cute I’il cartoon name, then, with deceptively
amateurish-sounding distorted guitar, bass and drums, pro
ceed to launch the mother of all attacks on your brain.
It takes a while for most musicians to produce their
magnum opus. Even acertifiable genius like Captain Beefheart
needed three or four years of making records to get around
to Trout Mask Replica in 1969. The Beatles needed still more
time to come up with The WhiteAlbum,
and it would take another four years for
The Rolling Stones to achieve Exile on
Main Street. So in late 1991, here comes
the mysterious Ween, from Pennsylva
nia, with their first-time-out masterpiece
called The Pod, proudly released on
legendary producer Kramer's Shimmy
Disc label. The Pod is 76 mmutes-pius
of demented genius which “Dean,
Gene and Mean" Ween attribute in
part to inhaling five cans of
Scotchguard. This activity is repre
sented by a cover photograph of “Mean
Ween," the bass player, outfitted with
appropriated inhaling apparatus. Oth
erwise, his pose and the overall cover
design spoofs a well-known Leonard Cohen album cover.
These guys are no strangers to sarcasm, and they have
attitude to spare.
They also sound real hungry. “Pork roll egg and cheese"
is their mantra from song to song, and one entire selection
called “Polio Asado’ consists of a long sequence of H's-
panic customers ordering tacos, burritos, quesadillas, chips
and guacamole. If this sounds strangely familiar, it may be
because it was playing at precisely the moment Matthew
Sweet and his band took to the stage at their recent Georgia
Theatre appearance. Sweet expressed great amusement
and pleasure over the use of Ween's, urn, music as an
overture to his own.
Talking Heads called their second album More Songs
About Buildings and Food. Buildings may not figure very
prominently in Ween’s music, although the liner notes play up
the importance of this little house - The Pod - where all this very
curious music went down, a sort of "Big Pink" for the '90s.
Ween’s CD might very well be called More Songs About Food
Than Anything Else. If it gives you the munchies while you’re
listening, you’d better watch out if you want to maintain a
healthy diet. They keep calling for their “pork roll egg and
cheese," first in “Frank," whom they petition as well for “some
gravy fries." It’s not all that clear that the food is ever really
enjoyed, however. If The Podwere a film, it would be less like
Babette's Feast or Tampopo, and more like Luis Bunuel’s
Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, that surreal meditation on
(excuse the expression) go-eat-us interrupts, in which meals
are always just about to be served, but are perpetually
delayed or postponed.
In Ween's “Polio Asado," it’s never clear that the process
of ordering from the long Mexican menu w’ll end, especially
since the gringo taking the order has no ability to return correct
change. In fact, for some reason, the more these yuys order,
the less they seem to have to pay. When your bill comes to
$16.07 and you pay with a twenty, your change is $16.07.
Pretty good deal. An equally surreal effect is the need to
translate the Spanish words came and polio for these hungry
yet hesitant Hispanic customers.
Ween works the familiar territory of sex & drugs & rock 'n
roll, which they revise into a quartet of terms by adding food.
Now I must plead total ignorance of this Scotchguard inhaling
activity (not one of my youthful indiscretions, y ’ know), but I am
curious about the number of groups working today who
openly advocate drug use of one kind or another. Spacemen
3 are a critically acclaimed British neo-psychedelic band of
lysergic inspiration, and the members of the wildly popular
Happy Mondays are all alleged enthusiastic dealers as well
as users of the euphoria-inducing drug Ecstasy. Happy
Mondays and other Manchester bands
are known for performing at all-night
concerts called “raves," where the
emphasis is on communal sensuous
experience fueled by drug use and
frenzied dancing. The “house music*
scene in general works in this way.
To my knowledge, no musicians
endorse or advocate “crack" cocaine
use. Quite a lot of them oppose it. In a
recent article in In These Times, writer
Travis Charboneau drew a careful dis
tinction between hallucinogenic drug
use and the crack epidemic, oppos
ing the new right cultural prophets
who carelessly assume thatthe former
phenomenon gave rise to the latter.
On the face of it, some of the bands I’ve been describing may
seem to be engaging in a daring kind of cultural politics. But
their gesture can only be mere hedonistic self-indulgence
unless it is linked to demands for legalization and a stronq
critique of the sinister drug wars currently being conducted by
more or less fascist politicians. As a political statement, the
1976 anthem "Legalize It" by Peter Tosh has yet to be
surpassed.
Let’s see: we’ve mentioned food and drugs, so it must be
time to talk about sex. The members of Ween don’t so much
deal with sex by itself, as they do with love, bless their hearts.
I defy you to find a more tender love song than "She fucks me,"
a paean to the richness of female companionship sung over
a guttural refrain of “pork roll egg and cheese on a Kaiser bun .*
What else? In "The Stallion," their one contribution to ihe “cock
rock’ genre, they offer a hilarious parody of Hoochie Coochie
Man posturing. They've even invented their own phonetic
spelling, as I see it. of the way Muddy Waters used to
pronounce "man" in his classic "Mannish Boy." To whit:
“mang."
Finally, Ween understands the importance of strategic
silences in their music. Even when we appreciate the non
stop torrent of music from such bands as The Pixies or The
Ramones, Ween maximizes the drama tension and all-out
humor in their music through the use of long pauses and odd
intervals. Songs like “Molly" and “Awesome Sound" (punctu
ated with exclamations of “Hit me! Hit me agan! Stop it! Hit me
agan!) seem to come to an end. only to start agan as if for the
very first time, just in time to make you realize you didn't want
it to end ever. But how considerate of them to let you recover
your breath. Constant laughter is strenuous, after all. “So
mama if you please, pass me the pork roll, egg and cheese.
© 1992 Jim Winders
A Wealth of Concern for Finland
Monday, April 6, the Fuzzy Sprouts and Audiac will
be gracing the stage of Club Fred as part of a benefit
performance to fund FAPB (Farmers Against Pestiferous
Botryoids). This year’s proceeds will go to aid the impov
erished grape pickers of Finland, whose country’s re
cent drought has devastated crops and the families who
depend on them. Audiac will be there, too, with their new
bass player (and benefit organizer), Bo. In addition to
their social concerns, the Fuzzy Sprouts have been
working on a new album, tentatively titled Big Ugly
Salad. This show promises to be the big event of the
year, as the plight of Finland’s poor moves to the fore
front of international concerns . Come and be aware...
PIZZA Jjfa'
ff
Come Party on Our Deck!
"Open Mike" 4 to 8, ^
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