Friday 29 October 2010

#1 Ween

Ween is a band I had always heard of but never truly discovered. Perhaps this is because i'm not from the US, but i'd always seen their name floating around, whether it was them contributing a track to some South Park album or seeing Beavis and Butthead watch one of their videos during an episode. I didn't know who they were at all really. Well sometimes I get nostalgic and try my hardest to seek out some obscure song from my childhood that I only know a few words of. Well once when I was a kid I had to tag along with my sister while she was out shopping, going to clothes stores and places like that. I would rather be in some games store and be bored as hell so usually i'd just sit at the shoe section where they have those seats for bored kids to sit on. Well I can always remember this song being played on a TV with the lyrics "push the little daisies to make them come up" being repeated, and I kinda liked that, it was a funny tune and it stood out. Years later remembering this I thought that, google being my friend and all, i'd see if  I couldn't track down this little number that stuck out in my head so much. Turns out it was Push th' Little Daisies by Ween and discovering that just opened up a whole new door of exploration into this awesome band.

One thing i'll have to say, Ween isn't the kind of band you'd want to be caught listening to by your mother or girlfriend (unless she's uber cool). If there is such a thing as gonzo music then Ween certainly defines it. They have no genre or 'sound' that defines them. Every album, some more than others, seem to be a mish mash of  many musical sounds, styles and genres that all seem to be done so masterfully and so well, albeit with a bit gonzo humor thrown in. Alot of the songs will be like nothing you've ever heard before and may even be uncomfortable to listen to the first time round, but trust me, once you catch the bug you'll be sitting at your computer with your coffee and headphones thinking you're listening to the music of the gods (or at least the music of Boognish). But yeah, give them a try. I recommend their whole back catalog, just pick one and enjoy. Though "The Mollusc" really stood out for me when I first ventured into weendom.

One reviewer summed the band up in a way better than I ever could. "Their music is too goofy to be taken seriously, too profound to be a joke, too offensive for radio, too ugly for the mainstream, too sweet for misanthropes and too varied to be summed up in one or even 10 songs"

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