Day 13: September 9th, 2011
La Cucaracha
8:27 PM
After a nearly two week break from the Ween project, I’ve decided that I have to face the music and listen to their last proper album and wrap this Thrill of Discovery up. It’s a sad thing. I’m reluctant to do it, and while I feel like I’ve just been fucking around, neglecting the blog, the project, etc, I’ve been listening to nothing but Ween lately. Lie. Flat out lie. Don’t know why I said it. I’ve been embroiled in a real, paying music writing assignment that ate up my last week and still isn’t 100% done but fuck it, Ween makes everything better. That’s not even a real excuse, because I’ve had time to do other shit, but it was that sort of assignment where everything went wrong and the only way to cure the anxiety and the stress was to drink and watch TV and, well, listen to the bitchin’ Ween mix I made while I was listening to all the albums. I’ve pared it down to 42 songs and have a ways to go before it fits on a CD, but it’s been easy cutting songs. I just pick the ones Jenny hates and put them on the special “Listen to when Jenny is not here” mix. It’s a graveyard for “Push th’ Little Daisies” and “Sketches of Winkle,” and the like. HOWEVER, despite her early disposition of “Fuck this music, fuck it forever in its stupid fucking face,” I’ve tricked Jenny into liking a few tracks. Pawned my own Stockholm Syndrome onto her, if you will (that sounds like and STD, and in the case of Ween, well, it might as well be). I’ve been very clever about it. She’ll be in the kitchen, I’ll put on the “Ween for Jenny” mix whilst dicking around and she’ll say “Oh what is this, I know this song” and I go, “THIS IS WEEN! The song is called ‘Even if You Don’t’” and she says “This is Ween?” Yep. This is one of the most challenging seductions I’ve ever undertaken. Winning her over and convincing her to marry me was peanuts compared to trying to make her understand why Ween fucking rules. “Stay Forever” and “She’s Your Baby” have been working like charms, but sequencing this mix for her will be the real bitch. Anyway, aside. It’s time to finish this. And really, this isn’t even the last post because I’ve gotta do one last one where I listen to all the live albums I have on the hard drive and all the weird B-sides floating around. There’s still work to be done, but the hard part is over. I became a convert. I came home from the gym, and I sat down and thought “What do I want for dinner? I have THREE different kinds of macaroni and cheese but WHICH ONE IS TONIGHT’S MACARONI AND CHEESE?” and I put on “Nan” to help me decide and I’m probably just having canned ravioli. Ween helps make decisions, or it helps make making decisions easier. Knowing that if I can dive headfirst into the discography of a band I’ve formerly sort of despised and love them on a level that I love my favorite bands, well, I can do anything. Anything but listen to the goddamned 30 minutes version of “LMLYP” I have floating around oh GOD please no.
“Friends”
Ahh, Ween’s foray into gay euro disco! I remember this. I remember when the EP for this track came out years back and I thought, “Maybe this is the time to get into Ween, I am in college after all and I have now smoked pot once so…” and well, I thought this was some colossal bullshit. It’s still not great, but I understand it now. Ween has built their ark on genre-hopping so well, why the hell not have a Ibiza club jam on this album?
“Object”
Ha, some bro pry thought this was SO COOL. Because bros like American Psycho, right? Great, funny song with an unfortunately stupid fan video.
Ahh, this is more like it. More in the vein of the progress made on Quebec yet still pushing forward into maturity while still staying brown. My favorite thing about listening to all of these albums back to back to back has been charting the personal growth, as people and as songwriters. GodWeenSatan: The Oneness SOUNDS so much like an album made by a couple of teenagers who wanted to fuck around and make a fucking record just cuz, singing about shit they thought was funny or awesome or weird. There are threads from that here, right here in this song and though the t-shirt continues to unravel, that’s not a bad thing, because um, it creates something new? You can make a ball of string out of it and give it to a cat? You can sew it into a new sweater? There was an analogy there and now I’m just thinking about Weezer who I oft confused with Ween before I listened to Weezer in like the 8th grade but that’s beside the point. Anyway, this is the first legitimately great song on this album and I feel more comfortable proceeding.
“My Own Bare Hands”
Can't get over how fuckin' funny this song is. Best on the album I'd say. Love how Deaner's rock n' roll face looks like a takin' a dump face so so so so so much.
Fuck, is this Deaner rockin’ the vox? AND ROCKIN THE SICK SOLO! It must be, this sounds like a Deaner song. One embodying the essence of rock and roll and laced with lines like “She’s gonna be my cock professor/ Studyin’ my dick/ She’s gonna get her masters degree/ In fuckin’ me.” It’s funny. And the thing is, these dick jokes are so much more refined than the ones on the first couple records. There’s a grace to it, even in the brownest of brown lines (“Take a shit on a bitch shit fuck bubbajibba,” what does that even MEAN). I’m mostly kidding, but really, this sounds like classic Ween and I am now starting to warm up to this goddamn record.
“Sweetheart in the Summer”
The cutest song in Ween's catalog.
Awwww. A cute oldies sounding number with nothing disgusting about it! HOW FUCKING ODD!
“Woman and Man”
Nothin' but solos.
This song is long. Like really long, full of bitchin’ guitar solos and bongos and flutes and all sorts of shit. Which is to say if meanders, meanders all over the damn place for ten minutes. This is almost as bad as the 10 minutes of noise on Wilco’s “Less Than You Think” from A Ghost is Born. Tramping into jam band territory for sure on this one.
“Your Party”
TRI COLORED PASTAS!
Ahh, nothing like closing an album with a Yacht Rock send-up. Features mentions of tri-colored pastas and a fucking legit-sounding sax solo that I read was recorded by a dude who actually plays sax for this shitty stuff in real life! Sadly, it doesn’t feel up to Ween’s standards which usually involve turning a genre on its head and creating something kind of wonderful (or weird or both). Here it plays as straight parody. It’s funny, sure, and not at all unpleasant, but it feels a little phoned in.
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