*** Post-1979 Album Draft - Commentary Thread ***

[Erik]

Sheep: yes, she knows and likes 12GCG. In fact, I'm Holding You was on the playlist at our wedding reception.

Bucky: The 12GCG touring band was a mixture of Ween cronies - drummer Claude Coleman and bassist Matt Kohut - and Nashville musicians - everyone else.

[BuckyBuckner]

Sheep: yes, she knows and likes 12GCG. In fact, I'm Holding You was on the playlist at our wedding reception.

Bucky: The 12GCG touring band was a mixture of Ween cronies - drummer Claude Coleman and bassist Matt Kohut - and Nashville musicians - everyone else.

Claude Coleman was from a great band called Skunk that no one has ever heard of. Matt Sweeney was the guy behind that band, he went on to form Chavez and did a collaboration with Bonnie Prince Billy recently. I don't remember the drummer being Claude when I saw them. I think the band was the Shit Creek Boys. This is from the Live in Toronto Canada LP. It was a live show in 1996 which seems about the time I saw them.

The first in a projected series of Dick's Picks-styled archival live recordings on Ween's own Chocodog label, Live in Toronto Canada documents an October 23, 1996, date in support of the now-classic 12 Golden Country Greats. Backed by the Shit Creek Boys -- a group of veteran Nashville session men led by pianist Bobby Ogdin -- the tour in question was perhaps the apotheosis of the live Ween experience: Ogdin's countrified arrangements breathed new life into chestnuts like "Doctor Rock" and "What Deaner Was Talkin' About," and the Jack Daniels-fueled interplay between Deaner and Gener with the aging Nashville cats was pure magic. (As Deaner's liner notes point out, "The 8-piece band sounded like a 747 landing on your house.") Far more effective in capturing the life-altering genius of the Ween live show than the earlier Paintin' the Town Brown collection, the disc divides evenly between 12 Golden Country Greats Material (including "Japanese Cowboy" complete with "Chariots of Fire" coda and an epic set-closing "Fluffy") and fan favorites (i.e., "Push th' Little Daisies" and "Buenas Tardes Amigo"), culminating in a rendition of Billy Joel's "Piano Man" complete with the new chorus, "Sing us a song, you're the piano man/Put some coke on my dick tonight." F*ck yeah.

[Erik]

Some of Ween is pretty great and a lot of it is horribly awful. I did see Ween at Outside Lands in San Francisco in 2009 and they were really exceelent, though. I think, thankfully, that they ditched their more annoying stuff in favor of actual songs.

Actually, part of the genius of the touring band is that they turned the "awful shit" from the first three albums into awesome rock songs.

[Erik]

I have a Ween pick deep in my list, and of course it's the one none of you have mentioned yet, lol.

I'm guessing you're not the only one with it on his list. Many of my Ween scene friends like that one better than C&C.

[Mithrandir]

From last week:

555827_10202547961206634_1380317469_n.jpg

[Erik]

I own all sorts of Ween side projects and ephemera, but I've still yet to hear Skunk.

[BuckyBuckner]

I own all sorts of Ween side projects and ephemera, but I've still yet to hear Skunk.

Andrew Weiss produced the album. It's nothing special, just some good rock.



Claude Coleman sings this one.

[Pogues]

God Damn will this Ween love fest end soon?

[Erik]

May Boognish smite you.

[Erik]

Yeah, pretty much. Many of them are beefed up and fleshed out as opposed to rewritten, but some of them are completely different.

[Erik]

Tears for Fears wasn't really a big thing in the States until the album with THOSE songs on it. I remember "Change" from MTV but it was just one in a sea of new wave plankton. I never heard Mad World until that cover came out, and I can't say I know anything else by them pre-1985.

[ManCalledFoot]

Tears for Fears wasn't really a big thing in the States until the album with THOSE songs on it. I remember "Change" from MTV but it was just one in a sea of new wave plankton. I never heard Mad World until that cover came out, and I can't say I know anything else by them pre-1985.

I don't know how you missed them in the early 80s. Were you ever able to pick up WLIR in Jersey? It made such a difference in that era.

[Erik]

Nope. Now, keep in mind that I was 14 in 1985, and content with what was readily available in Philly.

[revo]

What Up Dog was (not was?) on my shortlist.

Love their version of Otis Redding's "I Can't Turn You Loose"

[Erik]

I was the perfect age for Momentary (16). I was too young for Floyd's glory years but totally obsessed with that stuff. I saw them twice on that tour, fall '87 and spring '88. No, it wasn't like being there for Dark Side, but it was the best I was gonna get - especially since Roger Waters was intent on being as nonmusical as possible at the time.

A lot of Momentary still holds up, especially Learning to Fly and Sorrow.