Word: ween
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Judging from Ween's stage setup Sunday night, you'd expect them to be a skinhead hardcore band; distributed across the stage of the Somerville Theater were a bass drum with a flipped bird painted on the front, a party bottle of Jack Daniels and a riot gear-looking bullhorn. The fans that packed Davis Square's venerable fountain of obscurity know the truth about alt-rock's satirical brats, though: Ween is just kidding...
...Ween is part rock band, part comic circus and part junior-high bus ride. Frontmen Mickey Melchiondo and Aaron Freeman hooked up 15 years ago at age 14, adopted the monikers Dean and Gene Ween, and haven't stopped playing (or grown up) since. Ween had their first major label with 1992's Pure Guava and have since logged a string of studio and live albums. Their 1997 release The Mollusk, with its blatantly thecal cover, will undoubtably go down in the annals of rock as the album that gave NOFX's Heavy Petting Zoo the best competition for most...
...Watching guitarist Dean Ween rattle off a blatant parody of a Soundgarden solo, tongue out with Michael Jordan-like abandon, any doubts about what was to be taken seriously and what was a joke were gone. It was all a joke and a good one at that. Dean and Jordan seem to have the same thought in mind while doing their thing: "this is way too much fun, I can't believe they're actually paying me to do it!" Singer Gene seemed to be having an equally good time. When the rest of the band stepped off stage...
...Sunday's crowd was made up mostly of bona fide, Ween T-shirt-wearing fans. Most clocked in at well over half baked and still smoking, not surprising for the followers of a band known for its recreational use of Scotchguard. There were also a surprising number of 30- and 40-somethings, most of who were singing along with the college-age masses. The enthusiastic audience filled the normally calm theater to cramped standing room, inspiring the band to attempt their P-Funk-parodic magnum opus. "Okay, this hasn't worked for the last six nights," Gene told the crowd...
...Middle East, Lord teased the audience by starting her set with a Ween cover, and then moving on to two new original pieces--"His Lamest Flame" and "Western Union Song"--which may or may not appear on Got No Shadow. Although Lord played both songs solo, either could easily be adapted as band material, especially "His Lamest Flame," an upbeat and gregarious sour grapes song which wouldn't easily be adulterated by backup accompaniment. The audience responded enthusiastically to the new material, crowding up to the stage for the first time during the sequence of bands that evening; they also...