 |
| Weird, sure, but so much more. Goddamn heroes. |
“I can only speak for myself, but as far as I’m concerned, as long as Aaron and I are both alive on this planet, Ween is still together. We’ve never broken up. The idea of quitting is just laughable. This isn’t something you can quit. This is a life sentence.”
- Dean Ween, aka, Mickey Melchiondo
“The Caesar demo release was the straw that broke the camels back. Nobody asked Gener before releasing...Deaner broke the golden rule. the Boognish wept that day.”
- Gene Ween, aka, Aaron Freeman
Whatever meaningful conscious knowledge I’ve ever had of Ween started when I looked into FREEMAN, Aaron Freeman’s post-Ween, post-sobriety solo project for an earlier, now-deleted site, so that’s where I started. (And, for the record, “the Caesar demo” was a collection of unreleased demos recorded while they were working on Quebec, circa 2001-2003.) While I’d had Chocolate & Cheese and Paintin’ the Town Brown for a decade or so, I knew only the tiniest part of dick about Ween – which, also for the record, was inspired by a combination of the words “wuss” and “penis.” [Ed. – per new editorial policy, all sources for this post will be linked to at the end. Just…feels better that way.]
- Dean Ween, aka, Mickey Melchiondo
“The Caesar demo release was the straw that broke the camels back. Nobody asked Gener before releasing...Deaner broke the golden rule. the Boognish wept that day.”
- Gene Ween, aka, Aaron Freeman
Whatever meaningful conscious knowledge I’ve ever had of Ween started when I looked into FREEMAN, Aaron Freeman’s post-Ween, post-sobriety solo project for an earlier, now-deleted site, so that’s where I started. (And, for the record, “the Caesar demo” was a collection of unreleased demos recorded while they were working on Quebec, circa 2001-2003.) While I’d had Chocolate & Cheese and Paintin’ the Town Brown for a decade or so, I knew only the tiniest part of dick about Ween – which, also for the record, was inspired by a combination of the words “wuss” and “penis.” [Ed. – per new editorial policy, all sources for this post will be linked to at the end. Just…feels better that way.]
Ween’s 2012 break was both rough and a long-time coming, according to Freeman, and both he and Melchiondo processed it differently – the former as a matter of survival, the latter as a blow. Melchiondo kept going and in a similar vein: he revived his existing side project, Moistboyz, and keeps plugging away with the Dean Ween Group. The latter (and maybe the former) still played regularly at the same venue that hosted Ween’s earliest shows – John & Peter’s in their hometown, New Hope, PA (right on the Jersey border!) – as of 2018. Melchiondo does not appear to be sober, and he still plays with a lot of guys from the Ween days: e.g., Claude Colman, Jr. (drummer, third member of Ween), Dave Dreiwitz (bass) and Glenn McClellan (keys, both from Ween’s second iteration). He built his own studio and he still makes himself available to all kinds of media (including one interview with Noisey’s Guitar Moves series that I decided to drag out of the Sources because, on it, Melchiondo talked about Ween’s (and his) signature sound and/or hooks).
