As John Lennon might very well have said if he had been a much, much worse songwriter and much, much crazier dude: the psychotropic, experimental-alternative, goof-core dream is over. Yup, Aaron Freeman and Mickey Melchiondo were once Gene and Dean Ween, but now they’re just Aaron and Mickey. Or at least, that’s the case Freeman made for himself in Rolling Stone this week when he stated that Ween is “pretty much” over after 25 years of tricking kids like me into liking Frank Zappa without realizing it. “It’s time to move on,” the former Mister Ween said when asked about retiring his moniker. “For me it’s a closed book. In life sometimes, in the universe, you have to close some doors to have others open… There’s no, ‘Goddamn that such and such!’ For me, I’d like to think it’s a door I can close finally.” Actually, Dean or Mickey or whoever he is now seemed to have no idea what his former collaborator was talm’bout. But hahaha, you know, isn’t that just SO WEEN? LOL??
Anyway, fans will remember that Gene and Dean first hooked up in 1984 (they met in typing class in 8th Grade) and went on to mangle experimental art rock, psychedelia, noise, comedy, and even good ol’ Alternative Rock (RIP) into 11 albums’ worth of delicious, bona-fide gnar-bars, including bizzaro classics like “Push th’ Little Daisies” and the Parker/Stone sanctioned “Even if You Don’t”. And any fans that don’t remember any of that have probably been high for kind of a while and should probably be alerted of the fact that it’s now 2012 and that they’ve been joblessly watching Comedy Central in their basement for the past 21 years or so.
• Ween: http://www.ween.com
• Chocodog Records: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chocodog_Records