Ween discography

Last updated

Ween discography
Ween in Edmonton Alberta.jpg
Ween performing in Edmonton, Alberta
Studio albums9
Live albums7
Compilation albums2
Video albums1
Music videos10
EPs8
Singles18
Demo tapes15

The following is the discography of Ween, a Pennsylvania-based experimental alternative band formed by childhood friends Aaron Freeman and Mickey Melchiondo, better known by their respective stage names, Gene Ween and Dean Ween. Starting out with a few locally released demo tapes, including The Crucial Squeegie Lip, AXIS: Bold as Boognish, and The Live Brain Wedgie / WAD Excerpts, the band was picked up by independent label Twin/Tone Records in 1990 and released their debut GodWeenSatan: The Oneness . In 1991 they signed with another independent label, Shimmy-Disc, and released The Pod . Later, Ween signed with Elektra Records and released their major label debut Pure Guava in 1992. It features their highest-charting single to date, "Push th' Little Daisies". While touring for this album, they played at Chapel Hill, North Carolina, which would later be released as a CD/DVD live album in 2008 titled At the Cat's Cradle, 1992 .

Contents

In 1994 Chocolate and Cheese was released, which spawned the singles "Voodoo Lady", "Freedom of '76", and "I Can't Put My Finger on It". Ween's next album, released in 1996, was titled 12 Golden Country Greats and was recorded with several prominent Nashville musicians, featuring a distinct country sound. It gave way to the singles "Piss Up a Rope" and "You Were the Fool". The nautically-themed album The Mollusk followed in 1997. It is considered a prog rock concept album, and featured the singles "Mutilated Lips" and "Ocean Man", the latter gaining a significant following after being a song on the SpongeBob SquarePants Movie soundtrack. The band's desire to pursue alternate forms of media led to the MP3-only release Craters of the Sac , presented by Melchiondo for online download and free trade. The same year the band had planned to release a live album compilation spanning their entire career up to that point, titled Paintin' the Town Brown: Ween Live 1990-1998 . However, according to Melchiondo, once the album was completed, Elektra realized the sales potential of the CD and denied Ween the right to release it through their independent label. Ween's sixth studio album, White Pepper , was the band's final studio release for Elektra and was released in 2000. The pop-themed, Lennon-McCartney-inspired album produced two singles: "Even If You Don't", which was made into a music video directed by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, and "Stay Forever".

Ween formed their own label in 2001, Chocodog Records, the label Ween originally planned to release Paintin' the Town Brown on. Later, Ween released the first official Chocodog album, Live in Toronto, Canada. The limited-pressing CD, available exclusively through the band website, became an instant collector's item. Subsequent Chocodog releases were produced in higher volumes to meet demand. Ween signed to Sanctuary Records and released Quebec, their first studio release in three years, in 2003. Later that year, the band held a poll on their official message boards to select songs for the band to play on their forthcoming live-in-studio album All Request Live. Released on November 22, the album would be the first time Ween would play all five parts of "The Stallion" (Parts 1 & 2 from The Pod, Part 3 from Pure Guava, the unreleased Part 4, and Part 5 from Craters of the Sac). The performance also included rarely-played early Ween tracks such as "Pollo Asado", "Mononucleosis" and "Cover it with Gas and Set it in Fire", as well as Ween's rejected Pizza Hut jingle, "Where'd the Cheese Go?". In 2004, Ween released Live in Chicago, a DVD and CD set that compiled tracks from two live performances from the Quebec tour at Chicago's Vic Theatre in November 2003.

In 2005, Ween hit the studio to record better quality versions of previously-unreleased songs for the compilation Shinola, Vol. 1 . The twelve tracks were all, according to Melchiondo, "songs we regretted not putting on other records". The tracks spanned the band's career, from "Tastes Good on th' Bun", a Pod outtake, to "Someday", a Quebec outtake. Different versions of three of the songs, "Big Fat Fuck", "How High Can You Fly?" and "Monique the Freak" had previously appeared on Craters of the Sac.

In 2006, Ween rented an old farmhouse and converted it into a working studio. After writing over 50 songs and recording rough versions through 2006, they picked through them and, with Andrew Weiss as producer, re-recorded album versions for what would become The Friends EP and the full-length La Cucaracha which were both released in 2007 on Rounder Records. La Cucaracha, which would prove to be Ween's final album, would later be called a "big piece of shit" by Freeman, adding, "I think the songs on it were good, or a bunch of songs, but overall that was a big clue Mickey and I were finito".

In 2011, Melchiondo quietly released an MP3-only collection of songs called The Caesar Demos, named after the band's original working title for Quebec, to friends on his Facebook page. In his comment, he stated the songs were all recorded between 2001 and 2003 while Claude Coleman was recovering from injuries sustained in a car accident, and that many of the tracks featured only himself and Freeman. In addition to a handful of tracks that eventually made Quebec, Caesar Demos would also feature several previously unreleased tracks.

The band broke up in 2012, after Freeman commented in a Rolling Stone interview that it was time to pursue solo projects. The manager for the band, Greg Frey, later confirmed he had decided to 'end his musical relationship' with Ween. Melchiondo was unaware of this until it was public information. In 2015, Freeman began using the Gene Ween moniker again for live performances, and later that year they announced their first shows in years for 2016. A sequel to the first outtakes collection, Shinola vol. 1, was confirmed to be in the works by Melchiondo on Facebook in 2016. A live album containing a 2001 performance of every song from their first album was released in 2016, entitled GodWeenSatan Live .

Studio albums

YearTitleLabelPeak chart positions
US
[1]
US
Heat.

[2]
AUS
[3]
1990 GodWeenSatan: The Oneness Twin/Tone
1991 The Pod Shimmy Disc
1992 Pure Guava Elektra 93
1994 Chocolate and Cheese 1080
1996 12 Golden Country Greats 2372
1997 The Mollusk 159569
2000 White Pepper 1212
2003 Quebec Sanctuary 81
2007 La Cucaracha Rounder/Schnitzel6984

Live albums

YearTitleLabelPeak chart positions
US
Heat.

[2]
1999 Paintin' the Town Brown: Ween Live 1990–1998 Elektra37
2001 Live in Toronto Canada Chocodog/Schnitzel
2002 Live at Stubb's 7/2000 Chocodog
2003 All Request Live
2004 Live in Chicago Sanctuary
2008 At the Cat's Cradle, 1992 Chocodog/Schnitzel
2016 GodWeenSatan Live

Compilation albums

EPs

YearTitleLabel
1992Sky Cruiser EPWhite
1994I Can't Put My Finger On It EPElektra
Freedom of '76 EP Flying Nun Records
Voodoo Lady EP Flying Nun
1996Piss Up a Rope/You Were the Fool EPFlying Nun
2000Stay Forever Promo EPMushroom
Stay Forever Red Vinyl EPMushroom
2007 The Friends EP CD and limited edition picture disc 12"Chocodog/Schnitzel

Singles

YearTitle US
Alt.

[4]
AUS
[3]
UK
[5]
Album
1992"I'm Fat"Non album single
"Push th' Little Daisies"2118Pure Guava
"Sky Cruiser"Non album single
1994"I Can't Put My Finger on It"Chocolate and Cheese
"Freedom of '76'"152
"Voodoo Lady"325897
1996"Piss Up a Rope"11612 Golden Country Greats
"You Were the Fool"98
1997"Mutilated Lips"The Mollusk
"Ocean Man"
2000"Even If You Don't"135White Pepper
"Stay Forever"138
2003"Tried and True/Mountains and Buffalo"Quebec
"Transdermal Celebration"
2005"Monique the Freak"Shinola, Vol. 1
"Gabrielle"
2007"Your Party"La Cucaracha
2010"DC Won't Do You No Good"Non album single
2024"Junkie Boy"Chocolate and Cheese (Deluxe Edition)
"Voodoo Lady (Demo)"

Music videos

Early independent releases

YearTitleLabelNotes
1985We Broke Up  (Unreleased) [6]
Ween/SmershJoint cassette between Ween and Smersh, side one is the Ween side which features the song "Fred" and side two is the Smersh side which features the song "Edgar"
1985Mrs. SlackYucasettesEP, partially lost
Chris Hoecke
Mike Banks
Kim Tulio
John Ward
1986Erica Peterson's Flaming Crib Death [7]
1987The Crucial Squeegie Lip [8] Bird O’ Pray
1988Ween II Axis: Bold as Boognish [9]
The Live Brain Wedgie! / Wad Excerpts [10] 12" EP
1989Prime 5 [11] Compilation

Notable demo tapes

YearTitle
1988Ween WAD  (Series of GodWeenSatan: The Oneness demos, various tapes exist with different tracklists)
1988The Scraping the Palm for Guava Tape  (Unofficially released, GodWeenSatan: The Oneness era)
1989The Focus Tape  (Unofficially released, GodWeenSatan: The Oneness era)
1990The Pork Roll Egg & Cheese  (Unreleased, The Pod era) [6]
Eindhoven EP  (Only song that has surfaced from this tape is "Albino Sunburned Girl", The Pod era) [6]
The Stallion  (Unofficially Released, The Pod era) [6]
Big Timmy Wasserman  (Unofficially Released, The Pod era) [6]
Bilboa  (Unofficially Released, The Pod era) [6]
1991Springstuff  (Unreleased, Pure Guava era) [6]
Caprice Classic  (Unofficially Released, Pure Guava era) [6]
Eravis  (Unofficially Released, Pure Guava era) [6]
1992Freedom  (Unreleased, Chocolate & Cheese era)
Chocolate & Cheese Taster Demos  (Unofficially Released, Chocolate & Cheese era)
1993Crème de Menthe  (Unreleased, Chocolate & Cheese era)
1994Chocolate & Cheese Tape  (Unreleased, Chocolate & Cheese era)
12 Golden Country Greats 4-Track Demos  (Unofficially Released, 12 Golden Country Greats era)
1995The Mollusk Sessions  (Streamed on the Ween MySpace page in 2007)
1996Music For Drunk Irish Homos  (Unreleased, The Mollusk era)
1997White Pepper Demos  (Unofficially released)
1997/1998Jug Is Quaid  (Unreleased compilation of studio material compiled by the band. Some songs speculated to be included in the tape are Albino Sunburned Girl, Did You See Me (Demo), Koko (Demo), I Still Love You, and Flutes Of Chi (Demo))
1999Pandy Fackler Tape  (Unofficially released, compiled by Dean Ween from different Chocolate & Cheese era demo tapes)
2000Long Beach Island  (Unofficially released, White Pepper era)
2001-2003Caesar Demos  (Released by Dean Ween on his Facebook page in 2011, Quebec era)
2006-2007La Cucaracha Demos & Sessions  (Various songs recorded around the La Cucaracha era)
2013Boognish Rising: Christmas 2013 Sampler  (Compiled by ChrisB featuring various Pre-1994 Ween songs)
2014Boognish Rising: Thanksgiving 2014 Sampler  (Compiled by ChrisB featuring various Pre-1994 Ween songs)
2016Boognish Rising: Summer 2016 Sampler  (Compiled by ChrisB featuring various Pre-1994 Ween songs)

Appearances

YearTitleLabel
1992 GWAR - The Road Behind EP Metal Blade Records
1993 En Esch - Cheesy TVT Records
Freedom of '76: The Jane Pratt Show Lifetime Entertainment
1994 Frente! - Lonely Mushroom Records
A Merry Little Christmas : A Holiday Sampler from Elektra & EastWest Elektra/EastWest
1995 Kostars - Klassics With a K Grand Royal
Used & Recorded by 3RRR Vol.2Radio Release
1996 Beautiful Girls Miramax / Elektra
Ben Vaughn - Instrumental Stylings Bar None Records
Yoko Ono-Rising Mixes Capitol Records
Schoolhouse Rock! Rocks Atlantic Records
1997 Wah² German TV Show
Orgazmo - Unrated Version N/A
1998 Hub - HubSLASH RECORDS
Chef Aid: The South Park Album Columbia
The X-Files: The Album WEA
Magna Plasm: Volcom Stone Surf Movie Veeco Productions
2002 Run Ronnie Run soundtrack New Line Productions Inc.
Morvern Callar Warp Records
Crank Yankers Comedy Central
2000 SpongeBob SquarePants (Season 2, Episode 1a "Your Shoe's Untied")Sire/London/Rhino
2004 The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie – Music from the Movie and More... Sire/London/Rhino
Tony Hawk's Underground 2 soundtrack Activision/Neversoft
2005 Murderball soundtrackCommotion Records
2008 Weeds: Music from the Original Series, Volume 3 N/A
2009G.N.A.R (ski film)N/A

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Call (band)</span> American rock band

The Call is an American rock band formed in Santa Cruz, California, in 1980. The main lineup consisted of members Michael Been, Scott Musick, Tom Ferrier, and Jim Goodwin. The band released nine studio albums over the next two decades before disbanding in 2000. Their 1986 song, "I Still Believe ", was covered by Tim Cappello and included in the 1987 film The Lost Boys. The band also achieved significant success in 1989 with "Let the Day Begin", which reached No. 1 on the Billboard U.S. Mainstream Rock chart and was later used as a campaign theme song for Al Gore's 2000 Presidential Campaign.

<i>Quebec</i> (album) 2003 studio album by Ween

Quebec is the eighth studio album by the American rock band Ween, released on August 5, 2003, on Sanctuary Records. It was the first album released after the band's contract with Elektra expired, and marked its return to independent labels.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dean Ween</span> American rock musician

Michael Melchiondo Jr., better known by his stage name Dean Ween, is an American guitarist, singer and a founding member of the alternative rock group Ween. He is currently active in the groups Ween, Moistboyz and The Dean Ween Group.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gene Ween</span> American rock musician

Aaron Freeman, better known by his stage name Gene Ween, is an American singer, guitarist and a founding member of the experimental alternative rock group Ween. Freeman, along with childhood friend Mickey Melchiondo, started the group in the mid-1980s. Ween would expand to five members and perform together until May 2012 when Freeman abruptly quit the band due to his want to move forward with a solo career, as well as his desire to remain sober. Over the next few years, Freeman would briefly abandon the Gene Ween name and lead a new five-piece band called Freeman. Shortly after reviving the Gene Ween name for a series of Billy Joel tribute performances, Ween reunited in February 2016 for three concerts in Broomfield, Colorado. The band has continued to perform and tour since.

<i>The Pod</i> 1991 studio album by Ween

The Pod is the second studio album by American rock band Ween. It was released on September 20, 1991, by Shimmy-Disc.

<i>Pure Guava</i> 1992 studio album by Ween

Pure Guava is the third studio album and major label debut by American rock band Ween, released on November 10, 1992, by Elektra Records.

<i>Chocolate and Cheese</i> 1994 studio album by Ween

Chocolate and Cheese is the fourth studio album by the American rock band Ween, originally released by Elektra Records in 1994. It was the first Ween album to be recorded in a professional studio, in contrast to the four-track home recordings of The Pod and Pure Guava. However, most of the instruments were still played by Dean and Gene Ween, including their drum machine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Black Grape</span> English rock band

Black Grape are an English rock band formed in Salford in 1993, featuring former members of Happy Mondays and Ruthless Rap Assassins. Their musical style fuses funk and electronic rock with electronic programming and samples.

<i>The Mollusk</i> 1997 studio album by Ween

The Mollusk is the sixth studio album by American rock band Ween, released by Elektra Records on June 24, 1997. It is a multi-genre concept album with a dark nautical theme, with most songs incorporating elements from psychedelia and/or sea shanties, while also featuring a heavy progressive rock influence. Dean Ween described the album as "the only record that I ever felt really confident about" and "my favorite record we've ever done". Gene Ween has echoed this sentiment, saying: "The Mollusk is probably my favorite, at the end of the day".

<i>Paintin the Town Brown: Ween Live 1990–1998</i> 1999 live album by Ween

Paintin' the Town Brown is a live compilation by American rock band Ween, released by Elektra Records on June 22, 1999.

<i>White Pepper</i> 2000 studio album by Ween

White Pepper is the seventh studio album by the American rock band Ween, and the last album they would release on Elektra Records. It was released on May 2, 2000.

<i>All Request Live</i> 2003 live album by Ween

All Request Live is the fourth live album by the American rock band Ween, and the third to be released on their home record label Chocodog Records. The performance was webcast on July 22, 2003 and released on November 22, 2003. A Pitchfork Media review calls it "unquestionably the brownest live Ween of them all."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ween</span> American rock band

Ween is an American rock band from New Hope, Pennsylvania, formed in 1984 by Aaron Freeman and Mickey Melchiondo, better known by their respective stage names, Gene and Dean Ween. Generally categorized as an alternative rock band, the band are known for their irreverent, highly eclectic catalog of songs inspired by funk, soul, country, gospel, prog, psychedelia, R&B, heavy metal, and punk rock.

<i>Shinola, Vol. 1</i> 2005 compilation album by Ween

Shinola, Vol. 1 is a compilation album by the American rock band Ween. Released by Chocodog on July 19, 2005, Shinola is a collection of remastered outtakes dating back to 1990.

<i>Generation X</i> (album) 1978 studio album by Generation X

Generation X is the first studio album by English punk rock band Generation X, produced by Martin Rushent, it was released in the United Kingdom on 17 March 1978.

Moistboyz is an American hard rock band formed in New Hope, Pennsylvania in 1991 by Guy Heller and Mickey Melchiondo. Moistboyz music is typically fast-paced punk/metal, combining stream-of-consciousness lyrics with aggressive rock guitar riffs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ocean Man</span> 1997 single by Ween

"Ocean Man" is a song by the American alternative rock band Ween, the thirteenth track on their sixth studio album, The Mollusk (1997). It was released as a promotional CD single through Elektra Records in 1997. It was also released as the B-side to the earlier single "Mutilated Lips" on June 24, 1997. It is one of Ween's best-known songs, and has appeared on various film soundtracks and commercials since its release, most notably with The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie in 2004. The song has been performed live at various occasions, most notably Live in Chicago and Live at Stubb's.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rancid discography</span>

The discography of Rancid, an American punk rock band, includes ten studio albums, two extended plays, two compilations, twenty-seven singles and thirty-seven music videos.

<i>At the Cats Cradle, 1992</i> 2008 live album by Ween

At the Cat's Cradle, 1992 is the sixth live album by the American rock band Ween. It was released on November 25, 2008, on Chocodog Records.

<i>Lifes Aquarium</i> 1999 studio album by Mint Condition

Life's Aquarium is the fourth studio album by American R&B group Mint Condition. The album was released on November 16, 1999, and it is their first album released for Elektra Records.

References

  1. "Ween Chart History: Billboard 200". Billboard . Retrieved 2020-06-29.
  2. 1 2 "Ween Chart History: Heatseekers Albums". Billboard . Retrieved 2020-06-29.
  3. 1 2 Australian (ARIA) chart peaks:
  4. "Ween Chart History: Alternative Songs". Billboard . Retrieved 2020-06-29.
  5. UK chart peaks:
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 "Photographic image" (JPG). I.ytimg.com. Retrieved March 29, 2022.
  7. "Ween - Erica Peterson's Flaming Crib Death". Discogs. Retrieved June 6, 2021.
  8. "Ween - The Crucial Squeegie Lip". Discogs. Retrieved May 16, 2019.
  9. "Ween - Ween II (Axis: Bold as Boognish)". Discogs. Retrieved May 16, 2019.
  10. "Ween - The Live Brain Wedgie! / Wad Excerpts". Discogs. Retrieved May 16, 2019.
  11. "Ween - Prime 5". Discogs.com. Retrieved May 16, 2019.