Ween Cast

Go back to college young man!

It was the spring of 2002, and Ween had just embarked on a brief tour of the South and Midwest. After a three hour drive from Asheville, the first stop on the tour, they now found themselves at the quaint and quiet Guilford College in Greensboro, NC. But it didn’t stay quiet for long, once Ween took the stage!

April 20th usually brings out the best from the band and fans alike, and on this evening, Ween was certainly rocking. This show was sprinkled with a few rarities, such as “I’m Dancing in the Show Tonight, “Don’t Laugh I Love You,” and “Albino Sunburned Girl,” as well as many of the standards, and then topped with some early renditions from the as yet unreleased Quebec, including a formative “Zoloft” and the oh so rare “If You Could Save Yourself (You’d Save Us All).” Then they wrapped things up with “Buenos Tardes Amigo,” which featured Aaron with a sweet solo of his own.

But that’s just scratching the surface! Tune in for all the details and to see how the show stacks up against our previous April 20th experience at Rutgers!

Over the summer we announced a fan favorite song contest, and now we're delivering on the results!  

It was tons of fun listening to all the fan tell stories about their favorite songs, each of which was actually a different song; nine in total. So many great and unique tales! Thank you Helen (Ween Lebowski), Geoffrey, Hot Shot Pony, Mark, Brain of the Playlist Wars Podcast, Fred Moore aka August Forming, Cody, Eli Schwab of Cosmic Lion Productions, and Kelsey, for your entries!

Everyone had a cool story or reason behind their love of a particular song, but only one can be the winner! The winner receives some truly amazing Boognish Coasters from West Brandywine Wood Works. These guys do some seriously good wood work, from cutting boards and coasters to tables and refurnished park benches, so check them out yourself and mention Weencast in the order to get 21% off!

Anyway, thanks again to all the fans for sharing their stories, we'll definitely have to do it again sometime.  And I'm not gonna spill the tea; you gotta listen to the episode to hear who wins!

Happy Thanksgiving everybody! May the brown be with you!

For this episode, we are thrilled and honored to have as our guest Eli Schwab. If you don’t know Eli, then you should start now. A 21st century renaissance man, Eli keeps busy with his Cosmic Lion Productions. CLP is a platform for his various ventures, from Monkelion (which, as he’ll tell you, “is the world’s only comic about an intergalactic afro-synth band on tour through the galaxy”) and the Weenzine, to his podcast Cosmic Lion Radio (among other podcast ventures). Eli has his hands in a lot of pots, and we were just happy to get him on the phone for a couple hours!

First and foremost in the eyes of Ween fans, Eli is the man behind Don’t Get Too Close To My Fanzine (affectionately known in shorthand as the Weenzine), the most recent issue of which just came out earlier this year. If you haven’t seen the Weenzine, you totally have to check it out.  Do yourself a favor and go to theweenzine.com because everything you need will be right there, and last I checked, there are still a few copies of the 2nd printing of issue #6 still available. Talk about brownness! Eli and all the contributors really knock it out of the park. Tons of amazing and original fan generated Ween content! And what impresses me the most is the quality of the printing. High quality paper, a rich color palette, professional layout, all combine to make Don’t Get Too Close To My Fanzine the envy of fanzines the world over.

We talk a lot about the Weenzine, the origins, production process, and the community at its heart.  The secret, I learn, of Eli’s success is not just his endless positive energy and ambition, but is perhaps more so how he threads community through all of his work. The Weenzine is like a culminating manifestation of the communal vision of the entire Ween Nation, and at the middle, stands Eli Schwab, directing and guiding this fancy into being.

But we also talk about so much more. We dive deep into Eli’s time up in Vermont (he’s out in San Diego now), and he regales us with tales from his time working at Nectar’s as a short “Jewish security guard”, and attending shows at Higher Ground. Especially brown topics include attending a Sound of Urchin Halloween show at Nectar’s, and the first night of Ween at Higher Ground.  Talk about legendary status!

Among Eli’s other ventures, he’s been podcasting at Cosmic Lion Radio now for more than ten years! More or less, this makes Eli an OG podcaster, and so we chat about what he’s learned over all the years, and we also relive a few moments from all the amazing interviews he’s gotten over the years, including Kevin Eastman, of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fame! (oh wait the TMNT part of the chat is on the extended cut only available at Patreon.com/weencastpodcast, sorry).

It was truly awesome to get to chat it up with Eli, and we hope you enjoy the conversation!

Ween is back, baby, and for this episode we’re covering the Surly Brewing Company show from August 21st. Although we couldn’t be there, our friend Cody made the trip, and we’re just tickled pink that he agreed to join us to discuss the show. Cody has been a fan of our podcast for a few years now, and in that time he’s shown himself to be quite a Weenhead, but also just a genuinely nice guy.  When we heard he was going to the show, it was a no brainer to see if we could make this conversation happen.

Now, what made this evening especially amazing is that it was Cody’s first show. He became a fan something like ten years ago, but through the hiatus, and then the pandemic, he had just not been able to get to see Ween until now.  But man, what a trip he made.  Hailing from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, it took him two flights and many many hours to get up to Minneapolis, for a weekend that he’ll not soon forget.  I don’t want to say too much here, because you really should hear Cody himself talk about his first show.

Besides the concert, we also chatted about Cody’s artwork; he’s committed to the old school, doing amazing work with paper and pencil.  If you’re in Ween groups on Facebook, you’ll surely run into his work at some point.  It’s brown to say the least. You should check his work out and give him some love, ‘cuz it is awesome! Shane and Cody also discuss their shared love of Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart, among other musical acts.

Relive your first show by listening to Cody talking about his! Ween is back, baby, and it doesn’t get any better than this!

Join us as we head down to North Cackalacky for one heckuva rockin’ and a rompin’ tour opener!  Way back when, April 19th, 2002, Ween descended upon the Thomas Wolfe Auditorium in Asheville, NC, and we (well, at least one of us!) were there to tell the tale!  And what a tale it was!

From the first note in “Buckingham Green,” to the last note of “I Can’t Put My Finger On It,” Ween came to rock.  This uptempo show featured a lot of jamming and rock and roll flare, hitting up such rarities as “Now I’m Freakin’ Out,” and “Never Squeal on the Pusher.”

Did I say jamming? This show has you covered! “Voodoo Lady,” and “Rose are Free,” though standards, were jammed out like they were freshly pressed singles. And they practically brought the house down when they police siren-jammed “Johnny on the Spot,” right into “Don’t Sweat It.” And the drums on “Never Squeal on the Pusher?” Damn son, Claude was on fire!

What can I say, the shit was real brown that night!

Announcing the 2021 Weencast Megatacular Fan Favorites Summer Contest!!

That’s right, we want you to tell us about your favorite Ween song!

You (and everyone you know) has from now until Labor Day 2021 (Monday September 6th) to enter this megatacular contest!!

Check in with us at anchor.fm/weencastpodcast and hit the "Message" button; leave us a message 5 minutes or less telling us:

What is your favorite Ween song and why?

Not only could you hear your story on an upcoming episode, but the winner (deemed by us) for the best story will win a set of hand made Boognish emblazed wooden coasters from West Brandywine Wood Works from Philadelphia!  https://www.etsy.com/shop/WBrandywineWoodWorks

Please join us for this Summer contest and tell everyone you know to do so as well.  You don't have to be a huge Ween fan to join in the fun, we can all name our favorite song by the band right?  Of course!!  We can't wait to hear your stories!  

Please e-mail us [email protected] with any questions and good luck!!

Join us as we head back to 2002 and to the comfortable and historic confines of Allentown’s The Sterling Hotel. Built back in 1890, this beautiful exemplar of the Romanesque Revival style is on the national registry of historic places: fitting for such a badass show!

This show was memorable for a whole host of reasons. First off, it was one of three stand alone shows from early 2002, this one being the first full electric show of the Quebec era, featuring some really early and formative renditions of songs like “Zoloft,” “Someday,” and “If You Could Save Yourself (You’d Save Us All),” to name just a few. You get a real sense that Ween was here figuring out how to fit these songs into their already considerable pantheon.

Another reason this show is memorable is because even though it was heavy on music from the 5-piece era: the albums Chocolate and Cheese, The Mollusk, and White Pepper feature most prominently, this show nevertheless had tons, and I mean tons, of rarities in the mix! You’ve got 8 songs played fewer than 66 times, like “Flutes of the Chi,” “Don’t Laugh (I Love You),” or “Ooh Va Laa.” Early 2002 literally hit you over the head with new shit and rarities, and this show was no exception!

Now, to make a show memorable you would certainly start with a banging list of rarities, sprinkle several new releases like “Transdermal Celebration,” and then you might call it a night.  And that would be a great show.  But to make a show truly legendary, you might also want to throw down some extra guitar monster shit, and that’s just what this show does with a guest appearance by none other than The Reverend B’ill! He steps in for three tunes, and in particular, his help on “A Tear For Eddie” takes the song to a whole nother level! 

To get all the details, check out the episode! Adiós gatos geniales!

Join us as we go back through the years recounting Ween’s seven live albums. Much as every studio album is a different facet of Ween, so too are each of the live albums a different piece of the Ween pie. Paint the Town Brown is a wide ranging double disc collection of songs showcasing Ween’s evolution from a duet with a DAT to a five-piece band; Live at the Cat’s Cradle is the entire show from the aforementioned duet years; Live in Chicago and Live at Stubb’s are culled each from a pair of shows at their respective venues; God Ween Satan Live is the album from start to finish, rocked out at John and Peter’s; and All Request Live is a live studio recording of an eclectic mix of old school obscurities and fan favorites. We summarize each album, discuss their relative strengths and weaknesses, and choose our two favorites. So which two was it? Join us and find out!

Join us as we go back through the years recounting Ween’s seven live albums. Much as every studio album is a different facet of Ween, so too are each of the live albums a different piece of the Ween pie. Paint the Town Brown is a wide ranging double disc collection of songs showcasing Ween’s evolution from a duet with a DAT to a five-piece band; Live at the Cat’s Cradle is the entire show from the aforementioned duet years; Live in Chicago and Live at Stubb’s are culled each from a pair of shows at their respective venues; God Ween Satan Live is the album from start to finish, rocked out at John and Peter’s; and All Request Live is a live studio recording of an eclectic mix of old school obscurities and fan favorites. We summarize each album, discuss their relative strengths and weaknesses, and choose our two favorites. So which two was it? Join us and find out!

This is part two.  If you haven't listened to part one yet, we suggest you do so first before you listen to this episode.

Join us as we go back to February 27th, 2002, for an extraordinary evening with Ween at The Conduit in Trenton, New Jersey.  This is the kind of show that comes around once only in a great while, and like the moon landing or the Discovery explosion, those who witnessed this night would remember it forever.  This was Ween at the height of their powers: Glenn was back from a brief hiatus, and the band was ready to explode with new content from the still far off Quebec album, songs that would once again push boundaries, that would show yet another, perhaps darker, perhaps more mature, side of the band.

This was a show of firsts and rare moments.  Of exquisite solos and bounteous debuts. Debuts like virtually every major hit from Quebec: “Zoloft,” “Transdermal Celebration,” “If You Could Save Yourself,” to name just a few.  And if it wasn’t a debut, then it was a rarity: “You Were The Fool'' blew us out of the water, and “Sweet Texas Fire'' was like a raunchy sweet and spicy barbecue on a hot summer day. I would be remiss not to also mention that for the first time ever, Ween played a full acoustic set! "The Wood Set," as Deaner called it, allowed the guitars and keys to really shine, and the listener here is treated to some especially resplendent musicianship.

For this show we’re pulling out all the stops.  We couldn’t fit all the brownness into one episode so we made this a two-parter. Fred Moore and Reverend B’ill were there and shared with us a few soundbites of their recollections, and we’ve also got some fun fan stories of the evening to share.  We sprinkled some highlight clips on top, brought into a boil, and then simmered it low. Enjoy!!  Please join us at Patreon.com/weencastpodcast for tons more brown fun!