Audio By Carbonatix
Ween
Paintin’ the Town Brown
(Elektra)
Paintin’ the Town Brown, the most recent offering from demented duo Ween, reeks of contractual obligation or more likely Elektra’s failure to understand the burgeoning MP3/Internet culture. Brown was originally intended to be a limited-edition chronicle of Ween’s live shows from 1990 to 1998, and a way to sate hard-core Ween fans and MP3 traders. The double album was only supposed to be available through the group’s official Web site and targeted to the group’s diehard fans (would they be Weenies or Weeners?).
It seems that the label got wind of those plans and thought the collection was worth putting out for mass consumption. They were wrong. That’s not to say this project has nothing going for it. It’s just that most of the material here wouldn’t appeal to the casual Ween fan.
Ironically enough, the best material on this record comes from the group’s “country” tour, when the brothers Ween took a bunch of Nashville pros on the road in support of their 12 Golden Country Greats album. The full complement of a multi-instrumental backing band blows away most of the other offerings here.
Rather than include several poorly recorded early songs with just Dean, Gene and a Dat machine, it would have been wise to offer contemporary recordings of older material. Too many of the songs are of subpar sound quality, even for lo-fi aficionados. And unfortunately, much of the humor of the lyrics is lost in the record’s muddy sound quality.
Ween’s appeal has always resided in their ability to take on any given style, turn it inside out and poke fun at it. However, Ween has also proved (especially with their idiosyncratic studio releases) that they are a hit-and-miss band, pissing you off one second with annoying indulgence, and making you pee your pants with their genuinely warped sense of humor the next. A big problem with this release is that we hear too much indulgence and not enough of the monkey business.
It’s not that they aren’t a fun band to see live — they are — it’s just that listening to a live compilation of Ween taken from over such a long period of time (and with quantum leaps in ability and content) makes for a bumpy listen.
The double disc package includes liner notes that are equally apologetic and distasteful (most of the space is devoted to describing how drunk the band was during each performance). The notes also explain, in graphic detail, Dean and Gene’s shared dream of spraying the audience with diarrhea launched from a cannon while playing a noodling 26-minute version of their song “Poopship Destroyer.” What else do you need to know?
New York Dolls
The Glamorous Life
(Big Ear Music/DCC)
For those knuckle draggers who believe Nirvana begat the attitude/riff-addled/rock-star-turned-dead-
