But I ween this war fire is hot, fierce and poisonous; therefore have I on me shield and byrnie

Perhaps you are unaware – but then you should be made aware – that, in addition to releasing one of the best albums of last year, Quebec, Ween has one of the best band websites on the net. Two of them, actually. Lots of free music and videos and goodies. Not to mention 24-hour a day ween radio. Setlists. Links to weird fansites. At some point even my interest starts to wane.

But before that happens to you …

… make sure to watch two videos: “The Mollusk” and “Roses Are Free”. “The Mollusk” in particular is a strangely beautiful tune, a little lyrical outpost on the far-flung fine line between clever and stupid. And the video has appropriately mood-setting lego waves crashing against the lego beach.

And the Pizza Hut commercial jingle that was not to be: “Where’d the Cheese Go?” [work safe and non-work safe lyrical versions]

And here is a quite amusing and edifying Ween interview from a few months back.

It contains this sage meditation on the decline of Western culture:

Well since like the early ’90s, Nirvana kind of changed everything, you know? They were a great band. I remember hearing Pearl Jam for the first time and thinking, “man these guys are fucking like Nirvana rip-offs, the guy sings like Kurt Cobain.” And then you hear like Stone Temple Pilots and it sounds like he’s ripping off the guy from Pearl Jam. And now looking back, those bands really aren’t that bad [both laugh]. At the time, I was being like a player hater, you know? Like, “fuck this shit,” you know? And now, you hear the Stone Temple Pilots shit and it sounds great. It’s like… fuck man, you had no idea how much worse it was gonna get, but it’s perpetuated itself with bands like Bush that were ripping off fuckin’ Stone Temple Pilots. There’s like twelve generations later of bands ripping off bands that have ripped off shit that wasn’t very good to begin with, you know? And it’s really kind of a drag [both laugh]. It’s really a drag. All you have to do is put on rock radio and hear one measure before you know you want to turn it off.

As a wise man once said: The Stone Temple Pilots are elegant bachelors.

Some interesting reflections about the economics of the industry and what a major label contract gets you, and doesn’t get you:

Yeah, you can make a good profit selling 30,000 records on your own label. But if your record got to 100,000 people on the last one, that’s a reality of the two. Is it worth the extra $100,000 a year that you made?

Somewhat non-standard use of the term ‘reality’. But you see the man’s point.

And it’s funny that they are so into Los Lobos and that the only other band whose members they consider close friends is Kyuss, who sort of grew into Queens of the Stone Age. Which reminds me: the original drummer for Kyuss, Brant Bjork, is pretty cool. On his quite fine new album, “Brant Bjork and the Operators” he’s got a sort of Soundgarden meets the Meat Puppets with a touch of New Wave prog rock and cheesy, slack old timey Californian faith in the power of rock sound; but there is so much more, and less, to it than that. Go here and download two free tracks that have been in heavy rotation on my iPod for some time: “My Ghettoblaster” and “Low Desert Punk”. Possibly you won’t be sorry.