Guys and Dolls: Ween - Peel Session (22 May 1993)

Exactly a year after their first Peel Session was repeated, the Ween boys were back for their second and final Peel Session. Like the evening’s other Session guest, they used it as an opportunity to play songs which had not yet been issued on record. All instruments on the session were played by Dean Ween (Michael Melchiondo Jr.) and Gene Ween (Aaron Freeman), so the tracks have a slight element of works in progress about them; the entire session clocks in at less than 9 minutes. But, not a moment is wasted, and with one exception, they were fully in control of the material that they were playing.

After playing the first track, What Deaner Was Talkin’ About, Peel thought it sounded like a country song, and this inspired him to play a country music track by Freiwillige Selbstkontrolle (Das Hab Ich Falsch Gemacht). I’d be more inclined to describe it as the session’s indie-folk tune. Sung by Gene, it describes his experience with anxiety attacks, which was something that Dean had apparently suffered from all his life. The line, If I was king, I’d wear a ring/And never hurt my people, suggests that the anxiety is caused by somebody rather than something. This could be a link to the third song in the session, the jazzy Take Me Away, where Gene sings about his struggle not to go crazy after being cheated on by a woman; a devastating experience for anyone, but something which should at least offer clarity. The woman took his love for granted and took him for a fool. The heartache has to be gone through, but there will be someone else out there who will help him to repair his broken heart and make him smile again. That’s the optimistic take, but the closing lines on What Deaner Was Talkin’ About, I don’t think I will ever return again, my friend, suggest that Gene currently finds the damage to be irreparable.

Both What Deaner Was Talkin’ About and Take Me Away were recorded for Ween’s 1994 album, Chocolate and Cheese. 

The fourth track on the session, Buckingham Green, apparently takes its name from a shopping centre based in New Hope, Pennsylvania, close to where Ween were formed.  Even in a stripped down form it promises a psychedelic epic in its brief running time with its lines about eyeless children, meetings with God and beings descending from the stratosphere, which was duly realised when the song was finally recorded for their 1997 album, The Mollusk.

Apologies for jumping about the running order in this session, but I was originally going to pass on the second track, Vallejo, because it didn’t have much to recommend it beyond the catchiness of its Latin rock stylings. I changed my mind because given how short the whole session is I didn’t think would be too much of an encumbrance to have it included if I was listening to it on the metaphorical mixtape. In the event, it’s the song in the session which has most intrigue about it, especially this version of it.

The Ween wiki states that Vallejo was written and first performed during 1992.  Its role in live performance was to provide the music to a lengthy piece of performance art whereby the Ween boys would stack up instruments, amplifiers, drinks and many other things on top of their touring drummer, Claude Coleman Jr.’s drum kit, so as to form some kind of impromptu sculpture which could then be played to produce noise and feedback. This could take up to half-an-hour of time in the concert. One YouTube commenter I saw mentioned that they saw Ween do this in a live show once, and they decided to go and play a game of pool in another part of the venue. When they went back after their game, the song was still going and the sculpture was still being built.  

All that would be lost on record though, so, by the time Ween put Vallejo out as a b-side on their 1994 single, Voodoo Lady, it stood as a song about the life and wild times of the painter, Boris Vallejo. None of this features in the Peel Session version. I wondered whether the BBC quailed at lines that feature in the studio version version such as, I lick your pussy and then cum inside. Considering that this would have been going out long after the 9pm watershed, I can’t see why it would have been a problem. But nevertheless, Vallejo was presented as a short instrumental which tonally sounded closer to another version of the track called Vallejo Pt. 2.

If there were censorship issues  - and I’m only conjecturing about that - it might explain why Ween never recorded another Peel Session. However, this was not the last time that Ween’s music featured on a Peel Session, given that Tim Wheeler and Charlotte Hatherley of Ash included a cover of What Deaner Was Talkin’ About on their acoustic Peel Session at Peel Acres on 15 April 1999.

Video courtesy of VibraCobra23 Ennui.

All lyrics are copyright of Dean and Gene Ween.