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[jefflewis]

Just a quick review of my show last night with Gene Ween!
SO apparently he's retired from Ween and now just goes by his real name Aaron Freeman, and he just released the album Marvelous Clouds, all covers of Rod Mckuen songs.
I just found out I was going to be on this show recently, and Eric (the Dr. Dog drummer) told me that originally Dot Wiggins (of the Shaggs) was supposed to open the show but she slipped and fell or something and is fine but wanted to take it easy and not play the show... so somehow I got to be the one who got called as a back-up! (My sometime violin-player Kristin is friends with Aaron's manager, so that's how that connection happened I guess).

Anyway, before the show I went and said a quick hello to Aaron backstage, he was just sitting alone backstage smoking a cigarette, I shook his hand and said I'm a big fan from way back, and asked him to sign my guitar... he just signed "AF" and was very kind and shy about it, sort of reminded me of Mike Rechner or Ish.

His set was weird but cool. Three-piece acoustic band, all seated in chairs - Ween's bass player Dave on a mini electric bass, then Aaron in the middle on acoustic guitar, and a young guitar-shredder guy on a second acoustic guitar. They only played ONE Rod Mckuen song, strangely, since you'd think that would be the project they'd be promoting... and in fact I was hoping to hear more because I like that new album... the rest of the set was kind of a collection of all the most mediocre Ween material possible! But still nice to hear! Especially in that stripped-down, intimate, acoustic, not-packed room. THere were maybe 250 people at the show, in a place that maybe holds 400 (I'm just guessing - it was at Music Hall of Williamsburg). Highlights were "Flutes of the Chi" and "We Had the Best Time At Your Party", and "The Mollusk", which should give you a sense of the overall quality of the set list if THOSE were the top three tracks. It was all 2nd or 3rd rate Ween stuff like "I Don't Want to Leave You on the Farm" and "The Argus" and "Spirit Walker" and "You're Just an Object to Me" and "Even if you Don't" and "Homo Rainbow" and "The Grobe" and "Stay Forever" and "Tried and True" and "Chocolate Town" etc. Is it just me, or is this literally like a collection of the most mediocre Ween material possible? I do have every Ween album, and I think if i TRIED to pick 75 minutes of the weakest material that's sort of what my picks would look like... but still, it was just nice to hear/see. Encore was probably the two exciting/hit tracks you would imagine he would encore with at an acoustic show (I'll leave it to your imagination).

By the way, in my own set I gave a short projection presentation explaining how much my friends and I were Ween worshippers, including a slideshow of a 6-page letter that my friend Christina wrote me in 1995 in our invented language Weenglish, which i could fluently read and write in at that time. Also showed a slide of the Boognish candle that my friend Alicia made me, and a slide of the Ween poster that I drew in 1996 that I used to sell on the street outside of Ween shows in 1996-1997.

[misshelenc]

The idea of you and your friend having your own language is so gorgeous! I love that idea. I'm far too stupid to ever manage anything like that so I admire that other people can.
Glad it went well xx
_________________
You don’t put your life into your books. You find it there.

[jefflewis]

Well, when I say "language" it was really just a code... each letter of the alphabet had an equivalent symbol/squiggle thing. It's not like we had invented a whole grammar or anything like that!

[misshelenc]

Still very impressed regardless, don't you do yourselves down!
Looking forward to seeing you very soon too xx
_________________
You don’t put your life into your books. You find it there.