After 20 years, Ween still as weird and wacky as ever.Byline: Lewis Taylor The Register-Guard It took all of one day for Ween to sell out the McDonald Theatre, which should come as no surprise to fans of the odd pop duo Pop duo is a term generally referring to a pop band with only two members. Many pop duos have made a name for themselves as much as or more than bands with 4 or 5 members. Famous pop duos of the 1980s include the Pet Shop Boys, Eurythmics, Erasure, Red Box, Savage Garden, Roxette, from Pennsylvania. Ween has been called everything from "tortured geniuses" to "quite possibly the smartest idiots in popular music." Hot on the heels of the release of the combination DVD DVD: see digital versatile disc. DVD in full digital video disc or digital versatile disc Type of optical disc. The DVD represents the second generation of compact-disc (CD) technology. and CD "Live in Chicago," the band is in the midst Adv. 1. in the midst - the middle or central part or point; "in the midst of the forest"; "could he walk out in the midst of his piece?" midmost of a short West Coast tour that will take it through Eugene on Tuesday. After that, it's on to the heartland, and then the band promises to release a new album at its "typically slow pace." Formed in 1984 by two 14-year-olds calling themselves Dean and Gene Ween Gene Ween, the pseudonym for Aaron Freeman (b. March 17 1970, New Hope, Pennsylvania), is the rhythm guitarist and vocalist for eclectic alternative rock group Ween, alongside his longtime friend and bandmate, Dean Ween. , Ween tracked its first of thousands of home recordings in the mid 1980s. The pair released the debut tape, "The Crucial Squeegie Lip," on their own Bird O'Pray label in 1987. Two more self-releases earned the band a contract with an independent Minneapolis label, where the group began establishing a reputation for its demented (in a good way) mash of every form of music they could get their hands on. After working with the Shimmy Disc label, Ween attracted the attention of Elektra Records. But instead of going more mainstream, it released "Pure Guava guava (gwä`və), small evergreen tree or shrub of the genus Psidium of the family Myrtaceae (myrtle family), native to tropical America and grown elsewhere for its ornamental flowers and edible fruit. ," supposedly one of its most bizarre releases to date, in 1992. The group carried on in the same strange vein, releasing, among other things, a 1994 album titled "Chocolate and Cheese" dedicated to the late comedian John Candy, a 1996 concept album called `12 Golden Country Greats," and "Mollusk mollusk: see Mollusca. mollusk or mollusc Any of some 75,000 species of soft-bodied invertebrate animals (phylum Mollusca), many of which are wholly or partly enclosed in a calcium carbonate shell secreted by the mantle, a soft ," a 1997 "mock-progressive semi-concept album." Almost as colorful as Ween's music, are the song titles. Tracks with names such as "Reggaejunkiejew," "Hey Fat Boy," "Spinal Meningitis spinal meningitis n. Inflammation of the membranes enclosing the spinal cord, especially a usually fatal form that affects infants and young children and is caused by a strain of gram-negative bacteria (Hemophilus influenzae). (Got Me Down)" and "Help Me Scrape the Music Off My Brain," have been standard fare for the band. Last year, after switching to Sanctuary records, Ween scored its biggest commercial success with "Quebec," an album that reached No. 81 on Billboard's Top 100 chart. CONCERT PREVIEW Ween When: 9 p.m. Tuesday Where: McDonald Theatre, 1010 Willamette St. Tickets: Sold out CAPTION(S): Ween sold out its Tuesday appearance at the McDonald Theatre in less than a day. |
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