I'll Miss You: Ween Break Up

The key to being a (I'm just gonna go ahead and say it here; we're discussing Ween for God's sake) successful smart-ass is never letting on when you're joking. With that in mind, perhaps Ween will announce the impending release of their new album next week. They will almost certainly announce the dates of their new tour in a couple years, though it might be better for all parties concerned if they don't. After all, Ween were a band built largely upon spot on, unflinching musical genre parodies and the ingestion of anything not tied down that could fit into the mouth. And for everyone who chooses to travel down that road, a point arises when it has passed from questionable idea to very bad plan. Ween hit that point over a decade ago, and only with the news of the band's break-up has it become apparent that this isn't just some joke from a band waiting around the corner ready to laugh at us when we believe them.

It is now 2012, 28 years after two fourteen-year-olds decided to form a band, and fifteen years after they released their last good studio album. So what is the big deal? Well, that would be what came in the middle. In a span of eight years, Ween released six albums that ranged from absolutely brilliant to completely unlistenable, each of which was fairly mind-blowing even to those of us out there who plumb the varying ranges of sobriety. Beyond this, they recorded what seems to be an equal number of brilliant pieces which didn't even make their albums proper, spread out across soundtracks, compilations, EPs and probably their garage sales if they ran low on funds for drugs (Though even I wouldn't pay for the masters for Candy). This period saw them inexplicably given a major label deal which they responded to by recording their most bizarre album ever, which resulted in Push th' Little Daisies getting actual money pushing it on MTV, a situation which probably had some suits soiling their drawers at Elektra. The duo then became a full band, for the first time sounding as if they were recording songs that were clearly written on a load of drugs while actually fairly sober. Then they released a country album. It was a remarkably fertile creative span, and one that gave them a massive catalog to draw from during their marathon live performances, songs that stayed perenially fresh as the band changing from two guys with a drum machine to a five-piece rock powerhouse forced them to reconstruct the songs for each new stop along the way. And they toured those songs hard.

Every time they put out a new album, and quite a few times that they didn't, for the last decade, Ween would set out to play every town in America that would allow them to display their particular blend of drunken genre-hopping and jamming, playing gloriously extended versions of their songs that they inevitably seemed unlikely to remember upon waking up the following day unless someone had fortuitously taped the proceedings. And many times, it turned out someone had. And then Ween would release the tape. All in all, they wound up releasing six live albums over ten years. Granted, some of these were old tapes documenting prior iterations of the band's career, and they were usually somewhere between very good and excellent. But man, that is a lot of live albums for a span of years which only saw them release three proper studio records. That should probably have been the clue that the party was nearing its end. That and the rumors of rehab which constantly dogged the band. But every time the rumors seemed to threaten to overtake them they were back onstage, and look how much fun they're having! Of course they're still going.

At least until they weren't. It ended the only way it could, with most of the band not being aware of it. It happened after one of their last stage performances ended in a complete meltdown. It happened five years after their last studio album, without even any rumors of another one in the works. And when it happened it became apparent that they had actually been done for years. This is perfectly okay.



During their heyday, Ween had more ideas than they knew what to do with, throwing out brilliance and trash at a rate not seen since Robert Pollard lost the ability to write five songs on the can, three of which would be good (He can, however, still write five songs while in the can). And this furious pace is what keeps them alive. That track a couple lines above didn't make it onto one of their studio albums. Also, it is a gorgeous ballad. Yes, they did that. They also did everything else. How well and how fast they did it made it possible to ignore the obvious with each passing year after the release of The Mollusk, when it became apparent that the brilliance would be concentrated only in flashes rather than sprinkled over the bulk of their recorded output going forward. There was simply so much to catch up on. Sure, the entire second half of Quebec was incredibly dull, but have you heard this new collection of previously unreleased material? They've still got it!

While it seems inevitable that Ween will tour again down the road, it is entirely possible that they shouldn't. The odds of them releasing music that adds to their legacy seems very slim, outweighed by the possibility that the combination of Dean and Gene Ween may no longer be good for people who at this point in life may have a greater need for sobriety than they used to. If they do come back, it will generate money, not art. Until they die, they will likely enjoy playing music together, even if they no longer have any reason to record music together. Even if they shouldn't play music together anymore. When they do reunite, they will put on a fun concert, but it will be a nostalgia-laden exercise, as it has been for years now. There's nothing wrong with a bit of nostalgia here and there, but it cannot compare to the sheer joy of diving into the things the duo did in the past and hearing them communicate through a prog-rock epic that sounds like it is being written from the point of view of a child molester the simple message that they cannot believe they are being paid to do this. We had the best time at their party. I choose to thank them like this. By writing about them on the internet (Naughty words in the video below).

Heaven Is Whenever

It's like a white, middle class dork's dream at the moment, with new albums out by indie royalty The National, The New Pornographers, Broken Social Scene (Who somehow manage to be good in spite of that terrible name), and the ever-mighty The Fall, as well as the latest disc from The Hold Steady, who have just put out their fifth studio album, Heaven is Whenever. And as much as I'd love to tell you my impressions of their direction gleaned from the recent concert I attended were wrong, I cannot do so in good conscience. But, as much as I hate to acknowledge that eternal bastion of pretentiousness, I must agree with Pitchfork in their assessment of this album, namely, this is very clearly a transitional album for the band, moving from their past awe-inspiring awesomeness into whatever brave new world awaits, and until that endpoint becomes fixed, it's hard to entirely judge this album. But while future offerings may lead to a re-considering of Heaven is Whenever, at the moment we only have the available information to go on, and that information is not good.

Since their last album, 2008s Stay Positive, the band featured a slight lineup modification, as they lost both keyboardist Franz Nicolay and his awesome mustache:

Win

The general thinking out there was that this would signal a return to the guitar-based sounds of Almost Killed Me, losing the keyboard flourishes that had populated recent offerings. Nothing could be further from the truth. Rather than continue with what they've been doing or return to the past, the band instead chose to take an abrupt left turn, as they have incorporated their familiar sound with what sound like the guitars U2 stopped using in 1991 (Admittedly, they found them again in 2001, when, presumably, someone in the band had gotten behind on his mortgage). In concept, this sounds like a rather awkward marriage, which is fitting, because that rather perfectly encapsulates what it turns out to be in practice.

The album begins with what sounds rather like a dobro on The Sweet Part of the City, a surprise after the last disc came out blaring the fire-breathing Constructive Summer. This is mixed in with acoustic guitars and backwards plucking, as Craig Finn revisits his by-now traditional themes of kids drinking and playing music mixed in with the requisite religious imagery/references. It's by no means a failure, but at the same time, it never manages to really be interesting either. Finn, now showing more confidence in his expanded range after the years of vocal lessons he has been taking, sings rather than sputters, and nothing of note ever happens. What is noteworthy is that there are far more background vocals than were present on past albums, a trend that will continue (And become increasingly more obnoxious) as the album progresses. Yet this is still better than track two, Soft in the Center, which attempts to bring back the guitars to restore some sense of normalcy to the proceedings, but falls flat on its face. This highlights a disturbing fact: The band has not completely turned its back on rocking out, but throughout Heaven is Whenever, they often sound awkward when they attempt to bring back the guitars. Of course, considering a decent amount of the slower songs are also off-putting maybe it's simply the songs themselves. But the fact that The Hold Steady no longer seem able to slide back into what made them a name in the first place is rather disconcerting. Anyway, Soft in the Center is a fairly generic ballad, featuring stilted riffing under Finn's singing throughout the verses, which really could be played by almost any band out there, something that simply could not be said about past offerings. But so far we're in boringly inoffensive territory. It is what used to be the band's highlight that moves this track over the line to outright awful. Over syrupy oohs and ahs, the chorus finds Finn crooning "You can't get every girl, so love the one you're with the best". Excuse me, but when did this turn into a Jimmy Eat World album? Beyond my absolute hatred of the use of the second person in music, this brings out a major break with the band's past, as Heaven is Whenever shows Finn moving away from the third-person tales of former songs. Rather, on this album he is directly in the songs, as first-person narrative dominates. Combined with the occasional second-person bits, it sounds that, rather than telling stories, Finn is now speaking directly to the audience, trying to connect with them. When he references Pavement on the dreadful ballad We Can Get Together, it isn't that they're a good band. It's that he likes them, and you like them, so won't you like him too? It's cloying, and it comes off as a desperate and disturbing attempt to keep ahold of the fanbase they've built as they abandon the very things they did to build up that following.

This is not to say that the album has no redeeming qualities. The Weekenders is a highlight, combining the now-requisite backing vocals with a wonderfully-delivered rollicking chorus which seems to feature the horse-racing clairvoyant from Chips Ahoy!, and the chorus is so wonderful that it takes multiple listens to even find the verses, which drift aimlessly along over The Edge's best atmospherics, disappearing from memory as soon as they end. The absolute highlight is Barely Breathing, a minor-key staccato affair featuring Finn's best spitting over the top as the band breaks loose. But even this is not perfect, as the random clarinet solo halfway through adds nothing to the song, save to serve as a good point to stop listening before the completely unnecessary and dismissable minute-long outro begins. Maybe I've been spoiled, but in the past they just made the whole 'playing music' thing seem so effortless that I'm rather shocked by the fact that even the minimal triumphs present on Heaven is Whenever are so hard-won. I never really thought about it when it was happening, but now that it's done, I'd love to be spoiled again.

And now let us no longer mince words: the middle of the album sucks more than a Brendan Fraser starring vehicle. The Smidge and Rock and Roll Problems both try to bring back the familiar sounds of past albums, but even musically, the band just sounds awkward, and Finn's vocals on the latter track especially are among the worst he has ever penned, and the delivery only highlights this. The band then moves into the aforementioned We Can Get Together, whose minimal goodwill is completely destroyed by the outro that takes up almost half the runtime of the song, and features a disjointed backing vocal chorus which merits the burning of the masters on its own, though nothing the band does really makes a case for saving them. And then we get Hurricane J, so generic a song that all it does for me is make me think of Jessie's Girl, hardly a masterpiece of artistic achievement (This is understatement, in case you're in the slow class). This is the song the band chose to play to a national television audience on The Colbert Report last week, as damning a sentence as I can think of. On an album full of mediocrity and worse, The Hold Steady seem to believe that the worst of the batch is what they want to put out there. Going forward, this seems like a rather bad omen.

Closer A Slight Discomfort, while still moving away from past glories, at least leaves the listener with some fond memories of the album, as it goes through a slow build over its first five minutes until it climaxes in chiming keyboard and pulsating drumming surrounded by a massive wall of sound, and it is only after it all fades out that you are struck with the realization that at the climax of the album, where everything should be peaking, Craig Finn, center of The Hold Steady, has checked out and left you with an instrumental coda. For a band whose reputation was built on Finn's firecracker persona, this is outright shocking. From here on out, the odds are the bandwagon will only get bigger, but while I still intend to watch from afar, I have officially left it.

Hold Steady

30 some-odd years ago, Neil Young posed the question of whether it is better to burn out than to fade away. Since then, he has spent the majority of his time fading away. So that's nice. Also of relevance: The band whose name conveniently doubles as the title of this post. Because otherwise this would be even more of a load of gibberish than it is currently devolving into. So wait, let's try this: The Hold Steady are an awesome band who recently played in Burlington, Vermont. I was there. It was fun.

That was easy. But not quite what I was hoping for. Or very long. Abortive attempt number 3 to follow.

Ten years ago, Lifter Puller broke up. They were a band who, like so many others, I had not heard about by the time of their demise (Chief amongst these: The Beatles. I blame my parents. And the inevitably linear movement of time). Like many others, they played fairly straightforward post-punk. However, unlike many others, they were fronted by Craig Finn. You see, this is important. Because, rather than singing songs, Craig Finn gets extremely wired and simply yells out the lyrics. The more lines and syllables the better. Typically these words will be tales featuring those traditional topics of rock and roll, sex and drugs. And he approaches the songs as stories, with characters who weave throughout albums, and, to some extent, the band's entire catalog. There is a phrase for this, and it is nerd chic. I am so there. So in 2000, unbeknownst to me, Lifter Puller broke up. This led to Finn and their guitarist, Tad Kubler, forming a new band, The Hold Steady, who were pretty much the same thing, but with a keyboard player. Which will work just fine.

The set kicked off with 'The Cattle and the Creeping Things' off their second album, a jittery rant skirting the edges of religion over a hyper-caffeinated staccato beat. And while the music is quite excellent, the real draw for The Hold Steady live is Finn. He came out with a guitar around his neck, a tool of the trade which would quickly be revealed as a prop. For the entirety of the first song the guitar simply hung around his neck as he used one hand to hold the microphone and stand at various odd angles as he spit the lyrics out into it, the other hand being thoroughly preoccupied with wildly gesturing for the duration of the lyrics. In between lines, he would often continue yelling things at the audience off-mic. If this doesn't sound brilliant to you, we probably can't be friends anymore. And you probably drink less coffee than I do. Well, you probably do that anyway.

They are now four albums into their career, and are gradually tweaking their sound with each album. Because, you see, if you don't do that, you eventually turn into Clinic. Or Boston, if you'd like me to make fewer indie references. Just admit that I'm hipper than you (c. 2003). It's easy to tell anyway, primarily because I have a bad haircut. Anyway, the majority of these tweaks have involved more melody, more singing, and less TOTAL AWESOMENESS AND DOMINATION VIA THE AUDIO FORMAT. As you may have been able to ascertain, I feel this direction is not the best use of the band's considerable talents. I was subtle about it. Their second album, Separation Sunday, was a peak from which the band has been gradually receding ever since. This is not a major fault or anything. Most bands never sniff anything close to the heights that album scaled. Think 'Black Dog', but for 50 minutes. And with better lyrics. And singing. And without that terrible hitch in the guitar riff that makes the entire song terrible. Got it?

That was the format Finn followed for the majority if the set, which hit a number of high points (Hello 'Chips Ahoy'), even if it stayed away from the older material more than I would have liked. And it was a blast. That said, I have grave concerns about the upcoming album. They played six songs off it, and three of them, technically, sucked. One was especially terrible, featuring chugging power chords under traditionally sung verses and chori. And of the three good songs, one featured a mysterious intro that sounded lifted off The Joshua Tree for two minutes or so grafted awkwardly onto a song that only took off once said intro ended. They called the singer for the opening band out to provide additional vocals for one song, stating that he did a lot of singing on the new record. And, most damningly of all, during the breakdowns in several songs, spots which old live recordings will attest used to feature Finn telling stories to the audience, the band jammed. That is a dirty word in these parts.

But, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I come not to bury Caesar, but to praise him. After all, burning out leaves a legacy untarnished by decline. However, reputations are built on achievement, something gained by being on top of one's powers, a state hard to maintain for an extended period of time. And a decline phase, while sad to behold, is where bands can generally make money, continuing to ply their trade to an audience growing behind recognition of past achievements. For it is the rare band to become dramatically better multiple albums into a career. Burning out is for purists, but fading away is only too human, especially if one has the desire to eat. And, except in the case of the Rolling Stones, the fade is generally not drawn out over a ridiculously excessive length of years, and allows us to do something we do not always manage: Rather than criticizing the fall of the mighty, let us look at where the ascent peaked, and be impressed with a high water mark most never reach. As a wise man once said, let us remember the good times. Kenny would have wanted it that way.