"No kidding: Ween lands Elektra with 'Pure Guava'"

Pigs will fly tonight, the Cubs will win the World Series, and down in hell right now, they're having a snow-ball fight. And Ween is on a major label.

If you've never been exposed to the two-man musical cataclysm known as Ween, the miraculousness of that last pronouncement may escape you. If you have seen Ween, you probably don't believe me. It doesn't matter. There are some things in the world bigger than truth, reason, and logic. Ween is one of them.

To most of the world, they are Dean and Gene Ween. (Their parents and oldest friends know them as Mickey and Aaron.)

Dean (Mickey) is the guitarist, Gene (Aaron) the singer. Bass, drums, percussion and ungodly sounds come courtesy of a pre-recorded DAT tape, which Dean and Gene trigger on stage. Their fourth album, the First on Elektra Records, is called Pure Guava - 19 songs of whimsy, love, and hallucinogenic monkey business, inspired by equal parts divine intervention and Scotchguard bong hits.

Ween has recorded songs, toured a little, and charmed the pants off fans for about eight years, or since they reached puberty. Their unlikely ascendance to major label status is mind-boggling, but not inexplicable, for two reasons. First, there are not many truly funny people in this world, but Mickey and Aaron are two of them. Secondly, there aren't many acts that deserve to be called "unique." Ween does.

Ween is not just a comedy team, though - and by all the usual definitions, not really a "rock band" either. In fact, back when "Dean" and "Gene" were in their teens, they were so adorable - Aaron in his silly chef's hat and silver goggles, Mickey with his monkey face - that no one noticed Aaron didn't sing all that well and Mickey couldn't really play guitar.

That isn't the case today.

Aaron has grown into a gifted vocalist, with a falsetto that would be the envy of half the acts at Motown. Mickey, for his part, has developed into a gifted and versatile guitarist.

And while they're both ingenious physical comedians, they're inventive songwriters, too, capable of anything from mariachi parodies to hip hop to big rock numbers with all the bombast of Queen at their most outrageous.

Still, if you had to pick the one band in America that would never get signed to a major label, Ween would probably be at the top of the list. So how did it happen?

Somebody asked, and they said yes.

"The label actually came to us," Aaron explains. "Some guy contacted us and said he wanted to sign us. We didn't want to at first, we wanted to make another independent record so our bargaining position would be stronger. But we negotiated for, like, four months, and wound up with everything we wanted - total artistic control, tour support, the works."

That's meant a big change in the lifestyle of two kids who recorded their last two albums on a portable four-track machine in their apartment, and lived hand-to-mouth for years pumping gas on the night shift back home in New Hope, Pa. For one thing, no more day jobs. And for another, real tour support.

"Yeah, we finally have a real van to tour in," Mickey says. "It's a total pimpmobile. It's got a TV, VCR, CD player, and running lights that blink on and off that run around the out-side."

And because the boys recorded Pure Guava for peanuts and pocketed most of their hefty advance from Elektra, they've also got money in the bank for the first time in their lives.

"Actually, we've got more money now than we know what to do with," Mickey says. "I don't know what to spend it on."

One thing they probably won't blow it on is expensive studio time. As they've always done, Ween has continued writing and recording songs in their apartment (affectionately known as "The Pod") on that four-track machine.

"We've got the next eight albums finished already," Mickey says. "We've got enough songs to satisfy our whole contract and then some."

"But," he adds, "don't tell anyone at Elektra. If they find out, they won't give us any more money."