"Smells like Scotchguard!"

Ween shimmies through homemade loser-psych rock

Your archetypal Ween fan probably makes even your pathetic life look like one string after another of excelsior coffee achievements. The Ween fan is that kid you don't want to remember that went to your high school - random gender, brown corduroy, greasy hair, unstylish glasses - who bypassed cough syrup in favor of over-the-hardware-store-counter inhalants.

Scotchguard appears to have been the abused drug of choice during the recording of The Pod, Ween's third album (the first is ultra-rare, and the second, God-Ween-Satan, is kind of difficult to find since the bellying-up of Rough Trade). The liner notes revealed, "In the time that this album was completed, we filled up thirty-six hundred hours of tape, and inhaled five cans of Scotchguard."

The cover also features erstwhile Ween bassist Mean Ween "doin' up some Scotchguard-powered bongs." Mean Ween is actually Kramer, the Shimmy-Disc magnum operator who played bass for Ween on their recent tour of Europe. Domestic tastes of live Ween consist of the two original Ween Brothers plus a DAT machine.

Over the phone, Dean Ween (whose grandparents know him as Mickey Melchionado) explained, "Scotchguard makes you see everything in grids, and then it makes you throw up. Then you realize that it's kind of like locking yourself in the garage with the car running in order to get high."

Dean Ween is one-half of Ween, the other half being Gene Ween. They grow psilocybin soundtracks on their faithful Tascam four-track home recorder. Sometimes it's noisy, like a less-maximal Butthole Surfer hardcore audience. Dean admits that his Ween-lover archetype isn't that far removed from what he and Gene were like in high school.

He explained that when they're editing down their reams of tapes in order to consolidate them into a album-length (or double-album-length) release, they'll put in many a whacked-out Ween tune along with more conventional fare. "It's like, 'This onfers. Sometimes it's loud and glammy. It's almost always perverse, and always psychedelic.

The lyrics are more like parodies of lyrics, but these boys aren't on a mission of satire. Instead, Ween thrives on a sort of love/hate relationship with thee's for the kids, the mutants," he explained from his isolated house in New Hope, Pennsylvania.

It was there, near the shores of the Delaware River, that Dean Ween met his mutant soul brother, Gene Ween, in a junior high typing class a little less than a decade ago. Dean complained, "People always think of us as a really young band, just because of our ages. They don't realize that we've been around for a while."

Kramer became interested in Ween after seeing them live and released The Pod on his label. The cover of the album has the face of the Scotchguard-inhaling Kramer superimposed over the same portrait of Leonard Cohen that was on the cover of that artist's best of collection. "We wanted to have a cover that was tasteful," Dean said.

WEEN plays Thursday at the Blind Pig. Tickets are $5 in advance, and doors open at 9:30. Call 763-TKTS.