"the ween scene"

It's cooler than cool when a band said to be possessed by Satan blows off a lunch interview because they're observing a religious holiday. But that's Ween's world, where twenty-two-year-old "brothers" Dean and Gene twist the history of rock 'n' roll with a guitar, a drum machine, and a bunch of cheap sound effects. Pure Guava (Elektra) is a mesmerizing mess of beautifully warped folk ballads, classic-rock bastardizations, and spoken-word bits distorted way beyond reason. "Don't Get 2 Close (2 My Fantasy)" sounds like Rush on the skids, while "Push th' Little Daisies" could be Van Morrison with a snoot full of helium. The New Hope, Pennsylvania, natives cite Prince as a crucial influence ("No matter what he does, he gets away with it. That's totally cool," marvels Gene), but reject any comparison to their obvious spiritual predecessors, the Butt-hole Surfers: "What?" asks Dean. "Are you saying we're posers?"