"Weens on pigout"

"Can you hold for one second?" says Dean Ween of Ween, quite possibly the World's Weirdest Band.

"I'm just going to blow my nose."

Thank God this is a telephone interview. The sound over the line from Pennsylvania is like that of a flock Canada geese being strained through a jet engine.

"Honk! Honk! H-O-N-K!!... Sorry, man."

This biological necessity completed, talk turns towards another: food.

Dean Ween and partner Gene Ween (in real life Mickey Melchiondo, 22, and Aaron Freeman, 23) are two community college drop-outs who turned a boyish game of hacking around with tape recorders into a major-label musical creation with gastronomic intentions. They're on the menu Wednesday at Lee's Palace.

The Ween team asks their listeners to bring food with them to shows - and not not for a food bank or other noble cause.

"We're real pigs," Dean explains. "We're not fat or anything, but we both really like to just get down on some food."

Fans have responded to the odd request, but Ween bites the hand that feeds it.

They want food, fool, not hot dogs or canned corn, and they spell it out in the notes to their current album, Pure Guava: "When Ween comes to your town, bring us hot meals. No more junk food, thanks."

That means a whole roast turkey or something equally splendid. Dean and Gene know what they like.

"The best scenario is when you've been drinking tequila all night and it's 3.30 in the morning," Dean says.

"And you've just absolutely drunk as much as you can, and you just feel like you're going to puke... and then you discover there's an entire roast turkey on top of your amplifier.

"You just go for the drunken pigout. That's the best part about getting the food. But I think for the next album, it's going to say, "When Ween comes, bring us cash.

All this talk about food is making Dean hungry. He starts loudly crunching on something.

"I'm sorry, man. I just discovered this really good box of cookies here.'

Dean is easily distracted. At one point, he suddenly drops the phone to chase after his dog.

"Oh, oh, my dog's attacking somebody... 'Jim, Jimmy boy! What are you doing, man?"

More obsessed with food than Robyn Hitchcock, more inventive than They Might Be Giants and as adept with a tape splicer as the Beastie Boys, Ween has been biting the soft underbelly of pop since about 1985, when Dean and Gene discovered they could make funny noises by slowing down and speeding up a four-track tape recorder.

They added guitars, bass and drum machine for needed rhythm, but Ween at heart is just two guys jerking around with funny noises, just like guys have done since time immemorial.

Remember the kid who sat behind you in Grade 5, playing "O Canada" with his armpits?

Or your brother who could do The Twilight Zone theme by popping his puffed-up cheeks?

Or your pal who could turn any song into a rude parody?

Dean and Gene have this kind of talent and they've managed to parlay it into a record cord deal, first with the cool Minneapolis indie label Twin/Tone and now, three albums in, with Elektra Records, home to Metallica, The The Cure, Natalie Cole, 10,000 Maniacs and other big names.

Ask them how they did it, and Dean says he's not sure, but hard work and hustle had nothing to do with it.

Ween was just a party band at first, gigging solely to amuse friends. But back about 1987 the duo was asked to open for a band called Skunk, which was attracting record company talent scouts.

"They were there to check out Skunk, but it was us who got signed (to a recording contract)," Dean says.

"It was an accident. That was the beginning of us doing nothing for ourselves and having success. We really didn't do it. We never sent a tape away or called for a gig or anything like that."

Pure Guava includes the hellishly catchy "Little Birdy," a tune that could have solved the recent unpleasantness in Waco, Texas, if the authorities had chosen to blast it at full volume at Ranch Apocalypse.

There also are various nods to classic rock oldies: "I Saw Gener Cryin' In His Sleep" sifts through the Beatles" "Drive My Car," while "Loving U Through It All" is a twisted tribute to the Animals' "House Of The Rising Sun."

Classic rock is very much where Dean Ween is at, because he resists being labelled "alternative" or "college music."

He sounds annoyed when told that one of the band's promo pictures looks like a sly recreation of a pose by J Mascis and Murph, of the slacker rock band Dinosaur Jr.

"I like real rock 'n' roll," he says. "We're 'alternative' only because we're not on commercial radio. But I don't listen to underground college rock. To me, that just proves it's not good, because nobody else likes it.

"I don't think Dinosaur Jr. has anything on Lynyrd Skynyrd." Amazing Ween fact: Dean is

part Canadian. Although he was born in the U.S., his mother is Canadian, he has family in Dauphin, Man., and a sister attends Montreal's McGill University.

He has to be careful not to reveal his hoser heritage when his partner is anywhere near earshot.

"It's not that I don't want to admit it, it's just that Gener gets bummed," Dean says.

"Every time we go to Canada, or talk to a Canadian, I always tell them I'm a Canadian, and he's getting really sick of hearing about it."

Not much else troubles the Ween team, although the Deaner admits to getting a bit bummed himself, worrying that all the press attention will force him to really think about "the Ween sound." That might ruin the fun.

"It's pretty strange," he sighs, crunching as another cookie enters the black void.

"You read enough about yourself and you start to wonder whether it's true or not. It's the real drag about being in a band...

"I don't know what we're going for. We're just trying to entertain ourselves. We like to hear our voices on tape. It's a really good feeling when you're done making a song and you can listen back to it and go, "There, it's done.'

"It's almost like you've made something."