It's 11 o'clock on a hot night at John and Peter's in downtown New Hope. A band called Ween is rocking the house down in front of a standing-room only audience. that's getting drunk along with the performers. Maybe 120 people are packed inside the back room, and a long line of jilted fans wait outside, unable to get it because of fire regulations. By the crowd's knowledgeable response to each of the songs, one would think that each song was an anthem to the swaying, dizzy throngs of New Hope outcasts, who ventured out to John and Peter's to revel in the success of two of their own.

Polishing off pitchers of brew and shots of tequila on stage, the band tears through its exhausting set, entirely sophomoric and crass. Despite the inebriation though, Ween has plenty of talent to offer fans of raw, and will kick off its international tour at Trenton's City Gardens on Friday, December 2, at 9p.m.

This tour is promoting their new CD, "Chocolate and Cheese," recently released on Elektra Records. This will be Ween's fourth CD, the second on Elektra Records. There are stops in the U.S., Europe, and Japan, and will take the band 18 weeks to complete. Ween has two permanent members, guitarist Mickey Melchiondo. a.k.a. Dean Ween, and singer Aaron Freeman, who goes by the name of Gene Ween. Ween uses multi-track recordings to fill out the rest of the sound spectrum and hires professional musicians to play the parts of the rhythm section in concert.

The two were discovered by Elektra in 1992 after their zany approach to multi track recording caught the big-time label's eye, Ween's 1992 album. "Pure Guava, contained Ween's most push the significant hit so far, "Push the Little Daisies," which made it on MTV and attracted a large cult following to the band, mostly of college age.

Since it was released in October, "Chocolate and Cheese" has produced one hit already, "Voodoo Lady," which has been getting plenty airplay on alternative rock stations like Philadelphia's WDRE and WXPN, as well as stations in New York and elsewhere.

During a phone interview, Aaron Freeman comments about the tour:

"On the tour we're going to have a band. There's a lot of shit (studio music) that you can't play on tour. We're gong to be on tour forever, six weeks America, six in Europe. six in Australia and Japan," he says, "I know Japan is an alien culture. I've heard alot of things about it, but I don't know what it's going to be like. I've heard it's a real mind blow."

On-stage, Freeman is an traverted ham and has a guttural, sluicy voice, with a sizable range. In "I Can't Put My Finger On It," Freeman sounds gravelly, bluesy, a great deal like Tom Waits. He pushes the limits of his diaphragm and belly to hit the low range and on other songs he manages to hit the high end on pitch. In "Stallion Part III." a calypso piece, Freeman alters his voice to sound like some kind of a Caribbean Mothra from the Blue Lagoon. That guy can sing.

Obviously he had some practice at it. "I've always sung, from the time I was born," Freeman says. "I used to sing in chorus, and I used to compete in County chorus in school."

In New Hope High School chorus, he was selected as the school's candidate for the county competition on several occasions, although he didn't win on that level.

Freeman, 24, grew up in Solebury. His father is a psychologist and his mother raises funds for a Catholic school - he says she calls herself a "Jew working for Jesus." His prefers quiet and rural residential areas that are not over-developed, Neil Diamond, and Prince. He says he became environmentally sensitive after he moved to New Hope, although he prefers the New Jersey side of the river and now lives in Lambertville with his girlfriend. "I like living in Jersey. At least I know it's not on its way out," he says, alluding to his displeasure in New Hope's touristy allure and it's music scene. "New Hope is blues - There's these two women that sound like the Indigo Girls," he says.

Nor as he excited about the racial exclusiveness of the modern "grunge" scene.

"I don't listen to much alternative, I'm not impressed by it at all. When you're watching MTV, you'll never see the word "buzz-clip" over a black band - you gotta be young white and grungy." he says. "Alternative bands are not really cutting the cheese right now."

The acts that are cutting the cheese right now, he says, are Pavement, Leonard Cohen, Led Zeppelin. Nirvana, and Neil Diamond. Freeman feels Prince is a genius, and Smashing Pumpkins suck.

Mickey Melchiondo, the other founding member of Ween, is a thin, scraggly introvert who plays his guitar in his socks on stage, and sort of slinks into and away from his instrument, his touch, his phrasing, and his musicality are superb, he is simply a natural. For a moment I thought I could have been at an early Mothers of Invention show (with Frank Zappa burning a hole in his guitar's neck), or in the presence of some Jimmy Hendrix prototype who might just pass unnoticed. (Yes, he's that good, but let's keep it a secret until after they play City Gardens.)

Melchiondo's guitar playing defines the Ween sound, Freeman says. "He's been playing forever. I think Hendrix was a big influence on him. He pretty much taught himself - he loves to play the guitar, so naturally he's gonna get good. He's achieved that 'brown sound.'"

What's the "brown sound"? Freeman isn't sure. He says it's just a word to describe the sound of the band, plus a little more. "It's deep." he says, "it kind of ties in with 'Chocolate and Cheese,' the whole brownness of things, I guess."

If the "brown sound" is what cuts the cheese, then perhaps it is responsible for launching Ween from two vapid and somewhat meaningless lives. "Mickey's from a long line of car dealers," Freeman says. "If it wasn't for Ween, Mickey would be a used car salesman or a hockey player." Melchiondo's father, grandfather, and two uncles were car salesman.

Although Freeman's claim about the Melchiondo family tree is unverified, Melchiondo does admit having some experience with cars. At one point of the John and Peter's show, Melchiondo takes the vocal lead on an autobiographical tune called "Pumpin' for the Man," about his beleaguered six year experience as a Mobil station pump attendant. Fate does have its way of intervening.

Freeman and Melchiondo met during typing class at New Hope High, and began making music the very same day. Freeman claims it was "the aberration of the boognish" that moved them to pursue their common musical objective, although he refuses to ex-pound on what the boognish is.

In a two hour show, Ween will play a variety of songs in various styles, with no two songs sounding the same except in spirit. From "Captain Fantasy" to "Tick" to "Touch My Tooter," each tune is short, hyper, and pushed to the limit in terms of energy and sweat. They open the show with a blues tune, and close it with a heavy metal spoof on devil-worshipping, performing a couple of hour-long sets in between.

Mid-way through the first set, the crowd gets to join in during a latin-esque number called "Vallejo." Nearly twenty minutes long, the almost totally improvised piece features a maniacally fast flamenco-style electric guitar part, lots of band stops and starts, audience-participatory "HEYs" and a Yiddish vocal solo by the singer.

During this part, Freeman gets completely obsessive with the microphone and the band checks out for a while. When they finally come back, the music has a vengeance and ends up hurting your ears in a marathon crescendo that goes ballistic by the end. Then the band stops the show, requesting that tequila be sent on to the stage. After one more tune, the band takes a break.

Being spontaneous is no mystery to Ween, though. During a show in South Carolina on July 4, Freeman remembers the band unpremeditatedly going, into Neil Diamond's "Coming To America." Surprisingly enough, Freeman recalls, it was well received by the South Carolinians.

The others on stage with Ween at John and Peter's are drummer Claude Coleman and Andrew Weiss, the well-known bassist who produced their latest album and has played in the Henry Rollins band. It is not known who will play bass and drums at City Gardens. Freeman admits that Coleman and Weiss have only been playing with Ween for a couple of months, and Ween is not exactly the practicing type of band. "Mickey and I don't ever rehearse, but we do have to rehearse to get Andrew and Claude together. I hate rehearsing. For live shit, there's no use in playing by yourself. I'd much rather rehearse in a place full of people to see what the crowd likes."

Based on John and Peters, Ween has obviously done its homework.

-Peter J. Mladineo