Hella Ween

Ween - Japanese Cowboy

Let's spook the horses while we finish off October with these nutbags from New Hope, PA... from a time 30 years ago when they really started to make a dusty ruckus.

For it was way back in October of 1996 when Dean and Gene Ween (Mickey & Aaron to friends & family) took the (incredible, surreal, hummably melodic, deeply disturbed) country record they'd made in Nashville the previous November, out on a short US tour.

At the time no one could believe it, but here they were with bona fide Nashville pedal steel, performing the tunes from their album 12 Golden Country Greats. Which only had 10 songs on it. All of which were killer.

If you don't know who Ween are, well you should. Ween are like infinite bands, all unified by the power of the Boognish into one, supremely powerful amalgam that can sound like any kind of music, in any style, in any given song, at any time.

They don't really make records anymore, but they occasionally tour. I've seen them 5 times over the last 3 decades and they never fail to deliver a good time, kind of like your mom but with way better guitar solos.

They kind of coat what they do in a sheen of comedy, and the humor often confuses people who think they are some sort of joke. They aren't, although they can be really, really falldown funny.

So when they did a left turn into Country in 1996, it was a tossup: were they serious? Were they semi-unserious? Is writing about music dumb and one-dimensional enough?

All I can say is if they weren't, they sure did a seriously good job faking it. I dunno what sort of talent you'd have to have to fake something as sincerely fucked up as 12 Golden Country Greats.

The tour, which took place over 3 weeks 30 years ago this month, and in which they also performed a number of Ween classics in the style of the record, is the stuff of legend.

Thankfully, Ween's longtime audio engineer Kirk Miller recorded every gig on cassette from the mixer, and we have something in the way of Crazy Documentation that this cultural collision in Country actually took place.

Ween 

with The Shit Creek Boys

"12 Golden Country Greats" tour sampler

October 1996

01 Don't Shit Where You Eat

02 Pretty Girl

03 Mr. Richard Smoker

04 Japanese Cowboy

05 Piss Up a Rope

06 What Deaner Was Talkin' About

07 Pumpin' 4 the Man

08 I Don't Wanna Leave You On the Farm

09 Help Me Scrape the Mucus Off My Brain

10 Waving My Dick In the Wind

11 I Saw Gener Cryin' In His Sleep

12 Spinal Meningitis

13 Powder Blue

14 You Were the Fool

15 The HIV Song

16 I Can't Put My Finger On It

17 Booze Me Up and Get Me High

18 Mister, Would You Please Help My Pony?

19 Jonny On the Spot

20 I'm Holding You

21 Push th' Little Daisies

22 Big Jilm

23 Poopship Destroyer

24 Freedom of '76

25 Dean Ween guitar introduction

26 Dr. Rock

27 She Fucks Me

28 Birthday Boy

29 Baby Bitch

30 Buenos Tardes Amigo

31 The Stallion Pt.3

32 The Blarney Stone

33 Fluffy

34 Sorry Charlie

35 Little Birdy

36 A Tear for Eddie

37 "Stu Gets Slammed"

38 Piano Man

Total time: 2:32:18

disc break goes after Track 20

Aaron Freeman (Gene Ween) - guitar & vocals

Mickey Melchiondo (Dean Ween) - guitar & vocals

Claude Coleman, Jr. - drums & vocals

with The Shit Creek Boys:

Bobby Ogdin - piano

Danny Parks - guitar

Stu Basore - pedal steel guitar

Hank Singer - fiddle

Matthew Kohut - bass

1st gen cassettes recorded live from the soundboard, at various venues around the US & Canada, by Kirk Miller

edited, repaired, denoised & remastered by EN, October 2026
.98 GB FLAC/direct link

I made a few repairs to these tapes, which had a few flaws and dropouts, but don't expect the 48 track experience. If you ask me, the mid-fi aspect of it kind of adds to the rough, barroom brawl mystique of the music.

These guys have a few new live records out -- from 1996, coincidentally, but not the October Country left turn -- and you should buy them, or I will send the Boognish to toilet paper your tipi tonight. Don't say you weren't warned. Like the song goes, you were the fool! Happy Hella Ween!--J.