The Gospel According to Prisco

Holy crap, do I love me some John Darnielle.  While there’s a lot to be said of the charm of the early Mountain Goats recordings, done with pops and hisses in an almost guerilla release format, the later stuff just gets epic.  The swelling strings, the haunting poetry of the lyrics, the simple enjoyment I get from each album.  Heretic Pride doesn’t have any stand out songs for me like the last few releases, but overall, it’s a strong, strong album.  I know I’m going to have this one on constant loop for a while, just because I love that nasally voice so much.  It reminds me of weird friends I had in high school who probably were on mad amounts of drugs, who would write in composition books and speak in rhymes.  Just words that had no meaning to me at the time, but sounded so fucking cool. 

It’s pretty impossible for Darnielle to improve on The Sunset Tree, because that was such a personal album about abusive childhood, but Heretic Pride, to me anyway, is a much more comprehensively better overall record than Get Lonely.  But like Ween, it’s difficult for me to point out a favorite album.  It’s all good, always good, even when it’s insanely bad or crazy.

I really enjoyed this album.  There are two vocalists, a man and a woman, which really adds to the appeal of the album.  It’s kind of like Ben Folds and Nellie McKay sans her bitchy attitude.  (I feel about Nellie McKay like I do about Amy Winehouse.  Artistically she’s great, personally I would like her to have a starving wombat stuffed into her vagina and then have her cooch sewed shut.)  It’s got a wonderful bouncy sound to it.  For some reason I was thinking of Panic! At the Disco if you took the Scissors Sisters-y vibe away from them.  Less Vegas showgirl, more jaunty piano music!  

Hard-Fi’s released a lot of albums, apparently.  I’d heard “Suburban Knights” on the radio, and the rest of the album sort of falls into that ilk.  I had been expecting something more techno-y.  I was way off.  

I am not punk rock.  I am not my fucking khakis either.  But I while alternative/punk is probably the best way to describe my musical tastes, I dare not call myself punk rock.  I’ve got mosh pit scars on my elbows and knees, and I’ve protected my number of female friends from the flying Doc Martens of some fifteen year old day-glo’d mohawk doing suicidals at a show.  I’ve seen NoFX live more times than any other band, and the only live concerts I’ve seen weren’t punk were Ben Folds Five and Britney Spears & N*SYNC.  (Shut up, my cousin was 12 and she wanted to go, and it was at Hershey Park, and there’s candy and roller coasters and this was back when Britney was still fuckable — desirablely so, not in the sense like now, where you actually have a chance to probably fuck her if you take her picture first and offer her some blow — and we were being nice and, and, shut up, I don’t have to defend myself to you!) 

But I never wore safety pins through my clothes.  I never sported crazy colored hair, or shaved it on the sides for a fauxhawk or a goth kids style.  I never wore leather jackets with band patches.  I never wore band patches.  The only pair of black boots I own are steel toed, because the T got CROWDED during the weekends and I didn’t want my feet getting stomped.  I own two band T-shirts, one for NoFX and the other for the Reel Big Fish/Goldfinger tour.  I didn’t get political on anyone, or try to instigate revolution, or to even give the finger to authority.  I don’t suffer fools, and I don’t take shit, but I would never dare call myself punk.  Mostly because authentic punks tend to be assholes.  They tend to be so wrapped up in “being punk” that it gets off putting.  As much as they claim to be nonconformist, punk tends to be almost as aggressively social as any other clique, if not more so.  If you aren’t bleeding from a crowd surf punt to the dome or have a black eye from a mosh circle brawl, you aren’t real to the scene, man.  It never surprised me that it was fronted by bands called the Buzzcocks and the Circle Jerks.  Both seemed to apply.  I long ago shook hands and stood to the side, deciding to become an unoffical member of the Fat Old Guy Mosh Pit Crew, and saving my lady friends from the frustrations of teenagers three chords away from going on school shootings.  (Of course, there are plenty of punk kids that are welcoming and lovely, and yes, I am demonizing and stereotyping and oversimplifying, but fuck it.  If you’re so punk rock, why do you care what I have to say?)

By avoiding the whole scene and attitude associated with the music, I was able to appreciate almost all of it without feeling like some sort of poseur.  I was assembling a playlist for a workout, deciding to forego the techno/hip-hop/world music that tends to be most workouts for a more punk rock playlist that’s the kind of music that gets me pogoing like a spazzo.  Going off my limited selection, I managed to make a list that was damn near 4 and 1/2 hours long.  And since it was punk rock, it was about 1 billion songs with four chords between them.

But I found that my list could be broken down into four seperate subgenres of punk.  And so I broke it down into: bouncy ska punk, old school punk, new school punk, and then what I just called rock.  Of course, not all of the bands are punk, not punk at all, I was just trying to blend together songs that I enjoy.  These lists are works in progress, but I’m pretty proud of what I’ve assembled.  Again, I was bored with my iPod last night, so I was just cutting and pasting from my limited selection.  For your scorn and critcism, I present, the Punk Rock Workouts:

BOUNCY SKA
Blur — Song 2
Me First and the Gimme Gimmes — Runaway
The Vandals — My Girlfriend’s Dead
Pennywise — Punk Rock Song
Reel Big Fish — Sell Out
Flogging Molly – Drunken Lullabies
The Fratellis — Flathead
Gogol Bordello — Think Locally Fuck Globally
Goldfinger — Mable
The Offspring — Come Out And Play
Rancid – Ruby Soho
Me First and the Gimme Gimmes — Danny’s Song
The Mighty Mighty Bosstones — Devil’s Night Out
Green Day — Platypus (I Hate You)
Less Than Jake – One Last Cigarette
Suicide Machines – High Anxiety
Green Day — J.A.R. (Jason Andrew Relva)
Mad Caddies — Booze Cruise
The Pietasters – Out All Night
Pennywise — Fight Till You Die
Less Than Jake — Sugar In Your Gas Tank
Flogging Molly — Devil’s Dance Floor
Goldfinger — Nothing to Prove
The Offspring — The Kids Aren’t All Right
Less Than Jake — Automatic
Suicide Machines — No Friends
Mad Caddies — Villains
Gogol Bordello — Immigrant Punk

As you can begin to see, I have an unhealthy obsession with Irish-style violins, and brassy horn sections.  Gogol Bordello just made the cut, whereas I felt the Pogues were a little too slow for my workout.  There could easily be more Reel Big Fish on here, and some Bosstones, but I was more interested in the fast guitar and anthemic stuff.  For me, ska dances the fence between the new school “bouncy and safe” and the old school “violent and resilient”.  Old school punk is more like Rocky Balboa, it’s not flashy, it’s lasting and tough.  So this list is bouncy ska, like a boxer bouncing on his toes before he kicks your ass.  

NEW SCHOOL PUNK
Green Day – I Fought The Law
Rise Against — Dancing for Rain
Fall Out Boy — Sugar, We’re Going Down
Nerf Herder — Pantera Fans in Love
Story of the Year — Until the Day I Die
Sugarcult — Memory
Social Distortion — Story of My Life
Nerf Herder — Led Zepplin Rules
Me First and the Gimme Gimmes — Goodbye Earl
Fall Out Boy — Tell That Mick He Just Made My List of Things To Do Today
Brand New — Seventy Times 7
Alkaline Trio — Armageddon
Gob — Give Up The Grudge
Green Day — Holiday
The Loved Ones — Suture Self
Bear vs. Shark — Busses/No Busses
Fall Out Boy — Sending Postcards from a Planecrash
A New Found Glory — My Friends Over You
Nerf Herder — Cashmere
Yellowcard — Believe
Dropkick Murphies — Forever

Okay, first of all I know I have a lot of fucking nerve putting the Dropkick Murphies and Social Distortion in the same category as Fall Out Boy and New Found Glory, let alone labelling it New School Punk, but here me out.  This is essentially the skateboarding videogame soundtrack.  The only reason Less Than Jake and Pennywise aren’t here is because I’m putting the scarred horns on the ska list.  I love new school punk for a completely different reason that the old school.  Punk-pop is fun music, it’s not dangerous; that’s as laughable as Ashlee Simpson doing a song about what a rebel she is.  Or it’s actually just as laughable as Ashlee Simpson.  There are plenty of interchangeable bands here: A Simple Plan or more New Found Glory could easily replace most of the one-offs.  There’s a definite place for some newer Offspring or even Good Charlotte, but I don’t really own much of their music.  I left Panic! At the Disco off the list for the same reason The Pogues aren’t on the bouncy ska; I feel like they’re just that side of pop, even though they sound EXACTLY the same as Fall Out Boy.  There’s a ton of Fall Out Boy, but it’s mostly the older stuff, before they hit it big.  I just started listening to The Loved Ones (my album review will be up later this week).  And I know I kind of bitched out on the Rise Against song, but I love that song. 

OLD SCHOOL PUNK

NOFX — Linoleum
Social Distortion — Angels Wings
The Buzzcocks — What Do I Get
The Replacements — Bastards of Young
The Dead Milkmen — Punk Rock Girl
The Ramones — Judy Is A Punk
NOFX — Louise
The Clash — Should I Stay or Should I Go?
Black Flag — Rise Above
The Ramones — I Wanna Be Sedated
Suicidal Tendencies — Institutionalized
Social Distortion — Highway 101
NOFX — Kill Rock Stars
Iggy and the Stooges – Search and Destroy
Butthole Surfers — Too Drunk to Fuck
NOFX — Jaundiced Eye
The Misfits — Last Caress
Pansy Division — Deep Water
NOFX — 13 Stitches
The Descendants — Schizophrenia
Black Flag — Drinking and Driving
Dropkick Murphys — Pipebomb on Lansdowne
Fishbone — Party at Ground Zero

Yeah, I know, could I possibly pick more obvious songs.  Why didn’t I just slap fucking ”Rock the Casbah” or “Blitzkrieg Bop” on there, and complete the Rhino Records Old Punk Hitz! Vol 1.  It’s a little NOFX heavy, because I own a lot of NOFX.  And I put the grandfathers of ska at the end of this list because it’s a good phase down.  With this list, I know I have all the right bands, and most of the right songs, I probably can do better.  Social Distortion is difficult to find songs that are rhythmic enough to be on a workout collection.  As fast as most punk bands play, there’s definitely a slowed down rock aspect to them.  It’s like Dropkick Murphys.  Which song works for a workout?  I put Forever on the New School because it’s that sweeping inspirational, but it doesn’t fit in with the other dirty facepunches that is the rest of his.  I had a hell of a time picking the right Descendants song, because I don’t own many of their albums.  I almost put Nothing With You, but that would go on the New School side.  But there’s at least a story to be told here.  Sure it’s Natural Born Killers, but it’s still a fun fucking ride.  Look down the titles again, and figure out where I went with this.  But of all my lists, this is the one I think needs the most work.

ROCKING OUT WITH YOUR SWEAT SOCK OUT

The Reverend Horton Heat — Psychobilly Freakout
Rodrigo y Gabriela — Tamacun
The Red Elvises — Love Pipe
Ween — It’s Gonna Be a Long Night
The Hives — Hate to Say I Told You So
Three Days Grace — Animal I Have Become
Iggy Pop — I Am a Passenger
Toad the Wet Sprocket — Fall Down
The Vines — Get Free
Nickelback — Animals
Sum 41 — Still Waiting
My Chemical Romance — Bury Me In Black
Tito and Tarantula — Caraches Anjodes
Dragonforce — Through the Fire and the Flames
Red Hot Chili Peppers — Higher Ground
Bad Religion — Infected
Smashing Pumpkins — Zero
Tito and Tarantula — Dark Night
The Who — Baba O’Reilly

This truly shows you the insane skimmer that is my brain.  I mean, this list jumps all over the fucking place.  And I know people are going to try to claim my taste status with some of my choices.   Yeah, there are plenty of songs that rock harder.  I could have gone 80’s on a lot of this.  But this has got a nice rockabilly vibe to it, with some interesting guitar riffs peppered throughout.  You have no idea how bad I wanted to put some Primus on this bitch.  I just couldn’t find the right song to put in there.  Wynnona’s Got A Big Brown Beaver, or My Name Is Mudd.  But neither felt right.  There are two songs off the From Dusk Til Dawn soundtrack which I think I balanced nicely with the Rodrigo y Gabriela song at the front along with Reverend Horton Heat.  Rodrigo y Gabriela blow my fucking mind.  They are fast flamenco style guitar, and it is awesome.  And it may seem like that blown mind would be responsible for what could be deemed a lag in the center of the playlist.  Yes, you bet your ass I put a Toad the Wet Sprocket song on the rock list.  It was almost Flood by Jars of Clay.  I like my playlists for the workout to go in peaks and waves.   I just think there’s a rule somewhere that Baba O’Reilly has to be on the beginning or the end of every playlist that has the word rock in it. 

I also made a 2 or 3 hour playlist I called Techno-cality.  Because I’m clever and I love puns.  Also, because it is a fucking high school yearbook of eighties and nineties techno.  It’s got some Atari Teenage Riot, Gravity Kills, hell, even a little Zombie Nation and My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult.  I was a whisper away from slapping some Sneaker Pimps “Six Underground” up on that monster.  But that would be out of control.  I will spare you the details. 

Hopefully my punk workouts work out.  I’ve been at the gym a while now, and doing a cardio workout that runs just over an hour.  So hopefully this will get all four cheeks and a couple chins bouncing like a mufackus.  And eventually bounce them right off my jiggly ass. 

I used to troll about the music and DVD department at The Barnes and Noble in The Grove.  Not because I was seeking babies to devour, but that was sadly how I supplemented my income, and implemented my own personal self-destruction.  Anywho, this was one of the in-store plays.  You know, the music that you can barely hear anyway that’s on a constant loop throughout the day.  So I wasn’t too excited about the prospect of listening to this, but I really like that “My Moon, My Man” song. 

It’s a very chill album, pretty much what you’d expect, a little French New Wave Cinema for my tastes, but it’s perfect background or driving music, if you don’t need to rock out.  What shocked me was how it almost got bluesy at points.  “My Moon” gives inklings with the heavy piano, but the album almost got Negro spiritual at points.  I was pleasantly amused by that.

This isn’t going to shed light on the world or anything.  I mean, everyone who is at all interested in this style of music, the lone female vocalist with a haunting mellifluous voice, they already bought this.  So they already know.  It’s a decent album, relaxed me intensely, and I’ll give a few more listens definitely. 

The only complaint I have to make is that her lyrics are repetitive.  And by repetitive, long portions of the song are just her singing the same line over and over.  I don’t like when musicians do this.  It’s not like it’s a swelling chorus or a powerful moment in the song.  It’s not like you’re getting paid by the note either.  And it’s inevitably the title of the song.  It sounds pretty, but it sounded pretty the 3rd or 8th time, Feist. 

I first heard Ozma as one of Joe Escalante’s Hot Cup O’ Joe picks on his Indie 103.1 morning show.  Not only is he a member of The Vandals, but he also helped produce the band.   The introduction was that, according to Rivers Cuomo himself, Ozma sounded “more like Weezer than Weezer.”  Which, as a fan over these past years, makes me feel good, because as much as I wanted to love Make Believe, it was not a good album. 

So I got my hands on a copy of Ozma’s Pasadena, because a) it has the song Domino Effect on it, which is the one that I heard and enjoyed, and b) I really, REALLY like the city of Pasadena. 

And it does sound EXACTLY like Weezer.  Not necessarily the surf rock, why we love you in the first place sound of the Blue Album, but somewhere between the glory that is Pinkerton (my favorite Weezer album and one of my island stranded Top 5) and the lesser smileworthiness of the Green Album. 

The songs sort of blend together, so it’s hard to pick out a favorite or stand out.  But if you mourn for the lost days of Weezer, this is definitely one to add to your collection.  You will not be disappointed. 

There’s something about Mandy.  I remember seeing the video for “Candy”, in the late nineties, during the heyday of the pop gals.  Pre-breakdown Britney, pre-housepainted and big as a house Christina (oh, I know she was pregnant, and I know with that comes acne and some other horrible onslaughts of unimaginable pain, but still, girlfriend looks like she got her face done by Earl Shive for $19.95), pre-tardish Avril Lavigne.  I hold a special place in my heart, and probably my loins, for the girl singers.  My iPod is redolent with a shameworthy swath of Kelly Clarkson, Pink, Anna Nalick, Feist, Vanessa Carlson, Alanis Morissette, and Michelle Branch.  Hell, I’ve even got that Independent Love Song from the Bed of Roses soundtrack.  But only because of the hilarious memories of my brother singing it as loudly and shriekingly as he can in the car.  So yeah, I’m a woman, but I wear my vag badge with pride.

So when putting in my order for illicitly obtained musical materials, my dealer, for lack of a better term and also because I know he’d get a fucking kick out being referred to as a dealer, said, “Mandy Moore?  Really?”  And I said, I heard good things. 

I think Saved! is an apt metaphor for what’s wrong with Mandy Moore’s career.  She’s made a number of wise choices, most of them involving not falling in steed with the Four Starletards of the Apocalypse (hat tip to Pajiba! for coining and naming them).  She’s only once to my knowledge played a musician in a movie, and that was in an American Idol parody called American Dreamz.  I like it when musicians don’t play musicians in movies.  If I wanted to hear you sing, I’d buy your fucking CD.  And she’s done a number of good movies, but they were always slightly off the mark.  She does A Walk to Remember, with Shane West (yeah, I had to look his name up because I totally forgot he still is an actor — Extraordinary Gentleman indeed), which is a minimal success, but then Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams do The Notebook, and catapult themselves into stardom.  Richard Kelly seemed on level with Joss Wheedon as the Golden Boy, and so it would be a smart move to sign on for his second flick, Southland Tales.  Plus, you get to be The Rock’s wife!   But that movie, which I haven’t seen yet but will, turned out to be a fart on a wedding dancefloor.  Everyone just quietly backed away, hoping the smell or the blame wouldn’t linger with them.  And then, we have Saved!  Which should have been a much better movie than it was.  I don’t know why it wasn’t great.  It was good.  I liked it.  But I didn’t love it. 

Mandy Moore seems doomed to be that girl who always wins the bronze medal.  But I think if she keeps making smart moves, she’s going to come out on top.  She’s not doing as good as I hope she will.  Because the girl seems like she deserves it.

And Wild Hope is a great start.  I, like apparently most of America, don’t own any other Mandy Moore CDs.  So I didn’t know what to expect from this.  But when her voice shot out of my earbuds, I couldn’t believe it.  I had to check to make sure that it was actually Mandy Moore.  Her voice is so mature and melodious, I can’t believe she rose from the offal of the Mickey Mouse Club.  It was much more like a KT Tunstall or Anna Nalick, or even Fiona Apple if she upped it an octave. 

The lyrics and song titles still have a way to go.  It almost sounded like someone gave her a sheet of lyrics from your typical mindless pop songs, and she decided to sing them her way.  By the end of the album, on “Gardenia”, which evoked thoughts of Yankee Candles around a bubble bath, she’s singing about being the one who “likes making love on the floor”.  It’s another one of those “breakup” albums, but it doesn’t reach that burn down your house and beer bottle the new girl anger of Alanis Morissette’s “Jagged Little Pill” or even its lesser let’s drink margaritas and bitch about how men suck wannabe Kelly Clarkson’s “Breakaway”.  But I find that refreshing.  It’s a mature breakup.  Like it’s over, you suck, I wish you wouldn’t go, but I understand that you’re a dick, and I’ve already moved on, and learned about how strong I am in the process. 

It’s not quite there yet, and like I said, she’s still placing third on most lists.  But if this is sign of the times to come, it’s pretty obvious that Mandy Moore will endure while her peers wither and peel.

I know nothing about Andrew Bird.  Where he came from, what other bands he’s been in if any, what his background or story is.  I learned of this CD from the Pajiba! Top 5 of 2007 suggestions.  So I figured, what the hell, I’ll give him a listen.

Armchair Apocrypha is immediately reminiscent of Damien Rice or Sufjan Stevens, that sort of melancholy keen that’s somehow eerily beautiful and mournful.  But the symphonic dissonance behind him smacks a little more of Radiohead.  Under normal circumstances, this is the kind of self-indulgent indie songster that I would want to beat to death with a sock full of nickels.  Like one of those guys who breaks out a guitar at any sort of party and starts to play ballads while drunk girls flock around him and swoon.  Usually they have longish hair or a strangely carved facial pubes, and they’re wearing a t-shirt they got a thrift store underneath a zippered hoodie.  I only pray the God of Belushi delivers some sort of genital rash to them swiftly and mercilessly.  Sing about that, Valtrex.

Anyway, as I said, under most cases this kind of music would insight me to hate crime levels of insane rage.  But for some reason, it just works here.  It’s got a really nice rhythm, and even though I never know what he’s singing about, it sounds good.  It’s sort of what you get with Audioslave.  Take Zach de la Rocha and his second year philosophy rants from Rage Against the Machine and add in Chris Cornell and his less squeaky voice and you’ve got magic.  This would be Radiohead sans Thom Yorke.  Not that it’s a better band, or a worse band.  It’s just a different sound.  And it works just as well. 

I don’t know if I’d really want to go and seek out other music by Andrew Bird.  And I know I wouldn’t want to see him in concert.  But if you’re looking for a little something else to tickle your ears, you could do worse.

Like many folks of my particular generation, my musical tastes have gone through maddening phases.  I managed to escape the Cure Mascara phase, and the 80s New Wave, mostly because until the age of 11, I pretty much shared my parents’ tastes (or lack thereof in music) in music.  Which is why I’m killer fun at karaoke.  That and the drinking.

I went through a hard core gangster rap phase, then well into grunge, then into melancholy female pianists.  Not exactly from toadstool to toadstool across the Frogger Highway.  But it was easy for me to be wrapped up in the bouncy fun punk-pop era, that of early Green Day, blink-182, and for those in the know NOFX, Goldfinger, and Nerf Herder.  The field sort of exploded in a big sticky mess with pop music, and that’s where we got our Panic! At the Disco and Fall Out Boys. 

It’s always been an emo crew, but I like to think of it more like a high school emo.  The emotions that we always feel during high school, that we’re dorks and the pretty girls will never like us, or that we’re goign to be doomed to a basement existance of Cap’n Crunch and internet porn.  The immaturity and desperation of the high school years.  How true love matters for those two or three week relationships that mostly consist of passionate fumbling under shirts in the back rows of movie theatres, surreptitious handjobs through baggy jean flys, and four hour conversations on telephones that if transcripted into actual dialogue would make for about three pages.

And so I’ve always held a soft spot for these better days.  Which is why I like my music nerdy and bouncy.  Season it with some ska horns and we’re in the money, honey.  So, not knowing much of the Weakerthans or their catalog, I decided to try out their newest album, Reunion Tour.  Like all good punk-pop kiddies, the album is about ten songs long, maybe a half-hour at best.   Upon first listen, I thought, wow, this sounds like a mix of all my favorites, like Nerf Herder crossed with Fall Out Boy.  I popped it on while riding home on the bus, and let the songs just sort of bubble over me. 

But then, as the album abruptly came to an end, I started it over and listened again.  And I realised, it is a blend.  It’s pretty much like every other band to try to latch on to the pop-punk era.  Not to say it’s bad, or unoriginal.  Like all of the pop-punk, it dare not speak its name around the authentic kids, like Rancid or The Clash.  It would get beat up and stuffed into a locker.  It’s got the same passion, but none of the anger.  It belongs to the emocore of My Chemical Romance or Death Cab for Cutie.  It’s harmless, sweet, and forgettable. 

So would I recommend it?  It wouldn’t hurt.  It’s not going to be your favorite album, but it’ll do some good for you.

Oh, I like Ween.  It’s hard to LOVE Ween.  And the gruesome twosome make up the biggest island in the fucking archipelago that is my iPod.   But I don’t actively listen to Ween. 

For those who don’t know, Ween is essentially two dudes from outside Philly who’ve made a career being fucking batshit insane.  But the good kind of crazy, Picasso crazy, cut off a limb for your art crazy.  Or in their case, drop a shitload of mushrooms and write music. Ween is what radio sounds like in an alternate universe.  It’s a funhouse mirror up against anything that you can imagine, any style, any genre. 

You don’t discover Ween.  Someone introduces you to it.  Either by playing it in the car (as happened to me, thank you Shepard Ritzen, pioneer of all things musical) or someone slips it in on a mixtape.  And it’s inevitably one of those things that makes you crinkle your brow and say “Who the fuck is that?”  And then you’re in the secret cabal.

I once played five songs for a friend and asked them to identify the bands.  It was trick question, all five songs were by Ween, but they didn’t know that.  And they didn’t appreciate my auditory ruse and swiftly kicked my shins.  But that’s the beauty of Ween.  So when I say I don’t actively listen to Ween, I mean, I like to put my iPod on shuffle and let them pop their heads in and out.  Just the tip.  Just so it feels nice.

Ween doesn’t so much parody or appropriate different styles in their wild experimentative stuff as just absorb it into the miasma that is they.  Their sound can vary, but it always sounds like Ween.  It always leaves that kind of spicy, honeythick aftertaste in your brain when you’ve heard one of their songs. 

La Cucaracha, their latest effort, is almost more of a B-sides and rarities album than Shinola.  Its sounds like songs left off of all of their other albums and efforts.  Except its all newer.  Nothing really stands out as amazing, and the entire album doesn’t explode in your ears like Chocolate and Cheese or White Pepper, or even Pure Guava, my own personal desert island Ween.  But it’s sort of the remnant discards of the vast ecclectic quilt that is Ween.

So for my own personal tastes, while I can’t appreciate it as a whole album, it’s a brilliantly welcome addition to my Ween collection.  When I put my Ween on shuffle, these songs will effortlessly fit in the mix.  And since Ween will rarely if ever get radio play and only pop up in the occasional indie film, pray to the gods of delight that someone somewhere will deliver unto you a mixtape. 

And I shall.