MARVELOUS CLOUDS

 

Right. I've been pending this for too long now.

So. After I got the pretty little vinyl (it's not little, it's normal size. But it is pretty, it's got clouds on it) and put it on the shelf for further analysis, I had forgotten all about it. The clouds on the cover are now part of my psyche just like the striped socks discarded in a corner for weeks. How reckless of me.

As this blog often confirms, I am a devoted Ween fan and have been for more than 15 years. It's my favorite band, and that's not an easy statement to make for a 36 years old male with an obssesive interest in music. You eventually grow out of such labels as "this rules" or "this sucks" when it comes to music, as you realize that you can be subjective in more than one way and that different musical genres bring different types of butterflies in your tummy. It's all good, as long as the soul is there in the end.

Aaron Freeman is a wonderful man. The chemistry between him and Mickey Melchiondo (and eventually the rest of the guys) is, by now, the stuff of legend, as far as I'm concerned. Bands like Ween are very rare, precisely because the members of the band seem to be communicating on a different, higher level than your everyday assemble of Four Fabulous random guys that form many other bands today. Many bands have the enthusiasm and maybe even the talent, but very few have the vision and the guts. And I know that sounds pompous, but, as the keen fan will know, Ween are actually a very deep band. But in a fun way!

Anyway. Back to Aaron.

Aaron is perhaps the more sensitive, therefore the more damaged half of the original Ween duo. The guy's been through a lot. Drugs, alcohol, scarring relationships, rehab, your usual rock star resume. The whole thing peaked in Vancouver last year, where he fucked up the show and the rest of the band were forced to abandon him on stage, and that was, as far as I know, the first and only time that's ever happened in the history of the band. It was funny, but really really sad.

But Aaron has come out of that murky dungeon, it seems. And I couldn't be happier, even though this change in him has apparently put Ween on hold for an indeterminate period of time. Sob.

But Aaron's been busy with his first ever solo project - Marvelous Clouds - a collection of Rod McKuen covers. I've talked about Rod before, so I'll skip that part. Well, I've talked about Ween before, countless times, but that's the advantage of it being my blog.

Marvelous Clouds is, quite simply put, a splendid thing. I'm sometimes gay like that. I like beautiful and simple things, things that are, like, so totally uncool nowadays: love, sentimentalism, honesty, the kitschy kind of melancholy you get when you see two strangers falling in love or simply getting along. That old rubbish. And I think Rod is like that. I also think that Aaron is like that deep down, as well. Romantics. Sorry I haven't had time to dust that word off before putting it here, it just popped into my brain like a rock through the window.

Anyway, I'm not gonna go through the album song by song, partially because it should be seen as a whole, but mostly because I can't be bothered right now, as I'm actually supposed to be working.

The thing is...this album sounds old and new at the same time. Which I think is awesomeness itself, because this kind of approach - let's call it romantic - should be made new again. You don't have to be stupid to be romantic, although I am aware that the two can often be mistaken. But the album isn't just sadistically corny, it's also funny here and there, sad here and there, but always gentle and marvelous, as the title suggests. Rod's beautiful, simple lyrics are delivered by Aaron in a most direct and tender manner, his voice stripped of all Ween-y shenanigans with which we've been used. The instrumentation is as clear and delicate as the morning dew falling into a baby deer's nostril. The whole thing has this aerial, puffy clouds feel to it, as indeed it should.

So have a listen and do try to recall things as they used to be. I'm merely suggesting that uncool is so totally the new cool, bitch.

Aaron Freeman - The Beautiful Strangers