AARON INTERVIEW

There's a bit of "Drifter in the Dark" in there, a song I've never seen or heard live. He also talks about "Pushing the Clouds Away" a song which is not a song, but a poem and with which I do not resonate at all. It's not the lyrics ( I can resonate with some of them, if not all), but it's this affectation of poetry, of spoken word, that just kills me. The level of kitsch and sentimentality is just too much, even though you'd think a devoted Ween fan might have developed some tolerance for those, but no. I'd much rather push some daisies instead of clouds, thank you.
But I do like the way he speaks about his/their fans.
However, that doesn't change the fact that this is bullshit...Ok, so Aaron's the sensitive, fragile one, he likes cheesy music, among other things. Fine. That's always been part of Ween. But Mickey's got Moistboyz as an outlet and that's never stood between him and Ween. Why can't you do that same, Aaron? No one's stopping you from doing your solo projects, man. Take your time, no rush (5 years since the last Ween album, but who's counting), it's fine. Take all the time you need to start missing Ween. Cause now you're all clean and smell like baby farts and that's great. I'm serious, that is great. But don't act like a freaking Reiki diva, like you have seen the light and felt the energies and smelled the auras and shoot crap with fat little angels. It's just an overreaction. It's normal, but that's all it is.
Get a glass of water and think, dude.

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

Sober ninja

As you should know by now, I love this man. And I didn't think it possible to love him more, but there you go: I do. His first solo album - Marvelous Clouds - will be out on the 8th of May and my ears are trembling with anticipation. All the songs on the album are Rod McKuen covers and I'm not ashamed to admit, I had no idea who Rod McKuen was. He seems to have been lost somewhere inside the folds of pop history as it has happened many times before with a wide variety of "unsung heroes", as the phrase goes. Shit happens, and I'm starting to believe it is supposed to. That's the natural order of things and stuff. 

There's a great recent interview with Aaron here, in which he talks about, not only Rod McKuen and Marvelous Clouds, but also about his health, his past fuck ups (such as Vancouver) and the future of Ween. Silver lining everywhere. Fingers crossed, because I want these guys to go on for as long as it is humanly possible and then a few more steps. Presently they seem to be doing great: Aaron's getting clean and Mickey's gone fishing. Good. Do what you have to do, take a break from Ween, whatever needs to be done, just keep that engine running. The only thing that pisses me off - and has been for many years now - is that they just don't like it in Europe (and have probably never heard of Romania), so I'm stuck here dreaming of a hundred amazing shows I'll never get to see. And now I'm reading in the interview that Aaron's idea for the Marvelous Clouds shows is to use Leonard Cohen's Live in London show as a template. Aaron and Leonard (and Rod) merged into one. Well, Aaron, I love you, man, but fuck you dude, you have no idea how this feels to me. And I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one. I can't just pick up and go to America every time you guys are on tour there and only there. But you're on tour. You've been touring the fuck out of America for years, would it hurt to hit Europe once every five American tours? Yeah, I'm a bit bitter on that subject. I've only seen Ween live once somewhere in 2003 and I'm still bragging about it like a damn christian waving a Bible, it feels really silly already.

But back to the good stuff, I'm really glad he's doing ok, I loved his honesty in the interview and I laughed my head off at the "sober ninja" expression, so I'm using it as a title for this post, although a better use for it would be as a title for a song or even an album, it's hilarious.

Go Aaron! Go see Europe, you fucking sunny bunny.

Here's the first track on the album:

Aaron, free man

Dude, dude, DUDE! like, OMG! OMFG, Dude! He's alive, like, he's alright, dude, he fuckin speaks!!!

Ok, now with that out of the way:
GENER SOLO.
No Ween, just Aaron, brand new first solo album called

MARVELOUS CLOUDS

out in April.

Here's Aaron and the cover:

I'm not sure if this is the cover for the album or for the single and who cares really.
Now here's the tracklist:

• As I Love My Own
• Jean
• Marvelous Clouds
• A Man Alone
• The Beautiful Strangers
• Doesn't Anybody Know My Name
• One By One
• Pushing The Clouds
• The Lovers
• Mr. Kelly
• Love's Been Good To Me
• Lonesome Cities
• The World I Used To Know

Beautiful. To be honest, I'm expecting sentimental fluffy shit, most of it, which I'm gonna love anyway, not because it's Gene we're talking about and I swallow any crap from him, but because he IS indeed Gene and Gene very rarely comes up with crap, no matter how mooshy it may sound.
Details about the album HERE, I'm not gonna re-write the whole thing like I'm telling something new.

So here's the trailer for the album as well. Looks action-packed.