Ween

Ah, music in the '90s. The showboating and guitar wizardry of glam were going into hibernation, primitive digital gear (like the DAT drum machine heard on this gem) was becoming reasonably affordable, and the air was ripe with apathy and sarcasm. The Nintendo generation had traded their controllers for guitars, and a new movement was born. Two pseudo-brothers, Dean and Gene Ween, were two of the first to stand up and boldly say, "We don't give a shit about genres, styles or any of your goddamned rules." They boys seemed content to take a toke or two and write whatever made them laugh, and the result was somehow brilliant.

Though Ween was only months away from immortality with the release of "Push Th' Little Daisies," the evening that was captured on this disc saw them road-dogging it for nearly ten months, but that didn't seem to phase the duo a bit as they whole-heartedly and half-wittily pound out jangly anthems like "Never Squeal" and "Don’t Get 2 Close (2 My Fantasy)" for the unsuspecting frequenters of Chapel Hill, NC’s Cat’s Cradle.

The true genius of Ween lay not in their sarcastic, between-song banter–anyone can crack bad jokes after a few shots and bonghits–but in underhanded way they display true skill and solid musicianship and crossbreed a million musical flavors with minimal effort. Despite a slow start, the show really takes off at the midway point with the harmonious lounge-jazz-cum-noise tune “Demon Sweat” and Hendrix hat-tipping “You Fucked Up.” Only a band like Ween could flawlessly blend reggae (“Mango Woman”) mariachi sleaze (“El Camino”) and noisy punk “Papa Zit” into the same set and still sound like the same band. Today’s Myspace generation might have a million or two bands who think they can replicate this smarmy vibe, but they're hacks, and this blast from the past only exemplifies their shortcomings.

—Ryan Ogle
02.09.09

There are plenty of official Ween live albums in the band's catalog, but none captured the early years when Dean and Gene toured on their own -- supported only by a DAT machine -- until At the Cat's Cradle, 1992 appeared at the close of 2008. During those years, the duo would blow through roughly 20 songs in an hour and it was possible for the band to keep that pace because the DAT allowed no room for improvisation: when the tape was done, the song was done. This could make for great or terrible shows but often the differences were subtle, depending on the mood of either the crowd or the bandmembers themselves rather than changes in the set list, because Dean and Gene were tied to that DAT machine. Many die-hard fans still look upon this time quite fondly -- some are so set in their ways that they think this is the peak of the band -- but upon listening to At the Cat's Cradle it becomes clear why Ween started touring with a full band a couple of years later: compared to the wild, freewheeling latter-day live albums, this is a bit constrained. Of course, those limits are part of the charm of this set, too, as Ween did a lot with very little: they could sound gnarled and ugly, as they do on "Cover It with Gas and Set It on Fire," then turn it around and be stiffly funky on "The Goin' Gets Tough from the Getgo." Some of the songs from GodWeenSatan and The Pod actually sound fuller here on-stage -- that's especially true of harder rockers like "Captain Fantasy" and "You Fucked Up" -- but the Pure Guava selections (along with "Buckingham Green," which wouldn't surface on a studio album for another five years) do suggest that they need a little more muscle to do the material justice. But At the Cat's Cradle is more than just a curio because it does capture Ween at the crossroads: it has the weird brown sound of their earliest years but it also illustrates why they had to leave it behind as well. [At the Cat's Cradle, 1992 also contains a 17-track DVD of live performances from Ween in 1992.] ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide