MEGATONIC album, the expanded 2CD edish in particular.

I like early Sebadoh and late Sebadoh and whatever passes for middle-aged Sebadoh.

I just like Sebadoh.

I was listening to ''Bakesale'' last night thinking how much that record misses Gaffney's songwriting. FAGGOTS!!!

Harmacy > Bakesale anyway.

Harmacy is the best!!

Harmacy, the sebadoh, and smash yr head are my favs

BUBBLE & SCRAPE is #1
Smash Yr Head on the Punk Rock is #2

Licence, Amused and Dramamine are killer.

But I agree. Props to "On Fire" where Barlow finally writes a heart-on-my-sleeve song that doesn't make me gag. Otherwise, only 6 duds. Usually, there are only 6 good ones.

But I really like the good ones. Seb, for me, is a "best-of" band. I go through the albums, pick out my favorites and end up with an amazing listen. But I'm often frustrated trying to listen to the albums themselves all the way through, except maybe Harmacy.

https://youtu.be/4Ns5wzSmVWM

BUBBLE & SCRAPE!!!!!

fucking love this album. FLOOD is such a killer closing track

Yeah, I get hung up on Bubble & Scrape a LOT. I always seem to forget how absolutely fucking brilliant that album is, and I tend to leave it out of discussions of my favorite Sebadoh albums because I'm usually focusing on III and Harmacy.

But Bubble is just awesome. I'm going to listen to it now in fact.

I've always loved "Not Too Amused" ... people love to give Bakesale crap for being the easy answer, the poppy mainstream favorite... the Sebadoh album for people who wish Sebadoh sounded more like Pavement... etc.

But "Not too Amused" comes right out of hell, like some scalding venomous Steve Albini track. I love the build. Poppy or not, Bakesale is an alternative rock favorite for very good reasons.

I get what you mean about Sebadoh being more of a "best of" thing for you. I think I used to feel that way too, until I really dug into the early stuff.

Their music is different enough from album to album that I rarely skip around, or stop an album to put another one in. That's the kind of thing I do with Guided by Voices.. a great band, no matter how conventional and predictable they've become... but one that certainly didn't need to release as many albums as they did.

I have the most fun with GbV when I'm listening to Live from Austin, TX or Human Amusement at Hourly Rates or some playlist full of short EP's and singles. There are very few GbV albums that I ever listen to from start to finish.

I agree, but the world doesn't.

And I'm not sure how reliable I am, because I enjoyed the hell out of Defend Yourself.

Hm. I just see two phases, really: early lo-fi period and then the rest. I guess the production varies, but I don't think the composition or playing does. I'm usually hard pressed to say which song is which album. But I can see how people like the bulk of their stuff, especially if I consider the warm associative memories which often accompany the listening.

I have never been very much in Sebadoh or Lou Barlow, but Dumb Numbers-album is quite good. This is still the greatest song to me that came year 2013:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GABWRSV4saE

Yeah qotsa rules

That album is great.

But i have sebadoh on fire in my head still...

The Mollusk is my fav Ween album for sure.

Folk Implosion's One Part Lullaby is my fav of theirs. Fucking "Mechanical Man."

Fuck yeah first Qotsa album + Rated R...

I have to admit, I kinda fell off with Songs for the Deaf. Dave Grohl started turning up... things got really "alternative rawk" really fast. The craziness that I loved about the first two records was replaced by all this pretty basic rock stuff.

I mean, Them Crooked Vultures was a supergroup with Jimmy Page. It doesn't really get more trad rock than that.

I still think they're better than most modern rock-type-stuff bands (ugh.. Wolfmother is celebrating some 10th anniversary of why I'm certain is their only hit... Why?), and I still love Kyuss, but at this point I don't even read Qotsa articles. The name doesn't register as something I consider read-worthy.

But those first two albums... God damn man! Stooges worthy is right. "Regular John" is one of the great opening tracks, fuck it all.

The Mollusk is a goddamn masterpiece. I used to think Chocolate & Cheese was the best, but Mollusk is like the fucking White Album of Ween. If I were in charge of things, that fucker would have won so many Grammys.

Ween is of course a definitive and essential band, and they didn't really fuck around much with "not great" music. Every album has its own special awesomeness. Even La Cucaracha. But the Mollusk is just motherfucking insanity. Horrifying and ear splitting and violent but I swear "It's Gonna Be Alright Baby" would be a #1 if Coldplay or U2 recorded it.

Sebadoh... Ween... Qotsa ... They all kind of part of a very similar tradition aren't they?

I love back in the day shit-shootin' sessions.

Kyuss is so great and the only stoner band I really love! My fav is Sky Valley, but really love also Blues for the red sun and Circus (it´s really odd album in a good way). Desert Sessions 9 & 10 is just great, never get into QOTSA maybe just because they´re too produced, but I think I should listen some some their albums where are the "real" versions of that desert sessions songs.

One of these days I am going to listen much more Ween than I have listened.

Do it.

You value musicianship, I know, and the Ween "brothers" are actually incredible players, pretty much capable of playing anything. The fact that they chose to play such weird and crazy shit and curse like sailors and be generally preposterous in every way can sometimes make people think they're not serious about music, but nothing could be further from the truth.

They're totally serious about music. It's lyrics, concepts, thematic content, imagery, genre norms and pretty much everything else that they're not serious about ;)

White pepper is weens white album haha.

Aw I see what you did there!

That little I listened showed me I will like this band. Just haven´t yet have time to it. What album you recommend to start?

oh, and fuck Ween.

A guy I ended up despising played Ween all the time. He'd wake me by blasting "Push the Little Daisies," my vote for Most Annoying Song Ever. I loath them, although this might not be fair. Whatever. Double fuck them.

I'm sensing that you've never been awakened by Primus's "My Name is Mud" at obscenely high volumes.

Because that shit... That soulless shit.. is fucking next generation "annoying" - I hate asshole band.

To start? Probably Chocolate & Cheese. It goes down pretty easy.

GodWeenSatan: The Oneness is a fantastic debut, and the Pod is probably their first "classic", but it's hard for me to imagine someone who's not already into Ween being into those records.

But like I said, I think the Mollusk was their greatest achievement as a band. So if you're relatively new to their sound, I would say Chocolate & Cheese and the Mollusk are the best ones to start with.

But I fully recommend digging in completely if you like what you hear.

My Name is Mud is very repetitive and boring, but Jerry was a racecra driver, Frizzle Fry, and Too Many Puppies rule

Chocolate and cheese
Mollusk
White pepper

Great intros before getting into the truly weird shit

Most of their later albums sound like compilations of a dozen unrelated bands. Its incredible

Maybe I'll give Songs for the Dead another listen.
I did enjoy the songs, but nothing absolutely pummeled my brain like "Give the Mule What He Wants" or "Reg John" or "Quick and to the Pointless" and there also seemed to be no real revelatory moments, like "I was a Teenage Handmodel" or "In the Fade" those songs that just kind of linger in the tenements of your subconscious...

Dave Grohl will play with fucking anyone, and I haven't cared for anything he's written since 97. So he's not a selling point for me. But maybe I should fuck with that album again after all these years.

Agreed all around. Don't forget "Zoloft", one of their most perfect moments, and a great tune for the uninitiated.

Yeah, totally sick. That's true. I picked up on the oft-referred to "scariness" of Ween long before I actually got into them. Someone told me they were basically the most disturbing, fucked up band ever, and I didn't need to be convinced. All I needed to do was look at the cover of the Pod, which despite being based on the 1975 Best of Leonard Cohen cover, with almost nothing added to it, still manages to give me the fucking chills for some reason.

Also song titles, the apparent NEED for obscenity, these were the things that stuck in my mind about Ween, the things that made me totally believe that their music was going to be fucked.

And yeah, a lot of it is. They are scary. One of my favorite songs of theirs, "Spinal Meningitis" (which coincidentally has a very proto-QOTSA chorus) is so goddamn fucked up man... the distorted voice of a "child" with a terrible illness whining "it really hurts mommy/ am I gonna die?" is no less disturbing for the gitty retarded Ren & Stimpy chimes that enfold the skeletal verse.... If the chorus didn't bring the rock I'd have a hard time listening to it.

But the truth is that they're also a benevolent force in music. They're not *truly* scary like Idaho backwoods KKK hardcore bands or Billy Joel. They're like the perfect model of art imitating life imitating art, and everything they did they did with the intention of challenging and expanding our ideas of what music should be. They were true experimentalists, like Sonic Youth, like Aphex Twin, like Zappa and Beefheart and Brian Eno and Lou Reed.

I hate having to explain why I like Ween, because to me it feels as natural as liking Sonic Youth or the Flaming Lips or any of the other artists I mentioned. I like them because I like fucked up music, and I like pop music, and I like it when the two meet and shake hands and do a little dance and then chop one another's heads off. I love experimentation and unexpected sounds and inimitable artists, and that's what Ween's about.

Duh.

Sorry man I just really like the White Stripes. They're not a favorite, but I am glad they were around to be the biggest thing in the music world for a while because they were good at it, and they were well branded and they put on a ripping good show, and they kinda reminded me of the Beatles in some weird ways I can't defend. Yeah early Qotsa is better, but I do love every white stripes album. I loved hearing Citizen Kane quotes on mainstream radio in 2001 (whaaat?), and I loved how weird some of the songs that filled their run of #1 albums were. Why is "Girl You Have no faith in medicine" on a Grammy winning album? Or "Black Math"? I don't know. The hardest fucking button to button? What? Awesome.

They did their thing and now Jack White is a freaking massive celebrity and I don't care, because the white stripes kicked some serious shit out when they were together.

Songs For Deaf is really good.

Also, I really like Foo Fighters (still) so what the fuck do I know?