Monthly Archives: June 2023

#1054: Ween – pork roll egg and cheese

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Ween’s second album The Pod is a notably difficult album to listen through from start to finish. The tracks all suffer from a very low-budget production quality, having all been recorded on a 4-track cassette recorder. Plus, a lot of the songs on there are quite unconventional to say the least. Ween were never ones to hold themselves in any boundaries when it came to making music, and it’s arguable that The Pod is the major exhibit of just how freaky Gene and Dean Ween could get with whatever they had at their disposal. Yet despite all this, this album’s actually really great. Sometimes it feels so wrong to like as many songs as I do on here. They have no right to be as good as they are, as murky and muddy as they all sound. To also help tie this sprawling experience together, specific lyrical themes are brought in and reintroduced during various points. One of them culminating in ‘pork roll egg and cheese’, the album’s penultimate number.

Initially mentioned in the record’s third track ‘Frank’, the ‘pork roll, egg and cheese’ combination is mentioned again in 13th track ‘Awesome sound’ (with additional bacon). It’s sort of referred to in ‘Pollo Asado’. The phrase is repeated from the beginning to end of the track ‘She fucks me’ as some sort of madness mantra. If you hadn’t by this point, you’ll definitely be wondering what this fixation with this damn sandwich is all about. And right after that last repetition of the phrase in ‘She fucks me’ ends comes the track fully dedicated to it. In comparison to the 21 songs that precede it, ‘pork roll egg and cheese’ is almost like a lullaby. It’s a really relaxing, very chilled track. I don’t think it would be wrong to say it’s actually rather cute in a way. It’a pleasant ode to the times, after having completed a hard day’s work, to just sit down, gather your thoughts and eat some good food.

Let’s say there were potential discussions of singles from this album, which there probably weren’t but just go along with me for this, I don’t think it would be wrong to put ‘pork roll egg and cheese’ as a definite contender. Sure, the subject matter’s a little out there. It may have needed to go through a rerecording/remix. But man, this song hits all the right spots even in its original form on the album. Even the little moments like the split-second clearing of the throat at the song’s start or when Gene Ween kinda cracks up during the verse before the last chorus always scratch that inner itch. Reading comments online, I’ve seen people say that this song deserved to close the album out, and it probably should have. It certainly possesses an ending-credits feel to it. Plus it’s where the ‘pork roll egg and cheese’ theme comes to a close having been introduced probably almost an hour earlier. But ‘The Stallion’ has a few last words he’d like to share before truly leaving the listeners to ponder. But really, ‘pork roll’ is one of my highlights from there and most definitely one of my favourite songs by Ween too. I’ll have to try the sandwich one day.

#1053: Weezer – Pork and Beans

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Gonna cast my mind back all the way to 2008. Let’s see. For the first few months of it, I was 12. Then I turned 13. In my second year of secondary school. No longer a junior and old enough to pick on the new first years who came in. I never did that though. I take no delight in those kinds of things. A lot of time was spent playing FIFA 08 on the PS2, even though the PS3 was very much a thing and an item that was quite affordable. My music taste was still very much under the influence of what I saw on TV and to a lesser extent in the charts. But by that year I was already a firm fan of Weezer, owning physical copies of the Blue Album and Pinkerton and enjoying their music videos whenever they showed up on MTV or other channels of the like. So I was really excited when the Red Album was coming around. Was the first album in three years since Make Believe which, unbeknownst to me at the time, had received the worst reception of any Weezer record to date. It carried on the colour theme after Blue and Green. Things could only go up from here. And just a few weeks after my 13th birthday, ‘Pork and Beans’ was released as the big return, the first single off the new album.

I can’t remember where or when I heard the track for the very first time. I’ve known the track and become so familiar with it at this point, it just sort of feels like it’s been around since before I was born. I have this small memory of a guy in my class bringing in his phone one day and me getting really excited that he had ‘Pork and Beans’ on there. I don’t think he even knew what it was or who it was by, and probably downloaded it because it was a popular song. Really, my hype for the track rising to an all-time high when the music video finally became available on this rising video website called YouTube, and was soon playing on MTV2 as a result. The music video contains all of these Internet personalities and OG meme people and was a huge attention-grabber at the time, but is incredibly dated looking at it 15 years on. I however had no idea who any of the people in there were apart from maybe Tay Zonday, the Numa Numa guy and the Leave Britney alone man. But they all didn’t matter. What did was that Weezer was back, and at the very least it rocked a lot harder than the last time the first single was released from one of their albums.

An executive at Geffen Records told Rivers Cuomo and the rest of the band that they needed to record more commercial material one day. Feeling somewhat annoyed and insulted by the suggestion, he was inspired to write a new song which in turn became ‘Pork and Beans’. Cuomo addresses having to deal with getting older, working out at the gym, putting Rogaine in his hair and the pressures of writing that perfect pop song to dominate the music charts. But considering all this, he tells the listener that, really, once he thinks about all of these things, he’s just going to do what he wants to do, he hasn’t got anything to prove and he’ll just continue on his merry way without considering what outsiders think about him. Was very close to just typing out the lyrics in the chorus to you, but it couldn’t be explained any simpler than how it’s sung during those moments. And speaking of the chorus, it’s such a great singalong section. I mean, any chorus has to be one of those. But this one in particular’s led by a greatly memorable melody accompanied by crunchy guitars and confident rhythm section. I don’t know what it was about producer Jacknife Lee in 2007/08, but a lot of bands wanted his hands on their records, and one thing I’ve noticed listening to his productions of that era is that he could make guitars sound machines and I think that also comes into great effect on this track. The Red Album is probably seen as fairly average Weezer album in terms of their group’s whole discography, but ‘Pork and Beans’ is a damn good track. To this day, probably still one of my favourite Weezer singles.

#1052: Panda Bear – Ponytail

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According to my post on ‘Comfy in Nautica’, some time in December 2013 was when which I listened through Panda Bear’s Person Pitch for the very first time. Although I couldn’t have said that it was one of my favourite albums from that initial point, I recall ‘Comfy’ and the closer ‘Ponytail’ being the two tracks from there that struck an immediate chord with me. The album as a whole didn’t properly click until I revisited it in 2016. For whatever reason, could put it down to aging and probably a better appreciation of patience as a result, nearly every song on them became an instant hit. ‘Ponytail’ always felt like a good way to close out the album, but with this new sense of familiarity with the album, why it was chosen to be the statement to cap it off became much more clearer.

The very large majority of Person Pitch is sample-heavy. Not in the way that’s so egregious and obvious like you’ll get in too many examples to list, but much more tastefully. Like how in ‘Comfy in Nautica’, the chanting is a split second slice of the vocals from a song from the Thin Red Line film or the use of the ‘Tonight’s the night that I’m going to ask her’ lyric from The Equals’ ‘Rub a Dub Dub’ in ‘Bros’. In the instrumental track that precedes ‘Ponytail’, Panda Bear’s vocal is fed through a synthesizer and manipulated so that it cuts out and comes back in at unexpected moments, giving it a tape skipping effect. ‘Ponytail’ is the only track on the album that has no samples in sight. No warped-out vocal effects either. Nope. Here is just a reverb-drenched keyboard and pulsing, heartbeat-like kick drum, over which Lennox sings about wanting to fulfill his potential and never becoming too complacent.

There’s a great sense of innocence that I always feel when I hear this track. The keys have a bit of a toy-like tone to them, and whether or not it’s intentional, Panda Bear has a timbre in his vocal here that makes him sound much younger than the age he would have been when making the song. Quite ironic though because very much unlike a child, Lennox is sure of what he wants to do in his life. He makes that clear earlier with ‘Bros’, and he’s also a source of good advice via ‘Take Pills’ and ‘Comfy in Nautica’. In ‘Ponytail’ though he seems to plainly tell the listener his mission statement of life, which is to never feel settled, to keep exploring and to keep on caring for everything and everyone without become so jaded. With this message and its sweet, subtle delivery, it had to be the closer to this huge psychedelic pop experience.

#1051: Radiohead – Polyethylene (Parts 1 & 2)

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A long, long time ago, wanna say 2009, I listened to parts 1 and 2 of Radiohead’s ‘Polyethylene’. The track itself is a B-side that was originally released on the ‘Paranoid Android’ single in 1997. But in 2009, it was made available again on the new “Collector’s Edition” of OK Computer. These editions, also made for Pablo Honey up to Hail to the Thief, were considered to be something of a cash-grab devised by the band’s former EMI label and have since been rubbished by the band and many fans too. I listened to the track that one time, so it was like virtually hearing the song for the first time when it was then released again on 20th OK Computer anniversary, OKNOTOK release that came around in 2017.

Like its A-side counterpart, ‘Polyethylene (Parts 1 and 2)’ is also formed by apparently taking two seemingly separate pieces of music and putting them together to make one whole thing. But in this case, ‘Polyethylene’ starts off as a quiet acoustic number before faking the listener out and turning into a energized and emphatic full-on band performance. For the first 40 seconds, Thom Yorke calms us with some sweet dulcet tones and a sole acoustic take. What he’s singing about here is debatable, the lyrics in this section aren’t too decipherable either. Nothing new when it comes to Yorke’s enunciation in certain songs. Yorke abruptly stops, and a descending electric guitar run opens up the second part of the track with the rest of the band falling in not too long after. That guitar line acts as the main riff for the remainder of the song, and after each repetition of it comes the huge impact of the electric guitars and crash cymbals coming in together. A huge release of energy every time.

Here, Yorke’s vocals are a lot more clearer, though the lyrics read off like a list of items and slogans that he may have observed and taken a note of, rather than displaying a narrative or having a coherent theme throughout. That doesn’t matter all that much though, ’cause there’s a ton of feeling in the delivery. Also, during the first few measures of the verses, Yorke is singing and playing the guitar in 3/4 while the drums continue in 4/4 to have this polyrhythmic effect going on. I want to believe that’s a nod to the Beatles’ ‘Happiness Is a Warm Gun’ which also utilises the same feature for a moment or two. It’s known that that song was an influence on ‘Paranoid Android’, so why not this one too? I’ve come to really like ‘Polyethylene’ over the years, probably more than songs that made it onto their respective albums. Why it didn’t make it onto OK Computer, only the band will know, but with its B-side status the track lies low in the shadows, which makes it all the more special for those who go on to discover it.

#1050: Ween – Polka Dot Tail

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If you were to go on Spotify and search up Ween’s The Mollusk, you’ll see that ‘Polka Dot Tail’ is the least played track out of the album’s first seven songs. Just about though, only 124 less than the next track and that one is the vaudeville/showtime-esque opening number. Actually, that’s at the time that this post is being written. That may well have changed since then. Even so, I feel like the least-played scenario has been the case for this song for quite a while. Well, I guess one song has to be listened to the least. But if it were up to me, the track would much, much higher. It’s been one of my favourite songs from that album ever since listening to it for that first time in 2014.

The fluttering keyboard from the preceding title track has just about finished fading away into the distant silence before the disorienting synths of ‘Polka’ fill the soundscape once more. The track is something of a slow, psychedelic waltz. Waltzes are usually in 3/4 time, right? On every one count is a huge kick drum whose bass hits with a massive force, while an acoustic guitar lays out the chord progression on the left channel and a synthesizer playing the root notes in the right. A double-tracked Gene Ween harmonises with himself, his voice sounding a little pitched-down due to the process of recording at a faster pace and slowing the tape down, something which was well-known feature in a lot of Ween songs. And what he sings about, whales with polka dot tails, taking flans and squishing them in hands and the rhyme schemes he adopts are very much based on the children’s song ‘Down by the Bay’. In fact, here’s a performance of that particular song by children’s music singer Raffi in which he says that lyric outright.

At points after Gene Ween sings “Tell me it ain’t so”, the synths drone on, building tension, leaving the listener to wonder what turn this track might just take next. At one of these moments Gene says ‘Billy’, which came across as random to me, as it probably would to any listener, when I first heard it. Once I found out that the bending, echoing guitar solo that follows that utterance was played by Bill Fowler, a good friend of the band’s, then it made a lot more sense. And I guess the ‘help me’ that’s said before the final solo is a call to Fowler to bring things home. I really enjoy this track. It’s woozy, pushes you from side to side. Like I said earlier, the bass kicks have an almighty weight behind them and hit real hard each time they arrive. With all the talk about whales and imagery of puppies flying and shrinking like ice cubes in the sink, the musical/lyrical combination establishes a psychedelic energy to the proceedings while also reinforcing the nautical theme that runs throughout the album. If ‘The Mollusk was the warm inviting moment, ‘Polka Dot Tail’ is the moment where the doors open and you begin to realise the party might just be a bit weirder than you thought it would be.