WEEN Announces Chocolate & Cheese Deluxe Reissue w/ “Junkie Boy” Outtake

Last night, WEEN released the single “Junkie Boy” across streaming platforms. The interesting thing about the track is that it isn’t exactly “new;” it’s a song that has both a history and a future. Recorded over 3 decades ago, the tune is an outtake from the Chocolate & Cheese sessions and originally appeared on a cassette known as “the creme de menthe tape.” Like so many recordings that WEEN fans have dug up, stumbled across, speculated about, and/or documented over the years, it was never an “official” release. All we’ve ever had until this point was some incomplete audio and a photograph of the tape circulating online. The photo consists of a TDK cassette and j-card labeled with a tracklist that looks to be handwritten by Deaner aka Mickey “Dean Ween” Melchiondo. Also written is the date “8.05.93.” The song, which is listed with the slightly different spelling, “Junky Boy,” has been easy enough to locate through internet WEEN communities and YouTube for those who sought it out. There’s even some pretty solid audio from a live performance out there. The recording released last night finally allows us to experience the track in all its glory, polished up and a hell of a lot cleaner than the unmixed, blown-out, lo-fi bootleg we’ve heard until now. More importantly, it’s being offered as part of a new 30th Anniversary Deluxe 3LP reissue of Chocolate & Cheese later this year.

“Junkie Boy” has a strong 70s glam rock-era Bowie sound to it, which is no surprise for a band that has been pretty candid about the influence that the Thin White Duke has had on them as musicians. WEEN announced the track via social media with an illustration of an organ grinder monkey and a ton of excitement surrounding it.

Those who don’t follow the band closely might be surprised to learn how hungry WEEN fans have become for absolutely ANYTHING new to be released, or how much unreleased tracks and demos play into the band’s history. The group hasn’t dropped a new studio album since 2007‘s La Cucaracha and the most recent official full-length they’d put out before that was Shinola, Vol. 1. Released in 2005, Shinola was comprised of random unreleased cuts from throughout their career, including different versions of 3 songs that previously appeared on the semi-official mp3-only, Craters Of The Sac EP from 1999. With its cover art featuring a close-up photograph of Melchiondo‘s scrotum, Craters was leaked online as a fuck you to their record label over a dozen years before Death Grips pulled a similar move. The story goes that WEEN had intended to release their live retrospective double-album, Paintin’ The Town Brown as the first title on their own Chocodog label, but Elektra prevented that by putting it out, themselves. The band got pissed and Deaner gifted a free EP to the fans.

In 2011, Melchiondo spontaneously took it upon himself to release a collection of outtakes and demos on Facebook. Titled the Caesar Demos, after the working title for their 2003 album Quebec, the compilation is highly regarded by fans. Unfortunately, the release has also been credited as playing a role in the dissolution of the band which split shortly after. Co-founder/guitarist/primary vocalist, Aaron “Gene Ween” Freeman was never consulted about the decision to release those tracks and, in 2014, he left the following comment on the now-defunct (and notoriously toxic) WEEN forum. “Yes. The Caesar demo release was the straw that broke the camels back. Nobody asked Gener before releasing…Deaner broke the golden rule. the Boognish wept that day.“

During the lead-up to the band’s 2016 reunion shows, Mickey communicated with fans directly through a stream he was hosting, while remaining semi-active on the Ween Appreciation Society Facebook group. At the time, he made mention of a Shinola Volume 2 being released multiple times. Another volume is something that fans had always hoped for, but Deaner was speaking about specifics as far as getting the whole thing together and a release date coming within the following year. Not only did that never happen, but no other new releases have shown up either. We’ve all just been waiting for the last 8 years. Enjoying their amazing live shows and brilliant catalog of music, but waiting nonetheless.

The fanbase is on top of their shit, so a lot of people already knew that “Junkie Boy” was on its way and we were waiting for it. There was some information out ahead of time, but the hard evidence arrived when another timezone — I believe it was first reported from Australia — had it appear on their Spotify up to a day before it arrived in the US. Screenshots were shared that showed “Junkie Boy” listed alongside a slew of other previously unreleased demos and outtakes that were not yet playable on the platform. The collection of tunes was credited as a Chocolate & Cheese “Deluxe” version and featured the additional Creme de Menthe Tape cuts “Dirty Money” and “Smooth Mover.” Somehow, people got their hands on other details like the fact that the Chocolate And Cheese Deluxe 30th Anniversary reissue will be released as a triple-LP with a slated release date of August 2nd. I’m not sure where this inside information was coming from, but it proved to be accurate.

WEEN just unloaded all the information, opened up pre-orders for the deluxe reissue, and made a bunch of related merchandise available on their website. The album will be a 3LP arriving on August 2nd, as speculated. As of now a vinyl-only release, it’s being offered in a standard black option and the “Championship Belt” colored variant pictured above. We expect the black to be everywhere, while the colored wax is a limited edition web store exclusive. One notable feature is that the legendary Bernie Grundman was brought in to remaster the album “from the original flat master tapes,” as well as the bonus material “sourced from cassettes and DAT tapes from the band’s extensive archive.”

The reissue is advertised as containing “15 previously unreleased demos and outtakes curated by Gener and Deaner,” but there’s a video from Rhino where their resident WEEN expert/”A&R man” specifies that the tracks are not only previously unreleased but “previously uncirculated.” The claim is that Aaron and Mickey “sifted through hundreds of hours of tapes” in the process of narrowing it down to their favorite material for inclusion. Photographs of at least some of these archived tapes will be featured on a page inside the booklet of the new deluxe edition. Of this process, Deaner jokes, “…keeping with Ween tradition, Aaron and I probably picked all the wrong songs, mixed them, and now here they are.” He also wrote the liner notes. In them, Melchiondo offers the following statements about listening to the new reissue, “When I hear it, I feel like I’m listening to an autobiography of our lives in the early to mid-’90s…If it sounds like we had fun making it, we did. That’s kind of what Ween is all about, though.“

BONUS TRACKS

So what exactly are these bonus tracks?

Along with the 3 aforementioned Creme de Menthe songs, only 4 of the 12 remaining tracks are demos. From my understanding, “I Got It” has been previously credited as an outtake from Pure Guava (1992), but the only evidence of its existence seems to be that it was played during a 2001 broadcast on WEEN Radio. Check out the full list of bonus tracks below.

SIDE E (Bonus Tracks):

1. Crappy Anniversary Jimmy
2. Warm Socks
3. Stop, Look, Listen (And Learn)
4. Dirty Money
5. I Got It
6. Belgian Stew
7. Voodoo Lady – Demo

SIDE F (Bonus Tracks):

1. Junkie Boy
2. Smooth Mover
3. Church Fire
4. Take Me Away – Demo
5. Sasha
6. Roses Are Free – Demo
7. Candi – Demo
8. I Really Miss You (And I’m All Alone)

THE MERCH

This triple-LP is more than a typical reissue; it’s one component in a full-scale celebration. Later this year, WEEN will perform Chocolate & Cheese in its entirety at a show in Philadelphia. The event will take place on September 27th; exactly 30 years from the date the record was originally released. Since the runtime on the album is shorter than their typical live show, we have to wonder if the remaining time will be filled with the new bonus tracks, whether in part or in full. 

The selection of C&C-related merchandise includes 3 different tees, a corduroy cap, a glittery enamel pin, and a tote bag. A limited edition 18″ x 24 “ print designed by legendary poster artist and long-time WEEN collaborator, ZOLTRON is also being offered, including a special holographic foil variant autographed by Dean and Gene. It turns out that the image of the monkey that accompanied the announcement of “Junkie Boy,” was cropped from the ZOLTRON poster art. They’ve done a solid job with everything here, but this can all get very expensive quickly. For those looking to save a few bucks, they’re offering a bundle consisting of the “Championship Belt” vinyl, the standard version of the ZOLTRON print, and the “Anniversary Tee” featuring the ZOLTRON artwork, while supplies last.

All products are available for preorder in their web store.