On the 19th, I was fortunate enough to catch a rare solo acoustic performances by Aaron “Gene Ween” Freeman.  Over the last week or so, I’ve simply been going through the photographs that I took and digesting the whole experience.  The Seattle show was the last of only 4 that Gener was doing for his June, mini-tour down the West Coast.  Freeman is, of course, one of two founding members of the group WEEN; the other being Mickey “Dean Ween” Melchiondo.  I’m not going to waste too much of my time by going into their extensive background all over again.  If you’re not hip to WEEN yet, then your ass needs to get hip.  We here at MonsterFresh love the WEEN, as evidenced by the multiple posts that we’ve all ready written about them, and we’re always eager to cover any new project that the guys are working on.

Melchiondo is well known for his side-work with the group Moistboyz and, bassist, Dave Dreiwitz is involved with multiple other projects.  Freeman, on the other hand, has often seemed less eager to venture out beyond his work with the band.  Toward the end of last year, however, Gener began to do just that, by playing various shows with his recently formed Gene Ween Band {You may have read the review by our writer A.Misalatti, who we sent to cover the new 4-piece‘s performance in Brooklyn back in February}.  Since the group didn’t come out West for any of the dates, and since I haven’t been to a WEEN show since their last Seattle show in 2007, I was pretty psyched when the West Coast dates were announced. (more…)

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I saw Onsen‘s Subaru from the balcony of my apartment, so I ran down the steps and hopped in to the passenger seat.  We were running late to meet with the artist Thea Wolfe, creator of the WEEN coloring book.

A week earlier, I had received a Google instant message from a friend and staff member at Cornish School of the Arts here in Seattle.  He informed me that there were some really great paintings of WEEN posted up at the institution and suggested that I come down and see them.  In all honesty, I was a bit leery about the validity of the work.  I knew that it was probably either going to be amazing or fucking terrible.  For me, it’s hard to find any gray area with that sort of subject matter.  I was sent a couple of iphone photo images and quickly realized that the artist was no joke; the paintings were, in fact, much more than I could have ever expected.

I wanted to help the student get their work to the source and I quickly had delusions of grandeur, in which I became like Maurice Starr when he discovered New Edition and NKOTB.  I’ve been in semi-regular contact with WEEN‘s management since the site began and I knew that, if I forwarded the images of the painter to them, the work of the artist that I was “discovering” would be undeniable.  “What’s her name and contact info?“  I asked my friend.  He went to check and typed back the name “Thea Wolfe“.  I recognized it immediately and knew that she didn’t need any help from me; I already owned a copy of the coloring book that she created for the group last year.  She wasn’t a current student at all, her paintings were posted up on the alumni wall.

After checking out her site, I headed down to see the paintings in person.  They were much more impressive than any still frame camera could represent.  Colorful and full of motion, many of the paintings had reflective iridescent shapes and pentagons within them that shifted depending on the view, lighting, and angle.  I had never seen a simulation of psychedelic experiences portrayed that way through paint, or any that more accurately conveyed them.  The artist statement explained that the series was based on what Wolfe refers to as “The Year of the Wrong“, a period of time in which she traveled thousands of miles to attend a number of performances on WEEN‘s “La Cucaracha” tour with a primary focus of doing what she felt inside, regardless of how unreasonable, ridiculous, or “wrong” it may seem to the outside world.  Based on her work and various statements and views that she’s expressed through interviews, her website, and elsewhere, I knew that there was the strong probability for a good conversation to come from meeting her in person. (more…)

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