Watch Dean Ween Play Live Requests On Mickey’s Warm Wet Stream

A couple of weeks ago, I went to pick up my friend Thea, so that we could go see Flying Lotus do a 3D concert at the Paramount Theatre in Seattle.  She is an artist and those of you who are fans of WEEN might be familiar with her work, either from her paintings or the WEEN coloring book that she created and was sold through the New Hope, PA band’s website.  [We also posted an interview with her back in 2009].  She’s good friends with the guys, especially Deaner, and we actually flew down together to catch their reunion shows in Colorado back in February of last year.  The point is that, it’s not unheard of for the topic of WEEN to come up in conversation for that very reason, and I was mentioning to her how much I enjoyed/missed it when Mickey  (Melchiondo) aka “Dean Ween,” used to do his live stream just prior to those reunion shows.  Titled Mickey’s Warm Wet Stream, it only ran for about a 3-week period and, generally, consisted of not more than a few dozen of us, at most, tuning in for it, at any given time; but those of us who did, did so somewhat religiously.  It was a pretty amazing and, at times, even intimate, experience to provide for a fanbase.  Thea never really tuned into it, herself, but she can also just text Mickey directly if she ever felt like speaking with him, so I’d imagine it have probably would have held much less for her in that respect.

For the rest of us, however, the guitarist was providing an inside look behind the scenes in a number of ways, including giving us freshly recorded samples of what he was creating for what would eventually be released as his first LP as the Dean Ween Group.  Among some of the other great stuff Melchiondo was offering up were scoops on WEEN history, and even a clip of the unaired Mickey and Les Claypool fishing show.  Of course, it was all done under the agreement that everything would remain on the feed and, if there was any evidence that anyone was trying to record anything and/or spread information across the net, the channel would be promptly shut down and Mickey would kill everyone.  There was even a bit of a panic once, when he hurt his thumb, because the show dates were just around the corner.  Eventually, Deaner got pissed at Ustream, which he was using to stream/host his channel, and it resulted in the whole thing getting abruptly pulled by him.  Briefly after it going down, Mickey uploaded one of the things that he’d shared with us during that stream, to youtube: a 1995 interview on Australian radio aired during their Chocolate & Cheese tour.  We made a post featuring that when it went up in January of last year and, along with the interview, I included the following elaboration about what the stream used to consist of.

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“The guitarist would pop up on there sporadically, sometimes offering a little insight into his process, or a bit of Ween trivia, while playing old shows, or hipping us to a little taste of a rarity.  Maybe we’d even just watch a science show hosted by Jurassic Park star, Sam Neill.  The stream quickly picked up steam and content began streaming more and more frequently, often in a loop.  A mini community accumulated overnight, discussions in the chat bar going on even without Melchiondo‘s presence, or anything streaming, at all; sometimes into the wee hours of the night.  Then, like clockwork, right when people were ready to retire, a little “Yo” would pop up from Deaner, followed by a “Here we go,” or “check this out.”  At the end of it’s run, the stream had a little over 500 official followers, but would generally max out at around only 34, or so, viewers at any one time.  Out of those, maybe about half were actively communicating through the chat.  When David Bowie passed away, nothing but old interviews and performances by the Thin White Duke played, followed by his 1976 film, The Man Who Fell To Earth on repeat.  The day before was sprinkled with everyone’s live commentary of the NFL playoff games — the collective viewpoint is that Joe Buck is a trash commentator.“

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It’s true that there remains a fairly active WEEN group on Facebook and I temporarily joined it as a substitute after the stream left, but it’s one of those groups that’s active to the point where the updates become irritatingly excessive — I simply don’t care about the Boognish that your kid drew.  Mickey frequented that one, as well, and I assume that he continues to, but it has a completely different vibe than the stream, which seemed to find and maintain the perfect balance, somehow.  There’s definitely some great stuff in there, but to me, the Facebook group often seemed to be overrun with people lining up to suck their favorite rock star’s dick and begging to purchase his old T-Shirts.  Once I called someone out for swiping my photography from this very site and posting it on their own, and got swarmed by the same type of ignorant mob that you find everywhere else on the web, who attempt to condescendingly justify the stealing other people’s work by referencing concepts of legality and “fair use” that they never truly comprehend, I was just kind of over it, so I removed myself, dipped out, and never went back.

So… as I said, I was thinking/talking about how I missed the stream, and then, at some point yesterday evening, a new clip was posted on Mickey‘s Brownie Troop Fishing account on youtube, which came from it.  Part of Melchiondo‘s close connection with his fanbase can be demonstrated through such examples as where he helped write a letter to a teacher for a college student that was missing class to see the reunion shows — that actually unfolded on the Facebook group — and in how the fans actually helped in financing Deaner‘s own studio to help help him record.  While the studio was being built, the man himself appeared with his acoustic on the Warm Wet Stream and, backed by WEEN keyboardist, Glenn McClellend, played a selection of live requests for $5 a pop.  Featured in this clip are renditions of 3 such tunes:  “Pandy Fackler” (complete with electric drill solo), “Boys Club,” and “Touch My Tooter.”

The brief description accompanying the video is as follows:

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New Years like 3 years ago—me and glenn streaming live with gabe and Spencer while we built the studio—-originally on stream when it was still free. just goofing around takin requests

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The “gabe and Spencer” referenced appear to be “number one roadie and smoke machine master,” Gabe Monago and Spencer Johnson, of the New Hop group, Sugar Burns.

Check the footage out below.