Amazing GENE WEEN New Orleans Prints by TODD SLATER

May 6, 2011 in art, Music

If you poke around on Monster Fresh long enough you should be able to discover a couple of things fairly easily.  One is that we like art.  Another is that we really like the band WEEN.  Whether it comes from the guys being incredibly discriminate or just simply being incredibly fortunate, WEEN has -and continues to have-  some of the most consistent artwork from any band around.  Gig posters have proven themselves to be increasingly collectible over the years and the prints created to support and commemorate shows by the boys from New Hope have found themselves within the top tier of this phenomenon.  The true secret seems to be that the band often pulls from a very elite group of regular artists, all of which seem to be legitimate fans of the group.  Artists like Justin Hampton, Emek, Jermaine Rogers, and GreggGigartGordon are not only loyal contributors to the WEEN poster art dynasty, but they are also some of the most respected poster artists in the game, altogether.  Another such artist is TODD SLATER, whose latest work involves a pair of posters for the back to back GENE WEEN New Orleans shows during Jazz Fest, which are guaranteed to become instant classics.
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EXCLUSIVE WEEN PHOTOS: The Sasquatch Music Festival [May 31, 2010]

June 5, 2010 in art, Music

Last weekend marked the 9th annual Sasquatch Music Festival at the Gorge Amphitheater in George, Wa.  The lineup was pretty impressive this year and included MGMT, The XX, LCD Soundsystem, Nurses and even Pavement.  Closing out the festivities was a performance by one of our favorite bands of all-time, WEEN.  I was there all weekend so that I could report on everything that went down and regurgitate it back for you assholes, but I am still putting everything together, going through photos, and simply recovering.  You may have noticed that we don’t typically just post updates here and there.  It’s much more important for us to process everything and provide something that is more adequately thought out.  Hopefully it’s something that will actually provide the reader with new information and, if we’re really lucky, something that can even moderately stand the test of time.  With a situation like this year’s Sasquatch, however, there’s a lot to deal with, so I’m going to do things a little differently.  I’m covering the entire 3-Day event all by myself, including photography, reviews, editing, etc, and so there’s a lot for me to organize.  The reviews will be posted soon but, seeing as I have a ton of images and only a handful of them will be used in those reviews, I wanted to drop some photos from the WEEN set right here and right now.  These aren’t all of the photos even obtained at the WEEN show, but it’s a lot of them (24 to be exact).  This is a little update for everyone, while I process everything else, because I’m assuming that a lot of you probably still don’t know about our Flickr account.  More images will be popping up on that account as we process them, so keep your eye on there if you want to see more.  For now, please enjoy the images of Gene and Dean provided below.

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Gently Smiling Jaws: Gene Ween at the Crocodile [Seattle]

June 29, 2009 in Music, Reviews, With Video

Gener-ShadowOn the 19th, I was fortunate enough to catch a rare solo acoustic performances by AaronGene WeenFreeman.  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 CoastFreeman is, of course, one of two founding members of the group WEEN; the other being MickeyDean WeenMelchiondo.  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. Read the rest of this entry →

What Gener was Talking About: Gene Ween Band hits Brooklyn

February 16, 2009 in Movies / Television, Music, PSA, Reviews

gene-ween-band-promo

Heath Ledger killed the Joker (ha-ha). Everyone is concerned with originality and ownership. But c’mon folks, “Why so serious?”. If the ending results of an idea are more crisp and refreshed under new and loving inspiration, then I welcome them. Is this the case for The Gene Ween Band?  What?

The Gene Ween Band is a side project of Aaron Freeman of Ween” says their official MySpace.

Aaron “Gene Ween” Freeman, Dave Dreiwitz, Scott Metzger, and Joe Russo is the official band roster.   A dream team of some of indie/jam rock’s finest are the meat in this gumbo, branded with the Boognish seal of “WEEN”.  Does this overshadow the “Gene” & “Band” aspects?  Many will expect the universe.  Many will naysay. Read the rest of this entry →