So last spring I was able to reconnect with my weird, bright and wonderful college friends again through a sad occasion, which was the untimely loss of the beating heart of our friend group, Mr. Eric J. Lawrence. One of Eric’s favorite bands, which in turn became a college favorite for all of us, was the absurd, zany, and frequently delightful, Ween.

I first discovered Ween in 1992 when I was in my junior year of college at UCLA and during my first year of working at KLA radio (tagline: UCLA’s Only Alternative). I started as a DJ for the Friday midnight-2am slot with my pal Felicia for the show we dubbed “The Midnight Love Hour,” then I eventually graduated to my own show, Postmodern Dementia (at a more reasonable time slot). Eric was in his senior year at UCLA and was a KLA veteran, becoming our “fearless leader” as General Manager (GM) that year, although he continued to DJ a few shows.

Eric introduced all of us to a lot of great music over the years. He was the king of hidden gems when it came to obscure bands, so of course he was the one responsible for getting us into Ween. According to my usual first-look resource, Wikipedia:

Ween is an American rock band from New Hope, Pennsylvania, formed in 1984 by Aaron Freeman and Mickey Melchiondo, better known by their respective stage names, Gene and Dean Ween.

Generally categorized as an alternative rock band, the band are known for their irreverent, highly eclectic catalog of songs inspired by funk, soul, country, gospel, prog, psychedelia, R&B, heavy metal, and punk rock.

Ween, Wikipedia.com

The first album I heard by Ween was Pure Guava in 1992. From the get-go, everyone at KLA was obsessed with the song Push Th’ Little Daisies, which was also the single – it got some commercial radio airplay too! So I had to find out more. That’s all Eric had to hear – as he often did for many of his friends, he made me a compilation tape of Ween’s two prior albums: The Pod from 1991, and GodWeenSatan: The Oneness from 1990.

From there, after graduating in ’93 and everything that comes after, I only nominally followed them through 1994’s Chocolate and Cheese and 1996’s 12 Golden Country Greats. Their next album was The Mollusk in 1997, and I really liked their song Ocean Man from that album, although upon reflection, I think it’s only because Eric and my other friend Orion turned me on to it, because I didn’t get that album or anything. But man do I love that song!!

After that, Ween faded away for me, and it seems like the only connection I had to them was after having my two daughters in the 2010s…once we started ferrying them back and forth to daycare and then elementary school, I started tuning in to Kids Place Live on SiriusXM. And it was a pleasant surprise to hear them play Ocean Man from time to time. But that was about it for me and Ween – just a weird – but fun – memory.

But after reconnecting with my friends at Eric’s Celebration of Life at KCRW in March of 2023, we all started up a text thread, and my pal Orion mentioned that Ween happened to be playing this summer at The Greek Theater in L.A. – on of all days, my birthday. I felt like it was Jungian synchronicity, a concept to which Orion originally introduced me – in any case, it certainly seemed serendipitous, as my pal Felicia said. So we organized the posse and a group of us went to see Ween at The Greek on July 28, 2023!