Ween “Live In Toronto”

Description

In November of 1995, we went to Nashville to record our 5th album,
12 Golden Country Greats, with an all-star lineup of veteran
Nashville session players. With the help of our producer and
longtime friend Ben Vaughn, we put together a backing band of the
best players from the golden age of country music to record 10
country flavored tunes we had written that year.

This posed a problem upon the release of the record in the summer of
the next year. Most of that band had long since retired from touring
and we ruled out the possibility of playing shows to support the
release of the album. Instead, we planned on playing two shows in
one night at Tramps on July 17, 1996 in New York City and tried to see
if the musicians would make the trip for a long weekend.

The person who seemed the most interested in the project from the
beginning was Bobby Ogdin, who played piano on most of the record.
He assured us that he could put together an incredible nashville band
for the shows, so he became our musical directo so to speak. I sent
him CDs of all of our records and he wrote charts for the band.
We had only two days to rehearse for the gig and I was completely
terrified…I don’t think I slept a minute the night before.
As it turns out, the shows were a great success; the music was
completely over the top and the crowd basically freaked out.
Everyone in the band wanted to do more so we decided on a 3 week
American tour starting in october that same year. It turned out to be
the most rewarding experience of our musical career. I don’t think
we played a bad show the whole tour-the 8 piece band sounded like a
747 landing on your house.

The music on this record was recorded on October 23rd in Toronto at
The Phoenix, the last night of a hard run of 5 shows in a row. The thing
I remember the most about this night is that the World Series was
taking place, and the band was split between Yankee fans (us) and
Braves fans (the Nashville guys) and the game was on a TV at the bar
in the back of the club, 100 yds. away from the stage. This was the
night that Jim Leyritz hit a late inning home run that turned the
series in the yanks favor and doomed the Braves to 5 more years of
underachieving and mediocrity.

This concert was recorded on cassette by our longtime soundman
Kirk Miller and pretty much captures the drunken essence of what
this band sounded like on a good night. I hope you enjoy listening to
it as much as we did making it.

Dean Ween

Side A:

• Pretty Girl
• What Deaner Was Talkin’ About
• Japanese Cowboy
• Pumpin’ For The Man
• Mister Richard Smoker
• Spinal Meningitis Got Me Down

Side B:

• Help Me Scrape The. Mucus Off My Brain
• Push Th’ Little Daisies
• Buenas Tardes Amigo

Side C:

• Poopship Destroyer
• I’m Holding You
• Doctor Rock

Side D:

• The H.I.V. Song
• Piano Man
• Fluffy