Shinola, Vol. 1 - Dark Publications

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Similar Items:

•	La Cucaracha
•	The Friends EP
•	White Pepper
•	Quebec
•	The Pod

Editorial Reviews:

Product Description
The band is not releasing a track listing as a surprise for their fans, but this CD contains alternate versions, out-takes, B-sides, and other material that has not previously been released.

Amazon.com
Ween have never been accused of taking themselves too seriously. Music, on the other hand, is serious business indeed for the New Hope, Pennsylvania duo. As their career stretches into its second decade, they have a rabidly devoted fan base, no more ties to a major label, and a body of work that marks the most significant contribution to psychedelic music of the last ten years. In part this is because they don't hew to a limited definition of "psychedelic," making music that is trippy without being hippy. Over nine albums they've explored a music store's worth of genres with accomplished song craft and instrumentation, which can include anything from a drum machine to Elvis Presley's backup singers. In Shinola Vol. 1, a collection of songs left off other albums, the "brownest" strains of Ween's oeuvre are on proud display. "Brown" is the code word Ween uses to describe music that's warbly, pitch-shifted, and plain strange. The stompy, squirty opener "Tastes Good on the Bun" falls into this camp, as does the astral travelogue "The Rift." Elsewhere Ween's gleeful, Saturday morning cartoon side surfaces in "Boys Club," begging the question of when exactly they'll join Danny Elfman and Mark Mothersbaugh in writing music for movies (their occasional gigs for Nickelodeon and their disastrous collaboration with Pizza Hut notwithstanding). Their reverence of Prince is felt in "Monique the Freak," which contains what have to be the dumbest lyrics in the Ween canon. And "Gabrielle" could make it past even the most vigilant customs agent as a rare Thin Lizzy track. For a collection of odds-and-sods, Shinola Vol. 1 stands up remarkably well with other albums like The Mollusk and Quebec. Bring on Vol. 2. Hail Boognish. --Ryan Boudinot

Ween's Brownest Albums

Quebec	Chocolate and Cheese	The Mollusk
Pure Guava	Godweensatan - The Oneness	The Pod

Customer Reviews: Read 14 more reviews...

4 out of 5 stars

Tastes good. August 15, 2005
30 out of 30 found this review helpful

This may be an outtakes compilation, but it's definitely a must-hear for Ween fans even if they're ones who aren't quite fanatical enough to have picked up all the live Chocodog releases. Despite the product description, none of the tracks have been previously released officially (a few have been bootlegged, but in different versions), and almost all of them are quality enough to have made the albums. Actually there's no information in the liner notes about when each track was recorded, although occasionally just by the "feel" of a song you can make a guess (the Pink Floyd-inspired "Did You See Me" was most likely left-over from The Mollusk or Quebec, and the unabashed soft rock of "Someday" smacks of White Pepper, while the tinny drum machines on "Big Fat F***" and "Tastes Good On The Bun" indicate they were probably from earlier on). Anyway, while it's obvious that these tracks span all over the band's career, this compilation flows almost about as well as the average Ween album, due to a combination of savy track listing and how eclectic the band generally is anyway. There are all kinds of should-have-been classics here, my favorites being the dead-on Thin Lizzy homage "Gabrielle", the raunchy sex-funk of "Monique The Freak" (which will appeal to anyone who loved "LMLYP"), and the previously mentioned soft-rock closer "Someday" (come on, how can you beat a slickly produced Wings-style prom theme ballad that happens to inexplicably include the verse "sunday... monday... tuesday... is pizza day... pizza day"?). If you haven't gotten this already, grab it before it's out of print. Again, don't let the outtakes thing dissuade you, on the whole this release is at least as strong as their last few albums.

5 out of 5 stars

sound of brown abounds October 7, 2005
10 out of 11 found this review helpful

I should preface this review by stating that I am a HUGE Ween fan so you can take this review for what its worth.

Since I discovered the Brothers Boognish I became an immediate disciple and began to try and track down every song or snippet of noise that they put to tape. 40 or 50 bootlegs later I gave up trying to document their entire live catalogue but I figured I'd still be able to find all of their B-Sides and rarities on my own and I have several compilation CDs of rough quality tracks to show for my efforts.

When I heard Ween was to release an official compilation of rarities I was as giddy a school girl, as any new release from the Brothers is a welcome event. However, I was a bit pissed off that `lesser fans' would, in the time it took them to purchase a copy of `Shinola', be able to hear songs that took me months to track down. I was also a bit reluctant to purchase a collection of songs I already had in one form or another.

Well, all of my worries were for naught. First, this disc includes tracks even I hadn't already heard, such as the hilarious Jewish jazz funk rant `Israel' and the delicious slow burner "I Fell in Love Today". And the songs that I already had have been re-mastered and sound as crisp as any of Ween's newer releases and put my old mp3s to shame. As such it can stand up against any of their albums, evening outshining 1 or 2 of them. The closest point of reference in my mind would be `Chocolate & Cheese', an album which heralded a cleaner production in their sound with more fully realized songs but which lacked none of the weirdness which made their earlier material so endearing. Like C&C, `Shinola' is all over the map style wise, but there's never any doubt to whose record this is. `Brown' is what we've come to expect from Ween and with Shinola we get a big steaming pile of Poop.

4 out of 5 stars

Tastes Good on th' Bun October 14, 2005
7 out of 8 found this review helpful

Yeah, so Tastes Good on th' Bun has the lyrics:

tastesssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss good on the bun.

over and over again.

but what a great little tune. And then "Big Fat F*ck" (the asterisk isn't in the song title but Amazon won't accept this review without it, even though Amazon shows the title in the track listings without the asterisk, how lame is that?) which is a different great little tune that sounds like walking through mud and the refrain "feelin' like a big fat f*ck."

And then you have the polar opposites like "How High Can You Fly" which out Pink Floyds Pink Floyd. And everything else inbetween. If you like Ween, you'll like this. If you don't like Ween, chances are you probably won't like this.

I realize that last paragraph isn't saying much.

They jump genres, deconstruct music, and represent it. Solidly. As usual.

5 out of 5 stars

Even their throwaway's are classics December 3, 2005
4 out of 5 found this review helpful

Ween returns to the scene with "Shinola, Vol. 1", a collection of outtakes from past Ween albums. That doesn't sound too appealing at first, but it's actually more of a rewarding listen than "Quebec" (2003) and "White Pepper" (2000). Just because they are outtakes doesn't mean they're any less enjoyable or impressive. These tunes were simply left off of albums because they didn't fit into the repertoire, concept, or the overall feel of it's studio counterpart. In fact, these songs hardly feel like a mix tape of unreleased material. The variety of song choices, engineering, mastering and track order makes it feel like a classic Ween record from start to finish.

Brown would be the descriptive term when labeling the first cut, "Tastes Good on th' Bun". That and "Big Fat Fu*k" sound like classic freak-out songs from "God Ween Satan" or "The Pod". Then you get the opposite end of the spectrum with gorgeous songs like "I Fell in Love Today", the hypnotic "Did You See Me?", the avante garde "Israel", or the sultry "Someday". Those songs are more progressive and chilled out. Then you get your hard rockers like "Monique the Freak" with a gnarly guitar solo from Dean, or the Thin Lizzy inflicted "Gabrielle" (which is my current favorite). "Boys Club" is a fun little pop tune with insanely catchy elements. "How High Can You Fly" and "Transitions" sound the closest to "White Pepper" or "Quebec", so there is really something here for everyone.

"Shinola, Vol. 1" is another fine addition to Ween's already classic discography. If you are into the band at all, I have no doubt you will enjoy it. For new listeners, I would probably recommend "Chocolate and Cheese" or "The Mollusk" first, but this one is right up there. The bottom line is...don't sleep on this fine record; it's pure gold.

5 out of 5 stars

great ween cd October 3, 2005
3 out of 10 found this review helpful

this ween cd is so awsome it is awsome and i know because i love ween

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