The Pod

The Pod is the second studio album by American rock band Ween, released on September 20, 1991 by Shimmy Disc.

The Pod
Studio album by
ReleasedSeptember 20, 1991[1]
RecordedJanuary–October 1990
StudioThe Pod (Solebury Township, Pennsylvania)
Genre
Length76:40
LabelShimmy Disc
ProducerAndrew Weiss
Ween chronology
GodWeenSatan: The Oneness
(1990)
The Pod
(1991)
Pure Guava
(1992)

Background and production

The album was recorded on two tapes made by Ween from January to October 1990, at the Pod on Van Sant Road in Solebury Township, Pennsylvania. The tapes were titled the Bilboa tape and the Big Timmy Wasserman tape. Both tapes contain not only demo versions of songs on the album, but many outtakes not used on any album or tracks used on future albums. The Pod, according to Ween lore, was written under the influence of Scotchgard. However, when their fans began huffing Scotchgard, it was refuted by Gene Ween and Dean Ween themselves as being "the most slime-bag thing we could think of". The Pod has since been remastered and reissued by Elektra Records, after the relative success of Ween albums such as Pure Guava (1992) and Chocolate and Cheese (1994). Shimmy Disc released a vinyl version in 1991. The Pod is Ween's longest studio album.

Composition

All of the songs have a murky, sludgy quality to them, due to being recorded on a Tascam four-track cassette recorder, and many of the vocals are manipulated in strange ways. The album contains bizarre lyrical content, often attributed to the fact that Dean and Gene both came down with cases of mononucleosis during the recording of the album, as well as their notorious relationship with huffing. The song "Alone" borrows the guitar riff/melody from Robyn Hitchcock's "The Bones in the Ground".

Title and album cover

The album takes its name from the band's apartment where the album was recorded, which the band nicknamed "The Pod". The album's cover art is a takeoff of the 1975 The Best of Leonard Cohen cover; Ween simply positioned a photo of part-time bassist Mean Ween's head (wearing a "nitrous oxide powered bong" which is sometimes mistaken for a "Scotchgard bong") over Cohen's cover art, and altered the title text and other graphics. The copy of the Leonard Cohen record that Ween used had purportedly belonged to Dean Ween's mother, Eileen Ween.

Reception & legacy

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[3]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide[4]
Spin Alternative Record Guide5/10[5]

In 1993, the album was named one of the 20 best albums of 1992 by Spin.[6] Aphex Twin named it one of his 10 favorite albums of all time (making it one of 2 Ween albums on the list, the other being Pure Guava).[7] In a 1999 review of the album, The Stranger called it "excellent" and wrote that "someday, classical music students will write dissertations on The Pod."[8]

Track listing

No.TitleLength
1."Strap on That Jammypac"3:03
2."Dr. Rock"3:11
3."Frank"3:46
4."Sorry Charlie"3:51
5."The Stallion (Pt. 1)"2:51
6."Pollo Asado"2:45
7."Right to the Ways and the Rules of the World"5:05
8."Captain Fantasy"3:19
9."Demon Sweat"4:11
10."Molly"4:49
11."Can U Taste the Waste?"1:39
12."Don't Sweat It"4:02
13."Awesome Sound"2:22
14."Laura"4:37
15."Boing"1:33
16."Mononucleosis"3:01
17."Oh My Dear (Falling in Love)"1:57
18."Sketches of Winkle"2:44
19."Alone"3:12
20."Moving Away"3:06
21."She Fucks Me"3:59
22."Pork Roll Egg and Cheese"3:02
23."The Stallion (Pt. 2)"4:35
Total length:1:16:40
  • "The Stallion (Pt. 1)" was not listed on the covers of original Shimmy Disc (CD, tape, double vinyl) releases, although the song is present as track #5.

Liner notes

From the Shimmy-Disc CD:

"Recorded by Dean and Gene Ween on a Tascam four-track cassette recorder between January and October 1990. All songs recorded at the Pod, where we lived for a year and 10 months (with our cat Mandee). The Pod was scenically located on Van Sant Road in Solebury Township, Pennsylvania. Our apartment was a haven for flies because it sits in the middle of a horse farm. In the time this album was completed, we filled up 3,600 hours of tape, and inhaled 5 cans of Scotchgard. This album was then produced and mixed by Andrew Weiss (our pal) at the Zion House of Flesh, Hopewell, New Jersey. Straight to DAT Mang. Mean Ween played the bass on "Alone" and that's him on the cover doin' up some Scotchguard powered bongs. We got evicted on October 1, 1991. But Dave Ayers says he's gonna help us out. Cover and art designs by Logarithms."

Personnel

Ween
Additional musicians

References

  1. . Ween.net http://www.ween.net/ween-the-pod.html. Retrieved 3 June 2017. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  2. "Heather Phares. "The Pod"". Allmusic. Retrieved 5 September 2015.
  3. Phares, Heather. "Ween: The Pod". AllMusic. Retrieved 2018-09-26.
  4. Sarig, Roni (2004). "Ween". In Brackett, Nathan; Hoard, Christian (eds.). The New Rolling Stone Album Guide. Simon & Schuster. pp. 864–65. ISBN 0-7432-0169-8.
  5. Weisbard, Eric; Marks, Craig (1995). Spin Alternative Record Guide. Vintage Books. ISBN 9780679755746.
  6. "Ween, The Pod (Shimmy-Disc) SPIN". www.spin.com. Retrieved 2017-07-21.
  7. "Perfect Sound Forever- interviewee's favorite music". www.furious.com. Retrieved 2021-01-18.
  8. Heimlich, Adam. "WEEN". The Stranger. Retrieved 2021-01-18.
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