Aaron releases 'Freeman' LP July 22 via Partisan Records

After the hoopla that surrounded his increasing onstage meltdowns (in Vancouver for instance) which were excessive by even Ween standards- Aaron Freeman ultimately took shelter from the storm.  Sobriety looks good on Freeman, who gives hope to any hopelessly addled soul if only because the vast majority of his output as Gene Ween is about: 'hope', 'hopelessness' and 'being addled'.

His early four track experiments post-rehab gave some indication as to where he might go with his new material, there was the 4-track gooning, some role-playing crooning, and the occasional ballad in presumably his own voice (like the tender Nature Man which didn't make the cut) represented on the new album FREEMAN by More Than The World.

Aaron is quoted in a sprawling interview with Rolling Stone that the meltdown in Vancouver directly led (perhaps unsurprisingly in hindsight) to the dissolution of Ween.  The lead track on the album Covert Discretion (the full album is currently streaming on Spin) is none-too-subtle about the vapid sadness he was experiencing after playing a great show and then wallowing in his substance abuse later:

It's striking that on "Covert Discretion," the first song on the new album, you sing "Save your judgments for someone else" and "Fuck you all, I got a reason to live." It's easy to read those lyrics as being addressed at fans who wanted you to continue with Ween. Is that an accurate interpretation

Yeah, I think so. That's the only song I wrote after a major breakdown in Vancouver when I couldn't play [with Ween]. I wrote that about a week after that show. It's about addiction and people not recognizing that you're hurting so bad. And yeah, it is clearing the air of the last couple of years, which is why I wanted to put it first. At that point Ween had been over for years and I wanted to put that down in a way. Anytime there's a major change in your life, a lot of people don't embrace that, and it's something that you have to get through on your own. I had some wonderful supportive people with me during that period who helped me through. But it's tough, and it takes a while to turn people around, if I'm making any sense.

In other interviews Freeman is touching when he explains that despite wanting to clear the air on the first cut that he approached this whole record as he would have approached a Ween record.  He wrote the record with Mickey, Claude, Dave and Glenn in mind to play even though he knows they will never play again.  So there is a lovely quality about the record because it evokes so many stylistic touchstones from Ween's whole catalogue.   That said because it was composed in that fashion on numbers like the very Weenish El Shaddai the listener really wants to hear Mickey Melchiondo but instead gets whoever's playing guitar for Freeman.  A number of songs then take on the quality almost of sketches of Ween songs to be, one senses something missing from them- likely collaboration.

FREEMAN available now on Itunes fits into the chronology of Ween's records, the next one most likely won't.  Or perhaps all of the hallmarks that we associate with Ween will always be present in its inimitable songwriters solo output.

Tour Dates

July 22 - New York, NY @ Mercury Lounge
July 23 – Brooklyn, NY @ Baby’s All RIght
September 4-7 - Arrington, VA @ Lockn' Festival
September 5 - Raleigh, NC @ Hopscotch Festival
September 17 - Boston, MA @ Sinclair
September 18 - Burlington, VT @ Higher Ground
September 19 - Rochester, NY @ Lovin' Cup
September 20 - Cleveland, OH @ Beachland Ballroom
September 24 - Chicago, IL @ Lincoln Hall
September 25 - Milwaukee, WI @ Turner Hall
September 26 - Minneapolis. MN @ Turf Club
September 27 - Omaha, NE @ Waiting Room
September 30 - Columbus, OH @ The Basement
October 1 - Pittsburgh, PA @ Brillbox
October 2 - Washington, DC @ Rock N Roll Hotel
October 3 - Philadelphia, PA @ Johnny Brenda's
October 4 - New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom
October 23 - Houston, TX @ Fitzgeralds
October 24 - Dallas, TX @ The Loft
October 25 - Austin, TX @ Parish
October 28 - San Diego, CA @ Casbah
October 30 - Los Angeles, CA @ Roxy
October 31 - San Francisco, CA @ Independent
November 1 - Portland, OR @ Doug Fir
November 2 - Seattle, WA @ Tractor
November 4 - Missoula, MT @ Top Hat
November 5 - Salt Lake City, UT @ State Room
November 6 - Denver, CO @ Bluebird
November 7 - Kansas City, MO @ Riot Room

Aaron Freeman 2012 soundcloud demos (download)

Post Marvelous Clouds (an album of exclusively Rod McKuen covers) Aaron Freeman's first solo effort and first under his own name- having informed his management and fanbase of the demise of Ween and his persona Gene Ween- anyone who has followed his prolific career wants to know what comes next?

Briefly Freeman posted to his soundcloud page a slew of new songs which ranged from (largely) manipulated spoken word samples such as on Rivers where Freeman frames to melancholic effect and entire reading of the Langston Hughes civil war poem Rivers:

I've known rivers:                                                                            I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the                          flow of human blood in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.                            I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep                      I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.                   I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln                            went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy                          bosom turn all golden in the sunset.
I've known rivers:                                                                                Ancient, dusty rivers.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

Other songs such as Ribbit and most notably on Nature Man (an instant new Freeman classic) we hear the voluminous pop tunesmith singing about a frog and his long tongue and 'nature man' and 'nature girl' in streams of love with their boots on.  Instrumentals like Palmolive and Penny Whissle fizzle a bit but another ES-335 1 sounds reminiscent of something like Ween's Tear For Eddie without of course Dean Ween (Mickey Melchiondo's) sindering guitar line- a common feeling throughout the recordings although not lacking.

Any Ween completist will want to get ahold of these at times truly beautiful songs. A fan has captured the bulk of the songs barring Genene and made them available for download.  Songs like Stay With Me Daddy, More Than The World and the aforemementioned Nature Man fit easily and handily into the Ween/Freeman repertoire as some of his best songs to date.  Clearly sobrietry and fecundity are not mutually exclusive when it comes to the world of Aaron Freeman.

Aaron Freeman 2012 soundcloud demos

God2
Exodus
Ruth
Rivers
Caesar 
Life Force
Ribbit
Penny Whissle
ES 335 1
Palmolive
Stay With Me Daddy
Nature Man 
More Than The World
A Man Alone (home demo)
Mr. Kelly (home demo)
Doesn't Anyone Know My Name (home demo)
Signs Of The Transgression

Aaron Freeman - Nature Man (lyrics)

Nature Man (Aaron Freeman)

You could be my Nature Man

And I could be your Nature Girl

Walking with our boots on 

Streams of love trickling down 

Mr. Nature Man comes to me like a little girl

throwing daggers in the buildings

Southern eyes of greed and shame

Skin of paste and liquor

 throw your line to me I see your pain

You could be my Nature Man

And I could be your Nature Girl

Walking with our boots on 

Streams of love trickling down 

Have you held a newborne flower? 

Plucked yourself a sprig of Thyme in summer

A Yam in winter

 Take the shell of your soul and come with me

You could be my Nature Man

And I could be your Nature Girl

Walking with our boots on

Streams of love trickling down

The Cerebine's life, the berries glow

The seeds I have to show make growth seem like a possibility

The flesh peels, the bark peels off the flesh 

and succumbs to me

You could be my Nature Man

And I could be your Nature Girl

Walking with our boots on

Streams of love trickling down

Aaron Freeman (the now-deceased Gene Ween) was known in his now-former band Ween for writing the huge compendium of songs in their repertoire from which they would dip freely.  One of the things that made Gener such a thrilling performer was that he could sing in 4 or 5 different styles quite well including various vocoded and semi-demonic (but friendly demonic) altered voices.  In his very public meltdown at a Vancouver Ween performance, having lost a severe amount of weight over a matter of months, there were legitimate concerns that much deeper issues were at play than bananas and blow and pot brownie poisonings afoot.  One of the reviewers of that show rightly described one of his voices as a high pitched falsetto reminiscent of the Heat Miser (from A Year Without Santa Clause)- except in that performance his voice seemed to get stuck in that voice about half way through and never deviated after.

But for all of the debauch in the Ween repertoire- and it is a bloated lot suh that even listing relevant song titles and drug references would be largely futile- Freeman was just as much known for his blue-eyed soul. Ween are not a Philadelphia band they are rather proudly from New Hope, Pennsylvania but their song Freedom of '76 is a modern marvel in the Philadelphia Soul tradition.   Nature Man belongs strongly in the vein of those tender heart warming ballads that made up an important place in any live Ween show, songs such as: Birthday Boy, Baby Bitch, Stay Forever, Tender Situation, Flutes of Chi.

Freeman has been playing Nature Man live since at least June of 2012, numerous good sounding versions are out there including this one from Reggatabar which comes off as unintentionally comedic.  The inversion of Freeman as the Nature Girl 'walking with out boots on' is intended to play for some laughs.  But it's clear in listening to the recorded and interrupted (with laughter) live version that there is notsomuch humour hear as a harrowing and searching walk past the void upon whose edges he'd danced like a satyr over a volcano's lip.

Aaron Freeman - Genene

Since Aaron Freeman announced the necessary demise of his arch persona Gene Ween - the well loved and prolific songsmith he had produced music under since 1984 with his partner in crime Dean Ween (Mickey Melchiondo) as Ween - he may have puzzled fans with his first solo outing being an album of unearthed covers (Marvelous Clouds) by supposed legend Rod McKuen with whom he had a puzzling but befitting kinship. A crop of new original music is just what Dr. Rock ordered although it's no surprise that we're getting the kinder, gentler version of The Golden Jew.



Certain to further confuse his rabid fanbase Aaron was contacted by Hidden Track about Genene at his hospital room in Belgium where he is undergoing “a transformative procedure.":

He immediately made sure to tell us, “This song is left to interpretation on purpose. To me it’s just an honest song about where I’m at, creepy, real and pretty, just the way I like it.” Freeman finished our chat by saying, “On one hand it’s about change and acceptance on a personal, spiritual level but can obviously be interpreted literally as a sex change.”

These themes of transformation, transmogrification, shifting seem fitting for Freeman (now sober for over a year) at this point in his life and other demos with spoken word samples like Signs of The Transgression riff on similar themes.  Currently on his A. Freeman soundcloud he is only streaming two songs.  Rivers and God2.  Fortunately one of the resourceful brown minions of the Boognish captured and posted for download the majority of 2012 demos that had streamed briefly (excluding Genene unfortunately).

Aaron Freeman (Gene Ween) solo album Marvelous Clouds

Performing under his hebraic name Aaron Freeman for the first time the Golden Jew himself will perhaps quizzically release an album of material entirely written by a woebegone and suitably obscure songwriting iconoclast Rod McKuen.

McKuen it turns out is nearly as prolific a songwriter as Prince having penned some 1500 songs for artists ranging from Perry Como and Petula Clark to Waylon Jennings, Chet Baker, Johnny Cash, Andy Williams, Pete Fountain, the Kingston Trio, Percy Faith, Dusty Springfield, Johnny Mathis, Al Hirt, Greta Keller, The Boston Pops, the London Philharmonic and the Chairman of the Board himself Mr. Frank Sinatra. 

Having been a poet travelling in similar circles to Alan Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac he would later travel abroad to France where he encountered the Belgian songwriter Jacques Brel.  McKuen is well known as the translator of the chansons of Jacques Brel and in turn introduced him to the American market.  While his collections of poetry have sold broadly, with two Oscar and one Pullitzer nominations for his serious musical compositions from his later period, he is widely reviled if not seriously shat upon by cultural critics.  The appeal then to Freeman, performing under his own name for the first time but giving voice to the songs of a passed over and by most accounts shmaltzy legend, becomes self-evident for anyone familiar with the ground from country to glam that Ween traipses back and forth across like the children of Springfield and Shelbyville do about their town lines.

At the height of his popularity in 1969 McKuen was named by Newsweek magazine 'The King of Kitsch' elsewhere his purplish poetry is variously crititically and vituperatively described as 'tailor made for the sixties', 'treacle', 'schmaltzy', 'smarmy', 'sweet kitsch', 'superficial platidinous and silly'.  In short adjectives that describe a good measure of Ween's back catalogue.

Marvelous Clouds (produced by Ben Vaughan of Ween's 12 Golden Country Greats yore), a collection of 13 songs written by McKuen, is due out April 10 on Partison Records

‘Marvelous Clouds' track list:

1. As I Love My Own
2. Jean
3. Marvelous Clouds
4. A Man Alone
5. The Beautiful Strangers
6. Doesn’t Anybody Know My Name
7. One By One
8. Pushing The Clouds
9. The Lovers
10. Mr. Kelly
11. Love’s Been Good To Me
12. Lonesome Cities
13. The World I Used To Know

Ween - Your Party (live Koolhaus, Toronto, July 29 2010

There were beverages laid out for the party 
There were candy and spices and tricolored pastas 
The meat carved was drawn from succulent juices 
Served on platters of the purest gold 

I was calm when we arrived at the party 
I spoke with fervor, embracing the evening 
My wife leaned over and she whispered 'I love you' 
I held her close - we danced 

We had the best time at your party 
The wife and I thank you very much 
We had the best time at your party 
The wife and I thank you very much 

Creampuffs and bourbon and the music was louder 
My wife was competing in a game of chance 
The party raged and the guests were screaming 
I could have danced all night 

We had the best time at your party 
The wife and I thank you very much 
We had the best time at your party 
The wife and I thank you very much 

Later on when we were under the covers 
I closed my eyes, then I drifted to sleep 
I dreamt about me maybe throwing a party 
And just how great that would be 

And we said 
We had the best time at your party 
The wife and I thank you very much 
We had the best time at your party 
The wife and I thank you very much


- lyrics and music A. Freeman, M. Melchiondo