COURTESY CAPITOL RECORDS
Both Saosin, above, and Ween are coming off Australian tours to play Honolulu.
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Double dose of rock
Ween and Saosin are set for Pipeline Cafe concerts next week
How would you like your rock music, sir? A bit overdone, but still hilariously tasty, or earnest in flavor, yet powerful in sound?
ROCKIN' AT THE PIPELINE CAFE
805 Pohukaina St.
Ween: 8 p.m. Monday, tickets $28
Saosin: 8 p.m. March 13, tickets $22
Call: (877) 750-4400 or visit ticketmaster.com
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That's your two choices on the Pipeline Cafe "menu" for next week, with longtime jesters Ween hitting the stage Monday night, followed by Saosin on Thursday the 13th.
By the way, for those non-fans out there, the band's name is pronounced "say-o-shun," a Chinese phrase that Saosin's previous lead singer loved, because it translated to "keep your heart small, because nothing lasts forever." Pretty deep, yeah?
Yep, these guys are pretty emo in approach, but the band's got some things going for them outside of the heart-on-sleeve music. When Cove Reber joined Saosin as the new singer, their profile rose as well. The band's got a couple of hits in "Voices" and "You're Not Alone," their song "Collapse" made the soundtracks to "Saw IV" and the popular "Burnout Paradise" video game, and, just in time for their Honolulu gig, Tuesday will see the national release of their first CD/DVD package, called "Come Close."
Mostly recorded live before a boisterous Philadelphia audience, Saosin showcases both Reber as an emotive vocalist and a potent musical attack led by guitarists Justin Shekoski and Beau Burchell.
COURTESY ROUNDER RECORDS
Longtime jesters Ween hit the stage Monday night, followed by Saosin on Thursday the 13th.
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WHILE SAOSIN has honed themselves to do one thing and one thing well, Dean and Gene Ween can play pretty much anything their little hearts desire.
On their latest album, "La Cucaracha," the guys use their infamous "brown sound" filter on 1960s psychedelic and soundtrack melodies, Eurodance, country, macho rock, reggae, mystic folk, cavity-inducing pop, and smarmy jazz, and squeeze all that through the sphincter muscle known as Ween to produce a hot, steaming load of goodness.
Mickey Melchiondo and Aaron Freeman (Dean and Gene, respectively) have been adeptly mixing up genres for so long -- more than 20 years -- that the New Yorker has called them "the Coen brothers of rock 'n' roll."
While much of what they do is pretty amusing, Ween's music is a natural extension of Melchiondo and Freeman's stoner-like personalities and musical tastes, ranging from P-Funk, Van Halen, and Stevie Wonder.
And leave it to their record label rep to put it all in perspective. Speaking to the Boston Globe, he said "I think that Ween is reflective of the broad spectrum of the human psyche from funny to terrifying to disturbing. It's like an actual glimpse into someone's mind."
In other words, how much can your brain handle The Truth of Ween? Find out Monday.