Your Party Buckingham Green The Rainbow Ween

Your Party Album: La Cucaracha (2007)
Buckingham Green Album: The Mollusk (1997)
The Rainbow Album: Chef Aid: The South Park Album (1998)
by Ween

"Your Party" was written by Gene Ween, who also sings the lead vocals. The track features guest musician David Sanborn on alto saxophone.

Gene Ween has stated that the idea of "tri-colored pasta" was the germ of inspiration for the song. He said he always thought that style of pasta had a "fanciful and exciting flair".

David Sanborn Appearance:
Gene brought this song to the studio one night and played it for me on acoustic guitar. It sounded like something from Al Stewart's "Year of the Cat". We both agreed that it was a good tune but needed a smooth jazz kind of approach. That's why we asked David Sanborn to play sax on it, which he did, and he did a great job. I never said anything to Gene but I was trying my best to get it to sound like the 70's Bee Gees, at least musically.

And here is Dean again, speaking on a different occasion:

Ok, let me first start off by saying that we vowed never, ever, ever, would there be horns on a Ween album. As teenagers we always used that as a yardstick to determine when our favorite band was starting to suck, when their new record came out and it had horns on it (this rule applies only to rock music and white people). But there has always been one provision to this rule, and that was we would only use horns if we could get David Sanborn to play some sexy saxophone on a Ween tune. We finally wrote a song worthy of him, contacted his manager and it turns out he was a Ween fan and immediately agreed to do it. So that, in and of itself, means that we have accomplished one of our lifelong goals as a band.

"Your Party" dates back to at least January of 2007, when Gene Ween played the song several times at solo acoustic shows, nine months before the release of La Cucaracha. Ween began playing the song with the full band later that year, and it has remained a common live Ween song ever since. In addition, Gene Ween has played "Your Party" very often individually, both solo acoustic and with his band Freeman. It was even played a handful of times by the Dean Ween Group.

"Your Party" was used in an episode of the show Sex Education (season 3, episode 3).

The Mollusk album version of "Buckingham Green" features lead vocals by Gene Ween and a guitar solo by Dean Ween. The song's title may have been inspired by a shopping center called Buckingham Green in the town of Buckingham, PA, near New Hope.

"Buckingham Green" is significantly older than its appearance on The Mollusk and dates back to 1992.

Three separate demo recordings of "Buckingham Green" were made during the sessions for Chocolate and Cheese, all three of which can be found on the bootleg Chocolate and Cheese Demos: Summer 1992.

A version labeled "Buckingham Clean" or "Buckingham Green Take 1" is a short and simple rendering of the song's three verses, with a repeat of the first verse as in the Mollusk version. The simple arrangement features only Gene's vocal over an accompaniment of "clean" guitar (i.e. without distortion) with a simple guitar solo.

A version labeled "Buckingham 2" or "Buckingham Take 2" is especially notable, as it features an extended middle section containing a spoken narration by Gene that is not found in any other version (see Lyrics section below). The instrumentation and arrangement of this version is also unique. It features a heavy, distorted guitar solo, which foreshadows the Mollusk version, although the solo itself is quite different.

A version labeled "Buckingham Hiss" or "Buckingham Green Hiss" is similar to "Buckingham Clean" but is recorded with noticeable tape hiss.

The first known live performance of "Buckingham Green" was at a 12/9/1992 show on the Pure Guava tour by Ween as a duo with DAT-deck accompaniment. This recording has been officially released on the At the Cat's Cradle album. The song was played fairly often in the years after this debut, and especially since the Mollusk tour it has become one of the most common live Ween songs ever, across almost every era (with the notable exception of the 12 Golden Country Greats tour). Additional officially released live versions include a 7/7/2000 recording from the White Pepper tour (Live at Stubb's), and a 11/7-9/2003 recording from the Quebec tour (Live in Chicago).

"Buckingham Green" has also been played live numerous times individually by both Gene Ween (both solo acoustic and with his band Freeman) and Dean Ween (with the Dean Ween Group).

"Homo Rainbow" was originally released on the 1998 soundtrack album Chef Aid: The South Park Album (listed as "The Rainbow").

The lead vocals are sung by Gene Ween.

Gene Ween has spoken fondly of working with South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone: "They're fans of Ween, and we're fans of them - we're friends.

Ween debuted "Homo Rainbow" live in the summer of 1998, about a month before the "Chef Aid" episode of South Park aired. They played the song commonly for about three years afterward; a 7/7/2000 recording from the White Pepper tour can be heard on the album Live at Stubb's. In later years, they have continued to play the song occasionally. It has also been played live individually by both Gene Ween (solo acoustic) and Dean Ween (with the Dean Ween Group).

At the song's second performance, Dean Ween introduced it by saying that it was "About those stickers you see on the side of vans."

1987-2012
Dean Ween Vocals, guitar
Gene Ween Vocals, guitar
Dave Dreiwitz Bass
Claude Coleman, Jr. Drums
Glen McClelland Keyboards

Ween's first show was closing a talent show in 1987. The band played an unusual cover of Jimi Hendrix' "Purple Haze."
In 2002, Ween drummer Claude Coleman, Jr. was involved in a near-fatal car accident. Coleman was hospitalized for 35 days for multiple pelvic fractures and severe brain injuries. He was in a wheel chair for two months while he healed and was finally able to play the drums again after four months of recovery.

Ween started out as a two-person band with a drum machine. Later, following the advice of Shimmy Disc records founder Mark Kramer, they became a full band, initially performing as The Ween.

Ween guitarist Dean Ween is very good friends with Josh Homme from Queens Of The Stone Age. Ween actually plays guitar on three tracks on QOTSA's Songs for the Deaf album, "Mosquito Song," "Gonna Leave You," and "Six Shooter."

Jam band Phish has been known to cover Ween's "Roses Are Free" in concert since 1997. When asked about the cover, singer Gene Ween told Now magazine "I like (Phish frontman) Trey Anastasio as a person, but as far as the music goes, all that jam band s--t makes me want to puke."

Gene Ween (real name Aaron Freeman) married his long time girlfriend Sarah Poten 1996. The couple had a daughter named Ana in 1999 but divorced a couple years later. Most of Ween's 2003 album Quebec is about Freeman's dealing with the divorce.

Ween guitarist Dean Ween says the band writes around 50 songs for every album they make. Ween says it's been that way since the band first started when he was just 14 years old. When asked by The A.V. Club how many songs he's written over the years, Ween said: "I have no way to know. I tried transferring just our four track tapes and I couldn't do it. It was just such a massive undertaking."

Ween drummer Claude Coleman, Jr.'s dad is a very well respected police officer. After rising to the position of director of Newark, New Jersey's police and fire departments, Coleman Jr.'s dad became a judge.

Ween was signed to Twin/Tone Records after opening for another band on the label, Skunk, at a showcase for the label's A&R guy. The concert was held in the basement of Skunk's bass player's mother's house. Skunk's drummer, Claude Coleman, Jr. would later become a full-time member of Ween.

Following the breakup of Ween and his own divorce, Claude Coleman, Jr. relocated from New Jersey to Asheville, North Carolina. He began performing and touring with several bands, including the Dean Ween Group, and Amandla. "Ween was like every band in the world, so when Ween broke up, when that ended, I need like seven bands to make up for that," he said in his Songfacts interview. "I need a country band, I need a heavy band, I need my soul funky jazz band, I just need it all."
Ween are known for their eclectic and genre-defying style. The only album they've recorded on which they played only one specific genre was 12 Golden Country Greats, released in 1996. The music on the record was pure country, featuring fiddle, banjo, mandolin, and pedal steel guitar, combined with Ween's trademark tongue-in-cheek lyrics.

In 2012, Ween parted ways, but the band came back together for an epic reunion in early 2016. In an interview, founding member Dean Ween talked about the reunion: "The music means so much to so many people, and I think that when we got back together this year, the realization of it - I was getting the love, and Aaron [Gene Ween] was getting the love, solo, but nothing compared to the love we got when we started loving each other again."

In an interview, drummer Claude Coleman, Jr. shared his thoughts about the band, post-reunion. "We'd been doing it for so long, you know? Then we took three-and-a-half years off and when we got back together, it was just like, 'Hey, what's up?' and then we were playing again. It wasn't much different than that, just the way we went about it was a lot more careful, more considerate and thoughtful. It's a more purposeful thing now, and it's good. It's a great thing. That's not to say that we take ourselves seriously, but we take ourselves a little more seriously now."