>But to compare them to Ween is like comparing Phish to the Grateful Dead.

That's almost exactly the point I'm trying to make. Phish is just a knock-off of the Dead.

Okay, two person, genre-hopping, humorous music, without going to the caveman days: They might be giants had videos on MTV when Deaner and Gener were in high school. TMBG used to use the DAT in live shows just like the way Ween started out. If anything, TMBG has been more "original" about their music throughout their careers. They've never done such obvious tribute songs like Ween's "don't get 2 close 2 my fantasy" or "tear for eddie", but have always mixed an original curry of musical styles. "absolutely bill's mood" on the first TMBG album would be right at home, sung by Gener, on the Pod. "touch my tooter" could be on an early TMBG album.

Is Ween a ripoff of TMBG? Just because TMBG was first?. Nope, I don't think so. I think they just come from the same school of thought, which is to have fun with music.

But hey, I don't think the number of people in the band should make a difference, I was just using TMBG because you specified a two person. genre-hoping band, and they were just before Ween, and popular. It's a silly restriction. Musically, Ween owed more to the butthole surfers and Zappa than TMBG., beyond all the serious bands that they include into their sound. "awesome sound" could fit right in on "psychic, powerless. . . another man's sac", and so could many early ween songs.

Here in seattle, the local paper, The Stranger, has a music editor that hates Ween (Kathleen Wilson) and they never miss an opportunity to call Ween a ripoff band who don't have an original idea. So I'm a little sensitive to the "ripoff" label.

My point would be that just because you have influences that you show on your sleeve, like Ween does, it doesn't make you a ripoff. There are other bands that I've heard that owe more of their sound to Ween than Tenacious D. Sound of Urchin is one, Seattle's own Very Special Forces was another. They weren't ripoffs, they were just Ween lovers who took that influence and put their own spin on it. And were/are damn good at it. Tenacious D clearly love the grandiose metal of say, Maiden and Dio, a lot more than Ween, and they may have enjoyed their Ween coming up, but it hardly seems like they're riding on ween's coat tails. they have their own thing going.