| Quebec | |
| Type: | studio |
| Artist: | Ween |
| Cover: | Quebec (Front Cover).png |
| Released: | August 5, 2003 |
| Recorded: | 2001–2003 |
| Studio: | Zion House of Flesh, Hopewell, New Jersey |
| Genre: | |
| Length: | 55:07 |
| Label: | Sanctuary |
| Producer: | Andrew Weiss |
| Prev Title: | Live at Stubb's |
| Prev Year: | 2002 |
| Next Title: | All Request Live |
| Next Year: | 2003 |
Quebec is the eighth studio album by the American rock band Ween, released on August 5, 2003, on Sanctuary Records. It was the first album released after the band's contract with Elektra expired, and marked its return to independent labels.
On August 11, 2011, Dean Ween quietly released a two-disc, MP3-only collection of songs, The Caesar Demos, named after the band's original working title for Quebec—to friends on his Facebook page. In his comment, he stated the songs were all recorded between 2001 and 2003 while drummer Claude Coleman, Jr. was recovering from injuries sustained in a car accident, and that many of the tracks featured only himself and Gene. In addition to a handful of recordings that eventually made the album, the demos feature several alternate takes as well as a number of songs that have remained unreleased.[1] [2]
Dean Ween recorded the guitar solo on "Transdermal Celebration" illicitly using Carlos Santana's guitar and amplifier at a storage space where it was to be shipped to New York. After being informed by a roadie, he took a hard disk recorder with him and successfully recorded it in ten minutes without getting caught.[3]
The album cover is an edited version of the packaging for the game Thorns from the 3M Paper Games series with the band superimposed on it.[4]
The recording of Quebec saw the band deal with many struggles in their professional and personal lives. Gene Ween was going through a divorce from his first wife,[5] Dean Ween was dealing with drug issues and was "partying way too hard",[6] Claude Coleman was recovering from a life threatening car crash that left him unable to perform on the record[7] (with drumming instead being primarily handled by Josh Freese), and the band was moving from Elektra Records to a smaller, independent label.
As a result, many of the songs on the album deal with drug abuse, mental health issues, and failing relationships. Reflecting on these themes in 2007, Dean said to The A.V. Club "With Quebec, I like it as a record, but it's very negative. It's one of our darker records, I think. I don't listen to any of our records, but I have never listened to that one."[8]
Music critic Mark Prindle named Quebec the best album of the 2000s in an interview on Fox News Channel's Red Eye w/ Greg Gutfeld. Mojo named it the No. 39 best album of 2003. "CMJ" named it the No. 8 best album of 2003.[9]
All tracks written by Ween.
The song "It's Gonna Be a Long Night" is featured in the video games Tony Hawk's Underground 2 and ATV Offroad Fury 3, as downloadable content in the Rock Band franchise, and in the TV show The Shield. The song "If You Could Save Yourself (You'd Save Us All)" was featured in episode 7 of The Morning Show.
"Tried and True" and "Transdermal Celebration" appeared in the second season of Superman & Lois with the former being featured in the sixth episode of the same name.[10]
Indie pop band Water from Your Eyes covered "If You Could Save Yourself (You'd Save Us All)" in 2024 for mental health awareness. [11]
The Caesar Demos is a compilation album released digitally for free trading by Dean Ween in 2011.[12] It contains a combination of demo tracks from Quebec and songs recorded for the album that were cut prior to pressing. About the compilation Dean Ween (Mickey Melchiondo) wrote:
well what can i say about this here, lemme see. the first thing that comes to mind is that all the while we were doing this we still had claude coleman on drums, he eventually got into a major car wreck and wasn't around when it finally came time to make the "real" record. instead the drum duties fell on me, josh freese, and sim cain for a couple of tunes. almost all of this was recorded at our beach house in holgate, nj onto 16 track tape. a tiny bit of it was recorded in the garage behind aaron's house in pt. pleasant, pa. some of it was recorded in the spare bedroom of my house in new hope. most of the tunes are just me and aaron, with the two of us playing everything, with me on drums. the songs with claude, dave, and glenn are pretty obvious. on just a few tunes we took what you hear here and cleaned them up and had andrew weiss mix them for the record after some overdubs. dave sings on "it's gonna be a long night", this was days before he had surgery to remove polyps in his throat and his voice was really rough so we figured he was the guy for the job. This isn't even all of the tunes that we ended up choosing from, just the ones i happened to burn to cd before we drove home from the beach every week. hope you dig it for what it is.[12]