Transdermal Celebration

"Transdermal Celebration" is a song by Ween from the 2003 album Quebec.

Song Details

Dean Ween recording the guitar solo of "Transdermal Celebration" on Carlos Santana's guitar

Credits

The lead vocals are sung by Gene Ween. Dean Ween plays all guitars, bass, as well as electric sitar on the song. The drums are played by Josh Freese. Glenn McClelland and Andrew Weiss are both credited with keyboards on this song.

Carlos Santana's Guitar and the "Transdermal Celebration" Solo

The guitar solo of "Transdermal Celebration" was surreptitiously played by Dean Ween on a guitar setup belonging to Carlos Santana, in a story that can only be told in Deaner's own words:

I think enough time has passed where I can finally tell my favorite Ween story of all time. The businesses and the people involved have long since closed their doors and moved on for good and hopefully the people involved (and Carlos himself, if it comes to that) will have a good sense of humor about this story. . . .

So, we’re in the middle of this session and I get a phone call from my roadie (nameless) who also worked for a backline company (nameless) that supplied amps, drums, lights, etc. to bands touring in the Northeast. My roadie told me that Carlos Santana’s equipment (including his guitars) had arrived via a trucking company that night at their depot. Carlos was recording an appearance on Good Morning America the next morning and his equipment was to be delivered to the set in NYC in a few hours.

What needed to be done was immediately clear to me, I had an opportunity to play the solo on “Transdermal Celebration” through Carlos Santana’s amplifier and guitar. I had one shot at it, it meant taking a hard disk recorder to a storage space where all of Carlos’ stuff was sitting in transit. I arrived at 2 A.M. We (very carefully) unpacked his equipment and set up his stage gear and in one take I recorded the guitar solo for “Transdermal Celebration” (the one that appears on the album), playing through Carlos Santana’s guitar, pedalboard and amplifier. The whole thing took 10 minutes and we were terrified we were going to get caught. A lot of people would have lost their jobs. We got the fuck outta there really fast after that. So the solo on “Transdermal Celebration” was played through all of Santana’s shit in what resembled an early morning bank heist or something.

History and Performance

"Transdermal Celebration" dates back to at least early 2002, when it was played live by Ween at a show that also included the debuts of several other songs that would later feature on Quebec. An early demo recording of the song can be heard on the semi-official The Caesar Demos. Ween started playing the song more frequently on the 2003 Quebec tour, and it has been a common live Ween song ever since. A 11/7-8/2003 recording from that tour was released on the album Live in Chicago.

In addition, "Transdermal Celebration" has been played numerous times individually by both Gene Ween (both solo acoustic and with his band Freeman) and Dean Ween (with the Dean Ween Group).

Music Video

Adam Phillips's animated video for "Transdermal Celebration"

The official video for "Transdermal Celebration" was made by animator Adam "Bitey" Phillips. The story of the video's creation is quite remarkable, as told in his own words:

Ween are one of my favourite bands so when I bought their 2003 album Quebec, it motivated me to seek them out online where I found their forum. Stickied at the top was a topic from Ween's manager titled "Transdermal video — looking for ideas". I immediately contacted him asking if I could pitch an idea. He said "unfortunately you're a bit late, but feel free to send your idea and I'll pass it along". So I pitched an idea by email to which he replied that the band were going on tour soon and had decided to shoot a live video for the song. I asked him if I did a video, could they use it and he said something like "maybe, but there's no guarantees.

So I was working for Disney at the time (I'm actually writing this post in 2010) and I asked my boss for a month off. I knew he would say no, because we were right in the middle of crunch time on a project (Return to Neverland, as I recall). I told him that this was something I had to do and it could lead to bigger things for me. Knowing that I was fairly valuable in my position as an experienced, high-output FX animator, I told him that if I couldn't get time off, I would have no choice but to resign. By the way, this was only about a year before I actually did resign from the studio, so I really had been prepared to walk away.

He granted me two weeks off, for which I was very grateful. Time off in crunch time is unheard of. But only 2 weeks?? I knew it'd be tough doing 3 minutes of animation in that time.

I told Ween's manager that I was taking 2 weeks off work to do the video and I got to work on my story. A few days later, Gene Ween sent me a drunk email from a hotel room after a show one night. The first line went something like this: "Adam. I'm fucked up in Jersey City.." after which he outlined his personal meaning behind the lyrics of the song. Unfortunately my hard drive crashed a month later or so and I lost that email forever (I was devastated).

Gener's meaning of the lyrics fit nicely with what I had planned so I ploughed on. Each day, using Flash and a bit of After Effects, I animated 2 lines of the song and even got a little bit ahead of my own schedule. At the end of the two weeks, I sent a preview of the video to them. I very quickly got an email back from Gene saying that he loved it and wanted to make it the official video. He ended the email with something like "my people will be in touch with your people". I was absolutely elated.

Eventually, because it was to be the official video, they even paid me for it. The "Transdermal" video is now a bonus feature on their Ween: Live in Chicago DVD (which, incidentally, kicks arse).

So the following year I went to San Francisco to attend Flash Forward (Prowlies was a finalist in the film festival). While I was there, I dropped by the offices of MX Entertainment and met the people who filmed the tour and packaged the Ween DVD. Ole Lutjens told me that Ween's record company had a live-action video director actually shooting a big expensive video for "Transdermal Celebration" — something with naked chicks in blue liquid. After I had sent my animated video to Ween, they told the record company "we don't want that video.. we have this cool animated one". For me, that story was icing on the cake. I saw Ween play in Sydney in 2008 and met them backstage, but forgot to ask them whether or not that story is true, so it's just hearsay for now.

Lyrics

Official lyrics were printed in the Quebec liner notes:

Transdermal celebration
Caused a slight mutation in the rift
It toppled down a nation
And left the people running for the hills
But the mutants that I see
Shine their beauty unto me, I wish you could see them

Tectonic tribulation
Formed a crust of green beyond the reef
Waves fell in formation
Caused the plants to bend with spi-ked leaves
I'm growing with the land
Time has taken my hands and let me touch them

Hey, hey
A billion miles to Mark A
Lay on the lawn
He's already home when the morning ray hits his face

Transdermal celebration
Jets flew in formation, I could see them
Dropping the crustaceans
Leaving trails of flame in their wake
But where is the mutation
Who once told me it was safe, I can't find him

Song Themes

Sung by Gene Ween