Here's what the New Hope-Lambertville bridge over the Delaware looks like....

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New Hope, PA is the birthplace of Ween. Both Dean (Mickey Melchiondo) and Gene (Aaron Freeman) Ween grew up in it's brownish breeding ground. New Hope is a scenic river town, with the Delaware River gently separating it and Lambertville, NJ.

During the weekends, New Hope becomes a tourist destination where people ride along the river on horse carriages, mule-barge rides on the canal, ferry boats and bicycles- you name it. Somewhat idyllic, but...

(Dean Ween:) "...when you grow up in a town like that, you become fucking bitter. It's like people who live at the beach year-round, and all the summer tourists come in."

"So I was with Guy (Heller, of the Moistboyz) one day and we're walking across the bridge and we're seeing all this shit: people eating ice cream and it's so ugly. Guy's like, "Man, I just wish I had a fuckin' megaphone. I'd like to fuckin' make an announcement and say, 'AIDS!, HIV! Cancer!'...so I turned it into a song."

"The HIV Song" is #14 on Chocolate and Cheese.

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Dean Ween: "Joppa Road is a road outside of DC that we used to drive past on tour, and it looks so fucking funny on a sign."

He goes on to say, "The idea was you're cruisin' down a road, which is the name of the song, with wind blowing through your hair, and it's, like, the cruisin' vibe- sunny, cruisin', blue-sky vibe, which is what "Ventura Highway" (by the band America) is, taken to the max. It's the Ween bastardization by accident."

Joppa Road is track #11 on the 1994 Ween release, Chocolate and Cheese.

Historical tidbit: Joppa Road was originally an Indian trail and was still used as such as late as 1697.

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While preparing to shoot the video for "I Can't Put My Finger On It" off Chocolate and Cheese, Ween approached director Chris Applebaum (video director for Rihanna, Britney Spears, and other pop stars) and asked him, "Have you ever seen a succulent lamb shank skewered and spinning on a rotisserie while lit by a beautiful amber light?"

Applebaum replied that there was a falafel shop down the street from his apartment, at the corner of Avenue A and E. 8th st. Applebaum negotiated for six hours of shooting ($125 location fee), and sent a picture of the owners to Ween. They loved the look of the brothers who owned the shop, so Gene asked them to be in the video to look like his rap posse.

While shooting at the location, Mohamed brought out a collection of knives that he stored in the backroom where he and his brother slept. They are featured (along with the brothers' friends) waving them at the end of the video.

Deaner's introspective solos were shot at Coney Island (also Ween's idea).

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City Gardens is a New Jersey punk rock institution. Opened as Chocolate City (based on the Parliament-Funkadelic song) in 1976, the name changed to City Gardens in 1979. Since then, a number of interesting moments in music history have happened at City Gardens.

Ween played one of their first club gigs at City Gardens, opening for the Butthole Surfers as teenagers. They later released a live cassette of a performance at City Gardens called The Live Brain Wedgie. In the 33 1/3 book on Chocolate and Cheese, one of the band's friends recall Ween getting pelted with change by straight edge kids when they opened for Fugazi.

Danzig played their first show at City Gardens. A Flock of Seagulls, Thompson Twins and Sinéad O'Connor all made their American debuts at City Gardens.

The Daily Show host Jon Stewart was a bartender at City Gardens for several years before he started doing stand-up. James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem was a bouncer there for months.

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