From: Charlie Dirksen
5/23/90  The Library, Richmond, VA

Enormously strange opening segment.  Highly unusual, with screaming of
the lyrics, lots of moaning (from everyone) and goofing off.  Very
amusing!!  I wish they'd do something like this at least once in
awhile.  "Ebeneezer" at 3:59, and there is plenty of chaotic vocal
stuff (but no screaming) right after it.

Jam segment kicks in strongly at 4:30, approximately the usual time
for the early Tweezers (at this time, Tweezer had only been around for
about three months or so).  Trey repeats a catchy lick mellowly in the
first minute, and Page jams quite well on the piano (he is by far the
most active).  Fish and Mike just maintain a solid bottom.

Trey begins soloing more markedly around 6:08, but is nevertheless
quite patient, and even dissonant around 6:26.  None of the
ultra-melodious, spine-tinglingly charming soloing of many a YEM jam
segment, for example.  Trey actually seems to play a lot of
double-stops in the 6:30-7:30 period in a hideously off-key manner --
it sounds like shit, really.  Fishman starts cackling and screaming
around 7:37 (a very evil Tweezer).  More noise from Fish around 8:06
and 8:21 -- he actually sounds like he's struggling to disembowel a
very large fecal obstruction around 9:10.  Trey's soloing by this
point is considerably more melodious (and high up the 'doc) than

The "Note" comes at 9:32, and the dying out of the Tweezer theme
segment begins at 9:42, as one would expect for these early versions.
This early version (like the others) features a return to the primary
melody/theme (the music in the opening of every Tweezer, in other
words) after the dying out of the tweezer theme segment.  This
thematic close doesn't last too long, but does end solidly (the band
dropped this ending in favor of simply dying out the theme (the more
typical ending of Tweezer today) in 1992 I think, but I would have to
check).  Total time 11:17.

The opening segment of this Tweezer is certainly strange and
interesting enough (that's why I bothered to review this version at
all), and well, Fishman's occasional screams in the jam segment
amuse.  But the music of this Tweezer basically sucks, in light not
only of the very first versions of Tweezer, but also in light of more
recent versions, and so it isn't worth more than a 4.0, imo.

two cents
charlie