CDs Revisited: Ben Weasel - 'These Ones Are Bitter'

I used to really like Screeching Weasel. Wait, that's not entirely accurate. I used to really like the following Screeching Weasel records. Boogadaboogadaboogada, My Brain Hurts, Anthem for a New Tomorrow, and, to a lesser extent, Wiggle and Kill the Musicians. I enjoyed songs here and there from their other records, but overall I think that I thought I liked them a lot more than I actually did.

Because of that, I was excited to buy one of the clearance bundles sold by Asian Man Records when Weasel and the label parted ways (I don't know what went down, but the important part here is that after they decided to no longer work together, Asian Man started cleaning house and sold bundles that included shirts, koozies, and both CD and LP copies of Phase 3, Invasion USA, The Brain That Wouldn't Die, and These Ones Are Bitter.) The bundle wasn't as exciting as I thought it was going to be, but that is partially because Mike Park had miscalculated how many of each LP he had, and when he was putting my bundle together he realized he was out of both Phase 3 and These Ones Are Bitter on vinyl. I know that this happened because he emailed me and offered to either give me a refund or any other LP in the Asian Man catalog as a replacement (or, if I preferred, any 2 CDs). I thanked him for his kindness, and I asked him to include a pressing of Goddamnit with my order.

Anyway, back to These Ones Are Bitter:

Around the time I got this CD was around the same time when Ben Weasel's online presence began to grow, and not necessarily in a good way. At the time it was mostly bad mouthing other bands (the two most high profile bands at the time were The Max Levine Ensemble and The Lawrence Arms), while also proudly declaring his enjoyment of The All-American Rejects, and even though I didn't agree with what he was saying it was easy enough to ignore and not let it effect the music. Which is just as well, because the music didn't really capture my attention anyway.

I know that some punks scoffed at the idea that the album was produced by Mike Kennerty of The All-American Rejects (Kennerty and AAR drummer Chris Gaylor also performed as Weasel's band on this album, along with Dan Andriano on bass), but I don't think that his production negatively impacted these songs, and at the time I thought it was funny that someone as cranky as Ben Weasel would work with him. (Side note: he's since gone on to produce some of my favorite albums including Direct Hit!'s Brainless God and The Copyrights' Report). Listening to the album now, I'm remembering why "Let Freedom Ring" is one of my favorite Ben Weasel-penned tunes, but whereas I used to lose interest quickly after that, I'm discovering that there are some solid pop punk songs later in the track list as well ("The First Day of Spring" wraps up Weasel's "First Day of the Season" quartet, and "Affected By You" is equally snotty and catchy).

I'm beginning to think that I should have listened to this album more when I first got it. It's certainly too late for me to ever think of it as being on the same level as My Brain Hurts or Anthem for a New Tomorrow, but as far as I can remember, These Ones Are Bitter is better than a lot of Screeching Weasel's Fat Wreck output and Weasel's first solo album (of course, I also remembered not liking this album, so maybe my memory is just garbage).

You can stream the album below.