"Rock forever, um, yeah!"
Farewell CD from Pete Weiss et al: 'We're An American Band'
"We're comin' to your town;
We'll help you party down;
WE'RE AN AMERICAN BAND."
-Grand Funk Railroad
Pete Weiss & the Rock Band WERE an American band. By the time you read this however, they will no longer be a band. But never fear. They have left a "farewell" document in the form of an enhanced CD. Originally conceived as a 5-song CD of oddly-done covers of FM radio classics, "We're An American Band" has become a full-length CD featuring the last studio recordings of the nearly-legendary PW & RB.
The first half of the CD is the original "covers" EP, including a rip-roarin' version of the Grand Funk title cut (featuring special guest Malcolm Travis of Sugar fame on drums), the Beatles' "One After 909" translated and sung in a different language (which language is left up to the listener), a brief Frank Zappa & the Mothers' "Bow Tie Daddy," an obscure T Rex tune called "Seagull Woman," and a wall-of-guitar take on the Cream song you hate to love, "SWLABR." (Trivia: the letters in "SWLABR" stand for "She Was Like A Bearded Rainbow" -- no kidding.)
The second half of the CD includes "Zippah Studio Theme," a one-minute ode to the studio in which Pete Weiss works as an engineer-producer, perrenial mellow live favorite "Don't Go '99," and PW & RB's first (and happily, last) foray into the world of vomit and rap, the completely ridiculous "Pukin' Rap."
Also included on the CD is a QuickTime version of PW & RB's only music video. Leave it to them to shoot a video for an instrumental tune called "Boogie Me Timbers." The video features a pirate, a clown, and well, uh, we probably shouldn't divulge anymore. The video alone is almost worth the price of the CD. Technical info: we're told the video will play on Macintosh computer systems with QuickTime version 4 and will also play on most Windows systems as well.
It's true that Pete Weiss & the Rock Band are throwing in the proverbial rock
towel. But their music will live on in the Section
304 catalog (as well as a handful of valuable live bootlegs, recently
seen selling on Ebay for hundreds of dollars.)
Pete Weiss & the Rock Band would like to thank all their fans for the heartfelt support over the past 1/25th of a century.
Pete, Emily, and Stephen
Get back
Meet the Band 
News
Songs
Recordings
Gigs Archive
Pics & Video