I first heard Les Claypool when I was 11 years old and I heard “Tommy the Cat” played when Primus lost the San Dimas Battle of the Bands to Bill and Ted in their Bogus Journey. A few years later, Beavis & Butthead’s interest in them solidified my own interest, and by the time 1995’s Tales From the Punchbowl was released, I had an intense and vested interest in all things Primus. I saw them every time they came to Seattle, and I almost always had a Primus album on me during my formative teen years when the majority of my important music listening transpired. Listening to Primus got me into The Residents; it made me realize that slap bass could be heavier than just funk, it instilled a sense of cheesiness in my sense of humor, and generally created a version of me that leaned into being weird instead of being afraid of it.
When 90’s bands were trying to be edgy and cool, Primus offered me an alternative that showed me that being weird and funny was not just a viable option; it was damn near a life requirement. When Claypool started his second solo band (the first being Holy Mackerel), I attended the 8th ever Colonel Les Claypool’s Fearless Flying Frog Brigade concert when they played Seattle in August of 2000. I’m not just a fan. Les Claypool is part of the core components of my own personal musical D.N.A. and I’m incredibly grateful that I get to live in a world where he continues to make music.
One of my personal favorite music journalists is Abigail Devoe. When Abigail comes across Eric Clapton in her journalistic pursuits, she is quick to refer to his participation in the 1960s and 1970s music scene as “The Eric Clapton Extended Cinematic Universe”. To me, the Claypool Gold tour is basically “The Les Claypool Extended Cinematic Universe”. The way his bands have evolved and changed members over time, and the way his different projects have started to overlap, can at times feel like Iron Man showing up in a Spider-Man movie. When Les Claypool and Sean Lennon began their project The Claypool Lennon Delirium ten years ago, I don’t think any of the Claypool fanbase would’ve anticipated that eventually Sean Lennon would become Flying Frog Brigade’s lead guitar player, but that’s exactly what happened a few years ago. Les has stated that his manager, Brad Sands, is the one who had the idea for Claypool Gold. Tour all three bands at the same time and make a real event out of it. The way the evening unfolded was atypical of expectations and certainly made me shed any preconceived notions about what I thought would transpire.
The pre-show music was interrupted by a scene from the 1948 John Huston movie Treasure of the Sierra Madre, where in-character actor Walter Huston gives his famous “Gold, precious gold” speech as Flying Frog Brigade’s stage music “When Johnny Comes Marching Home” began to swell and the band members took to the stage. Local favorites Critters Buggin’ members Skerik and Mike Dillon on stage left and Sean Lennon on guitar flanking Colonel Claypool’s right, wasting no time, The Fearless Flying Frog Brigade launched into their first number, “Up on the Roof”. The jams were expansive and loose, and each member on stage was allowed ample room to stretch out and show o? their chops. Larry LaLonde, Primus’ guitar player, took the stage to add another guitar for the third number of the evening, “David Macallister”. All members on stage playing at the height of their powers and absolutely destroying even by Flying Frog standards.
The 4-song-long set that the Frog Bridge played turned out to be just shy of 50 minutes, at which point the band left the stage and The Claypool Lennon Delirium’s song “There’s No Underwear in Space” was piped over the PA preceding their turn to play. What transpired during their set was a prog rock fantasy of complicated psychedelic passages being woven by masters of their craft.
Lennon is musically nothing like his father in sound or in approach, but he knows how to write a hook and a sensible pop melody that will get stuck in your head just like dear old dad. It’s an interesting and di?erent approach to writing prog rock that’s more like early Genesis and YES than it is Rush, the prog band that Claypool is most known for citing as an influence.
I’m not really super familiar with Claypool Lennon Delirium. I’ve heard bits here and there, but it never quite captured me the way Claypool’s other projects have; I loved this portion of the show. Lennon is a hell of a guitar player, and his contributions to this project feel like the lion’s share the more you listen. You can tell by the way the songs are crafted that Sean and Les “yes and” one another’s ideas and have a relationship in which they push one another to excel in their respective roles within the project. A couple of times during the course of the set, I wondered if this collaboration could’ve ever worked if Les hadn’t worked with Stewart Copeland and Trey Anastasio in the early 2000’s supergroup Oysterhead.
Closing out the first set, all of the Frog Brigade returned to the stage along with Larry LaLalonde and new Primus drummer John Ho?man for a spirited super jam on the Syd Barrett Pink Floyd classic “Astronomy Domine,” a song that Lennon Claypool Delirium has been playing for a number of years.
If you’ve seen Primus more than once, you know that the Danny Elfman song “Clown Dream” from the Pee Wee’s Big Adventure score is sort of a comical fanfare-like announcement that the band is readying itself to take to the stage. This evening was no different in that regard, but instead of the band taking the stage right away, a video package played featuring a number of musicians and other celebrities talking about how important Primus was to their development as artists, creatives, and music fans. When the video concluded, Les, Larry, and newcomer Josh Hoffman entered and wasted precious little time by launching into long-time Primus staple “Harold of the Rocks”.
When preparing for this show, I found myself with a little bit of a chip on my shoulder about seeing “too much Claypool in a single evening” and expressed some nervousness to a coworker about how much I would actually enjoy it. When he seemed more than displeased that anyone would say something even remotely negative about getting to attend this show, I made clear to him that I am, in fact, a big Primus fan by saying, “Hey, don’t get me wrong. I’m excited. I want to hear “Harold of the Rocks” just like everyone else!” I didn’t anticipate it as an opener and took the presence of a song which is generally reserved for the end of sets being played as an opener as a moment of serendipity that made all of my reservations and old cynical fandom melt away at the top of the set of music I was looking forward to the most. Simply put, Primus sucks and I fucking love Primus.
Years ago, when longtime drummer Tim Alexander left Primus a number of times and would come back after albums on which Jay Lane and Bryan Mantia provided percussion, he generally dragged his feet about playing the parts that other drummers had played. As a result, songs like “Last Salmon Man” and “Bob’s Party Time Lounge” were rarely played live during the years that he was present. The addition of new drummer John Hoffman, however, means that the entirety of Primus’ body of work is now at the band’s disposal.
Despite having seen Primus on multiple occasions, including shows where they played entire albums front to back, I got to see a number of songs I never in my wildest dreams thought I would get to see performed live. The aforementioned songs, as well as a long-time favorite of mine, “Shake Hands with Beef”. Personal setlist highlights for myself include “Welcome to This World,” which is another song I never thought I’d get to see; “Seas of Cheese,” which included an extended upright bass solo by Les preceding it and a particularly amazing and dark psychedelic “Over the Electric Grapevine” to close out the show.
Only days before the Claypool Gold tour kicked off, Primus surprised its fans by dropping a new EP which included a brand new song (their first new original written with Hoffman as a member) titled “The Ol’ Grizz”. It’s old-school Primus goofiness at its best and an incredible statement to make as an encore song. After an evening of oldies but goodies, letting the audience know that this isn’t just a nostalgia factory and new things are to come from the band. After the single was out of the way, all of Claypool Lennon Delirium returned to the stage along with the members of Flying Frog Brigade and played a gigantic 14+ minute version of Tales From the Punchbowl’s “Southbound Pachyderm.” As pink elephants on trampolines jumped higher and higher into the sky before taking flight on the screens behind them, Les Claypool and his “extended cinematic universe” brought the evening to a dark, loose and weird place to sum up the evenings festivities. Skerik’s sax parts sounded like elephant’s trumpets in distress, with wah-wah drenched whammy bar dive bomb guitars and tribal drums grooving underneath ethereal drones from the keyboardists’ efforts, Mike Dillon’s marimba and Les’ winding bass passages created something unlike anything else that had happened all evening. A truly collaborative and beautiful way to collide universes in a collaborative and special way.
As the supergroup left the stage to confounded but elated applause and cheers, the audience was sent home to the gentle sounds of “Pure Imagination” from the 1971 film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory wafting from the PA. A song which is an important part of Primus’ history and just as near and dear to their fans. What a wonderful way to say goodnight to a loyal and dedicated fanbase that always comes back for more.
