Les Claypool Projects Through the Years

I'm Back !

Les Claypool is one of the most talented bassists of the last two-plus decades to wield that mighty four-stringed ax. Whether it is with one of his current "solo" projects, the Frog Brigade, Bucket of Bernie Brains, Oysterhead, or his legendary band Primus, Claypool is almost always working on stretching his musical and over-all artistic boundaries even further. The man can slap a mean bass, write books, fish for sturgeon, make movies, and generally be an extremely entertaining individual. Some may argue his current musical efforts aren’t some of his best but he still puts out bits of solid, quality material in everything he does. I'll be the first to admit that I am a bit biased towards him but he is definitely one of my favorite people ever.

That being said, I'd like to take a little journey through some of the man's music videos and a few other works he has created over the years. Enjoy!

I'll start you off with THIS one. A video from Claypool's early band named Sausage. This video is so bizarre but I think it's great.


Les Claypool - Riddles Are Abound Tonight
Download Music Video Code at www.roxwel.com

Another great early video capturing Les doing two of his favorite activities, fishing and playing music, is "John the Fisherman". Additionally he looks pretty hilarious.

John The Fisherman


Next HERE is the hilarious/weird/slightly frightening "Mr. Krinkle" video from Primus. Featuring the legendary pig mask! Take notice while watching that the entire video is filmed during one continuous shot. Pretty damn cool



These next two things are both closely related. The first, Pig Hunt, a dark comic/horror movie about a 3,000 pound wild boar the kills people and terrorizes the marijuana fields of California. Les Caypool plays, "The Preacher". The Second thing, the song and video for "Boonville Stomp" which is featured one both Les's new album "Of Fungi and Foe" as well as the movie. Les busts out the bass-banjo for this one.

Les Claypool - Booneville Stomp
Download Music Video Code at www.roxwel.com

Next we have another song/video from Les's newest album. The song (Red State Girl isn’t one of my favorites but it's pretty funny and is entertaining simply because of the hilarious masks that Sam Bass (cello) and Mike Dillon (Tablas) are wearing and the faces Dillon makes.



HERE we have Les back with Primus in the hilarious video for the song "Wynona's Big Brown Beaver" which finds the boys dressed up as plastic cowboy action figures.



Primus - Wynona's Big Brown Beaver (Music Video).mpg

As mentioned before, Les Claypool has also written a book. It's titled "South of the Pumphouse" and is:

A dark, clever tale of two brothers, a fishing trip, misconceptions, drugs and murder, South of the Pumphouse skillfully combines classic motifs of epic struggle and intelligent layers of imagery, reminiscent of The Old Man and the Sea, and the raw, tweaked perspective and hallucinogenic tutorial of a Hunter Thompson novel.

Another non-music but directly music related project (well it IS music in a way) is Les's film is "Electric Apricot: Quest for Festeroo" which is a mocumentary about a jam band trying to become successful and play at the music festival "Festeroo".

Another great Primus music video is the amazing claymation video for the song "Southbound Pachyderm" off the album "Tales from the Punchbowl".

Southbound Pachyderm


Lastly I have pretty much the quintessential Primus song everyone knows. Aside from My Name is Mud, I feel this is THE song known by both hardcore fans and people who couldn't get it out of their heads from playing too much Tony Hawk Proskater. HERE it is, "Jerry Was A Racecar Driver". (yes the beginning is weird but what do you expect?)

Primus - Jerry was a Racecar Driver