SOUNDTRACK: THE CLAYPOOL LENNON DELIRIUM-“Cricket and the Genie” (2016).
Les Claypool and Sean Lennon (who has recently come back on my radar as being much more fun than I realized) have joined forces to create this unlikely (but perfectly suited) band. Lennon’s band Ghost of a Sabre Tooth Tiger opened for Primus and Dinosaur Jr this summer (and I am still bummed that I missed that tour).
What surprised me most about this collaboration is that it (well this song anyway, which is the only one I’ve heard) doesn’t sound like so many other collaborations with Claypool–meaning it’s not all Les. Les plays bass and provides some backing vocals and that’s about it. All the rest–the whole psychedelic craziness–is all Lennon.
The song has a totally retro psychedelic vibe (one that Lennon has been working with very well over the last few year) and Les’ bass is thumping and heavy without doing a lot of his Claypoolisms. Not to say that the bass is shabby–it’s not–it’s just not as Aggressively Claypool as it might be (for the better of the song).
Having said that, the opening notes are pretty distinctly Claypool, but once the music (fuzzy guitars and hummable vocals) come in, the bass sounds more like a big 70s Jon Entwistle bass than a funky Claypool bass.
The song has many many parts and changes. There’s a brief psychedelic interlude, there’s interesting organs sounds, there’s some heavy dissonant chords sprinkled throughout and there’s some great harmony vocal. There’s even a pretty lenghty sea-shanty feeling instrumental section (the song is 8 minutes long after all).
But lest you think there is no Claypool, he gets plenty of places to show off his stuff, too.
I really dig this song a lot and I can’t wait to hear the whole album.
[READ: January 8, 2015] “For Something to Do”
As part of my 2016 plan, I intend to catch up on all of the magazines that I blew off during the latter half of 2015. Basically, that means Harper’s, The Walrus and the New Yorker. And I’ll write about the stories that I ignored. Interestingly I was also planning on reading several large books in 2016. Wonder how that will play out.
So here begins a slew of Harper’s pieces
This is the kind of story that, were it a novel, I would probably give up after a chapter. But, because it was a short story, I read it all the way through, and I was glad I did.
The reason I’d have given up is because the story is dark and unpleasant, about men getting drunk and beating up other men to try to impress a woman. I don’t know a lot about Leonard’s writing, so i don’t know how his stories tend to resolve, but I was worried about just how dark this would go before any resolution was present. (more…)
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