Army's on Ecstasy, or as I call it, Military on Molly, is a an uptempo, art-rock exploration of musical compormise. That is to say, with three strong-willed musicians in the room, something has to give, and this is what we get. It's sort of poppy, sort of jammy, and sort of weird, but undeniably a product of Les, Stew, and Trey. We get into these unique Claypool lyrics, their source material, and hypothesize on how this tune came about. We also ponder the uncredited voices in this track, and just what makes it a product of compromise.

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We can all breathe and drift away after the heavy subject matter and oppressive aura of Shadow of a Man, and perhaps it's a relief that the music of Radon Balloon is light and airy, and the lyrics make zero sense. Either way, please have your basement tested for radon, the silent killer, and then drift away as Josh and Frankie talk about the only Oysterhead track credited solely to Trey Anastasio.

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Despite being an Oysterhead track, we suspect this is a tune that Les had at least formulated during the Primus Antipop cycle, and was revived for the Oysterhead record after some time on the shelf. The only track solely penned by Claypool on The Grand Pecking Order, this one is a quintessential Les track, and we discuss the for such an assertion, while embracing the darkness of the lyrical experience. It gets grim.

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For the mighty thematic track underpinning the formation of Oysterhead and the purpose behind its record, we turn to a favorite, Kello Gonzalez, to discuss the structure and freedoms that both exist within Mr. Oysterhead. It's rare that Les pens such confident lyrics about himself and his music, but when you're flanked by Stew and Trey, I suppose one might be feeling their oats. Kello provides info about Les's effects setup for this track, in particular how Les uses the envelope filter.

Find Kello playing lots of bass and his three(!) forthcoming records on Youtube

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Who is Oz? Why is he floating? What does this have to do with John C. Lilly? We tackle all of these questions and more to gain an understanding of the second track from Oysterhead's The Grand Pecking Order, a compact number that tangentially broaches the metaphysical. Plus, song history, live tracks, and Josh helps you avoid cults, FOR FREE.

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We continue our Primus-adjacent chronology with the 2001 release by Oysterhead, The Grand Pecking Order. This record came about after Les Claypool, Trey Anastasio, and Stewart Copeland reconvened at Trey's barn in Vermont many months after their only planned gathering, a one-off (at the time) show in May 2000 in New Orleans.

In this episode, we chart the band's formation and development of the record, and we also do our due diligence to the record's first track, Little Faces, including mining the first performance for some nuggets that would resurface on this studio cut.

Find Lalo @LaloFierro on Instagram! Lalo modles Les's bass parts, and makes some fascinating observations about technique and style.

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David Lefkowitz returns to Primus Tracks to further flesh out the narrative of the band's 1990s rise. We discuss the Pork Soda album cycle, complete with production, videos, touring, and how the band responded to suddenly having a top ten record. Soya and Josh hold it down in Frankie's absence. Get ready for inside baseball!

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Les Claypool's Fearless Flying Frog Brigade returned in majestic form as they toured the USA in 2023 - 57 shows that thrilled, delighted, and awed audiences who came for the Claypoolian tunes and stayed for the cover of the entire Animals album by Pink Floyd. We delve into the tour by the numbers, provide our own personal highlights from the shows we attended and recordings abailable, and read lots of listener commentary on the tour: lots of positivity and praise for this lineup and its prodigous musical cohesion, and rightfully so. Viva las ranas!

Tech note: We did have some weirdness with Frankie's mic for the first few minutes, but the sound improves in short order.

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After Primus went on hiatus in 2000, Les Claypool was at a musical and professional crossroads. Eventually, he assembled a group of friends as Colonel Les Claypool's Fearless Flying Frog Brigade for some festivals, and after solidifying the lineup, took to touring the States in a small Airstream trailer. These efforts results in Live Frogs Set 1 and Set 2, which provide a glimpse into the early Frog Brigade experience: lots of Pink Floyd, Sausage, and Holy Mackerel, and a liberated musical experience in which Les and his fellow Frogs stretch, jam, and explore their sonic realm. The Frog experience introduced Les to the jam scene, which embraced him no matter what iteration performed, creating a new audience, and sound, that would eventually cross over into Primus and other projects. We dig into Live Frogs Set 1 and 2 to compare and contrast the original Animals reocrding to what the retooled Frog Brigade presents in 2023, and appreciate how the band elevates some righeous numbers from Sausage and Holy Mackerel. Get your frog on!

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This week, we discuss Buckethead's album Monsters And Robots, a 1999 effort that features Les Claypool and Brian Mantia writing and performing with Bucket during some time off from Primus. The result: six unqie tracks from a Buckethead ouvre that now includes over 400 albums, a dizzying number. We provide a brief overview of Bucket's mysterious persona, and how Les and Brain help shape this record, which may be the best-known of them all in Bucketheadland.

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