Primus has announced that their first two releases, "Suck On This," and "Fizzle Fry" have been digitally remastered and are available for pre-order at musictoday.com This is great news for Primus fans as "Suck On This" has been out-of-print for years and the re-release of "Fizzle Fry" features a rare cover medley of the Residents' "Hello Skinny/Constantinople." Also, all fans who pre-order before April 23rd are automatically entered to win one of three previously-unavailable Club Bastardo posters.
The Grand Pecking Order, the debut album from Oysterhead, has been released.
Live Frogs - Set 1 recently won the Jammy Award for Best Live Album.
Primus is presently on hiatus, but when they come back, it'll be with Tim "Herb" Alexander on drums, since Brian "Brain" Mantia has left the band to join Guns 'n' Roses.
Fresh from his recent success with both Oysterhead (which also featured Trey Anastasio of Phish and Stewart Copeland formerly of the Police) at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, and new lineups at Mountain Aire, Gathering Of The Vibes and the Jammys, Primus mainman Les Claypool continues to broaden his horizons with another musical alliance, Colonel Les Claypool's Fearless Flying Frog Brigade.
The new project features two members of Ratdog, drummer Jay Lane (also formerly of Primus, Claypool's side project Sausage, the Charlie Hunter Trio and Alphabet Soup) and keyboardist Jeff Chimenti (Phil Lesh, En Vogue jazz legends Pharoa Sanders, James Moody, Earnie Watts, Art Farmer and Frank Morgan. The band also includes guitarist Todd Huth (original Primus member), Seattle's sax maniac Skerik (Critters Buggin', Galactic, Tuatara with REM's Peter Buck, and Ponga and guitarist Eenor who was chosen by Claypool from the many submissions he recieved from San Francisco, Bay Area musicians.
On June 22, Les Claypool will be sitting in with the Disco Biscuits at the Jammy's at Irving Plaza in New York. On June 24, he's debuting his new band (featuring Jay Lane, among others) at the Gathering of the Vibes, in Connecticut.
Primus will be playing an unique show at the Fillmore on April 29, 2000!
And it rocks: here's more info!
Antipop tour dates have been added to to the live shows section.
This is the one we've all been waiting for. Antipop, the seventh full-length album by Primus is due to hit stores October 19th, 1999.
While the band has produced a number of tracks themselves, they have been joined by an eclectic array of artists, making Antipop a very collaborative effort.
Musical genius, Tom Waits, who provided the voice of Tommy the Cat on Primus' Sailing the Seas of Cheese produced, played mellotron and sang on Coattails of a Dead Man which also features vocals from Martina Topley Bird (of Tricky fame).
Guitar wizard Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine produced and played on three tracks, including Electric Uncle Sam and Mama Didn't Raise No Fool.
Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst co-produced Lacquer Head and Jim Martin, formerly of Faith No More, plays guitar on the epic nine-minute rock opus Eclectic Electric. Some of the albums many other guests include Stewart Copeland (Police), James Hetfield (Metallica), and Matt Stone (co-creator of South Park).
The album was engineered by Oz Fritz, best known for his decade long partnership with Bill Laswell and his recent work on Waits' Mule Variations, and mixed by Toby Wright, who produced Primus' Rhinoplasty EP.
.Or is he really? Word has it that he's part of this secret undercover operation to assasinate Slobodan Milosovic, and is even going to walk the aisle to perfect his disguise and get his gun sights on Milosovic. If you pray really hard, he may just be reincarnated!
Primus have been playing a new song, Antipop on their Ozzfest 1999 tour. Check out the live show listings page for reviews of the show (and of the song)!
Show your support: call up your local rock radio station to play Antipop or anything off the new album they want!
See the live show listings page for the tour dates. There will be a live cybercase from House of Blues Online on July 1 and July 24.
Les Claypool wins another Bammy (Bay Area Music award analogous to the Grammys) for his incredible bass playing.
Work on Primus' second home video, Videoplasty, has completed and the video is set to hit the streets on December 1, just in time for Christmas. It will be full of loads of utter retardation to fulfill all of your Primus needs. Videoplasty will feature 45-50 minutes of live footage shot at a recent show at Petaluma's Phoenix Theater, the videos for Shake Hands With Beef and Over the Falls, footage of the making of those videos, a bunch of dumb animation and a whole lot more. There's so much packed into this one that it's sure to make your head explode!
Primus will play two shows for their annual New Year's Eve Freak Out at San Francisco's Warfeild Theatre. Expect many a freak for this epic event! We hope to see strange lights, Buckethead and DJ Disk! Opening acts will be announced soon!
Chef Aid: The South Park Album is scheduled to hit stores on November 10th and will feature two tracks from Primus, the South Park theme song and the new smash hit Mephisto and Kevin about South Park's resident genetic scientist and his mutated gopher-boy sidekick. The soundtrack also features such artists as Rick James, Master P, Isaac Hayes, Rancid, Joe Strummer, Ozzy Osbourne and more.
So you think Primus Sucks Huh? Well maybe you could do better! Here's your chance to be the Head Bastardo; make Les, Ler, and Brian frizzle to the sounds of Rhinoplasty! Primus and Interscope Records is proud to bring you REMIX MADNESS.
Here's how to join in on the Madness. Go to http://www.producersearch.com and download the vocal, guitar, bass and drums tracks to "Too Many Puppies" off the new Rhinoplasty album. Remix "Too Many Puppies" to your liking. Send in your best remix for chance to win lots of prizes, like a spot on an Interscope Records CD.
The contest will be voted on by people who visit the site. So go check out some mad remixes.
Wednesday, September 9, 8:00 PM (ET), 5:00 PM (PT)
Live from the Primus rehearsal space, Primus and special guests, with a behind the scenes look at the archives of the band's warehouse and the inner workings of Prawn Song Designs, the band's interactive multimedia company, all hosted by the Grand Master himself, Bob C. Cock.
Catch an audio concert of Primus Live from Irving Plaza in NYC, May 11, 1998 at audionet.
If you're itching hear Les's music for "Devil Went Down to Georgia", the cartoon is part of the '98 Sick and Twisted Animation Festival. The shows are only about $7 and you get other messed up cartoons like "Jurassic Fart", "Hut Sluts", and about 20 others. You can get show dates at http://www.spikeandmike.com/events.html (from John Heyer).
February 4 at Bimbo's is a benefit for Calder Spanier, the ex-Charlie Hunter horn man who was killed on the Bay Bridge last month. Primus will play with Spearhead. The Sno-Core tour starts February 7th. Check the list of live shows for details. The San Jose show is one of the first shows.
Calder Spanier of the Charlie Hunter Quartet died in a tragic car accident in San Francisco two weeks ago ago and was buried in Montreal last Monday (December 15, 1997). His father is the well known Canadian trumpet player Herbie Spanier from Toronto.
Primus will be playing the New Year's Eve Freak Out show at the Henry J. Kaiser Auditorium in Oakland (on December 31st---duh!). See you there!
Primus will be going on tour again, shortly. An initial date of September 22nd at Bottom of the Hill in SF has been announced. Additional dates can be found in the tour dates page.
The television show South Park on Comedy Central has its theme song done by Primus, and there is an animation of Les in the opening credits.
Primus will be playing the H.O.R.D.E. tour this summer. Neil Young and Crazy Horse, Morphine, Big Head Todd (for half, Widespread Panic the other half) with more (hopefully cooler bands) to come.
Les has just finished acting a small role as a rock 'n' roll manager in a low-budget film that Linda Perry (formerly of 4 Non-Blondes) is shooting.
Les Claypool's solo album is now out on Interscope. It is titled Les Claypool and the Holy Mackerel Present Highball With The Devil. It has several guests such as Jay Lane, MIRV, Charlie Hunter and Joe Gore (of PJ harvey and Tom Waits). There are no more live dates.
The new drummer for Primus is Brian "Brain" Mantia, of Praxis, MIRV, and the Limbomaniacs. He will also be the drummer who will be touring with Les Claypool's solo project tour.
This is official comment from the Primus camp:
"A Friendly Departure" Primus and drummer Tim Alexander have parted ways. "It's something the three of us have discussed for a while." said bassist/vocalist Les Claypool. "We all want to take the music in different directions. Unfortunately for Tim, Larry (Lalonde) and I tend to want similar things creatively." Claypool added, "This difference in opinion I think left everyone less than satisfied. Over time this developed into a rift that was eating away at the stability of the band. After the last touring season it was evident to all of us that something needed to change. " "As we all know, Tim is an excellent drummer and I'm sure we'll see great things from him in future projects," Claypool continued. "As for Primus, Larry and I are extrenely excited to move forward and will announce our new drummer soon. We are now writing and plan to start recording in December. I would like to see Primus continue well on into the next century - our new drummer will reflect that same attitude."
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