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On the Town with PRIMUS

UNIVERSAL AMPHITHEATRE, CA 23 AUGUST

Back in 1992, I was scouting out locations for a music video that never happened.
Me and this producer were walking up the street from Highland Grounds and there's this line extending for a block or so, and a regular looking tour bus out in front of The Probe, which for this night was converted into Riki Rachtman's Cat House or something like that.
I go up into the tour bus and the genial fellow there by the driver's wheel tells me that the band inside to jam that night was Primus. Known to me by reputation only and having never heard a lick, I complimented the dude on the Primus gig and then went inside to scope out the height of the ceilings and other peripheral stuff.
"Bad Influence" shot portional footage at this joint.

Here we are 3 years hence and we're at this huge venue maybe five miles up the road from The Probe. Lot's changed for this Power Trio, and they did not need to become expatriates to Do It.

The Universal Amphitheatre is actually like an enormous punchbowl bisected at the stage so the effect on me to listen to a band whose latest album has "punchbowl" in it seemed a rather pleasant visual sidebar to the sonic massage my ears got all evening.

The running joke is that you need to be high to enjoy the sort of chemistry Primus dispenses live, however, if you are a wide enough person already, you may find yourself putting on some John Coltrane or Bird after a show like the one I saw upon that Universal hill. I can comfortably say that these cats have the capacity to go to the rarified atmosphere where Trane blows and Bird flies.
Do you NEED drugs to enjoy the hep cats?

Let's start with mission control:
Tim Alexander commands a batterie of drums that looks like a gunnery station. Tim can quote Neil Peart quite handily, although I think Tim tunes his rig differently than Peart does. A legendary drummer with 350 gold album credits and maybe a dozen platinum album credits, maybe a Grammy or two told me that the sum purpose of a drummer is to create the vibration that Moves people. Alexander is in full possession of this faculty when it comes to riding the tubs. Tim's cymbal work shimmers.

Batting 2nd and weighing in around 20Hz, Les Claypool has the skills to pay the bills for those Thompson bass guitars he plays. I'd say Claypool's Heavy. You could use his name in a sentence with surnames like Lee (Geddy), Pastorius, and Clarke and not have to whisper. I'd love to hear a Primus take on Weather Report's "Teen Town" using somebody like Geoff Bova on synths.

Les is more giddy than Geddy when it comes to performance. When a bird waddled out on stage with a custom Maloney upright stick, Les stroked the gut strung electric to the tune of Jaws and cracked a joked last week was shark week on Discovery Channel.
This got the crowd to laugh delightfully at the juxtaposition of the tune, the venue, and the Company that spawned Speilberg. During one adventurous jam, Claypool segued to Love Roller Coaster which got the rather alternative crowd to turn the mutha out.

Larry Lalonde is cleanup, since there ain't no forth man in a Power Trio.
From my vantage in the Loge I spied Lalonde's rig and surmised that he he is fond of Paul Reed Smith's and prefers white label Marshall heads and 412s side by side with a custom control box between the 412s. All this from 200 feet, so excuse any rig configuration that's wrong.
Why do I think of FZ when I hear Lalonde? You know, Rykodisc FZ...Lalonde's tone is possibly what you might have heard if FZ were not so averse to Guitar Heroism. FZ only gave a lucky-few glimpses of his prowess. I envy Johnny Guitar Watson.The rest of us shall have to console ourselves with FZ's catalogue and by going to hear Primus live to get a healthy fix of Lalonde's tone.
This is not about putting Lalonde at FZ's level. It's about the creative muse. Lalonde'screativity is very Frank.

It's 7 September and I have not heard the album, Tales From The Punch Bowl...yet. My source is out of stock, so stay tuned for the Album Review in a later iteration. We end here, since I've nothing to say in support of the album.



 
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