DETAILS

Les Claypool with Cappilary Action
MacEwan Hall
Sunday, June 28 - Sunday, June 28

More in: Rock / Pop

Whether he’s chowing down at Dee’s Diner, pulling strippers out of San Pablo Bay or migrating with the elephants, Les Claypool is an artist who knows how to enjoy himself. A world-renowned bass player and co-founder of the seminal alt-rock outfit Primus, Claypool has made a career out of being funky, weird and, above all, technically awesome. As proprietor of his own record label, Prawn Song, Claypool has kept himself busy, releasing multiple records under a variety of band names. Always hungry for a new project, he created the Oddity Faire Tour earlier this year — a musical sideshow freak-out that grew out of Claypool’s penchant for performing at summer festivals. This passion for massive concerts (“I call myself a festival whore — I’ve played every show but Lilith Fair,” he says) prompted him to direct Electric Apricot: Quest for Festaroo, a mockumentary that examines the Holy Grail of festivals.

“It was my first attempt to get behind the camera, put other people in front of the camera and direct them,” Claypool explains from his California home, known as Rancho Relaxo. “I quite enjoyed the filmmaking process. Electric Apricot had a limited release on 40 screens and made it into a lot of midnight movie runs. I generally like playing festivals; not only do they pay well but they’re where musicians get exposed to new music.”

When he’s not gallivanting around the country, performing his signature brand of ribald punk-rock hoedown music with twisted vocal narrative accompaniment, Claypool has any number of indoor projects on the go. The composer and performer of theme songs for two popular animated series, South Park and Robot Chicken, Claypool wasn’t too surprised when he was approached to score the music for a video game called Mushroom Men. Slapping, finger-tapping and strumming his way to success, the avant-garde bandleader also contributed material to the soundtrack of the horror flick Pig Hunt, the story of vicious wild boars that guard marijuana fields. Those two endeavours have led to the release of his latest full-length album, the appropriately titled Of Fungi and Foe.

“The songs I composed for those soundtracks became the foundations of the new album.” Claypool explains. “Somehow there is a cohesive and interactive science fiction relationship between the mushroom men and the wild pigs. Truly, there’s a lot of drunken babble in there — it was basically three hungover guys going into the studio and trying to ease the pain by pushing through a record. I had toured with Eugene Hutz of Gogol Bordello in the past and invited him to come into the studio to help me record the track, “Bite of Life.” It was an invigorating experience. Eugene has a zest for life that I have rarely witnessed.”

Pursuing his own joie de vivre to the fullest, Les Claypool penned a Hunter S. Thompon-esque novel, South of the Pumphouse, in 2006 and even has plans to release his own wine, Purple Pachyderm, later this year. One thing’s for certain — at the ripe vintage of 45, California’s answer to Geddy Lee isn’t showing any signs of slowing down.

“It’s kind of a small boutique thing,” Claypool says of his dalliance as a vintner. “I live in the Pinot Noir capital of the California — the Russian River Valley north of San Francisco — so I thought it was time for me to start squishing some of my neighbours’ fruit of choice. I enjoy wine, I love working with the land and find the chemistry behind the process rather interesting, but I can enter into it without being dominated by it.”