Primus

Anyone who's heard Primus's music will agree that this is definitely one of the WEIRDEST bands out there! The music is totally bass-driven, with the guitar mostly as background noise. Guitarist Larry LaLonde, in fact, started his career in the death-metal band Possessed (a FAR cry from Primus's sound, no doubt!), then teamed up with bassist Les Claypool in the progressive-thrash band Blind Illusion.

Primus also has songs on The Beavis & Butthead Experience the Airheads soundtrack, and the tribute album Nativity in Black II. (And you did know they do the theme song for South Park, right?)

"Frizzle Fry"

  1. "To Defy the Laws of Tradition" (6:40)
  2. "Ground Hog's Day" (4:57)
  3. "Too Many Puppies" (3:57)
  4. "Mr. Knowitall" (3:50)
  5. "Frizzle Fry" (6:02)
  6. "John the Fisherman" (3:36)
  7. "You Can't Kill Michael Malloy"--instrumental (0:25)
  8. "The Toys Go Winding Down" (4:34)
  9. "Pudding Time" (4:06)
  10. "Sathington Willoby" (0:24)
  11. "Spegetti Western" (5:42)
  12. "Harold of the Rocks" (6:17)
  13. "To Defy"--instrumental (0:37)

This is a good album to get stoned to...as a result, I'm not entirely familiar with all the songs here (except "John the Fisherman", of course) but I do know they all sound pretty cool. :-)

"Sailing the Seas of Cheese"

  1. "Seas of Cheese" (0:42)
  2. "Here Come the Bastards" (2:53)
  3. "Sgt. Baker" (4:13)
  4. "American Life" (4:31)
  5. "Jerry Was a Race Car Driver" (3:11)
  6. "Eleven" (4:18)
  7. "Is it Luck?" (3:27)
  8. "Grandad's Little Ditty" (0:37)
  9. "Tommy the Cat" (4:14)
  10. "Sathington Waltz" (1:42)
  11. "Those Damned Blue-Collar Tweekers" (5:18)
  12. "Fish On (Fisherman's Chronicles, Chapter II)" (7:42)
  13. "Los Bastardos" (2:39)

"Jerry Was a Race Car Driver" was the song that introduced me to the band...and probably everyone else as well. :-) The rest of the album, though, does show the limitations of the band's unique yet narrow bass-oriented style of playing...except for "Jerry", and a few other choice tracks like "Fish On" and "Tommy the Cat", there isn't really much interesting here.

"Miscellaneous Debris"

  1. "Intruder" (4:14)
  2. "Making Plans for Nigel" (3:31)
  3. "Sinister Exaggerator" (3:33)
  4. "Tippi Toes" (1:23)
  5. "Have a Cigar" (5:26)

An EP of cover tunes that the band put out to satisfy all those new Primus fans. :-) "Intruder" is a Peter Gabriel song, though a far cry from the original...the cover of Pink Floyd's "Have a Cigar" is worth a laugh (although a friend and hopelessly obsessed Pink Floyd fan who heard this said it was TERRIBLE...) "Making Plans for Nigel" was originally by the band XTC; the other two tracks I have no idea who originally made them.

"Pork Soda"

  1. "Pork Chop's Little Ditty"--instrumental (0:21)
  2. "My Name is Mud" (4:46)
  3. "Welcome to this World" (3:40)
  4. "Bob" (4:40)
  5. "DMV" (4:58)
  6. "The Ol' Diamondback Sturgeon (Fisherman's Chronicles, Part 3)" (4:39)
  7. "Nature Boy" (5:33)
  8. "Wounded Knee"--instrumental (2:25)
  9. "Pork Soda" (2:20)
  10. "The Pressman" (5:11)
  11. "Mr. Krinkle" (5:27)
  12. "The Air is Getting Slippery" (2:31)
  13. "Hamburger Train"--instrumental (8:11)
  14. "Pork Chop's Little Ditty"--instrumental (1:03)
  15. "Hail Santa"--instrumental (1:48)

This album's a lot more cohesive and listenable than Sailing....Cheese or Frizzle Fry, and they really pull their sound together here. "Nature Boy" is my personal favorite: "I close the blinds/Then I take my clothes off/Dance around the house like nature boy..." One gripe I have is that they packaged it in that annoying cardboard digipack that of course made it VERY hard to find a used copy that wasn't thrashed to hell...

There are two other Primus CD's out there, Tales from the Punchbowl and The Brown Album, but I haven't bothered to buy either one yet...just not interested in the band anymore, I guess.

"Rhinoplasty"

  1. "Scissor Man" (5:11)
  2. "The Family and the Fishing Net" (6:26)
  3. "Silly Putty"--instrumental (4:21)
  4. "Amos Moses" (3:11)
  5. "Behind My Camel"--instrumental (2:52)
  6. "Too Many Puppies" (3:00)
  7. "The Thing That Should Not Be" (6:47)
  8. "Tommy the Cat"--live (9:10)
  9. "Bob's Party Time Lounge"--live (7:40)

Yet another EP of cover tunes, once again covering Peter Gabriel ("Family and the Fishing Net") and XTC (not sure..."Scissor Man"?) There's also a cool version of "Behind My Camel" (originally by the Police), and the band betrays their metal roots with a surprisingly heavy version of Metallica's "The Thing That Should Not Be". This is one of those dreaded "enhanced" CDs, but for some reason my computer doesn't even recognize the CD-rom portion. Waaah.

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