Album of the Week: Frizzle Fry by Primus

Primus – Frizzle Fry – Caroline Records – February 1990

As I contemplated what band and album I wanted to focus on this week it became abundantly clear that I should go with a 90’s classic. That is why I settled on Primus’ Frizzle Fry their first studio album, which is nothing short of genius. Recently this album has became more known because of a 2002 re-mastered re-release with two extra tracks and a U.S. tour in which the band played the album in entirety as its second set. More recently Guitar Hero 2 slotted “John the Fisherman” as one of the featured tracks. On a side note if you can email me the track in which they mention the movie Evil Dead I’ll tip my hat.

The bass play of Les Claypool (Bass), Larry Lalonde (Guitar) and Tim Alexander (Drums) is wacky, complicated and brilliant rock and roll. This album specifically debuts their unique sound and the start of their cult following for years to come. Primus is hard to categorize but could call them alternative or funk metal. If you like Rush, Led Zeppelin or Iron Maiden you should check Frizzle Fry out.

“To Defy the Laws of Tradition” opens with a live snippet of Rush’s “YYZ” which veers into a winding bass line that is suddenly cut by Larry Lalonde’s searing guitar and topped of by hi-hat driven drum line from Tim Alexander. This track gets a quiet little interlude with Claypool singing, “to defy the laws of tradition is a crusade only of the brave”. Finally, LaLonde rips a solo that exhibits his ability to paint over Claypool and Alexander’s heavy/complicated rhythms.

“Ground Hog’s Day” starts with a lazy bass, guitar and drums that wander in and out of LaLonde mini solos and builds to a cry of “my name” by Claypool. This chant signals the band to escalate their noise and speed into a bass plucking and a guitar ripping frenzy. Metal riffs accompany the band along the first showcase of their precision Rush-esque rock and roll.

“Too Many Puppies” starts with ride cymbal hits that are cut off by a united riff and cymbal crash. Lalonde again flashes his PRS around one of the simpler tracks on the album. Claypool spouts military inspired lyrics that refer to those in service as puppies “too many puppies are being shot in the dark…we maintain our oil fields…too many puppies are trained to kill.”

“Mr. Kowitall” opens with a Claypool rant and then straight into a rhythm section of thumping bass and double kick drums. Lalonde paints guitar licks over the top and this track starts to expose Claypool’s unique voice and wily lyrics.

“Frizzle Fry” has an intro of bass and guitar strings being scratched. From the get go it is evil in its guitar/bass sounds and the strange lyrics. “I don’t believe in miracles, I don’t believe in lies, I don’t believe in hologram, I don’t believe in captain crunch, for I am the frizzle fry.” The song then gets even creepier as it winds through a plucked bass line backed by artsy guitar and drums. The band continues to grind along when all of a sudden at the 4:40 marks they erupt into a frenzy of Claypool and Lalonde strings and Alexander ripping Bonham like drums. Guitar riffs round out the final seconds and you are shown the exit door by Claypool’s bass guitar. This easily my favorite track on the album as it shows how fucking badass this trio is at playing rock music.

“John the Fisherman” was a minor radio hit and is the poppiest songs on the album. Many people know this track because it is featured in Guitar Hero 2. The band created a music video of the band playing on Les’s boat and a cartoon story about a fisherman jumbled together. This is another great song on the album and is one of the first to turn to on a first listen.

“You Can’t Kill Michael Malloy” is a 26 second circus music interlude or intro for “The Toys Go Winding” and is such a far cry from the darkness of the next track.

‘The Toys Go Winging Down” is a display of Primus’ dark side that is driven by a triplet-slap of a bass line. It features Claypool bowing his bass and Alexander laying down some rim shots. Lalonde distorts his guitar throughout the whole song and it makes his solos sound dirty and hard to decipher between his notes.

For all you dessert fans “Pudding Time” is your track as it serves up a tasty dose of ass kicking rock and roll. Claypool’s complex thumb tapping bass and Lalonde’s playful guitar mix well with Alexander’s rock solid drumming. This is yet another track that leaves you scratching your head at the lyrics.

“Sathington Willoughby” is a 20 second ditty about a character that Claypool created and later uses again for lyrics on the Brown Album. Claypool is a strange fellow and if you don’t believe me listen to this track.

Rolling tom fills and searing guitar warm you up for Claypool’s bass and lyrics on “Speghetti Western”. It is inspired both 1960’s movies and laziness. I love the way they don’t let up on this album chugging forward with aggressive tracks left and right. This nothing short of an original track, listen and weep.

“Harold of the Rocks” is a fantastic track to help close out the album. It is inspired by a drug fiend acquaintance that the band had back in the early days while playing in the Bay Area. A funk and distortion guitar by LaLonde bounces in and out of soloing. Alexander drums with intent and drives the backbone of this track. Claypool bangs on his bass in a simple fashion and this song crunches along in a rocking fashion. At the 2:23 mark the band slows and gives way to Lalonde play one of his best solos of the album. It is ambient, articulate and demonstrates Lalonde’s ability to mix it up.

“To Defy” is the last track of the album (unless you get the remastered version where the covers of “Hello Skinny and Constantinople”) and is a 40 second snippet of the first track on this album.

Welcome

After years of contract negotiations between my agent and the blogging community I finally inked a deal that was lucrative enough to open my creative juices up to the world wide web. Posts will vary from articles, thoughts, reviews, rants and postings. The contents will range from random thoughts to music, to sports and even some politics. As you scroll down you will notice I have been posting on here since November. This was to gain thoughts, grammar and maybe even some advice from friends. In essence I wanted to test the waters before anything was solidified. Finally, my main objective was to brew up an idea of how I could hold myself to update this weekly and what I settled on was an “album of the week” post.

Read away so that you can rip on me, write me and most importantly praise me… So without further ado here it is…


-Jon

Album of the Week – No Code by Pearl Jam – August 1996 on Epic Records

Over the past week I dug deep into my catalog of albums, sifted through from a to z (on my ipod) and after some listening settled on No Code as my album of the week.

No Code is a departure from previous albums that were purely grunge rock. The depth of their growing sound was exhibited through experimenting with eastern influences and simple drums and guitar. “Sometimes”, “In My Tree” and “Present Tense” are the softer highlights to this album with eastern influenced drums and more simple sweet guitar lines. “Smile”, “Red Mosquito” and “Hail Hail” and “Lukin” are some of my other favorite tracks but take the heavier approach with grungier guitars, guitar soloing, driving drum beats and more of the aggressive vocals. Rollingstone gave this album four stars but I would give it three. It is definitely not as excellent in my opinion as their first three albums not because it is more experimental but because it lacked the song writing of past album tracks such as the creepy grunge of “Garden” and “Jeremy”, the heaviness/guitar soloing of “Go” and “Animal” or brilliance of “Not for You” or “Immortality”. However, through and through this is a good album, in fact if you don’t own it go and buy it.

A track by track break down continues below.

This album starts of with the soft and subtle “Sometimes”. An eerie yet pretty guitar is balanced out by some bass plucking, light drums and welcoming Veder lyrics. This track leaves you begging for more.

The rocking “Hail Hail” comes next which some would think would be a great opening track to the album. However, I tend to disagree because the quiet opening track to this album allows “Hail Hail” to have a much more dominant opening. This track is driven by swirling guitars and a straight rock beat that ends with a Veder vocal excursion.

“Who you Are” and “In my Tree” are heavy in eastern influences led by Irons drums. Veder’s vocals move from dark to happy. These two songs are a distinct departure from the grungy days of Ten and Vs and are welcomed because it sheds a new light on their maturity as a well balanced rock and roll band.

“Smile” is one of my favorites on the album and reminds me of both Tom guitars and Neil Young harmonica. It is upbeat, catchy and delivers the first mini guitar solos from McCready and Gossard.

“Off he Goes” was always a track that many loved because of its sweet lyrics, acoustic guitars and because I believe it got some radio play. You could place this in the likes of older tracks like “Black” and “Nothing Man”.

“Habit” is the heaviest track of the album so far. Veder’s lyrics are aggressive and growly in tone while blurting out “Never thought you’d habit…” It breaks at times to just a fading guitar and crash cymbal hits but brews into the first massive guitar solo on the album. McCready and Gossard wind in and out of each others guitar lines and exemplifies the ability of McCready to shred his guitar like we heard on Ten.

“Red Mosquito” which was one of the radio hits for this album is led by guitar through and through. This track opens with a ripping guitar line that fades into “Whacked out the window with a red mosquito…I was bitten it must have been the devil”. One guitar boasts a fuzzy back bone and the other a screeching tone that shines through the rest of the instruments.

“Lukin” is the heaviest, punkiest and shortest track of the album. A strumming grunge guitar lays the foundation for Veder to sing as if he is out of breathe and angry! This is an explosion in the middle of the album that helps to balance out the explorative aspects of other tracks.

“Present Tense” has a quiet acoustic guitar and pretty guitar lines the flutter through the first four minutes. A crack of the snare drum breaks the silence and delivers a much needed swinging guitar and Veder muttering in the background.

“Mankind” is written, sung and led by Stone Gossard with a guitar part that again reminds me of Neil Young. The song isn’t extremely flashy but is a nice poppy treat with the catchy line “It’s all just inadvertent simulation a pattern in all mankind, What’s got the whole world fakin”. It boasts a guitar solo that bends back and forth and is much more akin to old Pearl Jam.

“I’m Open” has a spoken word intro, a touch of piano, a plucked guitar section and is not one of my favorites.

“Around the Bend” closes out the album in the same fashion that it started soft, smooth and pretty. Brushes on the drums, a country-esque guitar part and solo twangs while tangling with a piano.


*note these reviews will be some of the first in my career as a writer and will hopefully only improve as the years build…I also believe that iPods drowned out all bass playing…

The Ups and Downs of the Celtics Defending their Championship

Over the past year and a half the Celtics played nothing short of intense, defensive championship basketball. They cruised into the 2008-2009 season ready to defend their championship. The championship hangover was expected but instead the Celtics won 19 straight games and were running on all cylinders. However, the Celtics had played the most games of any team going into December 2008 and were running into teams that were playing their best/reckless basketball. On Christmas the Celtics had a 27-2 record as they entered Los Angeles to play the Lakers. Once they lost to the Lakers the stretch of basketball that followed was ugly and had two different losing streaks. The three things that Celts lacked in the waning days of 2008 were; Energy, Rondo not running the team efficiently and poor bench play. The big three ran out of steam defensively in the fourth quarter, Rondo dipped in production by forcing passes, House missed every three he took for two weeks and the Celtics lost to teams like the Knicks, Warriors and Blazers. Now they were 29-9.

The good news is that the Celtics have now fought their way out of the poor play. They have played better Defensive through intensity, dedication and rotation. This allowed them to play better in the second half, Rondo started to drive more in order to create opportunities and the emergence of Scal, Pruitt and Powe the Celtics didn’t hurt. It will be interesting to see what unfolds over the next few weeks…