Deep Album Cuts Vol. 257: Primus
Primus released a new EP last week, Conspiranoid, and it's pretty good, put me in a mood to make a playlist looking back on their catalog.
Primus deep album cuts (Spotify playlist):
1. American Life
2. Pudding Time
3. Welcome To This World
4. Over The Electric Grapevine
5. Groundhog's Day
6. The Scheme
7. Golden Boy
8. Marry The Ice Cube
9. Here Come The Bastards
10. Erin On The Side Of Caution
11. Bob
12. Dirty Drowning Man
13. Behind My Camel
14. Intruder
15. Semi-Wondrous Boat Ride
16. Hennepin Crawler
17. Sgt. Baker
18. Del Davis Tree Farm
19. To Defy The Laws Of Tradition
Track 5 from Suck On This (1989)
Tracks 2 and 19 from Frizzle Fry (1990)
Tracks 1, 9 and 17 from Sailing The Seas Of Cheese (1991)
Track 14 from the Miscellaneous Debris EP (1992)
Track 3 and 11 from Pork Soda (1993)
Track 4 and 18 from Tales From The Punchbowl (1995)
Track 7 from Brown Album (1997)
Track 13 from the Rhinoplasty EP (1998)
Track 12 from Antipop (1999)
Track 8 from the Animals Should Not Try To Act Like People EP (2003)
Track 16 from Green Naugahyde (2011)
Track 15 from Primus & The Chocolate Factory with the Fungi Ensemble (2014)
Track 6 from The Desaturating Seven (2017)
Track 10 from the Conspiranoid EP (2022)
Primus are kind of an acquired taste that people seem to love or hate, which I get --- there's a reason "Primus sucks!" became the tongue-in-cheek motto of Primus fans everywhere. But I've lived with and played in bands with two bassists who love Primus, my brother Zac and my college roommate Mike, and have a lot of fondness for the band. My brother and I got on board from "My Name Is Mud" and I have a great amount of affection for Pork Soda and Tales of the Punchbowl, but I kind of found out later that the first couple albums were really the ones that build their fanbase and Sailing The Seas of Cheese is definitely their classic. Definitely one of the strangest, most niche hard rock bands that's ever gone platinum.
In the '90s, I was very conscious of who were "120 Minutes" bands and who were "Headbanger's Ball" bands, and Primus was one of the few who were regulars on both shows, along with Faith No More and most of the big Seattle bands. Les Claypool, Primus's frontman and weirdo bass virtuoso, went through a few different iterations of Primus before they wound up with their definitive lineup with Larry LaLonde on guitar and Tim "Herb" Alexander on drums. But Herb is kind of the John Frusciante of Primus who's left and returned multiple times, with drummers who were briefly in Primus in the '80s rejoining: Brain Mantia was with the band for the Brown Album, Rhinoplasty, and Antipop, and Jay Lane plays on Green Naugahyde.
I think Brown Album gets kind of a bad rap but is a really cool record with a very raw, ugly sound. And it was recorded the same year Primus made probably the most famous piece of music of the band's career: the theme song for "South Park." But at the time I kind of dismissed Antipop, which was the last album the band made before an extended hiatus and felt like they were relying on the band's famous friends and fans: tracks on the album were produced by Fred Durst, Tom Morello, Tom Waits, and even "South Park"'s Matt Stone. But that album holds up better than I anticipated, and I particularly like the Stewart Copeland-produced "Dirty Drowning Man."
It's also a lot of fun to hear the band reveal their influences on the covers-heavy EPs, I knew Primus's versions of "Intruder" and "The Family And The Fishing Net" before I ever heard the Peter Gabriel originals. And in recent years they've been engaged in some interesting tribute projects, including a recent tour where they cover Rush's A Farewell To Kings, and an album interpreting music from Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory. The boat ride scene was always the creepiest part of that movie so that's the song that really makes the most sense with the Primus treatment.
In 2006, Interscope released a Primus best-of compilation, They Can't All Be Zingers. And while it contains mostly singles, it had a few particularly popular album tracks, including "To Defy The Laws Of Tradition," "Marry The Ice Cube," and "Over The Electric Grapevine," which I always thought was a high point of Tales From The Punchbowl, I'm glad to see it's become an acknowledged classic and live staple. And I leaned pretty heavily on their most played live songs for the playlist, including "Groundhog's Day," "Here Come The Bastards," "American Life," "Pudding Time," and "Sgt. Baker."
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on Friday, April 29, 2022 at 8:12 AM.
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