Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Les Claypool Is More: Music, Movies, and Madness

Les Claypool has a new album, a new book, and a new movie. Here's the story about the book and movie:

"I've written a handful of screenplays over the years, one of them being 'South of the Pumphouse,'" Claypool tells Billboard.com. "Years ago, we formed a film company and raised a bunch of money to make it into a movie. We talked to a bunch of different Hollywood entities. I was continually getting notes and altering the project, so I just decided to write the screenplay into novel form."As for "Electric Apricot," the movie pokes fun at the jam band scene that has embraced Claypool of late, and features cameos from Phish's Mike Gordon, the Dead's Bob Weir, Warren Haynes, actor Seth Green and "South Park" co-creator Matt Stone."The whole notion is, this band has been kicking around Northern California for a good number of years, and they finally get a couple of big breaks," Claypool says. "One of them is the chance to put out a record, and other is that they get booked for the Holy Grail of jam band festivals, which is Festeroo."
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I've always been interested in Les Claypool, despite his obvious Overtness. What I like is that though he seems like a pretty strange guy, you don't get as good as he is on bass without practicing like crazy. And practicing the bass is something that takes a lot of discipline because it isn't so fun (at least in the beginning), no matter how stoned or mentally ill you may be. So now he's writing books and making movies. Is it possible there's more to him than I've previously thought? Is his weirdo act just a calculation? Is he a candidate for Advancement? It's a thought worth thinking, if not pursuing.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Ater thinking about it, I think Claypool could be a candidate. "Sailing the Seas of Cheese" notwithstanding, I think the guy is pretty genuine. I have a feeling he is not as Overt as we may think (although your photo does not exactly support the thought. If there ever was a sample photo of Overtness, that is it, I would think.)

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