Pinot Noir goes well with all the foods I personally prepare and those are usually from the sea. One of my favorite things to do in the world is to pull crab pots in the afternoon and eat fresh Dungeness crab straight from the boil with a slippery glass from my slimy crab hands of Pachyderm to slurp on.
I have not had a great deal of Oregon Pinots. Though I started as a big fan of the Russian River Valley wines because of their approachability, especially for a newbie wine drinker, but have since grown to prefer brighter and more acidic wines with lower alcohol content. A buddy of mine is a big sommelier in San Francisco and is also a big Primus fan.
When I was kicking around names he suggested the Southbound Pachyderm because it is such an iconic tune in the Primus world. I drew a purple elephant on a ball balancing a wine glass to imply balance and magnificence of nose. If you could pair wine to instruments, which varietal would you pair with the bass? Free, what a moronic thought Also, one of our winemakers is a super Pinot hero, Ross Cobb and the only reason I was able to wrangle him into making our wine is because he is a monster dub bass player and we have a low-end kinship.
Golf-related gear is strewn by the driveway, along with a Whackmaster archery target. Inside, the architecture is '60s-showy, although Claypool affectionately terms it "very Wayne Newton. The walls--either brick or rich mahogany paneling--are decorated in an early Dekalb motif with pictures of corn hanging everywhere.
Out back, through sliding glass doors, is a pool, two gazebo-sized guest houses, and a fishing pond. To make it to the guest houses, you must take your chances with Corn and Capone, two unusually strong, psychotically affectionate yellow Labradors who--while pretending to sleep--are actually awaiting new victims on the porch.
One good paws-to-your-chest leap from either of these crafty canines is enough to knock the wind out of you. Clearly, Rancho Relaxo is an acquired taste--maybe even dangerous to your health. But to Claypool--the year-old musician known for playing both the bass and the buffoon with his eccentric funk-pop trio, Primus--it's home, sweet home. But don't grab a pillow and blanket and plan on bunking there overnight--both shacks are otherwise occupied--one with a pool table, the other with amps, basses, guitars, a drum kit, and several computers which whir with artificial life on a cluttered work desk.
Welcome to the latest location of the Corn, Claypool's formerly Berkeley-based home studio. It's where Primus wrote and recorded most of their latest Interscope mental escapade, "Tales From the Punch Bowl," and where Claypool is currently crouching, busily coloring in his own screen-scanned cartoon of a scrawny, pointy-haired, buck-toothed little girl pushing a stroller. Inside the stroller is an even goofier-looking rodent--also bearing a set of protruding choppers--with an excited expression on its brown, furry mug.
The sketch reveals a lot of life--and a lot of talent. The animal actually appears to be enjoying its little pram ride. A series of some odd other computer-tinted cartoons are represented by individual icons on another Macintosh screen. So, just what is the always- unpredictable Claypool up to this time? It may look like clowning, but this art is serious. No hint of embarrassment crosses Claypool's equally animated features as, grinning mischievously, he explains the potentially controversial track.
But of course, I couldn't resist the pun! A-heh, heh," he cackles again gleefully. Then he points to the screen. And Wynona is whoever you want it to be, purely fiction. Two beavers? Can't argue with that logic. No sir. In a weird way, this whole offbeat scenario makes perfect Primus sense. Whaddaya sayin' about "The Secret of N. It has sentimental value to me! Watch him comically leaping, mugging, and gesturing with his group in concert, or listen to the wacky slew of Hanna-Barbera perfect voices he assumes with each new number, especially on the band's last two gold-selling releases, "Sailing the Seas of Cheese" and "Pork Soda.
In the "Punch Bowl" CD booklet, Claypool and cronies are featured in penguin costumes, huddled together on an ice floe. For the live-action portion of the "Beaver" video, they've donned prosthetic replicas of themselves a la that annoying battery commercial and ride into the frame on mechanical supermarket horses.
I think Primus appeals to the kid who's maybe like I was, or how Ler was, when we were in high school. We didn't really fall in with the trends. I didn't listen to Sammy Hagar when everyone else was listening to Sammy Hagar. I didn't wear the same clothes everyone else wore. And I think that's who our audience is--kids in school who have a different perspective on things than the majority.
We're doing what we do, and people are gonna perceive us however in the hell they're gonna perceive us. And many of those expenses were generated by a rented generator, due to the constant downing of power lines by freakish spring floods. In snappy lyrical patter, Claypool plays a carnival barker, luring kiddies to a rather dubious, almost Hansel and Gretel-ish snack haven.
Next comes "Mrs. An autobiographical nugget? Despite all these extracurricular activities, Claypool has maintained his real job as a musician, this year releasing a solo album "Of Whales and Woe," nautically titled, like almost everything in his canon , a Primus DVD "Blame It on the Fish," an abstract look at the Primus Tour de Fromage and a Primus greatest-hits package "They Can't All Be Zingers".
In between, he painted the house, put a new roof on his studio and cut down the brush on his acre spread. I very rarely even take a vacation. I think it's that whole East Bay blue-collar thing. I was trained to be a worker bee by our society, so that's what I do," he says, pushing his wide-brimmed straw hat down farther over his perfect rock-star hair, now streaked with gray.
I have friends that are typical of their age. Especially friends in the music business, they're all getting hair implants, dyeing their gray and doing all these different things to look young. Well, I'm the kind of a guy that always dressed like an old man, so now the clothes actually match my age.
Claypool, who grew up in El Sobrante, spent his early years working as a car mechanic and a carpenter, and he even began training to be a chef at Contra Costa College. It wasn't quite what I expected. I just thought, 'It's a creative thing.
You don't get the Magic Chef hat and get a job at Chez Panisse. You're a cook, and you start on the line somewhere at minimum wage. I realized that the hours conflicted with my passion, which was music, so I said, 'Screw that. No one will ever know whether Claypool's defection was a huge loss to culinary world, but it was a boon to music. It resulted in Primus, a trashy, thrash-funk art project that combines cartoonish voices with social anthropology set to discordant strains of manipulated noise and threatening rhythms, providing a soundtrack to disaffected outsiders.
I mean, I'm kind of 'what you see is what you get,' you know? It just depends on what you see.
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