Claypool Gold

Tickets now on sale. Available online or in-person at the Ticket Mill in the Old Mill District. Chair rentals for General Admission tickets available while supplies last. If you think you’ll want a chair at the show, we recommend securing your rental at the time of ticket purchase. Note: chair set up location may be designated on show night. The most original rock bassist to come along in the ’90s was unquestionably Primus’ Les Claypool. With his oddball sense of humor and funky playing, Claypool took his varied musical influences and created an invigorating and completely inventive style. The Les Claypool story begins on September 29, 1963, when he was born in Richmond, CA. As a teenager, Claypool met fellow student Kirk Hammett (yes, the Kirk Hammett of Metallica fame), who turned him on to such rock acts as Jimi Hendrix, Cream, and Led Zeppelin. It was around this time that Claypool took up the bass, influenced by the likes of Rush’s Geddy Lee, Yes’ Chris Squire, and Paul McCartney. Although Hammet asked Claypool to join a band he was in, he opted for another group in his high school, progressive metallists Blind Illusion, while broadening his musical horizons by playing in jazz and swing bands. Upon discovering such fusion and funk bass greats as Stanley Clarke and Larry Graham around this time, Claypool began incorporating “slapping” into his playing technique. Enter the band Primus. A post-punk Rush spiked with the sensibility and humor of Frank Zappa, Primus’ songs are often secondary to showcasing their instrumental prowess. Led by elastic bassist and sole constant member Les Claypool, their music is willfully weird and experimental, but it’s not alienating; it’s simultaneously technically jaw-dropping and gleefully bizarre. Primus scored a surprise Top Ten hit with 1993’s “Pork Soda” (and subsequent headlining spot on that year’s Lollapalooza festival tour), solidifying the band’s status as quirk rock’s undisputed kings, as more hit releases followed throughout the decade and new millennium: “Tales from the Punchbowl,” “The Brown Album,” “Rhinoplasty,” and “Antipop,” as well as the theme song to TV’s “South Park”. In addition to his duties, Claypool has always had time for side projects, two of which debut in Bend this summer — the Frog Brigade (Live Frogs, Purple Onion), and The Claypool Lennon Delirium a duo formed with Sean Lennon (yes, John and Yoko’s son). These concerts are an experience for all the senses. A virtuosic, genre-defying collision of funk, metal, and psychedelic weirdness driven by his unmistakable slap-bass technique and surrealist storytelling about everything from fishing disasters to dystopian pigs.