Tommy
[audio:http://www.ethanhein.com/music/Revival_Revival_Tommy.mp3]mp3 download, ipod format download
Vocals by Barbara Singer. Samples and programming by me. The guitar licks were originally played by Alex Torovic but have been chopped up pretty dramatically. This is part of our ongoing strategy, learned from hip-hop, of taking a familiar chorus and coming up with new verses.
“Tommy The Cat” is far and away my favorite Primus song. Les Claypool does the spoken intro and the choruses, but Tommy The Cat himself is voiced by Tom Waits. The song has a cool video, which I had never seen before the very moment of embedding it in this post, because it’s not like it got a lot of MTV spins back in the nineties. What did we do before Youtube?
I’m a funk, blues and jazz guy more than a metal guy. Among the metal virtuosos, Les Claypool is the funkiest. He says that when he auditioned to replace Cliff Burton in Metallica, he suggested they all jam on some Isley Brothers tunes. I’m sure that went over huge. Metallica wisely advised Les to go start his own band.
As with everybody we sample and remix, we hope Primus is cool with it, it’s purely a gesture of love. I imagine that they’d be okay, since they themselves have been known to do some sampling. “Jerry Was A Race Car Driver” uses a line from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (“Heh heh heh, dog will hunt!”)
My first reaction to Primus as a high schooler was mostly alarm. Growing up in New York City, you don’t get exposed to a lot of metal. If you’re a brooding white city kid looking to annoy your parents, you’re likelier to turn to hip-hop or punk (or both, this is why my high school classmates loved the Beastie Boys so much.) For most of my adolescence, I didn’t even realize that punk and metal are two different things. So I didn’t have a lot of context for Primus. I liked the spazzy energy but couldn’t handle the tightly coiled anger that seemed to underlie it. Was I ever so innocent? Having heard a lot of genuinely angry rock music since then, Primus sounds pretty harmless, and the comedy aspect comes across as more dominant. But of course, the best comedy comes from anger. It’s fitting that Primus did the theme song to South Park, they inhabit a similar emotional space.
Primus’ material isn’t exactly my cup of tea but I stand in awe of their musicianship. Most guys at their level of skill have no sense of humor whatsoever. I’d like to know how Les managed not to lose his sense of playfulness even after the tens of thousands of hours of disciplined practice it must have taken him to get that good at bass. I especially love hearing him play fretless, he gets so much microtonal excitement out of it. Ditto with Larry LaLonde – I can’t think of a more harmonically adventurous guitarist. Here’s to spazzy virtuosity.