John Malkowich, Aliens, the Psychedelic Effect of Nostalgia, or an Evening with Primus (2012)

Arhiv Arhiv Last updated 11 June 2026

Author: Sandi Sadar Šoba
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik

Location: Pordenone / Palasport / Italy
Concert date: 23.03.2012
Attendance: 1600
Ticket price: 40 €

With some bands, you get a weird, even slightly bitter aftertaste in your mouth. That’s how it is for me with the American oddballs Primus. When I was younger, I never quite liked them. Probably also because I never understood them well enough – my young, empty brain couldn’t yet process the perfect combo of sarcasm, irritating intelligence and musical talent that at times crosses the line of good taste. It might also have had something to do with my lack of commitment to psychogenic substances, and the fact that their frontman isn’t exactly famous as the most obedient orator, yet he damn well masters the bass guitar (and the usual supporting duo of obscure guitar and sickly intricate drums doesn’t lag behind the low-frequency center of this musical dance, to be totally honest). Still, they burrowed so successfully into the cortex of my now somewhat aged and hardened brain that, once the Italians announced that the conquest of Europe would kick off in Pordenone – literally a stone’s throw from our sleepy little subalpine corner of paradise – it was instantly clear I had to go to this gig and check them out live, on my own skin.

The RockLine crew’s epic began with a few hours’ drive west, which served up logistical hiccups, getting lost, finding our way again, and finally arriving at a place from which we expected nothing more than to sate our curiosity – the sky-high expectations we left at the door of Pordenone’s sports hall, Palasport. Outside, the smell of roast chicken, a thousand-times-reheated grease, cigarette smoke and beer all mixed together, and the stalls were selling those by now proverbial cheap knockoff shirts, peddled by calculating vendors who are always partial to piracy and easy money. The hour was just right for entering the makeshift temple of tonight’s musical worship of the past, so the crowd of human ants was already starting to squeeze in, in an orderly fashion, through the doors and into the hall.

A quick look around the stands and the floor confirms that the evening with Primus will be anything but sold out. A good 1,500 punters (I was always a bit rubbish at this kind of math) had already tactically spread out over strategic spots in front of the stage, and the lights went down. On either side of the stage, two giant astronauts wagged their fingers at the crowd, and after the first chords of a guitar that sounds like an industrial grinder, the face of a bewildered yet bored man lights up in a visor, instantly recalling the face of John Malkowich. Guitarist Larry “Ler” LaLonde marches on, Jay Lane sits down behind the drums, and to the roars of the crowd, the last to appear is the center of everything – virtuoso, visionary and weirdo Les Claypool. The opening bars of Those Damned Blue-Collar Tweekers, from the album that came out the year we Slovenes gained our independence, the outstanding Sailing On The Seas Of Cheese, signal that rather than novelties, we’re in for a full, colorful retrospective. Animations of a caricatured, sketchy little man light up the backdrop, and from the speakers booms the full, utterly uncompromised sound of the perfect blend of funk, alternative, crazy mushrooms and edge, which hasn’t lost a single gram of its weight in twenty years.

Straight away comes a jump to 1997 and Brown Album. If The Beatles offered the world their palette of three colored albums, Primus offered their own shade of drab, which in my youth reminded me of cattle droppings – and all of a sudden, instead of the usual bitterness in my mouth, I tasted a trace of nostalgic sweetness, and a few grams of the finest chocolate joined the coffee grounds. Les isn’t the best singer, but with his Muppet looks and Kermit voice he wins you over more with every bar. Primus are music for aliens, which is confirmed by the little film where a flying saucer lands in the desert, and unsuspecting senses get rattled by a jet-propelled mix of rhythmic and melodic figures, played with feather-light ease, that soon start to seem perfectly natural. After nearly three decades of walking the edge between avant-garde and listenability, and persisting in consistent opposition to commercialism, the three-headed beast called Primus remains a synonym for the perfect bite of sarcasm, weirdness and extraordinary progressive fun to the nth power.

Proof of that is the ode to Wynona’s furry little pelt in Wynona’s Big Brown Beaver (and as we all know, “beaver” can also mean the furry critter on Venus’s little hill …). Les growls: “Wynona’s got herself a big brown beaver / and she shows it off to all her friends. / One day, you know, that beaver tried to leave her, / So she caged him up with cyclone fence.” Maybe Les was seriously thinking of the animal, and not of the wholly wintertime-inappropriate attire of the promised female paradise? Possible, but Primus have always been masters of covert manipulation. After the psychedelic tale of a bowl of musical pleasure spiced with hallucinogenic substances (Wynona is one of the strongest aces of the otherwise truly pumped-up record Tales From The Punchbowl …), we go back to the sea of cheese, and just as fitting is a story that American media don’t usually paint – American Life. It’s a song about people who buckled under the weight of unfulfilled American dreams and got spat out onto the social margins; besides discharged veterans, paupers and hobos, behind the projections of the perfect patriotic reflection of Mount Rushmore and the faces of the forefathers of “great America” there’s a subtle critique woven in, and the intelligent voice of rebellion against the system. Les is king, and Primus serve the audience their kingdom of redemption in a sea of chaotic present! Right after that, Primus get us to willingly fling ourselves over the edge of Niagara Falls. Over The Falls ends in classic crowd euphoria, and then the talented, Swiss-watch-precise drummer Jay Lane shows off his skills. Part of the RockLine crew remarks that the kid could play King Crimson tunes for fun with his eyes closed, and we can add something more rhythmically complex to that. A freestanding bass stick is set up center stage, and on Whamola Jam Les shows that you can play bass with stringed and percussion gadgets too. A perfect me(n)tal disconnect blows out of the speakers, and after the outstanding drum intro of the song Eleven we sail into an alternative quadrant of the Pink Floyd universe, then comes the acceleration with the outstanding hit from the record They Can’t All Be Zingers Jerry Was A Race Car Driver. Les sings “Jerry was a race car driver / And he drove so goddamned fast / He never did win no checkered flag / But he never did come in last / Jerry was a race car driver / He’d say “El solo number one” / With a bocephus sticker / On his 442 he’d light ’em up / Just for fun”, and then a brutal combination erupts of heavily distorted guitar, two-tone bass and drums that sound like you’ve been hit by an armored truck. The rhythm – which even Korn only skimmed the surface of – brings a standing ovation, and the male half of the crowd starts treating their standing erection during the twenty-minute break and cartoon intermission.

After three black-and-white cartoons of the seen-it-all Popeye and at least twelve kilos of green, freshly opened, iron-packed spinach, act two of the outstanding musical show begins. After the first tally, it turns out the crowd didn’t get a single song from the latest album Green Naugahyde, so promoting the new record is more of an outstanding stroll through the rich archives of the past. And the second part kicks off with Prelude To A Crawl, which in its sonic massiveness sounds like the echo of outer space or the mumbling of gods after the apocalyptic hangover at the end of the world. Hennepin Crawler continues the oratorio of the outstanding tenth record, and in a synchronous follow-up from the latest studio release, Last Salmon Man does not do the slightest injustice to that outstanding studio effort. The believers’ faith in Primus only grows stronger, while we former skeptics, after receiving our first sweaty communion and a baptism by fire with whip, light and the hope that at least a gram of working brain would survive the gig, fall into a trance and automatic head-bobbing, with Primus having knocked every worry and trouble out of our heads. The swim through the latest record goes on with the ecstatic, carnivalesque Eternal Consumption Engine, crowned by the outstanding monolith of a comic yet so damn addictive tune, Tragedy’s A Comin’. The chorus spins the thread of thought:“Tragedy’s A’ Comin’ / And I cannot step aside / No I cannot step aside / There’s no place to run and hide / Tragedy’s A’ Comin’ / And I cannot step aside / No I cannot step aside / Damn my bastard pride,” and all of us, enchanted and bewitched, can only drop to the floor on autopilot and kiss the ground where the divine musical manna of the supersonic trio rains down. Then comes a shock, and an association with political current affairs around the world. Eyes of the Squirrel is accompanied by an outstanding video projection of a squirrel, and in the reflection of its gaze, a stylized showdown between police and Occupy activists on Wall Street plays out. A banal satire of the world we live in, reminiscent of Pink Floyd on a demonic trip, with scenes of the same old images repeating in a hellish loop of time and space. When Hegel wrote that things in history happen first as painful tragedy and the second time as farce, Les and company poured that into a perfect sonic and visual landscape of vivid images. Jilly’s On Smack screams out its tempo-packed portrait of being stoned, where jazz is a medium of meditation and a pumped-up little cloud of smoky lounging sends a hellish stampede into the final quarter. Of what we heard, the spirit is lifted most by the sludgy, dirty HOINFODAMAN, and after the madness of Extinction Burst comes the final act of the me(n)tal rave with the song Salmon Men and the exit from the stage. The regular set is over, but the crowd, with shouts and enthusiasm, forces an extension of an already hefty two-hour sonic extravaganza. Frizzle Fry delivers the song Groundhog’s Day. A comic tale of the morning after a truly exhausting and utterly debauched drunken tour, or a truly intense party on Groundhog Day, leads us toward the finish line with a song without which there’s no Primus show (well, at least there shouldn’t be!) – Too Many Puppies, which puts the final dot on the i of a perfect evening.

The totalitarian war drums thunder their part, the last cries about the necessity of selection and the euthanasia of otherwise lovely little critters ring out from throats, and like every good thing, the gig has to end too – a gig I can easily call the golden peak of alternative happenings this year! The first show of the indestructible Primus’ new tour announces they’re back with a clear goal – to conquer everyone they haven’t managed to convince yet, and hand on heart, all I can say is that now, twenty years after first contact with these Californian oddballs, I understand what so enchanted my brother that he wouldn’t even listen to the hit-chasing regulars who were a staple of my grunge-y sanctuary of youth. With age and maturity came a moment of realization that it’s pointless to resist the Borg-like power hidden in the color spectrum of Primus. “We are Primus! Prepare to be assimilated,” goes the elemental, perfidious voice of the concert mantra, after which it makes sense to lower the shields on your spaceships, submit to modification and the broadening of your mental horizons, and, all hooked and addicted on your newfound sweetness, keep glancing at the calendar for when the planets will once again line up in perfect constellation so you can beam yourselves back to the planet of weirdness. The gravity of worry eases, and the bonds with earthly life turn feather-light when you allow yourself a bit of laughter, fun and a full dose of arrhythmic alternative psychedelia.

Setlist

Part one
1. Those Damned Blue-Collar Tweekers
2. Duchess and the Proverbial Mind Spread
3. Wynona’s Big Brown Beaver
4. American Life
5. Over the Falls
6. Drum/ Whamola Jam
7. Eleven
8. Jerry Was A Race Car Driver
Part two
1. Prelude to a Crawl
2. Hennepin Crawler
3. Last Salmon Man
4. Eternal Consumption Engine
5. Tragedy’s a’ Comin’
6. Eyes of the Squirrel
7. Jilly’s on Smack
8. Lee Van Cleef
9. Moron TV
10. Green Ranger
11. HOINFODAMAN
12. Extinction Burst
13. Salmon Men