Primus - Tales From The Punchbowl [1995]

Genre: Progressive Metal, Funk Metal, Thrash Funk, Polka

MySpace: primus

My opinion & thought: Who likes South Park will like Primus, it's fun to listen to their music. "Tales From The Punchbowl" is one of the Primus best album. A breakthru for Primus from Thrash Metal to Progressive Metal.

Stands out track(s): Professor Nutbutter's House of Treats, Wynona's Big Brown Beaver



Primus is an American rock band currently composed of singer and bassist Les Claypool, guitarist Larry "Ler" LaLonde, and drummer Tim "Herb" Alexander.

Their music is difficult to define, and while usually considered by critics to be funk metal or alternative metal, Primus has been called everything from "thrash-funk meetsDon Knotts, Jr." to "alternative rock" to "the Freak Brothers set to music." Les Claypool himself once described their music as "psychedelic polka." Primus is the only band with its own ID3v1 genre tag, as extended by Winamp.

The diversity of their sound has allowed Primus to gain a modest segment of fans from many different rock sub-genres. They are characterized by their irreverent approach to music. Primus release their records on Claypool's Prawn Song Records label, a parody of Led Zeppelin's Swan Song.


Tales from the Punchbowl is the fourth studio album by Primus, released on May 23, 1995.

Stylistically, this album chronicles the band breaking away from the thrash metal roots that had been prevalent on their first three full length albums, in favour of a sound very close to psychedelic music (which they had experimented with on their previous album Pork Soda), dominated by lengthy, jam oriented songs. The record featured some of guitarist Larry LaLonde's most prolific guitar work.

Though some fans were turned off by the new style, the album was overall well received by fans and critics, and debuted in the Billboard top 10. Wynona's Big Brown Beaver became the band's most popular song to date. Also breaking airwaves was the African poaching protest song Southbound Pachyderm.

A good portion of the songs, fitting the psychedelic mood of the album, are about drugs. "Over The Electric Grapevine", for an example, is about a roadtrip on LSD. The album's title is inspired by the infamous Barrington Hall, a Berkeley dorm where LSD was put into the drinks during parties (the band used the dormitory as an inspiration for the title track off their 1990 studio debut Frizzle Fry as well). Claypool also wrote a song about Barrington Hall for the Frog Brigade album "Purple Onion."

This would be the band's last album with Tim Alexander before he rejoined 7 years later. Alexander is said to have grown tired of the direction the songs' lyrics were taking. He left shortly after the1996 tour in which he and Claypool apparently were speaking very little to one another throughout.

Punchbowl was certified Gold shortly after its release.


Tracklisting:

  1. "Professor Nutbutter's House of Treats" - 7:13
  2. "Mrs. Blaileen" - 3:19
  3. "Wynona's Big Brown Beaver" - 4:24
  4. "Southbound Pachyderm" - 6:22
  5. "Space Farm" - 1:45
  6. "Year of the Parrot" - 5:45
  7. "Hellbound 17 1/2 (Theme From)" - 2:59
  8. "Glass Sandwich" - 4:05
  9. "Del Davis Tree Farm" - 3:23
  10. "De Anza Jig" - 2:26
  11. "On the Tweek Again" - 4:41
  12. "Over the Electric Grapevine" - 6:26
  13. "Captain Shiner" - 1:17



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