CLD - Easily Charmed By Fools w/ Johnny Rocket

Josh and Frankie.

What a couple of dumb shits. Hello, primates! You found Primus Tracks. Congratulations. There's a ton of places to find us. I suppose the podcast is a good place to start. I am Dr. Josh Bald. He is coming to you from the 39th floor of Primus Trax Towers in Mexico City. It is Encyclopedia Frankie Berestein. Hey, Josh. Frankie, it's good to see you. And it's interesting because you still, we've been doing this for six and a half years.

Yep.

Let that sink in for a moment. You have not at any point allowed me into Primus Trax Towers. Yet, I see that you brought a friend who is clearly inside the confines of that very building. so I'm upset, but I'm not going to take it out on today's guest. Today we are talking about Easily Charmed by Fools, by the way, and that track does not at all relate to the choice for our guest today, so don't worry.

I hope not. You've probably seen some of his Les Claypool-based tutorials on YouTube. And he's got a wide variety of them, I'm to understand. Johnny Rocket, welcome to Primus Tracks.

Thank you for having me. It's an honor.

Yeah, man, you're holding a base there. You're inside Primus Tracks Towers. I don't know if Frankie let you touch anything. Probably not. But you're in, man. Good to have you.

Oh, I'm grateful to be here, man.

Hey, so tell me about the YouTube channel. I know I've seen a couple of your videos come across.

Yeah, I really... I do live sound for a living. So a lot of like my experimenting at home, I would just throw random stuff up on YouTube. I played drums in a band as well, but, um, I, uh, am a Primus fanatic and, uh, I have been as long as I can remember. So, uh, and bass is my favorite instrument. So once I got all this studio gear up and running, I started doing bass playthroughs, uh, mainly, uh, And lately I've been doing lesson videos and kind of just wrapping around and all the, all the playthrough videos that I've done now, I'm trying to go back and then just like do a lesson video. Cause, um, uh, I'm sure anyone who has picked up a base and trying to learn Primus can realize that if you go

to YouTube, it's kind of hard to find a competent tutorial laying around. And a lot of these riffs, I had to literally just look at the live video. and see exactly what he was doing and kind of translate it and so i'm trying to i'm out here just doing my best try to pass along the uh i call them cheat codes yeah uh to be able to play these les claypool riffs because i've been trying to play in my whole life so.

So yeah tell us about that did you did you discover primus or was it foisted upon you by someone else before you got into playing bass and drums and all that good stuff.

Oh, let's see. Yeah, I didn't play instruments before. Actually, Primus was one of the big bands that inspired me to pick up a bass guitar and drums. It was Primus and Tool back when I was a kid.

Right on.

But I found Primus in 99, like right before Antipop was released, because I remember that release because I just, but at that time I just had Frizzle Fry and Caesar Cheese.

Mm-hmm.

So I was jamming those and loved them. And then anti-pop came out and I was obsessed with that because I was a new metal kid. So like they're on all the torn on Oz fest and all that.

Oh, sure.

So, um, yeah. And then once I, you know, as I got older and a little wiser, I started, uh, finding all of the old other like sausage and all that stuff. Like I love all of it. Yeah. So it's hooked me since that moment. And it's, it's been a never ending source of inspiration musically.

Being a new metal kid and really getting into Primus in 99, did you feel at all responsible when they went on hiatus in 2000?

Yeah, I started looking at them and they broke up. They're like, oh no!

What did I do?

Yeah, it sucked. Actually, the first time I saw them live was in 2006. And me and my buddy Marvin, shout out Merv, we've been listening to them, you know, ever since like when we were kids we would just jam them non-stop smoke weed out in the garage and blast some primus all day long we got the cops called on us uh jamming my name is mud in my uh stereo system once or maybe a couple but uh yeah yeah and um i don't know i mean he he uh we jammed it so much and then we, but it was during the hiatus, you know what I mean?

And then they came back for, or I guess it was around the time we had missed the, uh, the tour de fromage stuff or whatever. But when they were coming out with the greatest hits album, they can't all be zingers. They came around to Chicago and they were playing the same place that they'd done hallucinogenetics. So we're like, And at the time, this is 2006, we're like, we don't know if they're ever going to tour again. This might be the end. Little did we know, we're still going every, at least once a year to see amazing Les Claypool shows. It blows my mind.

What a blessing. I'm so happy they didn't pack it up.

So happy these last few years.

Excellent, man. Well, I'm curious to hear what you have to say about Easily Charmed by Fools, which is today's track. It is track five. on the South of Reality record. It is five minutes and 11 seconds. It doesn't feel like it should be. We'll talk about that in a bit. As far as I can tell, we've got Les Claypool on bass and lead vocals. And as we know, on the first two records, if you wrote it, you sing it.

So this is certainly a Claypool tune that he brought. I believe Sean Lennon is on guitar, mellotron, background vocals, and drums. I think those are his drums. That's my guess, because we don't have individual credits for performances on this record. Frankie, let us have it.

So, Easily Charmed by Fools was actually premiered almost practically eight years ago today, because it was performed for the first time on October 26, 2018. During that mini-run, leaving to the Beanpole Delirium New Year's Eve in San Francisco in 2018 so they did the song four times during those dates and then the following year 2019 they did the song at every single stop of the tour including festivals leading up to New Year's Eve at the Fillmore in 2019 and then that lone Jam Cruise performance in 2020 That's the last time the song has been performed.

Given that it was performed on just about every stop on that tour, as you noted, I would imagine next time CLD goes out on their own, as opposed to being part of Claypool Gold, we might hear this one again.

It's likely, yeah. I think it sounds like a staple Delirium track, for sure.

Yeah, we should note too, this was the second, and I'm using air quotes, single from the record. It was the second track posted to YouTube. This was December 2018 in the lead up to the record. So they felt strongly enough about this one or maybe the label did to put it out second. Clearly, this is a Les Claypool tune in structure and space. And there's so many bass stings in this or fills, if you want to call them that. I prefer to call them stings in this one.

Stings, I like it.

Yeah, and I'm not referencing that guy. I'm just like, I like that term for this because there's these little compact bass moments. So I'm glad you're here, Johnny, to talk about this track. I'm curious about your attraction to the Easily Charmed by Fools track, actually.

I absolutely love this entire album. From front to back, it's just a masterpiece, in my opinion. But this is one of the ones that kind of like after like a hundred or a thousand listens or whatever, you start truly appreciating it because when it's like Amethyst Realm and Blood and Rockets, those are ones that are just like epics.

They're long. I know this is a longer song, but it's a little bit more simple in its structure. I don't know about you guys, but it sounds like a game show to me. It's like a play stupid games, win stupid prizes game show with the lyrics. And the simplicity of the lyrics and everything, it's just such a fun song.

Yeah.

You could, now that you say that, you could certainly dub that intro riff over some schlocky game show footage, and I think it would fit perfectly.

Yeah.

So I think you're onto something there with the game show music, at least for that first part that comes back around a few times. You know, you've got the bass, man, so you can you can walk us through some of the different parts if you like. I really like that intro because it's a little odd and it's a little bit different for a Claypool song before it goes into something much more Claypoolian, I suppose. So just for reference, why don't we play that part of that intro? for the nice people? That's pretty cool.

Love it. Early when you guys first started talking about South of Reality, Frankie dropped a little tidbit that I never thought about being the first album with like all pachyderms. Yeah, and you can definitely hear that in this. Like, I just love that pachyderm sound of the fourth string fretted. And yeah, he's doing a very weird chromatic riff.

Yeah.

He's like picking every note. You could like do hammer-ons and stuff, but you can hear him picking it. You can hear that with every single note. So it's real robotic, I think. But once you get the pattern down, actually the pattern in general is just a note and then a half step up after that note. And he never does any other patterns. He just does that pattern on a different note. And he's kind of walking back. So he starts on the A string. starts the thing on the nine, A, and then he goes up to the D string, and he does eight, nine there. So he's kind of like going back a fret while going up a string. Yeah. And it doesn't follow anything. Like I've never, I'm not a master of music theory, but it's just

as chromatic as it gets. But it sounds cool.

And that's what counts.

Yeah, it sounds amazing. It's very disorienting, I feel. And I feel it's intentional that it's disorienting.

Yeah, of course, with these albums, they're going for the disorienting to a degree, and the psychedelic, and they're taking a bit of a left-of-center approach, more than a little bit of a left-of-center approach. They're out there in the stratosphere. So they're doing... some some things that are different for them certainly uh and i think this is different for less this doesn't sound like much of anything else he's uh ever put to tape that that i could that i could reference at any rate the the rest of the song there's stuff in there that i think oh yeah there's there's some parallels but this part pretty unique i like.

It yeah it's definitely out of left field um but that's less man he's always incorporating like the most random stuff like Duo to Twang where he's just a country musician out of nowhere.

Right, yeah. Amazing.

That's incredible. But yeah, I digress.

I do like how that builds too because we have the guitar that's muted playing along with it and then the drums come in and then we reach a crescendo. Then that comes back around again later in the song and then that leads to our main lick, I suppose.

Yeah.

That's more familiar territory.

That's a sting, baby.

That's sting number one.

Yeah. Yeah.

I like the sting thing because that's when I was learning this song and really playing through it. It's like you got those riffs and stuff, but every time you would hit a little sting like that, it's always unique. It's always different and very fun. But yeah, the crescendo is kind of like this little bar chord here. And that's, uh, still the same pattern. You do a note and then a half step up. Then he does a little slide.

So with this, he's just hitting a open D right here. And then he's just slapping down. I've seen him do this live. Um, So I'm kind of trying to mimic his mechanics. Whenever I'm doing the lesson videos too, I'm trying to pass off the mechanics that he would do. If I do it different, I try to point it out.

But a lot of times if Les is doing it, if you want it to sound like the song, you got to do it like him.

Oh, sure.

He's doing two big notes here, the open D notes, and then he slaps a hammer on the 10. He's not picking that actual note like this. You know? So he's actually just slapping that note down. And then here's your sting. So that's just a little weird. It's always in this realm right here up in the lead space, like past the 12th fret.

Okay.

But it's like he's dancing around all these notes. Yeah, just doing a bunch of different notes.

And each one of those stings throughout the song feels... wholly improvised. And so it's just what he was thinking in the moment.

Yeah. I've heard him say that too. Like, uh, I think, or maybe Sean mentioned that he just comes in, does a take and he's like, yeah, that's good.

That's his, uh, MO certainly. So we got, we have two cool parts already. And that, that, um, the part we just played and you just modeled is so catchy and the guitar counterpart is fairly simple, but it just locks right in and the Mellotron flares are great and, And this is, to me, up to this point, being the fifth track on the record, is the poppiest sounding track on the album. I don't know if that opinion will persist through the end of the record, but that's where I am right now. I'm thinking, this is a pop tune. It sounds like it's made for radio, almost.

At the end of each verse, we get to a little modification that sounds really great. That just fits real nicely.

Yeah.

And that's really catchy. Desperate measures lead to desperate situations. The way that they sing it, of course. Speaking of the vocals, so I can carry a tune when I try, but I really love that Les' vocal delivery is pretty straightforward for the easily charmed by fools refrain. And Sean's bringing in some harmony. I don't know if that's something that you're clocking when you're listening to this, Johnny, because you're probably listening to the bass mostly.

I mean, I mix at home and I do live sound, so I love every element. So I'm definitely hyper-focused on all of this. I'm definitely picking up what you're putting down. But I think that's something cool that Les and Sean do, is that Les kind of does his laid-back kind of primacy voice. And there's a cool... vocal layer where like Sean can do the melody and then as long as Les is holding the root note of that melody and he's like saying the same words as him but he's just staying monotonous so he's just staying at the root note whereas Sean's playing with the harmony or whatever melody he's doing I hear them do that a lot in all the CLD albums but I feel they're doing stuff like that I know that Les had once said, too,

that Sean made him a better singer. So I did see him. I mean, I really with this album in particular, I saw Les was stepping out and trying a bunch of new stuff.

That seems to be a persistent trend. So many people have told him over time, you can sing. I remember in some interview he said James Hetfield told him that. He said Stuart Copeland told him that during the Oysterhead recordings. Sean's told him that. I guess a lot of people have told him, you can sing notes. Just do it.

And he's doing it now. Yay!

Makes for great music.

Frankie, up to this point in the track, how are you feeling about it?

I feel that these songs are great by themselves, but the Mellotron just takes them to a whole different level.

Oh, okay.

It just adds something that makes them really superf.

Do you see that in this one? Because I don't know if I wasn't listening closely, but I didn't feel like the Mellotron played as important of a role in this.

In the bridge, it's where it sounds really cool.

Okay, yes. I'm with you there.

It's doing supporting chords and kind of doing a... I mean, it gives it an awesome feel. I think that's part of the sound, too, that makes it game show-y to me.

Yeah. And the thing about this track is that it has two distinctive sections.

That's true. Yeah, we'll get to them. I've got a couple more time codes we'll sample. But you're right. And Johnny, you said it, that Mellotron, it's not doing the heavy lifting, but it is providing that game show atmosphere, for lack of a better term. I think you're onto something. I wonder if that was part of the conversation. Because the first lyric is about Tinder. So if you, you know, I said some schlocky game show, but if you put this over love connection or something i think it would fit yeah dating game or something like that.

Every time i listen to it man it's just like uh it further like gives me that vibe just more and more it's like gotta um yeah it's i grew up in the 80s man so you watch all those wacky game shows growing up. They had the weirdest music. It kind of fits this vibe.

100%.

This would have been a game show that was in syndication at either 4pm on a Saturday or midnight on a Sunday when nobody's watching it.

Yeah, yeah.

I want to move ahead to where the cool intro lick returns after a couple of verses, and then it crescendos, and they move that, I believe they move that lick a step up. So they start out where it started before, and then move it a step up and then come back down. I'll play a portion of it.

Spirit Situations.

There's that Mellotron for one. So, Frankie, you're on point there. But in that second iteration of it, it sounds like it moves up at least a full step. I could be wrong.

Yeah, it's actually a step and a half. So it'd be a minor third up. So it starts here on the nine. I'm just saying the first note would be the nine. And then when it goes up, the first note is on the 12. So that minor third.

Makes it sound a bit more sinister than if he had just moved it up a whole step into my ears.

Yeah, and he loves that minor third, man. The more Primus riffs I learn or less riffs in general, he'll do like a cool pattern like that. And he's doing the same exact pattern. He just moves up a minor third or, you know, whatever. And it really fits the vibe on a lot of them more. It's kind of like...

diminished stuff because larry does a lot of diminished stuff in his solos and so even if they're in the major scale or whatever they hit those diminished notes and just sound metal i love it.

And that happens a lot uh and it's a good thing they really go back to that well a lot and it always is so effective.

Yeah he's masters of picking notes and everything too i don't think i went through this riff too actually this is just the variation Then he goes back to that other riff. Yeah, and then.

And he's playing that... Oh, sorry to interrupt. And he's playing that under the verses?

Yeah, that's the variation. I guess he could look at that pattern because he goes... You have the open D here for the main riff. And then he does this variation too where he's on the 8A.

Okay.

So you can hear it for just one little measure you hear. It's just like a different variation of that same. And then he does that weird run. More chromatic stuff, man. When I was trying to pick it, I didn't want to come on here and be like, I don't know what scale it's in, but I legitimately am telling you guys now after looking around, I'm like, I have no clue how to tell you what scale this is. It's like the chromatic is what it is.

That works. Through and through. I mean, he's been saying a lot lately live, too. At the gold show that I went to, he said, during CLD, he said, I got to tune up. You know, he's tuning his bass. And then he quipped, if this was Primus, I wouldn't have to tune. You know, so he's aware of that. There's some musicality to what he does, but sometimes he's just playing what feels right. And I think that's part of the charm, for sure. I want to play a moment for you, and I'm going to ask you a question after it. Put you on the spot.

Why not?

You look far too comfortable. All right, so that's the bass sting after the bridge that takes us back into the main lick. My question is, what would 1992 Les Claypool play there? I asked myself this question earlier today when listening to that tune, and I was listening to these stings thinking, they're fairly tasteful and even restrained to a degree.

That's a good word for it.

Okay, yeah, so I wonder what.

30 years ago.

Les Claypool would have done. And you're under no obligation to try to play it, but I just started scat-singing the craziest stuff I could think of and think, that's what happens.

Like that little uh sound that he does he does that in like a brown album and stuff i'd always say like he can fit that in anywhere but he does so much cool i mean for like purple onion he did this uh this little sting if you want to call it that where he slides up and then he pops open and then he slides back down and he does that in so much stuff He just does random stuff like that. When you watch him play it live, you're like, what are you doing, dude? Because it's so hard.

When he's just all over the place, it's really hard to pick. You kind of really have to listen to the notes and be like, all right, what is he really doing? But yeah, that's a good thought experiment, man. I'm going to take that from you.

Sure. What's interesting about this track is we get that cool bridge, and it gets a little spacey, and the Mellotron's doing some cool stuff that Frankie pointed out. They're doing that really neat chromatic part and it moves up to the minor third and then back down and it crescendos. And then we get back into the verse or get back into the main lick. And it feels like that this song is over around the three and a half minute part right here. That is a really satisfying way to end this track. But wait. Frankie just made the international symbol for nah, girl. It's not over yet. But that would be perfect. And so I'm wondering if that was the plan all along to have a completely separate outro or if they felt like they had this song

and then this other really cool part and needed to get it on the record so they put them together. It's all conjecture, but based on the musicality of what we've already heard plus what comes after as a coda, I suppose. Johnny, you know more than me. I don't know what it sounds like to you. Do I?

So I think, too, the drawn to artificial light, the lyrics at this end part, really finishes the song like lyrically so maybe they just needed an extra part to add more lyrics because the whole song is just you know um repeated lyrics there's just one line that's different each verse um in that less playful way where there's he's telling stories of different people and uh so every verse is like a different person And then at the end, he said, they're saying drawn to artificial light. So it's kind of like the moral of the stories and simple lyrics as well. Like drawn to artificial light, like an insect in the night.

Yeah.

And after we have the Golden Egg of Empathy album, where they did the AI, like songs like this, where they're saying drawn to artificial lights, like they already had that technology is awesome. ruining us or just technology. They're always putting it in a negative light for the song.

Right, yeah.

And just kind of like a warning. And I love that about this band, because it's serious right now, at least in the world that we're living in, man. Technology is just crazy.

Yeah, and they discuss that in the sense of this album being somewhat of a soundtrack to the apocalypse to a degree. And as you noted, that Drawn to Artificial Light line It reveals the commonality between the three figures in the verses. Aside from the chorus that we hear, or the unifying line, desperate measures lead to desperate situations, excuse me. But that drawn to artificial light just cements it.

So it made, lyrically, it makes perfect sense. I just wonder if musically, this was the plan all along, or they were inspired at some point to tack this on. I do want to play a part of it because it's dreamy and atmospheric. And it completely departs from the song as we know it here.

I'm excited.

Oh.

So we have that acoustic guitar and this, this really, uh, bizarre bass tone. Um, And this cool.

Lyric.

Okay, whatever Les is ranting about in the very background, it's ping-ponging between the channels, and it's going all over the place. It's a pleasure to listen to.

There's something very Pink Floyd-ish about... Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

For sure. I'm excited. I'm excited, too. I don't mean to interrupt, but I built a bass tone that's going to work for that. That kind of bouncing back and forth. So I can kind of show you that part as well on bass, if you'd like.

Please. That was probably a challenge.

Yeah, I spent like that's probably about a half an hour on it. But this is my favorite thing about Primus. I love building the bass tones and the guitar tones and trying out the different effects, as you know. They do that live manually all the time. They're just playing with different tones. But yeah, so what I did for this or what I'm hearing, just kind of winging it, was I distorted it. I took away the low end because it is kind of higher notes that he's doing right here. But you can't really hear much low end in it.

It's way cut out, yeah.

A touch of reverb and then there's a, what I have is an X-Trem plug-in. uh in my studio one and what that does i put it in pan mode and it's an auto pan so it pans from left to right um let's try that out all right so he's hitting this so Like he does just hitting these two notes. It's simple notes. Yeah. He's just doing little leads, little stings again. Something about that.

What's interesting about that is the first part, it sounded almost jaunty, which I don't get from the record. It's kind of almost a little bouncy, and it swings a but he's playing that under some strummy acoustic guitar. So it's not, you know, it's not jaunty at all on the record because it's a dreamy psychedelic piece. So it's so bizarre.

And when you, when you break it down, like, like Johnny just did, uh, it showed him particularly haunting and beautiful about the baseline. Certainly.

Yeah.

And they, um, I think the, uh, you keep saying dreamy too. And it did, I remember it reminded me of the dream off of a desaturating seven. Cause he, he does the auto pan on that as well. And, uh, it's just playing around with effects. Um, but yeah, it's, it's hard to tell if it's like, do we need filler?

Do we need to add minutes? I feel like when I was in a band, we had to add minutes to a full length when we were recording. We just didn't have enough music written, but I don't think that's a problem for him. It's just, yeah. for him and Sean Lennon, it's like, it's gotta be intentional.

Oh, certainly.

Yeah.

I don't, I don't think they thought they didn't have enough. That's for sure. Because they, you know, they, they've talked at length about this is inspired by a lot of late sixties, seventies, psychedelic, proggy bands who would put out 33 minute records. So they, I don't think they felt like they had to put too much on there. So, And this album's like 48 minutes long or something like that.

So it's plenty long. That's an interesting point, though, the analog to the dream. I had forgotten about that tone on there. So he's done something similar before.

Yeah, and it was around the same time, too. So it's like you can tell certain types of ways that Les will play a bass riff or certain vibes. He picks some up and then drops them. along the way, but I definitely desaturating sevens, such a solid album. I love it so much. I there's times where I'll like listen to that exclusively for like a month straight. I love it so much.

Um, Frankie of anyone in the universe, uh, I would hope it's you and I would expect it to be you who has transcribed exactly what less is saying in the background, uh, throughout that.

Entire, um, it's one of those, uh, athlete, uh, vocals that I've tried for many years, but no, I have not succeeded.

It's difficult to pick out. There's, there's a few things like he does say artificial light. And at the very end, he says something like it's, it's bizarre to me or something like that, or strange to me, but I haven't been able to pick out the rest. And I, I haven't run it through a bunch of filters to isolate, try to isolate the vocals, but, um, one of these days.

There's probably like a really nice Irish stew recipe hidden in there somewhere that he was reading from. So one of these days I'll figure it out.

I have the AI stem split right here if you guys want to try to listen to just the vocals, we can listen to it.

Like an insect in the night, a drunken artificial night.

It's not uncommon, it's just kind of a bit strange.

Kind of a bit strange.

I'm so glad I had that cued up.

That was outstanding. So hearing that in isolation, the end is much funnier because he just ends on that, oh, kind of strange.

He's got that. Yes, indeed.

Yeah, he's got that weird kind of tone in his voice. It's kind of like Mr. Crinkle. He's like, oh, yeah, Mr. Crinkle.

That's how I do it. That's a great connection because I'm thinking of those background vocals in the breakdown of Mr. Crinkle where he's doing something similar, but he's up there just That's very strange.

I love what he does.

It's like that rabble, rabble, rabble you do in the background for Seth. Wow, that was clutch. Thanks for doing that. Yeah, no problem. Let's turn our attention to the lyrics, shall we? They're pretty interesting. There are three different character studies. Yeah. So I boiled it down to. That these lyrics are three use cases for the title phrase, easily charmed by fools.

Yes.

So verse one, it's a person who isn't selective about potential mates. Verse two is a person who's suckered in by TV megachurch grifters. And the third is about people who are manipulated into being single issue voters. And they're all being charmed in a, so to speak by what they're seeing on screens, right? That's drawn to artificial light, whether it's your phone, your TV, your computer monitor, whatever.

That's where you're seeing and hearing this stuff and being drawn into it. And the other thing that Les will do is he'll turn a phrase. Yes. There's a play on words there.

Yeah.

There's the well-known maxim of desperate times call for desperate measures. Okay. So he flips it and he doesn't use the word times. He says, desperate measures lead to desperate situations. So he's flipping that around, right? And so he's calling these things desperate measures, which you could argue is true. If you're so lovesick or just so in need of a relationship that you're just tapping... Or in need of a meal.

Or if you're in need of a meal or you have physical maladies and your solution is to send money to a TV pastor... to be healed, or you're so worried that Obama's going to come take your guns that that's the reason that you vote. And I talked to a lot of people back in the Obama years, that's why they were voting against him. He's going to take our guns. And so I said, so what about all these other issues? And they're like, no, I don't care.

And so, okay, well, so the propaganda worked and turned them into single issue voters. And now Les does say in the lyrics, they vote right now. So he's talking about the political right. And I will say the political right, as dastardly as it was, they did a great job of turning people into single issue voters and to get them out to the polls. The left does this too, of course. A big one is reproductive rights, right? They want people to be single issue voters too, because it gets them out to the polls. So I'm not saying it's exclusive to any one particular party or anything like that, but it's It's pervasive and it's perverted, certainly, because it reduces your choice for the people who are going to

govern you to one thing, You're right. Just whatever, whatever that issue is.

And they vote out of desperation too. I think the third verse with the politics or the, so they can pack their pistols, you know what I mean? Like that's where it really fills the meaning in for desperate measures lead to desperate situations.

Cause if they take my guns, I'll be, you know, I don't want them to take my guns. I'm scared if they, if they come for my guns. So yeah. That's the fear being instilled, of course, which is the most effective propagandist technique. Yeah, I wrote in my notes for these that, you know, for situation one, obviously, if you're just swiping right, it's not going to end well for you. You're probably going to have some lousy experiences.

And then the person, you know, if your life is so bad that you think giving money to a TV preacher will fix your ills, You're in pretty dire straits because you're probably trying anything at that point. As we just discussed, people are so scared of one thing that they become single-issue voters. They'll vote for the party, this political party, to represent them in government. But those people in government will just turn around and screw them in every other way, whether it's guns or whatever. We'll protect this one right that you're really scared of losing. But don't pay attention to the other shit we do.

Yeah.

Don't look behind the curtain.

Yeah, right? It's seemingly a simple song that, you know, easily charmed by fools, whether it's dudes on dating sites, TV pastors or politicians. It seems like those are three groups of people that we should be able to see through pretty easily, yet we still fall for it. So I think there's more depth to these lyrics than there appears to be on the surface, just by... getting my damn thoughts out but it's there's a lot going on.

Here the simplicity of the message too is it's not like they're really taking a stance or anything they're kind of pointing out the problem just putting it on the table and then saying there it is i think less does that a lot you know what i mean a lot of his riffs he's kind of uh poking fun at a you know whatever menial situation like damn blue collar tweakers is a good sure point he's like telling a story about just something some pattern that he saw growing up you know what i mean like everyone's Everyone that's working is just on meth, dude. The town's run by meth heads. And it's not like he's even saying anything. Like, oh, this sucks. He's just saying, that's the song. Now you know.

You're raising awareness.

Yeah, this is how it is. And certainly, anybody listening or reading to those lyrics might, in that third instance, they vote right so they can pack their pistols. They might react with, why do you have to get political?

Yeah.

And that first verse is kind of an extension of Boomerang Baby. It's a similar character study.

Oh, right. What was the lyric in Boomerang Baby about the dating sites? I forget.

She's never dated anyone before a thorough search on Google.

So at least Boomerang Baby's doing.

Her due diligence. She's doing her homework. Yeah.

This unnamed gal in this song is just, he's good looking. And, you know, giving the thumbs up or whatever it is you do on Tinder. And that's interesting. So there's some opposites at play there.

Second verse always makes me remember the cover artwork of Spiritual Healing by Death. Yes! Oh, yeah. Yeah.

100%.

I love that album. That's a great connection.

Mm-hmm.

Actually, Frank, I wanted to ask you, is television evangelism– I know Catholicism is pretty popular in Mexico. I can tell you that. But is television evangelism part of the culture?

I've never seen anything like that here. I mean like you can watch a mass on TV or you can watch just people like preaching. But televangelism, I don't think I've ever seen that here. Okay.

Part of my ignorance if I say this wrong, but I think it's more of a Protestant thing.

I would guess so.

I don't think the Catholic Church condones that sort of thing, because then those mega pastors would be drawing influence away from the power structure of the Vatican, and they wouldn't like that. But, you know, your Billy Grahams, Joel Osteens, and all those horrible people, they're highly successful in the United States.

Or like, it being strictly an American thing, just because we're so Far down the capitalism, like the late stage capitalism groove that we're in on the record right now. It's like all these weird phenomena. I remember in the 90s growing up, man, everyone's grandma was sending off all their retirement money to televangelists. And we're like, why are you keep doing this? You're not going to have food next month, grandma. What the hell are you doing?

Yeah, it was widespread. And these people were selling hope, which is an evergreen thing to sell. You never run out of it. But this, you mentioned that this mesh between religion of a sort and capitalism is morbidly fascinating and obviously disturbing. But yeah, people, the people who can least afford it are being relieved of their money by these people.

Yeah, that's a good point.

Man, it's rough. So, and you could say that about.

Easily charmed by fools. There you go.

You could apply that same idea that, you know, the people that are most vulnerable to this are the ones being exploited.

You could.

you could apply that to the single issue voting. You could certainly apply that to the dating world. Um, man, I do have to say, Frankie, um, I don't know about you guys, but I am so thankful that, uh, when I was dating before I got married, that stuff really didn't exist or had not entered the mainstream. So otherwise what a mess. I don't know how people survive that crap.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's crazy that when I was going through high school, we barely had MySpace yet, you know what I mean? But I even saw a gap in, you know, once I hit my early 30s and stuff and all those dating sites were out, I'd go on them and I'd feel like a complete fucking idiot because it's all algorithm based and shit too. So I'm brand new going on there.

And then like after a couple of days, I'm like, no one likes me. Yeah. I'm like such an idiot. I'm like, everyone's fucking, I don't know what the hell's wrong.

Don't you, don't you think there's something strangely poetic about the title?

Yes. Uh, oh, he, uh, less lifted it from Bukowski.

Yeah.

I forgot about that.

Yes.

So he lifted it from Bukowski, which that guy could turn a phrase. Bukowski was a pretty incredible writer. Um, and of course he wrote about deadbeats, drunks and gambling addicts mostly. You know, you write what you know. And he was really good at it. Bukowski's a great read, and there's a lot of his stuff out there. Johnny or Frankie, have you guys read any Bukowski? I haven't, no.

A little.

I had a phase in my early 20s where I was reading a lot of Ginsberg, Kerouac, The Beat Guys, and then Bukowski got in there, too. I was really entranced by all of them for a while.

Have you ever heard Bukowski by Modest Mouse?

I don't think so.

Oh my God, what a great track. Let me just read the first verse to you. I woke up this morning and it seemed to me that every night turns out to be a little more like Bukowski. Yeah, I know he's a pretty good wreath, but God, who'd want to be such an asshole?

Oh, I have heard that song. Yes, I remember that line.

Yes.

A lot of smells for a little bit.

Bukowski is a good read and Modest Mouse thinks so too. Thank goodness. We're in league.

I have a final thought on the music before we transition to the last part. I can't shake up the feeling now that you guys pointed it out. Now, it seems to me like the first part of the song was carefully crafted and structured. And it sounds like the coda was kind of an afterthought, but I don't mean that in a negative way because, uh, it doesn't lessen how good it is. It actually highlights, uh, how a Cleveland on Delirium afterthought is actually, it can actually turn out to be a really great piece of music. Yeah.

Right on.

Oh yeah, for sure. I know a lot of musicians too. They have, it's like upbeat. uh, in that first part of the song and then they just want to mood change. You know what I mean? So it's like, let's just write like an outro part. That's just going to mellow out this and then, you know, and it'd be a contrast to it. Um, but yeah, I agree, man. I, I love that. Uh, the, the whole ending to the song, it just sounds so cool. The sound design of it, it just makes it a unique sounding, uh, part.

Yeah.

That, that must've been a lot of fun in the studio. pinging stuff around.

I'd love to be a fly on the wall for the CLD recordings, man. Had to have been the coolest studio time.

It does sound like a good time. I have a final thought on this track, too, before we move to Primate's takes and live cuts. There's a particular part of Interstellar Overdrive. That's kind of cool.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

Yep, that's it.

I can definitely hear what you mean.

That's Interstellar Overdrive by Pink Floyd, and we know that Floyd is a foundational piece for the delirium, and I'm not accusing anyone of plagiarism. But there's some things that are close in there.

Yeah, I can definitely hear that.

I don't think it's a direct lift, but there's got to be some kind of inspiration there.

To be able to capture the essence of a band, or like a part, like say, you know, whether it's even intentional, they're like, hey, we want to write some, add our musical styles, but put it on like a Pink Floyd canvas, style canvas or whatever. Even if they had that intentional thing, to be able to capture the essence of Pink Floyd... Not just rip off their riffs, but to write something that you're like, man, that sounds like Floyd, but it don't sound exactly like any Floyd.

I mean, it's something that certain artists can just do in such a tasteful way. And I mean, it's even less doing it over the years with covering certain bands and just sort of making it his own. But with CLD, we really get that where you branch out. They're branching out and doing all these different styles where sometimes it sounds like the Beatles and.

It's incredible, man.

They really understand how those bands put together their songs and sounds and can use it to their advantage when making these tracks on South of Reality in particular. So, yeah, that's a great explanation, Johnny.

I appreciate that.

Hey, no problem, buddy.

It's time for Primates Takes. If you want your takes on the track up for discussion, read right here on the podcast. All you have to do is go to patreon.com forward slash Primus Tracks. There are many tiers of support, but the universal constant is Primates Takes. Eric in Australia. He's our resident curmudgeon, but he's also our resident punster this week who says, Claypool gold. Well, fool's gold, at least.

About easily charmed by fools. Nicely done, Eric. Q Hefner says, so many things about this track I love. Shiner's harmonies behind Les, the Beatles-esque vibes all throughout on the guitar, the overall bounce of the song and the bass, and Les' quiet old man voice that pops in at the end cracks me up. Parts of this track give me conspiranoia flashbacks in one of the guitar parts, and the old man Les at the end reminds me of the laundry list of side effects rattled off. Ah, that's a reference to a future track on this record. And Nick in the Netherlands says, easily the best song on the album in my opinion. Hypnotic intro riff, groovy, lyrics still relevant to this day. It has a certain Beatles vibe

to it, and I love the switch at the end. A couple of Prime Matrons are referencing the Beatles. I've referenced Pink Floyd as possible inspiration. I think we're through the looking glass. Thank you, Prime Matrons! Live cuts from.

A jammed vehicle.

Live cuts from... The jammed vehicle. Live cuts from.

What's going on here?

Today, Frankie has blessed us with two live cuts of Easily Charmed by Fools. We're going to start.

In great quality.

In great quality. So as you can imagine, these are pro shot. You've heard these names before if you've been listening to the live cuts for this record. We're going to go to the current.

The current.

Oh, wow. You have one for this one now. I did not expect that. I saved Sweetwater for last. Sweetwater. So that you could wow everybody with that. But you've done it here with the current. Very nice. Okay, so here's the current. The Claypool Delenium. The what?

Delenium.

The Delenium.

The Delenium Millennium.

The Delenium.

That sounds like a... That's cool. That's cool, actually.

It's on the periodic table somewhere.

Yeah. Is it Delenium Delerium?

I'm going to say that again. Like, something weird happened in my mouth when I said that. I don't know what that was. The Claypool Lennon Delirium, live in the studio at The Current, performing Easily Charmed by Fools.

Easily charmed by fools.

He is easily charmed by fools. He gives half his salary to television preachers. Desperate measures lead to desperate situations. He's an agent.

But the rules.

Are set.

Now, he's an agent.

Yeah, that sounds great.

Yeah, I love that guitar solo.

It's a nice one.

It's so cool.

It does his job. I think in that basting we heard he was, I don't think he played what was on the record. I think he always gives himself that space to improvise and there he did it again. Nicely done.

Yeah, he's got like a scale in mind. Obviously, it's a lot of chromatic stuff. But yeah, he's just endless. Endless stings from that Les Claypool. Of all the times I've even seen him live or the different versions that he's done, all the types of different songs, man. He just always surprises me with different techniques. And yeah, The Current in particular.

Great.

I think his name's Jao Noguera. I think the dude on Keyboard.

Jao. The Current. Yeah.

Absolutely incredible keyboard player, and he's in Mastodon right now.

I mean, he can play with one hand. That's all you need to know.

The other hand's doing sweet dance moves in some of these videos.

It's pretty great.

Let's move to Frankie's favorite live set of all time. No matter what, he always undercuts me with that. I would give you the space, man.

It's not the same.

You're right. It's not the same. It's way more fun when you say it while I'm talking and then I start laughing. So here we are, 420 Fest Atlanta, Georgia, 2019.

Ooh, tempo.

Oh, yeah.

He's playing that almost exclusively with his index finger, Les's.

¦ that's a good one right there yeah he's got a 20 uh when we pass that part as well he's got like a 20 i can't remember how many frets he's got but it's a lot more than i got so those notes are so high up that i can't even play that part on my.

Bass oh gosh i do the best that i can but like it's that pachyderm um He just hits those super high notes. It sounds so hilarious.

That was great. That was a really funny one. During that build-up, as it came to that crescendo, it sounded like Joao was playing trumpet fanfare almost.

Oh, yeah.

It was very funny.

And great drumming by Paolo, as usual. Yep.

Paolo sounds authoritative on the drums. He's playing with conviction. It sounds great. That was a really fun portion of Fools, Frankie.

Yeah.

Fantastic performances.

And of course, these are available on YouTube. If you haven't watched The Current or Sweetwater, please do.

Pause the podcast right now. Go have yourself a time.

Yeah.

Just go right now.

Go do it.

Rewarding performances. Easily charmed by Fools, I'm swiping left because you've been tracked. Frankie. Next time, you ever fallen in love with a ghost?

Wow, that's going to be a heavy one to cover.

The old Amethyst Realm. Yeah. That's one of my favorite songs literally of all time.

Same here. Same here.

Yeah, dude. It's a cool song.

Yep. Can't wait to hear the story of Amethyst Realm. Johnny, Johnny Rockett. Johnny Rocket, Johnny Roberts, Rockets. There it is, yes.

It was a pleasure.

Okay, so what's your ad on YouTube for the nice people to find you?

It's at Johnny Rocket Productions.

He just uploaded an Antipop playthrough today. I was just watching that in the morning.

The whole record? Gee whiz. Yeah.

I've been dropping and trying to keep, um, I keep most up to date on my Instagram, which is at woe of tyrants, W O E of tyrants, moth, M O T H like the bug. So I hope you can find it cause it's very confusing, but, um, that's where I post all my lectures and lesson videos and stuff, um, as well.

Johnny, thanks for joining us, man. It was great to meet you and talk to you today about CLD. It was a pleasure, man.

This was a lot of fun. Thanks for having me.

You had a great time. Thank you so much, Johnny.

You bet. Primates, primatrons, people of Earth, people on dating apps, I suppose you're on Earth. Thank you all for your support. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time. Later days.

We'll make it.

That's kind of strange.

CLD - Easily Charmed By Fools w/ Johnny Rocket

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