Fundamentals
X: @Fundamentals21m
nostr: npub12eml5kmtrjmdt0h8shgg32gye5yqsf2jha6a70jrqt82q9d960sspky99g
book: https://zeuspay.com/btc-for-institutions
Jason
nostr: npub19l2muzvelq07kfx8glfqmpf8jdcj2xp733rhjfc05t2g2mt9krjqrae40w
Intro: Pseudo Suicide, Oysterhead 10/27/2001 -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhH3fsRni54
Intrashow: Interview, Oysterhead 10/27/2001 -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nc70U3tA8L4
Full PBS Broadcast, Oysterhead 10/27/2001 -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjaDVaub6Ek
Outro: Little Faces / Shadow of a Man / Birthday Boys, Oysterhead from the Album 'The Grand Pecking Order' -https://open.spotify.com/album/1CQ44PqZa4hAkSu98GdOvm?si=JcNfsOCVQQetO2uY0w8sNA
In this episode, we dive into the eclectic world of Oysterhead, a supergroup featuring Trey Anastasio, Les Claypool, and Stewart Copeland. We explore the band's origins, the unique chemistry between these legendary musicians, and the impact of their music. The discussion touches on the band's formation during Phish's hiatus, the influence of Les Claypool on Trey Anastasio, and the creative synergy that resulted in their album "The Grand Pecking Order." We also delve into the themes and stories behind some of their most iconic tracks, such as "Little Faces," "Pseudo Suicide," and "Shadow of a Man." We also reflect on the broader context of the music scene during the early 2000s, the rise of cable television, and the accessibility of live music through platforms like Live Phish. The conversation highlights the timelessness of Oysterhead's music and the enduring legacy of its members. We discuss the band's reunion in 2020 and the continued relevance of their work, emphasizing the importance of collaboration and creativity in producing groundbreaking music. Join us as we celebrate the genius of Oysterhead and the lasting impact of their innovative sound.
In this episode, we dive into the eclectic world of Oysterhead, the supergroup featuring Trey Anastasio, Les Claypool, and Stewart Copeland. We explore the band's origins, their unique sound, and the impact of their music on the jam band scene. The discussion touches on the band's formation during Phish's hiatus, the creative synergy between the members, and the influence of their individual musical backgrounds. We also delve into the themes and stories behind some of their most iconic tracks, highlighting the blend of humor, complexity, and musical prowess that defines Oysterhead's work.
We also reflect on the broader context of the early 2000s music scene, the rise of cable TV, and the accessibility of live music through platforms like Live Phish. The conversation meanders through personal anecdotes, the evolution of music consumption, and the timeless appeal of innovative collaborations. Whether you're a long-time fan or new to Oysterhead, this episode offers a deep dive into the band's legacy and the enduring magic of their music.
[00:00:07]
Unknown:
Are you sure you're in the right place? You know, Jane's Addiction is playing down the street. You could be in the wrong place.
[00:01:51] Unknown:
I bring in that as the opening music. We just tried we tried something.
[00:01:56] Unknown:
Yes. We tried we tried some live live audio We tried something. To our dear our dear audience.
[00:02:03] Unknown:
I think live audio is the future of this podcast. It really is. But it might not be the present.
[00:02:10] Unknown:
Yeah. And I have to admit, I'm, I'm on the cheap. I'm using freeware to do this, which is a virtual soundboard. I think this is one of those situations where you just need a piece of hardware in front of you with some sliders and buttons.
[00:02:25] Unknown:
I think you're probably right. I'm thinking I am really gonna be getting one of those, like a Rodecaster. And, also, I take some responsibility here because we were on the phone on, what, Thursday? And you were like, dude, I'd really like to do this live with you, and I was just like, didn't feel like doing that.
[00:02:43] Unknown:
Yeah. We had talked for a while.
[00:02:46] Unknown:
We don't we're not, we don't we're not exactly displaying Fish's work ethic here in things we wanna introduce live. But we did we did talk about this episode for an hour,
[00:02:58] Unknown:
and I'm pretty psyched about it. We sure did. I'm pretty psyched too. And, you know, you speaking of excellence, I mean, what we just heard is, and when I first learned of it, you know, this this band's existence, I was completely blown away. Phish was I was, you know, I was a couple years into Phish. It wasn't, like, brand new and had to fancy myself. I had pretty good taste in music before before Phish. But, man You kinda got
[00:03:24] Unknown:
you kinda got rug pulled a little bit early. You got into Phish in, like, '99. You got the you got, like, the one good year, and then you got hiatus. Yep. Like, right away. So I right? So, like, your sense of your sense of fish was like, oh, okay. Here today, gone tomorrow. What's up with that? Right? But but but the side projects were coming hard during that period of time.
[00:03:54] Unknown:
They were in. It wasn't just I mean, we've talked about Trey quite a bit as prolific with this song, with his, with tab, Tranestasia band, what we just listened to, which we'll get into who all that was for the audience. Yeah. And then he had, you know, Paige was doing Vita Blue and Mike had his band. And then, I think I even think Fishman had, like, the the mandolin the mandolin project. Right? Correct me if I'm wrong. Tornado.
[00:04:17] Unknown:
He played with jazz mandolin project for pork and ham. So I Pork tornado. I think in this episode okay. Let's let's talk about this for a sec. So everybody heard the opener, and that was Oysterhead, band. That was one of the many bands that that came together during Fish's hiatus. Fish's hiatus, their first hiatus was basically our our our scene is getting out of control, and we're just gonna, like, try to pump the brakes. And we're gonna come back sober and promise to stay sober. And, right, we knew what happened when they they came back. But what's like, what is it? '99 when Oysterhead toured, or was it February?
I can't think of the exact year that they toured. So, yeah, the story goes
[00:05:10] Unknown:
April of twenty twenty was when you you know what? Why don't I let them I don't I don't let them talk about it. Not 2020. Would it be February?
[00:05:19] Unknown:
So I checked 2,000. Sorry. They came back Yeah. They came back in 2020. So what so what we had what we had in ninety nine twenty twenty, like, before the hiatus
[00:05:31] Unknown:
was Mhmm.
[00:05:32] Unknown:
You know, we talked about this a little bit. We I call it the very, very, very tippy toe end of Trey's honeymoon with drugs.
[00:05:43] Unknown:
Yep.
[00:05:44] Unknown:
Right? Like, he's basically getting to the tail end of the good times. Mhmm. And the oyster head was really kinda snuck in. Right? It, like, snuck in right before the door shut and things started getting dark. Right? It's true. Trey basically said, you know what? I was in this band. And then one day, it occurred to me that I could be in five bands. Right? And that's that's like like, that's what Trey wants to do with cocaine. He wants to be in five bands. Right? Full time touring bands. I'm gonna do five lines of cocaine. Yeah. Because I'm in five fucking bands. Like and nobody like, you know, Trey is gonna go down as one of the most prolific creators of music that's ever ever lived on this earth. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Not only prolific, but, like, I think, like, I really do I I hate to fluff so much, but, like, I really do think it's going to age very well historically. I start to see it with the cover band. Now you have cover bands devoted to Phish where you didn't really have it during their time. Right?
Because it was I don't know. Maybe it was like they had to slow down a little. So the cover bands could actually access their music. But, you know, you have university studying them and cover bands really like, it like, I saw cover band. We didn't talk about this, but, like, I saw cover band a couple of weeks ago.
[00:07:03] Unknown:
Yeah. And you invited me out. I just couldn't I couldn't I couldn't Oh, I did. Yeah. That happen. It was short notice.
[00:07:08] Unknown:
But, it cut me it reminded me of, like, seeing Jonathan Biss, if that name means anything to you. Jonathan Biss is the guy in The US who's, like, known for interpreting Beethoven.
[00:07:22] Unknown:
Okay.
[00:07:23] Unknown:
It's really hard to do. It doesn't sound hard, but it actually it's like these people these people make it their life to interpret Beethoven.
[00:07:32] Unknown:
And I heard that. And, you know, until I got into classical music, I didn't appreciate how much a particular composer had a little bit of latitude on how to interpret
[00:07:42] Unknown:
the composition. Is that what you're is that what you're pointing to as far as so much about the latitude. It's just about, like, it has to go through a a human being. Like, you're right. Beethoven's work dies unless it gets channeled through people. Right? And there are people who just decide to dedicate portions of their life
[00:08:00] Unknown:
to being that god being that person being that person's voice. I heard that in, like, in the in the context of, like, ancient ancient civilizations, right, where they tried to, they're not archivists, but they're trying to interpret and keep alive. Right? Is that what you're getting at? Like, it's there's an interpretation of it, though. Yeah. But you're and with the fact that reason is to keep it alive.
[00:08:21] Unknown:
But their music is worth keeping alive. And that's the the sort of the point. I think that's where I do really think Fish's music, particularly Trey's compositions, are going to be kept alive.
[00:08:32] Unknown:
Mhmm.
[00:08:33] Unknown:
So, you know, it's prolific, also excellent and I think timeless. And I think more timeless than a lot of the real famous acts that we consider timeless today. Like, you know, I don't know if we'll be listening, people will be listening to like the Rolling Stones in a hundred years. I do think that you and Joy Myself will be being interpreted.
[00:08:55] Unknown:
Interesting. I think the divided sky will be I tend to agree. Yeah.
[00:08:59] Unknown:
And that's not slight against the Rolling Stones and their greatness or anything. Trey would probably argue with us. Fucking stones. Who cares? Who was I listening to today on a podcast? So it was like Tom Longo was talking about somebody who was saying somebody who's being very dishonest. He was like, because it was as honest as Mick Jagger at 80 years old playing with the Rolling Stones, playing, like, at 80 years old, but trying to
[00:09:23] Unknown:
pull off. Yeah. Luongo's, little little euphemisms. They always Oh, that was pretty funny. Yeah. They always hit high.
[00:09:31] Unknown:
Yeah. That was pretty funny. So Trey is like, you're talking about already the most prolific, like, really prolific producer of of music. And, you know, he wants to be in five bands, so he figures out that cocaine is the way, and he fucking does it. We have many legendary Phish tours. We have, Trey. We have you know, one day, we'll do an episode on maybe more than one episode on Trey's Trey's bands. Yeah. Like, Trey band, Tab. Tab. The first album the first album, Trey Anastasio, legendary. Right? Just absolutely legendary. And so when in '90 you know, when you had that first hiatus, at least for me and my memory, you have Trey and Stagio Band, that legendary album. You have you have Oysterhead. And then you come back with, come back with Round Room, which I thought was if you take all of those albums, like Farmhouse, all those albums that came out around that time, right, Farmhouse was, like, '99, I think, or something like that. Yeah. I think that's right. '99.
Can't remember what came after that. Right? But, like, to me, Round Room was I loved it. Like, I actually loved I so to you know, you have him, again, tail end of this honeymoon period, right, before things get, like, really dark. Yeah. Out of control. Yeah. Right? And when I say dark, I mean, like, you know, we've all seen videos, but, like like, I've I must have said this before. Like, the Internet the Internet in, like, 02/2004, 2005 was pretty active with, documenting Trey's exploits. He was definitely going around being a dick, being awesome, but also just like being that you know, he was definitely living living in that rock star life. He was putting out solo albums that were incredible.
We've talked about this. He thought they were going to be he thought it was going to be like Wings and Paul McCartney. He thought it was going to be it should have been. It really was great. But then things like I said, things got dark. But we here we at Oysterhead, dude, it's like again, it's great. Yeah. Still great.
[00:11:48] Unknown:
Still great.
[00:11:50] Unknown:
We can't deny it, and it's fucking awesome. And Yeah. You know,
[00:11:56] Unknown:
I was so excited to do this Oysterhead episode. So I'm we're twelve minutes in. We haven't even really fucking started it. That's all. We haven't even really started. And, you know, and if we have to, like, you know, spill into another episode, it wouldn't be that. I mean, this is almost Oysterhead's almost as good as as Tab. You know what I mean? As it relates to, like if if this means more time, you know, we'll take it. Tell us who Oysterhead is. So Oysterhead, well, why not let them tell us who who they are? How about that? What do you say? Okay. Try try it one more time. Maybe it is the present. Alright. So in their own words.
[00:12:32] Unknown:
This is Les Claypool, our band leader, guru, and psychic guidance spiritual
[00:12:38] Unknown:
leader. And this is Stewart Copeland, the greatest drummer in the world.
[00:12:44] Unknown:
And I have no idea who this guy is. He's the Crimson Eggo. Shreya Anastasio.
[00:12:52] Unknown:
Alright. So that's segment one of that interview. I mean so welcome everybody. That is Oysterhead.
[00:12:59] Unknown:
Right. So Oysterhead is basically three fucking legends. Legends coming together who you know, it's this most surprising aspect of it was was Stewart Copeland.
[00:13:14] Unknown:
We'll get into the fact that Trey and Les had a relationship, and we'll get we'll talk about that. But, like, Stewart Copeland I'll let that go. There's there yes. So there's three more segments of this, so bear with me. It's just a it's just a two minute clip. But, I'm gonna I'm gonna play it in four segments.
[00:13:27] Unknown:
Well, it all started with, a show that was offered to me down in New Orleans by some folks called Superfly. And they do this every year for, for the Jazz Fest. They get, interesting musicians to get other interesting musicians together for an evening at a nightclub. So I called Trey, and he said, I know I've I've always wanted to play with you and Stewart, and I knew Stewart from working with him in the Primus song. And, so we called Stewart, and Stewart said, yeehaw. Let's go.
[00:14:00] Unknown:
So unless it were, that's what happened. So Stewart had played with Primus. Stewart fucked around with Primus.
[00:14:07] Unknown:
Which I didn't know until I heard that heard that interview. Do you think Stewart's the person who turned less
[00:14:13] Unknown:
onto, like, hard drugs?
[00:14:16] Unknown:
No. Because everybody everybody blames Les Claypool for Trey for Trey Trey. Oh, it's a 100% loud. Come on. Les is such a listen. Les is the type of person that's so intelligent and so capable. He could manage a forty year drug addiction.
[00:14:33] Unknown:
Totally. And be fun to do. He's like Lou Reed.
[00:14:36] Unknown:
He's one of those guys.
[00:14:38] Unknown:
Yes. Tiger blood. Like like, this is what I was born to do. You know, Trey almost had tiger blood. You're like I know. He Because first, I mean tiger blood. The fact that he was able to play his own music this way under, like, under, like, a lot of drugs. Like Yeah. Like, when you you look at you watch some of those 98 shows, like, the the worser show with the you know, it's on YouTube. It's the one where he like, they all they all, like, take either acid and ecstasy.
[00:15:11] Unknown:
Both. Like,
[00:15:13] Unknown:
they they see them drinking it and fucking nodding to each other, and then and then they play you know, like, 98, they're still ripping. Like, still machine gun tray and, you know, it's like a really fast Mike's Mike's Groove. Right? He was very, very he he operated at a very high level. The band operated very, very, very high level. Maybe they almost had Tiger Blood and maybe their lack of maybe their lack of it is what saved their lives. Yeah.
[00:15:40] Unknown:
You know? I mean I don't wanna return this into the drug episode again, but No. I don't. But I'm just saying Les Claypool is a specimen.
[00:15:47] Unknown:
Also, Trey yeah. Trey's a fucking alpha male. Trey's an alpha. He doesn't he didn't he was he was gonna do what he was gonna do. Yeah. Whether he met Leitless Claypool or Kid Rock or any of these assholes.
[00:15:59] Unknown:
That is true. And the problem with being an alpha is you can delude yourself in thinking you have tiger blood, which might have happened. But, okay, I'm gonna continue on. There's really no plans beyond, say, this tour.
[00:16:09] Unknown:
But for me, what's happened consistently since we first played together is that I get these glimpses of potential and chemistry between the three of us. The first time we ever got together, we we did a jam in my barn. This is before the Strand Theatre Knot. And it I thought it was just incredible. I saw the tape and still listened to it. Then we went and did that show, and I thought the show kinda sucked. But then then Stewart sent this tape of the good moments from the show, and both of us were Les and I were both convinced after that because the moments that were good were really good. And so now that we're out on tour, every night, things to be seem to be moving forward. And whenever I catch a glimpse of how good it can be, I suddenly my head gets filled with all these ideas. Oh, we gotta do another album. We gotta, you know, tour Japan. We got, in those moments. The reason
[00:16:57] Unknown:
I wanted to stop there because you had mentioned in the past that, you know, Trey is a really laid back, easy going guy. But if you play if you play shit, he's gonna recognize it and call it that,
[00:17:09] Unknown:
which he did right there. Have you ever heard, like, Jennifer Hartwick or Natalie Cressman? Or Yeah. Yeah. That's what he was referring to. Yeah. I mean, like, they it's they basically, like it's it's sort of like, Trey's like Bobby Knight, you know? Like, Frank Zappa was known to be like this too. Like, basically, like, he is easygoing. He he likes to avoid confrontation in general. But if you're not playing at the absolute edge of your ability, he probably will just stop
[00:17:41] Unknown:
he'll stop interacting with you forever. Yeah. He'll, like, go he'll, like, ghost you or something. He'll lose interest completely. Exactly. Alright. So one last segment. So this is Stewart giving his perspective of why he thinks he has a lot of fun with Oysterhead. Why Oysterhead is so exciting for us is because
[00:17:57] Unknown:
it's not our primary focus. It's like school's out for summer when it's Oysterhead time. I look I'm working on movies, and oyster head's coming up. It's like summer holidays are almost here, and then I get out, and it's an explosion of energy and enthusiasm. And then we don't have any future. We're making this up as we go along, and that's sort of what makes it fresh for us.
[00:18:17] Unknown:
So, yeah, it was nice to, I think, hear in their own voice than describe,
[00:18:20] Unknown:
in the moment. Explain explain to the audience who Stewart Copeland is. Yeah. So Stewart Copeland,
[00:18:26] Unknown:
as the resident timekeeper of this of this podcast Yep. And Capitulation, which is another band, which you'll you'll learn more about as time as time goes on. Mhmm. Fundamentals has asked me to to speak, as it relates to the, percussionist in this band. So Stewart Copeland, if you if you're into music, you might know that name, but most people that are casually into music have no idea the drummer of The Police. They don't know his name, but that's Stewart Copeland. He's the drummer for The Police, arguably the the most talented musician in that band. Now mind you Mhmm. They ever hear a lot of differences with Sting, about songwriting, and they just kinda didn't see music the same way, but they were amazingly popular across the globe. So,
[00:19:14] Unknown:
Stewart's a lot defined by the sound. It's defined by, like Stewart called them style. Yes. You know, you know, Sting's creativity, but, you you know, his playing off of Stewart singing off downbeats. Mhmm. You know, the police were a one of one phenomena.
[00:19:34] Unknown:
Yeah. And if anybody, knows the police, you'll know they kind of almost have this right. What fundamentals is is referring to is kind of playing on the one and the three as opposed to the two and the four is how typical four four music goes. But reggae Yeah. Is kinda flipped on its head, and you play on the upstroke or the upbeat.
[00:19:56] Unknown:
So it's a little hear, like a little unnatural. Yeah. You can hear Roxanne as, like, a reggae song. Like, you can kinda hear it that way. You can't unhear it, actually, once you think about it like that. Correct. Like, the Michael Franti type of, you know that's what everybody calls the section of, like, you can drift while you're sleeping, you know, when it goes into Yes. It goes in yep. They call it the tent.
[00:20:15] Unknown:
Yes. It goes in Yep. They call it the Michael Franti section. Yeah. That's pretty funny.
[00:20:22] Unknown:
Do you have you heard that? I've heard it as described as the Michael Franti section of it. I think I've I've heard unfortunately, I've heard Michael Franti's name, since I since he was popular, and it was an I don't know who that I don't even know that is other than I would have never heard of him if it wasn't for the the Yeah. The the analysis of that song. We live in the podcast era where we have words for all those things.
[00:20:46] Unknown:
So what happened when Phish went when Phish broke up, all these other bands seeped into the jam band scene Yep. That didn't deserve to be there. And that was one of the Oh, yeah. Spearhead is was his band, I believe. Awful.
[00:21:03] Unknown:
I'm so scared we're gonna miss something here, but whatever. I'm gonna I'm gonna say something about side projects. And Please. And this is like okay. I was thinking about this, like, yesterday. How the so, like, I was thinking about it because, one of my one of my favorite bands is Twiddle. Another one of my favorite bands is Humphrey's McGee, and they both are now going through changes. And I started thinking about, man, how does Phish do it forty plus years? And I think a big part of it is the Crimson Dago is the unquestioned, he's just the unquestioned leader of the band.
Correct. And and and he is solid. When he's solid, the band is solid. Now here's what I wanted to say, the observation I wanted to make, and people might not like this and you might not like this. But I've seen By the Blue. I've seen Pork Tornado. I've seen Mike with Leokaki. Right? I've seen all the side I've seen all of the side projects.
[00:22:05] Unknown:
Yeah.
[00:22:06] Unknown:
They're one lessons. They're not they none of them to me were ground if I had a blue, it was probably the closest. What Paige was doing as a side project was the closest to me to making groundbreaking music. But all of fucking Trey's like, Trey had, like, a 9090% batting average with side projects. They were almost all incredible, where, like, they touched me, moved my life. I listened to them. The dude of life, dude, even, like, the fucking like, it's him. It's his character backing the dude of life that you hear. Mhmm. Oysterhead, Trey Band, all the versions of Trey Band.
There's been a couple of floppers. Yes. K? I mean There have been a couple of flops. So surrender to the air if surrender to the air was sort of a flop. That was so it was incredibly hyped. We're talking 1996. Right. Super hyped. It was gonna be like John Badesky and Mark Rabot and all of these, like it turned out to be this avant garde jazz thing that the Sun Ra Orchestra was gonna be as part of it. I think it was like one of Trey's dreams.
[00:23:16] Unknown:
Yeah. It just kinda it was kinda work. Orchestra. Yeah. And he ended up fulfilling that dream with the with the in New York, right, the Philharmonic or or I forget. But he did a composition that he he got to fulfill his orchestra orchestral dream.
[00:23:30] Unknown:
You know, it's funny because yeah. Frank Zappa, right before he died, did something he called, like, the yellow shark or I think it was called something like that. And it was, like, this really super avant garde. I remember getting it thinking it was gonna be, like, cool, and I was just like, ugh.
[00:23:48] Unknown:
Yeah. It was just like if you say avant garde, it's like I so I can only I can't really listen to it. Like
[00:23:54] Unknown:
Right. It's un well, it's inaccessible and unlistened, but it's not inaccessible like Les Claypool, like or, you know, or like Phish. Right. You know, in there when they wanna be. It's more like, what the fuck is this? It's like pretentious. You know what I mean? It's more like, and it's probably not trying to be pretentious, but it is.
[00:24:13] Unknown:
Well, it's funny you touch on something there because I think to the casual first time listener to Phish, I I've I've observed people have that kind of response to fish when they first hear them because they're maybe they're just not into music or they they would never get it anyway, but it's like like, why is this so complicated? Like, it's a kind of pretentious kind of thing. Like, I don't know. Who are they? But the who are they? Do they think they're good?
[00:24:38] Unknown:
Yeah. Like, why is why are they playing so good? I get it. I get it. So Surrender of the Air definitely was less than VitaBlue jazz so I like jazz mandolin project, but I just didn't think it was necessarily
[00:24:54] Unknown:
It wasn't really a Fishman project. You're right. He just sat in on it. I like yeah. Pork tornado was okay. I saw them at,
[00:25:01] Unknown:
it was called Club Metronome, which is the upstairs at Nectars.
[00:25:05] Unknown:
Okay. So, Vermont kid. Wow.
[00:25:09] Unknown:
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Fishman stay Fishman during the hiatus was pretty much the I saw, yeah. I saw pork tornado during the first hiatus in 02/2002, and it was the same week we were in Burlington to see Trey at Essex Junction.
[00:25:28] Unknown:
Oh, wow. Okay. See that twofer.
[00:25:31] Unknown:
Got a twofer. And I'm yeah. I guess it wasn't a coincidence that they were, you know, Fishman would where Pork Tornado would be playing at Club Metro. Like, yeah, like support like, almost supportive sort of. What a cool thing we thought we were seeing, me and my buddy. We're like, oh, man, dude. We're seeing, like, like, John Fishman's side band and upstairs and actors. Like, how cool is that? Right? Yeah. You you would think, like, it was you would think they would need, like, a secret show, like the like the wetlands, but they did not. It was Yeah. You know, just business as usual in Burlington.
Yeah. So, The thing about yeah. Go ahead. I was just my my point was I didn't find other than again, like, VitaBlue was the closest to me. But to me, this it just showed, like, how ahead Trey was. Just it's just and it's so good because that's what it's what makes the band work. It really is. This is like you have one guy that does all the fucking work. Yeah. Right? And he's fine. Right. He wants to do all the work. He's fine. He wants to do it. He wants to do it for five bands, and it's like, just have they invented any drugs that allow that to happen? Really? Okay. You know, are they legal? No? Oh, fuck. Well, whatever. Yeah. Yeah. I have to be in five minutes.
Yeah. It wasn't even enough for him to do this in one band. I remember, like and this is the oyster head. It's the oyster head episode. But, like, just again, let's talk about Trey. Trey is nonstop, right? He really is nonstop. And I'm guessing he was, like, during the cocaine honeymoon, they must have just observed him to be on a level, just on a it's like Barry Bonds level, you know, like Right. Unconscious. Barry Bonds won three MVPs before he started using steroids, and then he became just like he broke everything, you know? Yep. It's kinda like or I'm guessing people were just experiencing Trey like his runaway fucking freight train just peaking, complete peaking. You know, he was putting out incredible stuff.
So, like, his again, his solo stuff was great. His side projects were great. Oysterhead was, you know, oysterhead delivered. Oysterhead, man, was such hype to get together with Les Claypool and Stewart Copeland. It was incredibly, incredibly hyped and totally, totally delivered. I mean, and the story of fish is the story of just multiple, multiple times of total, total hype and delivering every time. Not not every time, but, like, delivering a lot.
[00:28:09] Unknown:
Well, I love the, I love the idea of, like I've heard an I heard an idea recently. Maybe you've heard this already of the idea of, like I'm gonna tie this into Bitcoin a little bit if you if you just bear with me for a few moments. I almost forgot. I forgot about Bitcoin. Oysterhead will do that to you. And it's been so much fun going back and relistening to everything, all the all the music again, which I always do before these. But, Totally. I do too. The the the idea of, like, analogizing human ingenuity and innovation with Hashrate in the sense that, like, you're you're putting combinations of ideas or things together. Maybe in this case, people, putting people together, different combinations, it's the iterative loop. Right? And then every millionth try or ten millionth try, you solve something.
And then that's now now human knowledge. Or something in the case of music, it's like a great band or a great song, or a great jam where, like, you do all the iteration and then, you know, you sometimes you just kinda randomly, you just kinda land on something that works for whatever reason.
[00:29:22] Unknown:
And I was, by the way, in that day, in the nineties, writing a great song was thought to be a difficult thing. You know what I mean? I don't say that trivial. Like, there was a the the biggest Broadway musical at the time was Rent, and their big song was about writing a big writing a good song. That was like Yeah. That was one of their big songs of that musical. It was like, I'm gonna write one great song. It was thought to be a difficult thing to do. Interesting. What what do you think about that now today sitting where we are? Do you think I don't even think anyone said that. I I I don't know how many people even think about writing a good song anymore because it's just so rare to for it to happen. And now just give AI, like AI actually write some good songs. But then, like, they don't have the same power. Like, no one's gonna study it. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Because they don't have the personality or the or the
[00:30:28] Unknown:
the the person behind them. I think that that really hampers it. But
[00:30:32] Unknown:
I think that guys at the Bugle guys at the Bugle write really great AI songs, but they're, like, if you talk to them, they're, there's an interest in like, they would probably say they would have to find a band to play them if they wanted it to live forever.
[00:30:50] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. What's their, what's their number one hit? It's I think it's about spaces. It was about Girls on Spaces.
[00:30:57] Unknown:
That's Rod. That's Rod's big big. It makes me laugh so
[00:31:03] Unknown:
hard. Shout out to the Bugle guys. Fuck you. But, yeah. I mean, I think like writing a hit song is one thing. I just wonder the reason why I asked you that that follow-up question was how much of that was the record labels and how much of that was radio?
[00:31:20] Unknown:
Like, just getting through those gatekeepers and, like, whether you're The ideal, though, was that Good or not. If I write a good enough song if I write a good enough song, it won't like, no. That won't matter. It'll shine. Right. Right. Okay. That makes sense. Or Led Zeppelin will steal it.
[00:31:38] Unknown:
Well, you know what? I I used to have a lot of resistance towards the idea that, like, fish was true. Like, when I when I got into fish, I I most people there that play music were like guitarists, so there's definitely, like, a there's a trey dominance just in the fan base. Like, more and most of the For sure. People there love trey. Guitar is more accessible. A lot more people play it. And me being a drummer, we always kinda have this kind of black sheep syndrome where we're like, ah, fuck the lead fuck the lead singer. Fuck the guitarist. You know? It's all about the rhythm section, blah blah blah. But I feel like I've come around as I've in the last couple of years of really just accepting the fact that what you just said is absolutely true. And it's it's not a it's not an opinion either. It's objectively true. Like, because you just pointed it out at all the evidence. Like, look at the side projects. That's a great that's a great way to look at it. The band is the current interpret is the current group of people that really interprets Trey's voice
[00:32:33] Unknown:
and his thoughts.
[00:32:35] Unknown:
And and to your and to to the beginning of what you were saying was they nobody ever resisted that in the ban. Nobody ever argued with that. That was, like, accepted. It's like if you if you look it up, like, a pack of cats, like, let's say you have four cats at home, like, all different litters. But they're always fighting for, like, who's on top, like, what the pecking order is.
[00:32:53] Unknown:
The grand would you say the grand pecking order? They'd be fighting for the grand pecking order. Be maybe a five would be grand. Spoiler alert. That was the that was the name of the oyster head album. They made the album called. Yeah.
[00:33:05] Unknown:
Well, maybe that's what Trey was even. Maybe that's where the title of the because right there, it doesn't make any sense why that's the title of the album. I know it's a lyric in one of the songs. It's so interesting, though. You know, Trey is the unquestionable
[00:33:17] Unknown:
alpha, and so is less. Whereas Stewart, nobody knows who the hell Stewart was in that huge band.
[00:33:24] Unknown:
And he wanted to be they want he just wanted them to listen to him just one or two times.
[00:33:31] Unknown:
Yeah. Now do you remember here's a thought that went through my head too because, like, Fishman is such a unique drummer, and, you know, Fish never the band Fish never comes close to interpreting what's going on in Trey's head without John Fishman being true. Right? Yep. But then I used to always, like, like, Oysterhead made me have certain thoughts, like, I wonder if Trey really enjoys playing with a normal fucking drummer sometimes
[00:34:01] Unknown:
too. Yeah.
[00:34:02] Unknown:
Right? Like, that he can be some but, like, Russ Lawton also is a really you know, he's like that kind of a he's like a like a Tony Marcalis for the bass. Right? Yep. Standard pocket. And that's you know, sometimes maybe Trey just likes his band being in standard pocket.
[00:34:20] Unknown:
Yeah. It's apparent with some of the live live shows that I watched of the the course of the last week.
[00:34:27] Unknown:
Yeah.
[00:34:28] Unknown:
I forget that one song where, like, Stewart is kinda famous for having a like, these strands of, like, cymbals and kinda stacks of things and just things to beat on all different all, like, hundreds of different types of sounds. And he kinda uses them all in one particular song, that they that they used to play live. But, of course, I'm not gonna really remember the title of the song, but you get the gist. I think there was something about Stewart being a more classically trained like, he even he even held his sticks, you know, the traditional style. It's just a whole different whole different animal. Yeah.
[00:35:02] Unknown:
But there's an and and, you know, we've talked about how Fishman is still is still, like, redefining the sound, man, Even in 2025. I haven't listened to the forty three minutes. What's going through your mind? I haven't disclosure. I don't know if you heard about this. They basically they did it again.
[00:35:26] Unknown:
They did it again this time without without Billy. Was Billy on the first one or no? Then I think that I'm conflating two shows. But No. No. I'm saying,
[00:35:34] Unknown:
Fish has, in their recent tour, has done a forty three minute. Yeah. They did a forty three minute version of What's Going Through Your Mind, which seems to just that song keeps picking up steam. You know, I love saying, like, again, another side tangent, but, like, some of the New Year's Eve, I hate calling it a gag. You got you know this. But some of the New Year's Eve performance songs really do like, I I remember when Mercury did this. Right? Mhmm. Where, like, they did the New Year's Eve thing with Mercury, and then Mercury became the big jam vehicle, like, the next couple of tours.
Never hit forty three minutes. In fact, the, we covered the 2019, end of summer tour in Alpine Valley where they tried to blast off with Mercury, kinda, didn't work, and then they did the forty minute Ruby waves right after. Right. Right. But, like, what's going through your mind was the New Year's Eve song of last year, and it's, like, really becoming seems to be becoming a big jam vehicle. I mean, a forty three minute in Fish's history, right, still, like, very, very rare to go over forty minutes. Over forty minutes. Not Tweezer. It's, like Yep. Really exceedingly rare.
[00:36:57] Unknown:
Yeah. True. And that's interesting to hear because, yeah, you're right. When, the gag song typically does get pulled into the repertoire of the following
[00:37:06] Unknown:
it's funny. Like Soul Planet started to see that one Yep. Get get some reps. You know? And And it's almost like compression starting to happen
[00:37:14] Unknown:
at the band's level. Like, I had a friend say who the one who got me into Phish in the in in the nineties. Like, he kind of he started a family and kind of pulled out of, like, really staying on top of what Phish was doing. And then kinda I went to a show with him and he's like, man, they just, like, go from, like,
[00:37:29] Unknown:
song, like, into, like, a locked in jam so much faster than they used to. It used to be more noodling and stuff. And they'll do it in the first set. They'll do it early in the show. Yep. You know, the the ease at which that happens is and that's I really do credit Fishman for that for all of that, honestly. It's his growth. It's his continued growth that makes that possible, in my opinion. Yep. Yep. So I say that to set yeah.
[00:37:57] Unknown:
Yeah. I was just gonna say, I think he's, even going back, I've been listening to some early nineties stuff, like, from your early ninety four, which I really had barely listened to. And the jams of, like the famous jams are, like, when Fishman Fishman is always throughout the history of the band has always kinda led them when things get locked in and they kind of are all in the pocket, it's Fishman leading that. And he can do that now so much easier and so much it's so much more accessible for him to just kinda pull the band in a certain direction and and lock him in.
[00:38:29] Unknown:
Yeah. And visually, dude, he doesn't even look like he's moving.
[00:38:33] Unknown:
Yes.
[00:38:34] Unknown:
He literally looks like he's just like like Doc Ock, you know, from Spider Man and but just not looks like he's not moving. Yeah. So he has, like, very conservative physical movements. You know, I think he has said he does never want an idea to be restricted physically. And he seems to have successfully worked himself to be able to do that. You know, it's it really is it's absolutely remarkable. But but then again,
[00:39:07] Unknown:
every once in a while, it's nice to play with a guy like Stuart Copeland. I'm sure. Right? And so Yeah. And and and bring out a guitar that has, and maybe you could help me explain this, but the guitar with the fucking antlers on it. Like, what was that all about? Multiple show. Do you want do you want I'm referring to? No. So Trey, like, on the it wasn't the song I did that we opened with, but I think it's on the one we're gonna outro with, that he has these antlers tied to the tail and the base of the guitar head. Oh, yeah. Otherwise, the guitar and and then he has strings attached to it, and he's doing all kinds of, like, weird, like, reverb with the with the antlers, and there's it seems like he has strings tied back there. Dude. It's a peripheral
[00:39:52] Unknown:
Gotta love his the end of his honeymoon, man. It's just like He was Every idea is awesome, and it all works. It all works. So, okay, let me get into talking about? I don't. I I have a visual I have a visual idea of of of of the guitar with antlers, but I didn't, like, realize he was doing that with a oyster head.
[00:40:12] Unknown:
No worries.
[00:40:13] Unknown:
Okay. I wanna get into, Les Claypool and his relationship with fish. Okay. And how how that started. I don't know how it started, but I know that officially in the canon, Les shows up to tour closer, I believe. In 1996, 12/06/1996, I'm pretty sure that show is on Live Fish. Live Fish release. I remember getting the tapes. Everybody wanted those fucking tapes bad. We found out Les Claypool was on the encore and it was Harpua encore. And he came on and so it's like you got Fish, Les Claypool, Vegas, and Harpua. And it's everybody was wanting those tapes.
It was super high.
[00:41:02] Unknown:
Super high. That's awesome.
[00:41:05] Unknown:
You know, like, sit ins are very rare. And when you have them, those tapes become really, you know, much, much desired. It's so funny, dude. Like, today, Billy's train could go on and it you it's like, okay. I'll listen to it when I get to it. Like, dude, we used to go so far out of our way to get these tapes. Yep. And, so and it delivered, dude. Les joined Les and, somebody else from Primus, I can't think of his name, joins Phish. They do his Harpua. It's involved. It's funny, it's good. Jimmy had to go to Vegas, he had to get through like a pack of elvises and they, you know, hit to prove that he could out Elvis, the elvises and then they did suspicious minds. And I'm not, you know, sure where that fits in the history of of that song with fish, but, like, you know, that's a big fishman.
You know, they so they tie Elvis into it. Yeah. You know, Elvis and Vegas, and it's just like it's it's absolutely incredible. So 12/06/1996 is the is the genesis, I think, of Les Claypool and fit on stage with fish. And and fish. Yeah. And so that predates South Park. K. Right? So I just wanna give context here. Right? Yeah. It seems to be right at the beginning of Trey's, you know, of the drug era. Right. Which points to the task being the the center of the universe. But also, dude, such a good time. Like, there's so much fun being had. You can clearly see it. And, but that's just okay. So that's where it just where it fits in history there. Right? Yeah. Yeah.
Then ninety nine slash two thousand. To it's February, right? When Oyster had February. April.
[00:43:03] Unknown:
So I said 2020 before, but February. Yeah. February.
[00:43:06] Unknown:
Now, would that was so was that hiatus yet? I don't think so. No. Probably not. So it all kinda it all kinda came together, I guess. You know, maybe it really was Oysterhead that maybe it really was his time with less that put that just, like, put it in problem category for for Trey, where maybe he couldn't handle being in five bands. Maybe he's, you know Yeah. Couldn't be. Well well, the thing about April 2000 was, I listened to the actual,
[00:43:35] Unknown:
the soundboard of that show. It's a bad it's a terrible show. Like, they barely had songs written. It wasn't like, they threw it they threw it together. Then they really, I think, really practiced it later that year and into the following years really when the I would say the band was like Well, when they came when they came back in 2020,
[00:43:53] Unknown:
they were tied to shit. It was good. Yeah. It's really good. Of that, unfortunately.
[00:43:57] Unknown:
Yeah.
[00:43:58] Unknown:
You can go it's on live fish. So there's at least four or five at least four or five of those shows are on on live fish.
[00:44:05] Unknown:
I wasn't sure if it was any good, so I just stayed with the with the OG content for this, But, I'll have to go check it out. So Plus, I wanted, like, drugged out Trey for some reason. I wanted to see him.
[00:44:19] Unknown:
Trey cooking. Let's talk you wanna you wanna go through the songs? Oh, I would love to. Yeah. Yeah. We're forty five minutes in. We should definitely go through that. Okay. Before we go to forty five minutes in, dude, I loved this fucking album so much. Yeah. I can't even describe the impact this had on my life. Like, I love the dude of life. That's definitely in the in the annals of history. Oysterhead is absolutely in the annals of history. Let's get into
[00:44:58] Unknown:
it. Yeah. Let's do it.
[00:45:02] Unknown:
Maybe what you wanna use the album as the order?
[00:45:05] Unknown:
Yeah. I mean, do we wanna do a pseudo suicide just because that's what the audience has heard? Because I just thought that was, That's fine. It's an aggressive it's an aggressive song.
[00:45:17] Unknown:
There were no okay. Because so let me say something real quick. Right? Pseudosuicide. A, I think it's one of the best songs in the album, like, by far. And one of the things I wanted to say about the album was it's clearly a less Claypool forward album. Okay. The the project is less Claypool. Like, you can hear he is probably the loudest voice there. But Drake clearly has his fingerprints on it. Right? And in the song pseudo suicide, which before alright. Before I go into this, the last song I can remember that overtly referred to suicide was Ozzy Osbourne suicide solution Yep. Which got him in a lot of trouble because some kids committed suicide, and their parents basically sued Ozzy Osbourne as if the song Remember that. Told them to do it. Right? Yeah.
And I think you had a, you had a, basically a a long drought of of of suicide references and songs for quite a long time.
[00:46:32] Unknown:
Yeah. Am I right? Am I am I Yeah. No. I mean, that's what I mean. The song's aggressive. Like like So you Very very few songs overtly say the word suicide.
[00:46:46] Unknown:
But to me, the best part of this song, a, is Trey's guitar work, and b, when Trey comes in and sings his section
[00:46:57] Unknown:
Yep.
[00:46:58] Unknown:
It's magic. It's absolutely magic. His voice just works. His voice works with whatever Les is doing. It just works perfectly. It was a perfect puzzle piece.
[00:47:11] Unknown:
Yeah.
[00:47:12] Unknown:
And that song's a great that song's just a great example. And so funny, dude. What the fuck is pseudo suicide? I'm guessing that's just wordplay
[00:47:20] Unknown:
that they were Mhmm. You know? Yeah. I I was thinking maybe it was, like, it was an ephedrine, like Sudafed.
[00:47:28] Unknown:
Because there's so many drug references all over this album. Yeah. Yeah. So, like It's hard to parse them out. Yeah. But, like, this was pretty big pre Breaking Bad, you know, where, like, Jesse, I think, commonly a play on play on words. But I You commonly do, like, we're out of pseudo. That's right. Where are we gonna get the pseudo? But, no, I thought this was I would have guessed. Yeah. I would have guessed more play on words like pseudo pseudo suicide, but it's kind of a funny thing to think about.
[00:47:58] Unknown:
Nothing stops this suicide.
[00:48:01] Unknown:
This was well, it was, you know, so in February, this is really before the big rise of Hillary Clinton. You know, she was elected senator in New York in February, but that was several months after this album was written. So Yes.
[00:48:18] Unknown:
And the performance that I played was February, which, you know Okay. Is, like, six weeks after 09/11. Let's just keep it in keep it real. Yeah. That is go through some of the other song some of the other songs on the list, are are very edgy given the context of that.
[00:48:38] Unknown:
You said 02/2001?
[00:48:40] Unknown:
Yeah. The show the show that I that the recording is from.
[00:48:45] Unknown:
Got it. So they were you're saying your head was touring. You know, so other context for the audience was that I remember, like, TV was changing and you were getting a lot more stations on cable. You were getting a lot more stations. Like, we went from sort of like maybe the 20 cable stations to like 60. And you had, there was a station called, like, AXS. I feel like
[00:49:15] Unknown:
Mhmm. Access. Yeah. And I remember
[00:49:18] Unknown:
seeing one of Oysterhead shows on that station, and I was like, holy shit. This is so fucking awesome. This is so awesome. Because I didn't get to see any I didn't get to see any of the oyster head shows. I was really bummed out about it. Mhmm. And, you know, this music, which might have been owned by Mark Cuban at the time, That channel. Yeah. I probably wanna look that up. But, you know, yeah. So now we're getting to see these shows like, oh, everything is getting more accessible. In 02/2002, live fish gets live fish is available. You know, everything is moving in the direction of accessibility.
Yep.
[00:49:58] Unknown:
And you know what the tipping do do you want at least what I attribute the tipping point was for cable for cable television was, the OJ trial, which is 95.
[00:50:08] Unknown:
Really? You know what? It's interesting. I didn't because of Court TV. I just I I feel like everybody had we just by the way, we just, yeah, we just passed June 17, which was the OJ day, the famous OJ show. Okay. That's one you should check out, 06/17/1994. The day before the great six eighteen ninety four at USC Pavilion with the all time great David Bowie.
[00:50:35] Unknown:
Oh, that's great. Did they do any, like, refer like, reference? I remember that one Houston the Houston game. Right? Wasn't They were screaming run, o j, run. Run, o j, run. They were. Yeah. It's so good. I gotta go check that out.
[00:50:51] Unknown:
And so you know what's funny, man? I associate the the growth of cable TV with South Park. Okay. And the re the reason why is I I remember I remember, I was living in New Jersey, and I went into a friend's house in New York and watched an episode of South Park, and my brain was like my fucking head exploded. And I started calling my cable company in New Jersey saying, why don't I like, why do I not have this channel? Yeah. How the hell is this thing on TV and I don't have it? Right? I remember calling the cable company, like, repeatedly asking when we're getting comedy center.
[00:51:33] Unknown:
That's so good. Did you, get exposed to the, the spirit of Christmas? Was that your first touch point, or was it the TV show?
[00:51:40] Unknown:
It was the well, it was the TV show. It was in the first season. Sometime, I don't remember.
[00:51:45] Unknown:
Yeah. There was a little, like, It's Always Sunny has, like, a trailer that, like, went around, you know, that a lot of people went back and saw, but, they had, like, a three minute short that floated around the Internet. Because the Internet was just just becoming like, email had just started. Like, the Internet was, like, finally being used for, like
[00:52:02] Unknown:
Yeah. We were, like, post AM. More than, like
[00:52:05] Unknown:
In 1998. Bulletin board. Yeah. But this was, like, '96 was when the spirit of Christmas was floating around the Internet. And that was what gave birth to South Park, but it was like Jesus was doing, doing like moral combat, like judo moves with Santa Claus, like Santa and Jesus were battling. That was the whole premise of the skit. But, I remember just being, being like similar to you, just like, so amazed by completely blown away, and it changed my, yeah, just my whole, like, comedic, I guess, things that influenced me from a funny standpoint. Like, it just changed that for me altogether. Yeah. It's interesting. I I saw the, Simpsons
[00:52:47] Unknown:
trailer, like, in the, movies, and I wasn't, like, blown away by it or anything. But, I remember like, that I do remember seeing it, like, as a in a preview for a movie. I think the movie was Pet Sematary. I do remember that. But, yeah, dude. So we were in this, like, right, like, two like, in here in 02/2001, we were about things were about like, DVR was about to become a thing, and it's hard for people to not picture the world without these things. Yeah. But, Oysterhead was coming into a time in where, you know, yeah, there were more cable stations and what like, it was odd for a cable station to play an oyster head show. Right? To turn on a channel and see the Crimson Dago on stage. Right? Like, what is this? What's going on? I'm like, what the like, what is happening here?
So and it was cool. They had a cool aesthetic. You know, you know, Les is a great aesthetic musically. You know, I think Trey, this was like his
[00:54:00] Unknown:
Hop in on him. Trey. Less is always Yeah. Is doing his thing.
[00:54:04] Unknown:
Totally charismatic as hell. Trey, this was his, like, ski hat era, his beanie era. You know? Or he would just, yeah, wear these fucking beanies and whatever. Right? Okay. So so we hit pseudo suicide. We hit the we really, failed the marshmallow test here. Yeah. Where we hit the, like, the we we ate dessert first.
[00:54:31] Unknown:
Yeah. We did that delay. How edgy it was, and you jumped out you you you were all over it. The fact that, like, you know, mentioning, like, suicide in a song, like, I don't know. I mean, you're kinda flirting with danger with that one, and they Definitely. I mean pull it off.
[00:54:47] Unknown:
Yeah. For sure. Now, like, this song was never on the radio. I don't think any of these songs were on the radio. So, you know, there's that.
[00:54:58] Unknown:
There is that.
[00:55:02] Unknown:
Alright. Let's keep moving. So let's go to number one. Do it.
[00:55:06] Unknown:
K.
[00:55:07] Unknown:
Little faces. Yes. I I you know, I hope this is a song you're thinking of using in the outro. It was a con it was a well, it was a contender for the intro. I really thought of I almost can't imagine introing this podcast without this song. It's the first song and it does introduce the band. But, I understand what you did. Yes. So, you know, I get it. Little Faces was a great introduction. It was, like, perfect, right? Another one where I think, like, Trey coming in with his voice, he was he his voice singing over the guitar parts. Mhmm. You know what I mean? Like, he's singing the notes. He's singing the words while playing the notes, the same notes.
[00:56:03] Unknown:
Yep. It is very cool.
[00:56:06] Unknown:
Very cool.
[00:56:07] Unknown:
It was less his fault. Like, when he did the whole, like, are you in the right are you in the right place? Like, I just couldn't I couldn't resist that. It really was like the song that changed your Yeah. Do not turn off your TV. There's nothing. Your TV is not broken. Don't worry. That's right. The podcast is okay.
[00:56:25] Unknown:
Do you know that, Jimi Hendrix is, Axis Bold of Love album? Are you like? Sure. Oh, yeah. So, like, do you know the intro to that album? The radio station EXP. You know what? That might have escaped me. Yeah. You know? Just go back and check it out because it's like Okay. It's, like, really weird. And he's saying things like your radio is not broken. Don't worry. You know? Yeah. He starts out like it's a radio station. This is radio station e x t. Right. Do not try do not adjust your settings. You know? It's yeah. It's kinda like fourth wall stuff for 1960.
[00:57:04] Unknown:
Yeah. It's clever. It's like, you wish you were here, right, with with Floyd. They kinda did something similar with their the intro to that song with the like, it's on the radio.
[00:57:14] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. Alright. So Little Faces. Little Faces keep no track of I don't even I don't know what any of these songs are about, and a lot of them appear to be just about drugs, the invention of drugs. You know, really some fucked up stories, I guess, that we'll we'll hear. Little faces. No no idea. Like, it just sounds like the the nightmares of children.
[00:57:39] Unknown:
Yeah. It really does. Right? Because he talks about their little hands later and then their and then their faces again. I don't know what what the obsession is.
[00:57:49] Unknown:
Yeah. Okay. You might have to help me on the next couple. OZ is Ever Floating is about the inventor of the inventor of LSD or the inventor of John c Lilly. Right?
[00:58:07] Unknown:
I was wondering. I know the lyrics, but I never knew there was a point to it. You know, with a lot you know, when Les and Trey get together, I assumed that the lyrics were just gonna get nonsensical squared. And,
[00:58:21] Unknown:
So he invented sensory deprivation.
[00:58:24] Unknown:
Oh, okay. Okay. So a different type of psychedelic experience. He's a psycho. He's considered a psychonaut.
[00:58:30] Unknown:
Psychonaut. Right. Yeah. Oz has ever I got her again, don't have no idea what the song is about, but it's like it the chorus says Oz is ever flowing, something the things that mean the world to doctor John c Lilly.
[00:58:48] Unknown:
Mhmm.
[00:58:49] Unknown:
This this doesn't even rhyme. No. It's just a story about this guy. Oh, it's awesome. Ever floating. So, like, yeah, I guess you're floating sensory deprivation. Yeah. Floating in magne it's like, you know, you see you do this today, magnesium float tanks.
[00:59:07] Unknown:
Yep. Yeah. I haven't done that yet. Have you have you experienced a a Yeah, dude. I went down
[00:59:13] Unknown:
the major rabbit hole. There was a time where I was going to I was doing it once a week.
[00:59:19] Unknown:
Oh, shit. Oh, I'll talk about it.
[00:59:22] Unknown:
Yeah. There's a place in Westchester called East Coast Float Spa. I think it still exists. And you know what, man? Like, I'm not I'm not gonna do the story justice by doing it here, but I'm just gonna say I stopped going because, the person at the front desk accused me of taking somebody else's shoes. Right. And, like, he just insisted. I could tell them no. He was like, did you take this did you take this pair of shoes? And I was like, no. He like, for for somebody running a magnesium sensory deprivation flow tank, he was very unchill about the shoe incident and, you know, like, he just wouldn't accept me. Like, he just wouldn't accept me telling so I had to stop going because of this.
[01:00:10] Unknown:
So good.
[01:00:11] Unknown:
Yeah. That guy guy that would steal shoes. I mean Like, dude, I'm not stealing someone's shoes. I don't I don't understand what this is. Steal. Yeah. Like, I like this place, and I can't ever come back. Dude, I've had some wild wild experiences. Yeah. Well, that's what it's I was like, dude, it's not even my world. Like, it's just would never be in my world to take somebody's fucking shoes. I just don't understand anyway. But it's pretty rad, I have to say. Highly recommend it if you can if you can access a really, especially if you can do it in a stall and not a tank.
Which is stand up versus lay down? No. The difference? No. More like a shower stall. Like, they they fill up the shower stall, and that's, like, a little you know, maybe seven feet tall. Yep. Yep. So you can, like, you know, you're in there totally dark. You go for an hour. Dude, you have to really confront your own self. I mean, it helps if you can play fish in your head. I tell you, it really, really helps a lot, but like really dealing with yourself because you're there for an hour.
[01:01:22] Unknown:
That's like going into solitary confinement. It sounds like tough for like an hour
[01:01:27] Unknown:
Without the ability to see or hear anything. Yeah. Or feel anything. Yeah.
[01:01:32] Unknown:
Wow. Okay. Cool. Yeah. Dude, I've heard,
[01:01:36] Unknown:
I've heard it's Confronted some real darkness.
[01:01:41] Unknown:
Yeah. I mean, I bumped into that with, like, meditation practice. If you do it if you do it, you have to do it for a while before you bump into what you're describing, but it's, yeah, things things show up that you didn't know were there.
[01:01:53] Unknown:
Yeah. You know, I'm a complete sober guy. Like, I'm not I don't Yeah. You know, really especially, I don't fuck around in a sensory deprivation tank. Right? So shout out doctor John c Lilly. You know? Ozz is ever floating. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. What's mister I thought
[01:02:10] Unknown:
it was about the gold standard, but I guess I guess I'm I guess I'm wrong.
[01:02:14] Unknown:
Maybe. Well, maybe maybe there's this connection. Who the fuck is mister oysterhead? So, like, do we do have do we have any idea? That's the next song. When all else has been done, it's it. Along comes Mr Oysterhead. It's just I thought it was maybe just something that sounded cool. But is it maybe they're like, you know, is there any meaning to it whatsoever?
[01:02:40] Unknown:
I mean, when I listened to it yesterday and the few days before, I was like, it's it's clearly they're talking about Satoshi, but it's like it's like. He was. Inspiration. Inspiration
[01:02:50] Unknown:
to us all. I mean, that would be crazy. I guess, like, you know, one of the
[01:02:59] Unknown:
Maybe it's Odell.
[01:03:00] Unknown:
I remain adamant that Trey really wasn't channeling any signal in this in his drug era. Just bangers.
[01:03:08] Unknown:
Yeah. I think it's all nonsense. I'm gonna go with the nonsense squared. I'm back to that.
[01:03:12] Unknown:
Yeah. But mister oyster head is song number three. It's cool. It's another one. Not much to say about it, though. But shadow of a man is the song I wanna talk about. Mhmm. So this is the song I was referring to before with,
[01:03:27] Unknown:
Stewart Copeland and his arrangement of percussive sounds. He he does all of them in this song. K. This is the eeriest
[01:03:35] Unknown:
song you might ever hear.
[01:03:37] Unknown:
Mhmm.
[01:03:39] Unknown:
Too bad you can't play the clip.
[01:03:42] Unknown:
I can I can play it?
[01:03:43] Unknown:
But, this song is like, Billy came back from Vietnam just a shadow of a man. So it's about this guy, comes back, shadow of a man, you know, married this woman who, you know, although her name was, like, May Pan, she changed her name to missus Grant after three stillborn children. Billy said, I am just a portion of the man I was before I went to Nam. Like, holy fuck. And now he drinks and snorts amphetamines just as often as he can because he's a shadow of a man, spent his time in Vietnam. Like, what a fucking song. What a fucking just a powerful song. So I have a little story, a little side story. Have I ever told you about I told you about my friend who, is, you know, a drug dealer at fish shows and stuff. I don't know. Yeah. You mentioned. Yeah. You mentioned you mentioned a friend. Yeah. He, in '19 well, when Oysterhead happened, right, he had gone to jail for, tried to rob somebody with a fake gun.
Oh, shit. And she it was a woman, and she, like, looked at him and laughed. Just fucking laughed and, like, called the police, and he ended up going to jail. And he was in, he was in a bunch of PA different PA county jails. He ended up in Somerset out by Pittsburgh.
[01:05:08] Unknown:
K.
[01:05:09] Unknown:
And, his name is, I don't know if I should say his name. But, Yeah. Don't say his name. You're good. He was out in Somerset, and then he was there when the plane crashed out there. Right? Oh, I know. New shit. Flight 93. Right? He was there. He was in prison. Wow. But I had I wrote a song called blank came back from Somerset just a shadow of a man. Because, like, I think the lyrics were like, he had his asshole in his hand.
[01:05:42] Unknown:
Oh, man. It's about him getting raped in prison, basically. You know? I'm I'm I'm putting that slowly putting that together.
[01:05:51] Unknown:
I have it pulled up if you want me to. Yeah. And I have to tell you, dude, the everyone should just get the album. The album version, I think, is a is actually even a billion times earier than that. Because there's it's the it's production wise. And I guess, you know, the twenty twenty shows, I think, learned from that and brought all those sounds in.
[01:06:13] Unknown:
I see. That makes sense. Like, all the patches and and and tone yeah. All this I would guess that everyone listens to that and it's like, is this even music?
[01:06:21] Unknown:
What the fuck did I just listen to? But, like, why do they why do these guys like this? But, check out the album version too and just Yeah. Trust Check out the video. The the visuals on that, Les has,
[01:06:33] Unknown:
like, glasses on with, like, a flashlight on each each side of his, like, temple of his head. It's incredibly creepy and eerie, and it fits everything else. And Trey with his analog guitar.
[01:06:43] Unknown:
Radon Balloon is a that's just a Traejon right there. Right? Yeah. I think so. Just a straight up, like you know, Trey kind of on his on his solo albums had one just song that only he could play on acoustic guitar. Mhmm. Right? Like, it reminded me of, like, in law Josie Wales. Yep. You know, just songs like that where it's just, you know, it's just him being master of acoustic guitar, radon balloon. It's just I know the radon balloon has words, but, like Yeah. It's basically just a tray John.
[01:07:19] Unknown:
Yep. A Trey John. Acoustic John.
[01:07:22] Unknown:
The Army's on Ecstasy, man. That is a song.
[01:07:25] Unknown:
Yeah.
[01:07:26] Unknown:
It'd be cool to get a clip of that, I guess, too, if you but not from the show. If you have the album Yeah. Let me die. No. I could pull up the album. No problem. Armies on ecstasies, and it's just so great, dude. So it's so I don't know. Like, these guys sounded like they had a lot of fun
[01:07:42] Unknown:
playing these songs. Yeah. I mean I mean, like I said, like, they're so edgy in the sense, just the content. Like, they're making fun of USA Today pretty, pretty hard. Like, it's in the lyrics. Like, oh, I read it in USA Today. Like, it So, yeah. Poking fun at, like, mainstream media already. It's loaded with conspiracy theory. Like, Right? Inaccurate. Yep.
[01:08:08] Unknown:
I read all about it in The USA Today. They stepped up your intestine to make it go away, but it's because it's hard to it's hard to beat the enemy on old MDMA. That's just like it's an and it's it's an anthem. You got rubberneck lines. Really is. The the line I remember from that song is don't don't don't wake a man when he's trying to be dead. Rubberneck lines is I'm lying in bed at double barrel pistol under, like, under my pillow beneath my head. It's like, don't wake a man when he's trying to be dead because of rubberneck lines. What the fuck? I don't know what rubberneck lines even means, but, like, what a line. Like, don't wake a man when he's trying to be dead.
[01:08:51] Unknown:
Yeah. It's wild. So, and it's, like, kinda has this, like, libertarian kind of vibe to it.
[01:08:57] Unknown:
Like, it's like
[01:08:58] Unknown:
you know what I mean? Like, I don't know. The whole I look at Les I've always looked at Les Crickles. Like, he's some sort of like He really does.
[01:09:08] Unknown:
I don't know. Just a one of one. You know? He's a one of one type of man just like Trey. You know? Like, they're both and them coming together is just you know? Wow. So I want so the only other song I wanna say anything about is birthday boys because I learned something about it. I learned something about it listening to the listening to the 2020 show. So, you know when Trey's birthday is?
[01:09:35] Unknown:
I I don't know. I was I don't have his birthday on it. His birthday is September '30. Okay. And September 30. So that's my wedding anniversary is on Trey's birthday. Fuck out of here. Oh, look at this dude. Me.
[01:09:48] Unknown:
The fuck can't get away from this guy. You cannot. So September 30 is Trey's birthday. I know I mark it every year. Every year, I try to, like, play a song and post it online. Just that, you know, I try to honor this man. Right? But it turned out, I learned this at the 2020 show that I listened to that Les Claypool's birthday is is the twenty ninth. So their birthdays are a day apart. So they made this song, Birthday Boys. And the Birthday Boys really is also a bit of a Trey John.
[01:10:20] Unknown:
Yes.
[01:10:22] Unknown:
But it's, like, got mandolin. It's got, I don't know who maybe it's Les playing the mandolin.
[01:10:29] Unknown:
It could be. He's definitely multi instrumental.
[01:10:32] Unknown:
But Trey
[01:10:33] Unknown:
just rips.
[01:10:34] Unknown:
Trey rip Trey sounds like Billy Strings, like, on acoustic guitar playing the song. Yeah. I mean, it is like he rips. Like, even even in 2020 when you didn't think Trey still had it in him, just fucking rips, dude. That's cool. I I I can tell you, like, there's a guitar player. There's nothing, like, more you wanna do in life than, like, impress people with your guitar playing, and it never happened. It's almost, like, never happens. Like, you go through your whole life. You'll never impress anybody really for the most part. You know, Trey just fucking picks guitar up and just start to just just start shredding, dude. It's like especially on an acoustic guitar where, you know, it's just not that, you know, it takes a, you know, it takes a different level of hand strength precision, you know.
[01:11:19] Unknown:
Right.
[01:11:20] Unknown:
But you have more it is more impressive because you can have these open sounds, and you can really just just do a lot. Like, Billy Strang's playing acoustic guitar is so impressive. Right? It's how fast he is and Yeah. You know. Birthday Boys really showcases, it just showcases that now the band Oysterhead,
[01:11:43] Unknown:
you know, in a different way. So so I have Horace, they have a little jam, and then they do the chorus, like, super fast. Oh, that's why it's super fast tempo. Do you do you want me to do you want me to jump to the the double time thing? Nah. It's fine. Okay. Do you mean me? I think they got the gist. It's large. It's hard to know, like, when to, when to fade out of stuff because
[01:12:02] Unknown:
Totally did. But, you know, it's, sound clips live sound clips are the future.
[01:12:08] Unknown:
They really are. I feel I feel it in my bones.
[01:12:12] Unknown:
And you know what, dude? Yeah. Dude, we're just it's like the oyster head episode had to be the one where we just decided to try all this shit.
[01:12:20] Unknown:
I just have so much more energy. Like, I'm so I've I'm I'm legitimately inspired.
[01:12:26] Unknown:
So, yeah, I mean, it's an incredible album. And, like, I have to say, dude, like, when they came back in 2020, I was shocked. I was shocked, and I was shocked at the caliber at which they played the album. Like, these guys like, were they working on it? Did they keep it current for them? Did they play it in their own with their own bands? Unless Claypool play this stuff with his band? I don't know. I I don't know. Came back ready to fucking go. Like, Les Claypool by the way, so it was during that song, Birthday Boys, that, Les Claypool says, look. Got look. This crowd's confusing me because I spent the last six months touring with Slayer.
And, like, these guys are smiling. Like, that's weird. I don't know how to deal with that. Right? Yeah. Yeah. And so then they said, let's play the song, like, the way Slayer would. And, they basically played it the same exact way, but, like, with less singing it in Slayer's voice.
[01:13:21] Unknown:
And when we finished What song did they play? Birthday boys. That birthday Oh, they play birthday boys in in a Slayer arrangement?
[01:13:29] Unknown:
Trey basically is like, alright. Let's let's admit that that didn't sound like Slayer. I don't want anyone thinking we think. They people need to know we don't think that sounded like Slayer. Yeah. We don't think that. That's funny. You know, I'll put a link to that. I don't know if there's a link. It's on live fish. But Oh, well, we'll we'll figure it out. Yeah. People who listen to the show should consider a Live Fish subscription. You don't make any money from that, but it's a $100 for a year. It's probably the best deal you could ever imagine for great music having access to almost their entire catalog.
[01:14:01] Unknown:
Yeah.
[01:14:02] Unknown:
You know, it's a no brainer. I have I feel like there's not a situation where I wouldn't renew that subscription. You know what I mean? And I haven't been working in two years. And it's like, that's probably the last thing it's gonna go.
[01:14:15] Unknown:
That's funny.
[01:14:17] Unknown:
You know? And it's like there's a lot of there's there's relisten. There's other ways to listen to, like Yep. You know? But it's kinda hard to give up live fish.
[01:14:26] Unknown:
Yeah. Especially once you have live fish to the to the soundboards. The sound the soundboard quality, it's like compared to the audience recordings, it's just it's just hard to go back. I gave up on NugsNet
[01:14:37] Unknown:
a little bit because NugsNet turned out to be, like, a $150 for the year. Still great deal. Still worth it, but I just I find that I don't always I'm not always listening to that. I'm not I'm not always using it. It was fish live fish I'm always using constantly.
[01:14:52] Unknown:
And Nugs Net, that was they also offered, stream streamed concerts. Right? For, like, free or for discount rate or if you remember? You know? They used to they used to live stream shows similar to how fish does, but for Yeah. Well, what? Nuts net is live fish. I mean, essentially, it's the same guy. Okay.
[01:15:10] Unknown:
Nuts net is more of, like, all of the other Nuts, it gives you, like All the other hip jam bands. On freeze. I mean, it's, like, you know, 1,500 fucking on freeze shows. Twiddle Yep. Moe, you know, and that's just, like, the tip of the iceberg of what's on Nuggs Net. It's, like, you know, probably a hun you know, a 100 plus bands with, you know, a you know, dozen at least dozens of shows. Snug's net is is incredible, but, you know, it's not yeah. It's not these things are not cheap.
[01:15:42] Unknown:
That's right.
[01:15:44] Unknown:
Well But, live fish for $99 for the year, assuming that and it hasn't really gone up. You know, we haven't really had dealt We haven't had any shrinkflation.
[01:15:53] Unknown:
Yeah. I can't wait to do the Twitter episode.
[01:15:58] Unknown:
Is are you being serious?
[01:16:00] Unknown:
I mean, I'm not not being serious. Alright. Because I like, don't fuck with me. Don't fuck with me. No. I'm not fucking with no. No. I only brought it up because no. Because because I I know people that are maybe are are into them enough to, like, have on the show. But, you know what I mean? They may actually be worthwhile to, like,
[01:16:17] Unknown:
Yeah. They do. Help me out a little bit. Sometimes I feel a little gay for how much I how much like, how affected I am by Twiddle. Because I feel like way. They were the same way. My friends were the same way, and I just I couldn't I couldn't get in the right They strike a note. They and, you know, this is the Oysterhead episode. They struck a note, but, like, just to get into it, Twiddle strikes a very special note. And I don't know. It likes I've not been in, like, drug recovery, but I feel like it I'm I'm like I don't know. I have a special empathy for things that hit that note for some reason. Okay. Okay. I catch you. I feel like they do. I feel like that's the fucking vibe and which is just, like, it's all about, like, appreciate life, like, as much as you can.
Right. And it speaks to me a lot. Just optimism
[01:17:08] Unknown:
and, gratitude, it sounds like. And, you know, that was kind of the that was kind of the that was kind of the the message I got from my friends that really into them that were, like, not pitching it to me, but, like, trying to get an overview before I saw that one. And I had to leave. The show I saw, it was a 100 degrees. I had to go home. Like, I couldn't stay in that field and and lock in. They're also but in some ways, they're like a Fantasy Camp
[01:17:29] Unknown:
band version of of Phish. Like, everything you love about Phish, the fun, the compositions, like, they have all they they have it all, you know. And but with something, you know, with their own things that are great. Let's try to think if there's anything we missed on Oysterhead here.
[01:17:50] Unknown:
Yeah. I mean, I do wanna mention Polka Dot Rose. Yeah. Sorry. That's my my might be my favorite song on the album. And I don't think I get my it gets much love for some reason. I I just
[01:18:02] Unknown:
because it's not I I actually I I I recall it, but I don't think I could like, it didn't didn't do anything for me that I could place it. But good. What what can you play it? Yes. So I figured out why figured out why the song was not one of the songs that I really that impacted me that much. Well, trace fingerprints aren't on it at all.
[01:18:28] Unknown:
Correct. Yeah. That's a, Les Claypool song for sure.
[01:18:33] Unknown:
That's why you like it. It No. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. It's cool. It's it's totally less. Right? It's, like, totally his personality, his sound. It's like you know?
[01:18:44] Unknown:
And I did like the, I don't know what kind of playing Trey was doing on that with the is that an effect, or or was that just sliding around on the fretboard? I think he was just doing these weird jazz chords in there. Yeah. I think I thought they were just chords, but just played maybe on the upstroke
[01:19:02] Unknown:
and, like, do can be true. Like, sometime sometimes it's like he he'll blow you away just by playing some weird jazz chords with his freakishly big hands.
[01:19:13] Unknown:
But funny, I had a Carol Kaye clip I almost sent to you. Remember I was saying I sent you in blue. Guess what? Carol Kaye is a YouTube feed now nonstop.
[01:19:21] Unknown:
Oh, really? Okay. The one thing you sent me. Yeah.
[01:19:24] Unknown:
Yeah. Because Baseload is it was a fan well, but well, she did the baseline to Hickey Burr, which we played Yeah. At PubKey. I know. But anyway My daughter still sings it now. I see her. She's still, like, singing it all the time. That's that's great. But she, where was I going with that? Oh my god.
[01:19:43] Unknown:
I don't know. Carol Kaye, Les Claypool, Polkadot
[01:19:47] Unknown:
has does not have trace signature. She did this thing where she was talking about the metronome, and she just, like, was like, yeah. And she was, like, talking it was, like, some interview that got chopped up into little clips. Yeah. She was talking about it. She started out as a bass guitarist, which is there's something called a bass guitar, which I didn't know was a thing. And she played the bass guitar in the context of jazz before she got into like pop music and being a session musician. And she started playing these chords, and it was like Stash. It was literally Stash. And they were she was like, you know, jazz stuff. And it was literally the first the the chord the chord progression to to to Stash.
That's true. Send it to you. I'll send it to you after we're after we're off here just so you get to hear it. See what I'm talking about. But, Trey's a Trey's a magician, man. He really is.
[01:20:33] Unknown:
Yeah. And it's like you know, they're probably songs that he just his his creative decision was, like, let's make let's leave this as a less John.
[01:20:47] Unknown:
Right. Right? Right. Like polka dot rose and, yeah, some of the other songs that, I Stuart doesn't have his signature anywhere. I don't I doubt he wanted any with Trey and,
[01:21:00] Unknown:
No. He doesn't have a John. He doesn't have a John here. Doesn't have a John. I mean, his his fingerprints are on every song, obviously, but, like Yeah. Pretty much. Yeah.
[01:21:09] Unknown:
Yeah.
[01:21:10] Unknown:
Owner of the world is actually, believe it or not, the one it's, like, the closest thing to an accessible pop song.
[01:21:18] Unknown:
Yeah.
[01:21:19] Unknown:
Right? We'll let people get to hit that themselves. But, like, you know, that's, like, that's, like, the one song that it's almost doesn't belong on the album because it's just very accessible. Mhmm. It's like straight up chord progression. Yeah.
[01:21:33] Unknown:
Yep. Pretty linear.
[01:21:35] Unknown:
And maybe the owner of the world is about John c Lilly. I think just the whole album is about John c Lilly because I'm I'm guessing he's mister oyster head and, you know, I don't know.
[01:21:49] Unknown:
Yeah. I I think saw that. I never thought about who mister Oysterhead was until this until until we got together on this.
[01:21:57] Unknown:
I think it's what it'll remain to be. It'll remain a mystery. And, you know, you know, look, you know, you wonder we talked about, like, the whole time was we were talking, like, what's the tie in to Bitcoin or anything like that? And I think it's just more like it's not about Bitcoin. Just like, you know, just like none of it is. This is about our lives. You know? It's about our lives, how we and our you know, we have history. We have a history with this band and this music as part of us. And we're the ones leading the way through you know, we're the pioneers.
You know? And pioneers are bringing this music with us because it's like there's learned lessons. There's important information that's not necessarily about the thing. It's more just it's important that we're very sure about our music here. Right? We're sure about what we're doing. We but, you know, we have faith. And for some reason, like, our this is, like, when I think about this podcast, like, our music and this our stories about our music is part of what fuels our faith. I feel like out on the pioneering, you know, out on the frontier.
I like that. Maybe that's a good place to close it out. I mean, I would ask if do if you have closing thoughts. I I will say one thing. But if they're bad? And ears. No. If you're closing thoughts are bad, I'm gonna end it there. Alright.
[01:23:41] Unknown:
That's seriously good. What eyes and ears open. No. I think I think Oysterhead represents what can happen when you, are open to eager to collaborate with people you may not normally work with.
[01:23:57] Unknown:
And when the best people come together, and you can you know? Correct. It's okay. And, like, we can have our side projects. Right? We can be in five bands. I could have have five podcasts.
[01:24:15] Unknown:
Okay.
[01:29:29] Unknown:
Billy came back from Vietnam just a shadow of a man. He was a shadow of a man when he came back from Vietnam. Billy came back from Vietnam just a shadow of a man. Her name to missus Graham, after two stillborn babies. Billy said, I am just a portion of the man I was before I went to now.
[01:30:48] Unknown:
Now he drinks and scoots and ketamine just as often as he can. He's the shadow of the man, spent his time
[01:33:07] Unknown:
are sensitive to the brightest side of daylight. She knows what it's like to be the topic of conversation while birthday boys are wallowing in acres of agitation. I don't mind if you stand around and look at me tonight. I quite like it because like us are blind to the dirt that gathers into the toes of moderation. Gina knows. Moderation. Gina knows. You can come around, but don't you talk to me. I might even look for conversation. You can come around, but don't you talk to me? You can come around, but don't you talk to me. I'm nine moment for conversation.
You can come around, but don't you talk to me. I don't mind if you come around and drink up all my wine. Won't be the first time. Sometimes I find little treasures hidden deep within my drawers. Gina knows. You can come around, but don't you talk to me. I'm not in the mood for conversation. You can come around, but don't you talk to me. You can come around, but don't you talk to me. I'm not in the mood for conversation. You can come around, but don't you talk to me. You can come around, but don't
Are you sure you're in the right place? You know, Jane's Addiction is playing down the street. You could be in the wrong place.
[00:01:51] Unknown:
I bring in that as the opening music. We just tried we tried something.
[00:01:56] Unknown:
Yes. We tried we tried some live live audio We tried something. To our dear our dear audience.
[00:02:03] Unknown:
I think live audio is the future of this podcast. It really is. But it might not be the present.
[00:02:10] Unknown:
Yeah. And I have to admit, I'm, I'm on the cheap. I'm using freeware to do this, which is a virtual soundboard. I think this is one of those situations where you just need a piece of hardware in front of you with some sliders and buttons.
[00:02:25] Unknown:
I think you're probably right. I'm thinking I am really gonna be getting one of those, like a Rodecaster. And, also, I take some responsibility here because we were on the phone on, what, Thursday? And you were like, dude, I'd really like to do this live with you, and I was just like, didn't feel like doing that.
[00:02:43] Unknown:
Yeah. We had talked for a while.
[00:02:46] Unknown:
We don't we're not, we don't we're not exactly displaying Fish's work ethic here in things we wanna introduce live. But we did we did talk about this episode for an hour,
[00:02:58] Unknown:
and I'm pretty psyched about it. We sure did. I'm pretty psyched too. And, you know, you speaking of excellence, I mean, what we just heard is, and when I first learned of it, you know, this this band's existence, I was completely blown away. Phish was I was, you know, I was a couple years into Phish. It wasn't, like, brand new and had to fancy myself. I had pretty good taste in music before before Phish. But, man You kinda got
[00:03:24] Unknown:
you kinda got rug pulled a little bit early. You got into Phish in, like, '99. You got the you got, like, the one good year, and then you got hiatus. Yep. Like, right away. So I right? So, like, your sense of your sense of fish was like, oh, okay. Here today, gone tomorrow. What's up with that? Right? But but but the side projects were coming hard during that period of time.
[00:03:54] Unknown:
They were in. It wasn't just I mean, we've talked about Trey quite a bit as prolific with this song, with his, with tab, Tranestasia band, what we just listened to, which we'll get into who all that was for the audience. Yeah. And then he had, you know, Paige was doing Vita Blue and Mike had his band. And then, I think I even think Fishman had, like, the the mandolin the mandolin project. Right? Correct me if I'm wrong. Tornado.
[00:04:17] Unknown:
He played with jazz mandolin project for pork and ham. So I Pork tornado. I think in this episode okay. Let's let's talk about this for a sec. So everybody heard the opener, and that was Oysterhead, band. That was one of the many bands that that came together during Fish's hiatus. Fish's hiatus, their first hiatus was basically our our our scene is getting out of control, and we're just gonna, like, try to pump the brakes. And we're gonna come back sober and promise to stay sober. And, right, we knew what happened when they they came back. But what's like, what is it? '99 when Oysterhead toured, or was it February?
I can't think of the exact year that they toured. So, yeah, the story goes
[00:05:10] Unknown:
April of twenty twenty was when you you know what? Why don't I let them I don't I don't let them talk about it. Not 2020. Would it be February?
[00:05:19] Unknown:
So I checked 2,000. Sorry. They came back Yeah. They came back in 2020. So what so what we had what we had in ninety nine twenty twenty, like, before the hiatus
[00:05:31] Unknown:
was Mhmm.
[00:05:32] Unknown:
You know, we talked about this a little bit. We I call it the very, very, very tippy toe end of Trey's honeymoon with drugs.
[00:05:43] Unknown:
Yep.
[00:05:44] Unknown:
Right? Like, he's basically getting to the tail end of the good times. Mhmm. And the oyster head was really kinda snuck in. Right? It, like, snuck in right before the door shut and things started getting dark. Right? It's true. Trey basically said, you know what? I was in this band. And then one day, it occurred to me that I could be in five bands. Right? And that's that's like like, that's what Trey wants to do with cocaine. He wants to be in five bands. Right? Full time touring bands. I'm gonna do five lines of cocaine. Yeah. Because I'm in five fucking bands. Like and nobody like, you know, Trey is gonna go down as one of the most prolific creators of music that's ever ever lived on this earth. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Not only prolific, but, like, I think, like, I really do I I hate to fluff so much, but, like, I really do think it's going to age very well historically. I start to see it with the cover band. Now you have cover bands devoted to Phish where you didn't really have it during their time. Right?
Because it was I don't know. Maybe it was like they had to slow down a little. So the cover bands could actually access their music. But, you know, you have university studying them and cover bands really like, it like, I saw cover band. We didn't talk about this, but, like, I saw cover band a couple of weeks ago.
[00:07:03] Unknown:
Yeah. And you invited me out. I just couldn't I couldn't I couldn't Oh, I did. Yeah. That happen. It was short notice.
[00:07:08] Unknown:
But, it cut me it reminded me of, like, seeing Jonathan Biss, if that name means anything to you. Jonathan Biss is the guy in The US who's, like, known for interpreting Beethoven.
[00:07:22] Unknown:
Okay.
[00:07:23] Unknown:
It's really hard to do. It doesn't sound hard, but it actually it's like these people these people make it their life to interpret Beethoven.
[00:07:32] Unknown:
And I heard that. And, you know, until I got into classical music, I didn't appreciate how much a particular composer had a little bit of latitude on how to interpret
[00:07:42] Unknown:
the composition. Is that what you're is that what you're pointing to as far as so much about the latitude. It's just about, like, it has to go through a a human being. Like, you're right. Beethoven's work dies unless it gets channeled through people. Right? And there are people who just decide to dedicate portions of their life
[00:08:00] Unknown:
to being that god being that person being that person's voice. I heard that in, like, in the in the context of, like, ancient ancient civilizations, right, where they tried to, they're not archivists, but they're trying to interpret and keep alive. Right? Is that what you're getting at? Like, it's there's an interpretation of it, though. Yeah. But you're and with the fact that reason is to keep it alive.
[00:08:21] Unknown:
But their music is worth keeping alive. And that's the the sort of the point. I think that's where I do really think Fish's music, particularly Trey's compositions, are going to be kept alive.
[00:08:32] Unknown:
Mhmm.
[00:08:33] Unknown:
So, you know, it's prolific, also excellent and I think timeless. And I think more timeless than a lot of the real famous acts that we consider timeless today. Like, you know, I don't know if we'll be listening, people will be listening to like the Rolling Stones in a hundred years. I do think that you and Joy Myself will be being interpreted.
[00:08:55] Unknown:
Interesting. I think the divided sky will be I tend to agree. Yeah.
[00:08:59] Unknown:
And that's not slight against the Rolling Stones and their greatness or anything. Trey would probably argue with us. Fucking stones. Who cares? Who was I listening to today on a podcast? So it was like Tom Longo was talking about somebody who was saying somebody who's being very dishonest. He was like, because it was as honest as Mick Jagger at 80 years old playing with the Rolling Stones, playing, like, at 80 years old, but trying to
[00:09:23] Unknown:
pull off. Yeah. Luongo's, little little euphemisms. They always Oh, that was pretty funny. Yeah. They always hit high.
[00:09:31] Unknown:
Yeah. That was pretty funny. So Trey is like, you're talking about already the most prolific, like, really prolific producer of of music. And, you know, he wants to be in five bands, so he figures out that cocaine is the way, and he fucking does it. We have many legendary Phish tours. We have, Trey. We have you know, one day, we'll do an episode on maybe more than one episode on Trey's Trey's bands. Yeah. Like, Trey band, Tab. Tab. The first album the first album, Trey Anastasio, legendary. Right? Just absolutely legendary. And so when in '90 you know, when you had that first hiatus, at least for me and my memory, you have Trey and Stagio Band, that legendary album. You have you have Oysterhead. And then you come back with, come back with Round Room, which I thought was if you take all of those albums, like Farmhouse, all those albums that came out around that time, right, Farmhouse was, like, '99, I think, or something like that. Yeah. I think that's right. '99.
Can't remember what came after that. Right? But, like, to me, Round Room was I loved it. Like, I actually loved I so to you know, you have him, again, tail end of this honeymoon period, right, before things get, like, really dark. Yeah. Out of control. Yeah. Right? And when I say dark, I mean, like, you know, we've all seen videos, but, like like, I've I must have said this before. Like, the Internet the Internet in, like, 02/2004, 2005 was pretty active with, documenting Trey's exploits. He was definitely going around being a dick, being awesome, but also just like being that you know, he was definitely living living in that rock star life. He was putting out solo albums that were incredible.
We've talked about this. He thought they were going to be he thought it was going to be like Wings and Paul McCartney. He thought it was going to be it should have been. It really was great. But then things like I said, things got dark. But we here we at Oysterhead, dude, it's like again, it's great. Yeah. Still great.
[00:11:48] Unknown:
Still great.
[00:11:50] Unknown:
We can't deny it, and it's fucking awesome. And Yeah. You know,
[00:11:56] Unknown:
I was so excited to do this Oysterhead episode. So I'm we're twelve minutes in. We haven't even really fucking started it. That's all. We haven't even really started. And, you know, and if we have to, like, you know, spill into another episode, it wouldn't be that. I mean, this is almost Oysterhead's almost as good as as Tab. You know what I mean? As it relates to, like if if this means more time, you know, we'll take it. Tell us who Oysterhead is. So Oysterhead, well, why not let them tell us who who they are? How about that? What do you say? Okay. Try try it one more time. Maybe it is the present. Alright. So in their own words.
[00:12:32] Unknown:
This is Les Claypool, our band leader, guru, and psychic guidance spiritual
[00:12:38] Unknown:
leader. And this is Stewart Copeland, the greatest drummer in the world.
[00:12:44] Unknown:
And I have no idea who this guy is. He's the Crimson Eggo. Shreya Anastasio.
[00:12:52] Unknown:
Alright. So that's segment one of that interview. I mean so welcome everybody. That is Oysterhead.
[00:12:59] Unknown:
Right. So Oysterhead is basically three fucking legends. Legends coming together who you know, it's this most surprising aspect of it was was Stewart Copeland.
[00:13:14] Unknown:
We'll get into the fact that Trey and Les had a relationship, and we'll get we'll talk about that. But, like, Stewart Copeland I'll let that go. There's there yes. So there's three more segments of this, so bear with me. It's just a it's just a two minute clip. But, I'm gonna I'm gonna play it in four segments.
[00:13:27] Unknown:
Well, it all started with, a show that was offered to me down in New Orleans by some folks called Superfly. And they do this every year for, for the Jazz Fest. They get, interesting musicians to get other interesting musicians together for an evening at a nightclub. So I called Trey, and he said, I know I've I've always wanted to play with you and Stewart, and I knew Stewart from working with him in the Primus song. And, so we called Stewart, and Stewart said, yeehaw. Let's go.
[00:14:00] Unknown:
So unless it were, that's what happened. So Stewart had played with Primus. Stewart fucked around with Primus.
[00:14:07] Unknown:
Which I didn't know until I heard that heard that interview. Do you think Stewart's the person who turned less
[00:14:13] Unknown:
onto, like, hard drugs?
[00:14:16] Unknown:
No. Because everybody everybody blames Les Claypool for Trey for Trey Trey. Oh, it's a 100% loud. Come on. Les is such a listen. Les is the type of person that's so intelligent and so capable. He could manage a forty year drug addiction.
[00:14:33] Unknown:
Totally. And be fun to do. He's like Lou Reed.
[00:14:36] Unknown:
He's one of those guys.
[00:14:38] Unknown:
Yes. Tiger blood. Like like, this is what I was born to do. You know, Trey almost had tiger blood. You're like I know. He Because first, I mean tiger blood. The fact that he was able to play his own music this way under, like, under, like, a lot of drugs. Like Yeah. Like, when you you look at you watch some of those 98 shows, like, the the worser show with the you know, it's on YouTube. It's the one where he like, they all they all, like, take either acid and ecstasy.
[00:15:11] Unknown:
Both. Like,
[00:15:13] Unknown:
they they see them drinking it and fucking nodding to each other, and then and then they play you know, like, 98, they're still ripping. Like, still machine gun tray and, you know, it's like a really fast Mike's Mike's Groove. Right? He was very, very he he operated at a very high level. The band operated very, very, very high level. Maybe they almost had Tiger Blood and maybe their lack of maybe their lack of it is what saved their lives. Yeah.
[00:15:40] Unknown:
You know? I mean I don't wanna return this into the drug episode again, but No. I don't. But I'm just saying Les Claypool is a specimen.
[00:15:47] Unknown:
Also, Trey yeah. Trey's a fucking alpha male. Trey's an alpha. He doesn't he didn't he was he was gonna do what he was gonna do. Yeah. Whether he met Leitless Claypool or Kid Rock or any of these assholes.
[00:15:59] Unknown:
That is true. And the problem with being an alpha is you can delude yourself in thinking you have tiger blood, which might have happened. But, okay, I'm gonna continue on. There's really no plans beyond, say, this tour.
[00:16:09] Unknown:
But for me, what's happened consistently since we first played together is that I get these glimpses of potential and chemistry between the three of us. The first time we ever got together, we we did a jam in my barn. This is before the Strand Theatre Knot. And it I thought it was just incredible. I saw the tape and still listened to it. Then we went and did that show, and I thought the show kinda sucked. But then then Stewart sent this tape of the good moments from the show, and both of us were Les and I were both convinced after that because the moments that were good were really good. And so now that we're out on tour, every night, things to be seem to be moving forward. And whenever I catch a glimpse of how good it can be, I suddenly my head gets filled with all these ideas. Oh, we gotta do another album. We gotta, you know, tour Japan. We got, in those moments. The reason
[00:16:57] Unknown:
I wanted to stop there because you had mentioned in the past that, you know, Trey is a really laid back, easy going guy. But if you play if you play shit, he's gonna recognize it and call it that,
[00:17:09] Unknown:
which he did right there. Have you ever heard, like, Jennifer Hartwick or Natalie Cressman? Or Yeah. Yeah. That's what he was referring to. Yeah. I mean, like, they it's they basically, like it's it's sort of like, Trey's like Bobby Knight, you know? Like, Frank Zappa was known to be like this too. Like, basically, like, he is easygoing. He he likes to avoid confrontation in general. But if you're not playing at the absolute edge of your ability, he probably will just stop
[00:17:41] Unknown:
he'll stop interacting with you forever. Yeah. He'll, like, go he'll, like, ghost you or something. He'll lose interest completely. Exactly. Alright. So one last segment. So this is Stewart giving his perspective of why he thinks he has a lot of fun with Oysterhead. Why Oysterhead is so exciting for us is because
[00:17:57] Unknown:
it's not our primary focus. It's like school's out for summer when it's Oysterhead time. I look I'm working on movies, and oyster head's coming up. It's like summer holidays are almost here, and then I get out, and it's an explosion of energy and enthusiasm. And then we don't have any future. We're making this up as we go along, and that's sort of what makes it fresh for us.
[00:18:17] Unknown:
So, yeah, it was nice to, I think, hear in their own voice than describe,
[00:18:20] Unknown:
in the moment. Explain explain to the audience who Stewart Copeland is. Yeah. So Stewart Copeland,
[00:18:26] Unknown:
as the resident timekeeper of this of this podcast Yep. And Capitulation, which is another band, which you'll you'll learn more about as time as time goes on. Mhmm. Fundamentals has asked me to to speak, as it relates to the, percussionist in this band. So Stewart Copeland, if you if you're into music, you might know that name, but most people that are casually into music have no idea the drummer of The Police. They don't know his name, but that's Stewart Copeland. He's the drummer for The Police, arguably the the most talented musician in that band. Now mind you Mhmm. They ever hear a lot of differences with Sting, about songwriting, and they just kinda didn't see music the same way, but they were amazingly popular across the globe. So,
[00:19:14] Unknown:
Stewart's a lot defined by the sound. It's defined by, like Stewart called them style. Yes. You know, you know, Sting's creativity, but, you you know, his playing off of Stewart singing off downbeats. Mhmm. You know, the police were a one of one phenomena.
[00:19:34] Unknown:
Yeah. And if anybody, knows the police, you'll know they kind of almost have this right. What fundamentals is is referring to is kind of playing on the one and the three as opposed to the two and the four is how typical four four music goes. But reggae Yeah. Is kinda flipped on its head, and you play on the upstroke or the upbeat.
[00:19:56] Unknown:
So it's a little hear, like a little unnatural. Yeah. You can hear Roxanne as, like, a reggae song. Like, you can kinda hear it that way. You can't unhear it, actually, once you think about it like that. Correct. Like, the Michael Franti type of, you know that's what everybody calls the section of, like, you can drift while you're sleeping, you know, when it goes into Yes. It goes in yep. They call it the tent.
[00:20:15] Unknown:
Yes. It goes in Yep. They call it the Michael Franti section. Yeah. That's pretty funny.
[00:20:22] Unknown:
Do you have you heard that? I've heard it as described as the Michael Franti section of it. I think I've I've heard unfortunately, I've heard Michael Franti's name, since I since he was popular, and it was an I don't know who that I don't even know that is other than I would have never heard of him if it wasn't for the the Yeah. The the analysis of that song. We live in the podcast era where we have words for all those things.
[00:20:46] Unknown:
So what happened when Phish went when Phish broke up, all these other bands seeped into the jam band scene Yep. That didn't deserve to be there. And that was one of the Oh, yeah. Spearhead is was his band, I believe. Awful.
[00:21:03] Unknown:
I'm so scared we're gonna miss something here, but whatever. I'm gonna I'm gonna say something about side projects. And Please. And this is like okay. I was thinking about this, like, yesterday. How the so, like, I was thinking about it because, one of my one of my favorite bands is Twiddle. Another one of my favorite bands is Humphrey's McGee, and they both are now going through changes. And I started thinking about, man, how does Phish do it forty plus years? And I think a big part of it is the Crimson Dago is the unquestioned, he's just the unquestioned leader of the band.
Correct. And and and he is solid. When he's solid, the band is solid. Now here's what I wanted to say, the observation I wanted to make, and people might not like this and you might not like this. But I've seen By the Blue. I've seen Pork Tornado. I've seen Mike with Leokaki. Right? I've seen all the side I've seen all of the side projects.
[00:22:05] Unknown:
Yeah.
[00:22:06] Unknown:
They're one lessons. They're not they none of them to me were ground if I had a blue, it was probably the closest. What Paige was doing as a side project was the closest to me to making groundbreaking music. But all of fucking Trey's like, Trey had, like, a 9090% batting average with side projects. They were almost all incredible, where, like, they touched me, moved my life. I listened to them. The dude of life, dude, even, like, the fucking like, it's him. It's his character backing the dude of life that you hear. Mhmm. Oysterhead, Trey Band, all the versions of Trey Band.
There's been a couple of floppers. Yes. K? I mean There have been a couple of flops. So surrender to the air if surrender to the air was sort of a flop. That was so it was incredibly hyped. We're talking 1996. Right. Super hyped. It was gonna be like John Badesky and Mark Rabot and all of these, like it turned out to be this avant garde jazz thing that the Sun Ra Orchestra was gonna be as part of it. I think it was like one of Trey's dreams.
[00:23:16] Unknown:
Yeah. It just kinda it was kinda work. Orchestra. Yeah. And he ended up fulfilling that dream with the with the in New York, right, the Philharmonic or or I forget. But he did a composition that he he got to fulfill his orchestra orchestral dream.
[00:23:30] Unknown:
You know, it's funny because yeah. Frank Zappa, right before he died, did something he called, like, the yellow shark or I think it was called something like that. And it was, like, this really super avant garde. I remember getting it thinking it was gonna be, like, cool, and I was just like, ugh.
[00:23:48] Unknown:
Yeah. It was just like if you say avant garde, it's like I so I can only I can't really listen to it. Like
[00:23:54] Unknown:
Right. It's un well, it's inaccessible and unlistened, but it's not inaccessible like Les Claypool, like or, you know, or like Phish. Right. You know, in there when they wanna be. It's more like, what the fuck is this? It's like pretentious. You know what I mean? It's more like, and it's probably not trying to be pretentious, but it is.
[00:24:13] Unknown:
Well, it's funny you touch on something there because I think to the casual first time listener to Phish, I I've I've observed people have that kind of response to fish when they first hear them because they're maybe they're just not into music or they they would never get it anyway, but it's like like, why is this so complicated? Like, it's a kind of pretentious kind of thing. Like, I don't know. Who are they? But the who are they? Do they think they're good?
[00:24:38] Unknown:
Yeah. Like, why is why are they playing so good? I get it. I get it. So Surrender of the Air definitely was less than VitaBlue jazz so I like jazz mandolin project, but I just didn't think it was necessarily
[00:24:54] Unknown:
It wasn't really a Fishman project. You're right. He just sat in on it. I like yeah. Pork tornado was okay. I saw them at,
[00:25:01] Unknown:
it was called Club Metronome, which is the upstairs at Nectars.
[00:25:05] Unknown:
Okay. So, Vermont kid. Wow.
[00:25:09] Unknown:
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Fishman stay Fishman during the hiatus was pretty much the I saw, yeah. I saw pork tornado during the first hiatus in 02/2002, and it was the same week we were in Burlington to see Trey at Essex Junction.
[00:25:28] Unknown:
Oh, wow. Okay. See that twofer.
[00:25:31] Unknown:
Got a twofer. And I'm yeah. I guess it wasn't a coincidence that they were, you know, Fishman would where Pork Tornado would be playing at Club Metro. Like, yeah, like support like, almost supportive sort of. What a cool thing we thought we were seeing, me and my buddy. We're like, oh, man, dude. We're seeing, like, like, John Fishman's side band and upstairs and actors. Like, how cool is that? Right? Yeah. You you would think, like, it was you would think they would need, like, a secret show, like the like the wetlands, but they did not. It was Yeah. You know, just business as usual in Burlington.
Yeah. So, The thing about yeah. Go ahead. I was just my my point was I didn't find other than again, like, VitaBlue was the closest to me. But to me, this it just showed, like, how ahead Trey was. Just it's just and it's so good because that's what it's what makes the band work. It really is. This is like you have one guy that does all the fucking work. Yeah. Right? And he's fine. Right. He wants to do all the work. He's fine. He wants to do it. He wants to do it for five bands, and it's like, just have they invented any drugs that allow that to happen? Really? Okay. You know, are they legal? No? Oh, fuck. Well, whatever. Yeah. Yeah. I have to be in five minutes.
Yeah. It wasn't even enough for him to do this in one band. I remember, like and this is the oyster head. It's the oyster head episode. But, like, just again, let's talk about Trey. Trey is nonstop, right? He really is nonstop. And I'm guessing he was, like, during the cocaine honeymoon, they must have just observed him to be on a level, just on a it's like Barry Bonds level, you know, like Right. Unconscious. Barry Bonds won three MVPs before he started using steroids, and then he became just like he broke everything, you know? Yep. It's kinda like or I'm guessing people were just experiencing Trey like his runaway fucking freight train just peaking, complete peaking. You know, he was putting out incredible stuff.
So, like, his again, his solo stuff was great. His side projects were great. Oysterhead was, you know, oysterhead delivered. Oysterhead, man, was such hype to get together with Les Claypool and Stewart Copeland. It was incredibly, incredibly hyped and totally, totally delivered. I mean, and the story of fish is the story of just multiple, multiple times of total, total hype and delivering every time. Not not every time, but, like, delivering a lot.
[00:28:09] Unknown:
Well, I love the, I love the idea of, like I've heard an I heard an idea recently. Maybe you've heard this already of the idea of, like I'm gonna tie this into Bitcoin a little bit if you if you just bear with me for a few moments. I almost forgot. I forgot about Bitcoin. Oysterhead will do that to you. And it's been so much fun going back and relistening to everything, all the all the music again, which I always do before these. But, Totally. I do too. The the the idea of, like, analogizing human ingenuity and innovation with Hashrate in the sense that, like, you're you're putting combinations of ideas or things together. Maybe in this case, people, putting people together, different combinations, it's the iterative loop. Right? And then every millionth try or ten millionth try, you solve something.
And then that's now now human knowledge. Or something in the case of music, it's like a great band or a great song, or a great jam where, like, you do all the iteration and then, you know, you sometimes you just kinda randomly, you just kinda land on something that works for whatever reason.
[00:29:22] Unknown:
And I was, by the way, in that day, in the nineties, writing a great song was thought to be a difficult thing. You know what I mean? I don't say that trivial. Like, there was a the the biggest Broadway musical at the time was Rent, and their big song was about writing a big writing a good song. That was like Yeah. That was one of their big songs of that musical. It was like, I'm gonna write one great song. It was thought to be a difficult thing to do. Interesting. What what do you think about that now today sitting where we are? Do you think I don't even think anyone said that. I I I don't know how many people even think about writing a good song anymore because it's just so rare to for it to happen. And now just give AI, like AI actually write some good songs. But then, like, they don't have the same power. Like, no one's gonna study it. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Because they don't have the personality or the or the
[00:30:28] Unknown:
the the person behind them. I think that that really hampers it. But
[00:30:32] Unknown:
I think that guys at the Bugle guys at the Bugle write really great AI songs, but they're, like, if you talk to them, they're, there's an interest in like, they would probably say they would have to find a band to play them if they wanted it to live forever.
[00:30:50] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. What's their, what's their number one hit? It's I think it's about spaces. It was about Girls on Spaces.
[00:30:57] Unknown:
That's Rod. That's Rod's big big. It makes me laugh so
[00:31:03] Unknown:
hard. Shout out to the Bugle guys. Fuck you. But, yeah. I mean, I think like writing a hit song is one thing. I just wonder the reason why I asked you that that follow-up question was how much of that was the record labels and how much of that was radio?
[00:31:20] Unknown:
Like, just getting through those gatekeepers and, like, whether you're The ideal, though, was that Good or not. If I write a good enough song if I write a good enough song, it won't like, no. That won't matter. It'll shine. Right. Right. Okay. That makes sense. Or Led Zeppelin will steal it.
[00:31:38] Unknown:
Well, you know what? I I used to have a lot of resistance towards the idea that, like, fish was true. Like, when I when I got into fish, I I most people there that play music were like guitarists, so there's definitely, like, a there's a trey dominance just in the fan base. Like, more and most of the For sure. People there love trey. Guitar is more accessible. A lot more people play it. And me being a drummer, we always kinda have this kind of black sheep syndrome where we're like, ah, fuck the lead fuck the lead singer. Fuck the guitarist. You know? It's all about the rhythm section, blah blah blah. But I feel like I've come around as I've in the last couple of years of really just accepting the fact that what you just said is absolutely true. And it's it's not a it's not an opinion either. It's objectively true. Like, because you just pointed it out at all the evidence. Like, look at the side projects. That's a great that's a great way to look at it. The band is the current interpret is the current group of people that really interprets Trey's voice
[00:32:33] Unknown:
and his thoughts.
[00:32:35] Unknown:
And and to your and to to the beginning of what you were saying was they nobody ever resisted that in the ban. Nobody ever argued with that. That was, like, accepted. It's like if you if you look it up, like, a pack of cats, like, let's say you have four cats at home, like, all different litters. But they're always fighting for, like, who's on top, like, what the pecking order is.
[00:32:53] Unknown:
The grand would you say the grand pecking order? They'd be fighting for the grand pecking order. Be maybe a five would be grand. Spoiler alert. That was the that was the name of the oyster head album. They made the album called. Yeah.
[00:33:05] Unknown:
Well, maybe that's what Trey was even. Maybe that's where the title of the because right there, it doesn't make any sense why that's the title of the album. I know it's a lyric in one of the songs. It's so interesting, though. You know, Trey is the unquestionable
[00:33:17] Unknown:
alpha, and so is less. Whereas Stewart, nobody knows who the hell Stewart was in that huge band.
[00:33:24] Unknown:
And he wanted to be they want he just wanted them to listen to him just one or two times.
[00:33:31] Unknown:
Yeah. Now do you remember here's a thought that went through my head too because, like, Fishman is such a unique drummer, and, you know, Fish never the band Fish never comes close to interpreting what's going on in Trey's head without John Fishman being true. Right? Yep. But then I used to always, like, like, Oysterhead made me have certain thoughts, like, I wonder if Trey really enjoys playing with a normal fucking drummer sometimes
[00:34:01] Unknown:
too. Yeah.
[00:34:02] Unknown:
Right? Like, that he can be some but, like, Russ Lawton also is a really you know, he's like that kind of a he's like a like a Tony Marcalis for the bass. Right? Yep. Standard pocket. And that's you know, sometimes maybe Trey just likes his band being in standard pocket.
[00:34:20] Unknown:
Yeah. It's apparent with some of the live live shows that I watched of the the course of the last week.
[00:34:27] Unknown:
Yeah.
[00:34:28] Unknown:
I forget that one song where, like, Stewart is kinda famous for having a like, these strands of, like, cymbals and kinda stacks of things and just things to beat on all different all, like, hundreds of different types of sounds. And he kinda uses them all in one particular song, that they that they used to play live. But, of course, I'm not gonna really remember the title of the song, but you get the gist. I think there was something about Stewart being a more classically trained like, he even he even held his sticks, you know, the traditional style. It's just a whole different whole different animal. Yeah.
[00:35:02] Unknown:
But there's an and and, you know, we've talked about how Fishman is still is still, like, redefining the sound, man, Even in 2025. I haven't listened to the forty three minutes. What's going through your mind? I haven't disclosure. I don't know if you heard about this. They basically they did it again.
[00:35:26] Unknown:
They did it again this time without without Billy. Was Billy on the first one or no? Then I think that I'm conflating two shows. But No. No. I'm saying,
[00:35:34] Unknown:
Fish has, in their recent tour, has done a forty three minute. Yeah. They did a forty three minute version of What's Going Through Your Mind, which seems to just that song keeps picking up steam. You know, I love saying, like, again, another side tangent, but, like, some of the New Year's Eve, I hate calling it a gag. You got you know this. But some of the New Year's Eve performance songs really do like, I I remember when Mercury did this. Right? Mhmm. Where, like, they did the New Year's Eve thing with Mercury, and then Mercury became the big jam vehicle, like, the next couple of tours.
Never hit forty three minutes. In fact, the, we covered the 2019, end of summer tour in Alpine Valley where they tried to blast off with Mercury, kinda, didn't work, and then they did the forty minute Ruby waves right after. Right. Right. But, like, what's going through your mind was the New Year's Eve song of last year, and it's, like, really becoming seems to be becoming a big jam vehicle. I mean, a forty three minute in Fish's history, right, still, like, very, very rare to go over forty minutes. Over forty minutes. Not Tweezer. It's, like Yep. Really exceedingly rare.
[00:36:57] Unknown:
Yeah. True. And that's interesting to hear because, yeah, you're right. When, the gag song typically does get pulled into the repertoire of the following
[00:37:06] Unknown:
it's funny. Like Soul Planet started to see that one Yep. Get get some reps. You know? And And it's almost like compression starting to happen
[00:37:14] Unknown:
at the band's level. Like, I had a friend say who the one who got me into Phish in the in in the nineties. Like, he kind of he started a family and kind of pulled out of, like, really staying on top of what Phish was doing. And then kinda I went to a show with him and he's like, man, they just, like, go from, like,
[00:37:29] Unknown:
song, like, into, like, a locked in jam so much faster than they used to. It used to be more noodling and stuff. And they'll do it in the first set. They'll do it early in the show. Yep. You know, the the ease at which that happens is and that's I really do credit Fishman for that for all of that, honestly. It's his growth. It's his continued growth that makes that possible, in my opinion. Yep. Yep. So I say that to set yeah.
[00:37:57] Unknown:
Yeah. I was just gonna say, I think he's, even going back, I've been listening to some early nineties stuff, like, from your early ninety four, which I really had barely listened to. And the jams of, like the famous jams are, like, when Fishman Fishman is always throughout the history of the band has always kinda led them when things get locked in and they kind of are all in the pocket, it's Fishman leading that. And he can do that now so much easier and so much it's so much more accessible for him to just kinda pull the band in a certain direction and and lock him in.
[00:38:29] Unknown:
Yeah. And visually, dude, he doesn't even look like he's moving.
[00:38:33] Unknown:
Yes.
[00:38:34] Unknown:
He literally looks like he's just like like Doc Ock, you know, from Spider Man and but just not looks like he's not moving. Yeah. So he has, like, very conservative physical movements. You know, I think he has said he does never want an idea to be restricted physically. And he seems to have successfully worked himself to be able to do that. You know, it's it really is it's absolutely remarkable. But but then again,
[00:39:07] Unknown:
every once in a while, it's nice to play with a guy like Stuart Copeland. I'm sure. Right? And so Yeah. And and and bring out a guitar that has, and maybe you could help me explain this, but the guitar with the fucking antlers on it. Like, what was that all about? Multiple show. Do you want do you want I'm referring to? No. So Trey, like, on the it wasn't the song I did that we opened with, but I think it's on the one we're gonna outro with, that he has these antlers tied to the tail and the base of the guitar head. Oh, yeah. Otherwise, the guitar and and then he has strings attached to it, and he's doing all kinds of, like, weird, like, reverb with the with the antlers, and there's it seems like he has strings tied back there. Dude. It's a peripheral
[00:39:52] Unknown:
Gotta love his the end of his honeymoon, man. It's just like He was Every idea is awesome, and it all works. It all works. So, okay, let me get into talking about? I don't. I I have a visual I have a visual idea of of of of the guitar with antlers, but I didn't, like, realize he was doing that with a oyster head.
[00:40:12] Unknown:
No worries.
[00:40:13] Unknown:
Okay. I wanna get into, Les Claypool and his relationship with fish. Okay. And how how that started. I don't know how it started, but I know that officially in the canon, Les shows up to tour closer, I believe. In 1996, 12/06/1996, I'm pretty sure that show is on Live Fish. Live Fish release. I remember getting the tapes. Everybody wanted those fucking tapes bad. We found out Les Claypool was on the encore and it was Harpua encore. And he came on and so it's like you got Fish, Les Claypool, Vegas, and Harpua. And it's everybody was wanting those tapes.
It was super high.
[00:41:02] Unknown:
Super high. That's awesome.
[00:41:05] Unknown:
You know, like, sit ins are very rare. And when you have them, those tapes become really, you know, much, much desired. It's so funny, dude. Like, today, Billy's train could go on and it you it's like, okay. I'll listen to it when I get to it. Like, dude, we used to go so far out of our way to get these tapes. Yep. And, so and it delivered, dude. Les joined Les and, somebody else from Primus, I can't think of his name, joins Phish. They do his Harpua. It's involved. It's funny, it's good. Jimmy had to go to Vegas, he had to get through like a pack of elvises and they, you know, hit to prove that he could out Elvis, the elvises and then they did suspicious minds. And I'm not, you know, sure where that fits in the history of of that song with fish, but, like, you know, that's a big fishman.
You know, they so they tie Elvis into it. Yeah. You know, Elvis and Vegas, and it's just like it's it's absolutely incredible. So 12/06/1996 is the is the genesis, I think, of Les Claypool and fit on stage with fish. And and fish. Yeah. And so that predates South Park. K. Right? So I just wanna give context here. Right? Yeah. It seems to be right at the beginning of Trey's, you know, of the drug era. Right. Which points to the task being the the center of the universe. But also, dude, such a good time. Like, there's so much fun being had. You can clearly see it. And, but that's just okay. So that's where it just where it fits in history there. Right? Yeah. Yeah.
Then ninety nine slash two thousand. To it's February, right? When Oyster had February. April.
[00:43:03] Unknown:
So I said 2020 before, but February. Yeah. February.
[00:43:06] Unknown:
Now, would that was so was that hiatus yet? I don't think so. No. Probably not. So it all kinda it all kinda came together, I guess. You know, maybe it really was Oysterhead that maybe it really was his time with less that put that just, like, put it in problem category for for Trey, where maybe he couldn't handle being in five bands. Maybe he's, you know Yeah. Couldn't be. Well well, the thing about April 2000 was, I listened to the actual,
[00:43:35] Unknown:
the soundboard of that show. It's a bad it's a terrible show. Like, they barely had songs written. It wasn't like, they threw it they threw it together. Then they really, I think, really practiced it later that year and into the following years really when the I would say the band was like Well, when they came when they came back in 2020,
[00:43:53] Unknown:
they were tied to shit. It was good. Yeah. It's really good. Of that, unfortunately.
[00:43:57] Unknown:
Yeah.
[00:43:58] Unknown:
You can go it's on live fish. So there's at least four or five at least four or five of those shows are on on live fish.
[00:44:05] Unknown:
I wasn't sure if it was any good, so I just stayed with the with the OG content for this, But, I'll have to go check it out. So Plus, I wanted, like, drugged out Trey for some reason. I wanted to see him.
[00:44:19] Unknown:
Trey cooking. Let's talk you wanna you wanna go through the songs? Oh, I would love to. Yeah. Yeah. We're forty five minutes in. We should definitely go through that. Okay. Before we go to forty five minutes in, dude, I loved this fucking album so much. Yeah. I can't even describe the impact this had on my life. Like, I love the dude of life. That's definitely in the in the annals of history. Oysterhead is absolutely in the annals of history. Let's get into
[00:44:58] Unknown:
it. Yeah. Let's do it.
[00:45:02] Unknown:
Maybe what you wanna use the album as the order?
[00:45:05] Unknown:
Yeah. I mean, do we wanna do a pseudo suicide just because that's what the audience has heard? Because I just thought that was, That's fine. It's an aggressive it's an aggressive song.
[00:45:17] Unknown:
There were no okay. Because so let me say something real quick. Right? Pseudosuicide. A, I think it's one of the best songs in the album, like, by far. And one of the things I wanted to say about the album was it's clearly a less Claypool forward album. Okay. The the project is less Claypool. Like, you can hear he is probably the loudest voice there. But Drake clearly has his fingerprints on it. Right? And in the song pseudo suicide, which before alright. Before I go into this, the last song I can remember that overtly referred to suicide was Ozzy Osbourne suicide solution Yep. Which got him in a lot of trouble because some kids committed suicide, and their parents basically sued Ozzy Osbourne as if the song Remember that. Told them to do it. Right? Yeah.
And I think you had a, you had a, basically a a long drought of of of suicide references and songs for quite a long time.
[00:46:32] Unknown:
Yeah. Am I right? Am I am I Yeah. No. I mean, that's what I mean. The song's aggressive. Like like So you Very very few songs overtly say the word suicide.
[00:46:46] Unknown:
But to me, the best part of this song, a, is Trey's guitar work, and b, when Trey comes in and sings his section
[00:46:57] Unknown:
Yep.
[00:46:58] Unknown:
It's magic. It's absolutely magic. His voice just works. His voice works with whatever Les is doing. It just works perfectly. It was a perfect puzzle piece.
[00:47:11] Unknown:
Yeah.
[00:47:12] Unknown:
And that song's a great that song's just a great example. And so funny, dude. What the fuck is pseudo suicide? I'm guessing that's just wordplay
[00:47:20] Unknown:
that they were Mhmm. You know? Yeah. I I was thinking maybe it was, like, it was an ephedrine, like Sudafed.
[00:47:28] Unknown:
Because there's so many drug references all over this album. Yeah. Yeah. So, like It's hard to parse them out. Yeah. But, like, this was pretty big pre Breaking Bad, you know, where, like, Jesse, I think, commonly a play on play on words. But I You commonly do, like, we're out of pseudo. That's right. Where are we gonna get the pseudo? But, no, I thought this was I would have guessed. Yeah. I would have guessed more play on words like pseudo pseudo suicide, but it's kind of a funny thing to think about.
[00:47:58] Unknown:
Nothing stops this suicide.
[00:48:01] Unknown:
This was well, it was, you know, so in February, this is really before the big rise of Hillary Clinton. You know, she was elected senator in New York in February, but that was several months after this album was written. So Yes.
[00:48:18] Unknown:
And the performance that I played was February, which, you know Okay. Is, like, six weeks after 09/11. Let's just keep it in keep it real. Yeah. That is go through some of the other song some of the other songs on the list, are are very edgy given the context of that.
[00:48:38] Unknown:
You said 02/2001?
[00:48:40] Unknown:
Yeah. The show the show that I that the recording is from.
[00:48:45] Unknown:
Got it. So they were you're saying your head was touring. You know, so other context for the audience was that I remember, like, TV was changing and you were getting a lot more stations on cable. You were getting a lot more stations. Like, we went from sort of like maybe the 20 cable stations to like 60. And you had, there was a station called, like, AXS. I feel like
[00:49:15] Unknown:
Mhmm. Access. Yeah. And I remember
[00:49:18] Unknown:
seeing one of Oysterhead shows on that station, and I was like, holy shit. This is so fucking awesome. This is so awesome. Because I didn't get to see any I didn't get to see any of the oyster head shows. I was really bummed out about it. Mhmm. And, you know, this music, which might have been owned by Mark Cuban at the time, That channel. Yeah. I probably wanna look that up. But, you know, yeah. So now we're getting to see these shows like, oh, everything is getting more accessible. In 02/2002, live fish gets live fish is available. You know, everything is moving in the direction of accessibility.
Yep.
[00:49:58] Unknown:
And you know what the tipping do do you want at least what I attribute the tipping point was for cable for cable television was, the OJ trial, which is 95.
[00:50:08] Unknown:
Really? You know what? It's interesting. I didn't because of Court TV. I just I I feel like everybody had we just by the way, we just, yeah, we just passed June 17, which was the OJ day, the famous OJ show. Okay. That's one you should check out, 06/17/1994. The day before the great six eighteen ninety four at USC Pavilion with the all time great David Bowie.
[00:50:35] Unknown:
Oh, that's great. Did they do any, like, refer like, reference? I remember that one Houston the Houston game. Right? Wasn't They were screaming run, o j, run. Run, o j, run. They were. Yeah. It's so good. I gotta go check that out.
[00:50:51] Unknown:
And so you know what's funny, man? I associate the the growth of cable TV with South Park. Okay. And the re the reason why is I I remember I remember, I was living in New Jersey, and I went into a friend's house in New York and watched an episode of South Park, and my brain was like my fucking head exploded. And I started calling my cable company in New Jersey saying, why don't I like, why do I not have this channel? Yeah. How the hell is this thing on TV and I don't have it? Right? I remember calling the cable company, like, repeatedly asking when we're getting comedy center.
[00:51:33] Unknown:
That's so good. Did you, get exposed to the, the spirit of Christmas? Was that your first touch point, or was it the TV show?
[00:51:40] Unknown:
It was the well, it was the TV show. It was in the first season. Sometime, I don't remember.
[00:51:45] Unknown:
Yeah. There was a little, like, It's Always Sunny has, like, a trailer that, like, went around, you know, that a lot of people went back and saw, but, they had, like, a three minute short that floated around the Internet. Because the Internet was just just becoming like, email had just started. Like, the Internet was, like, finally being used for, like
[00:52:02] Unknown:
Yeah. We were, like, post AM. More than, like
[00:52:05] Unknown:
In 1998. Bulletin board. Yeah. But this was, like, '96 was when the spirit of Christmas was floating around the Internet. And that was what gave birth to South Park, but it was like Jesus was doing, doing like moral combat, like judo moves with Santa Claus, like Santa and Jesus were battling. That was the whole premise of the skit. But, I remember just being, being like similar to you, just like, so amazed by completely blown away, and it changed my, yeah, just my whole, like, comedic, I guess, things that influenced me from a funny standpoint. Like, it just changed that for me altogether. Yeah. It's interesting. I I saw the, Simpsons
[00:52:47] Unknown:
trailer, like, in the, movies, and I wasn't, like, blown away by it or anything. But, I remember like, that I do remember seeing it, like, as a in a preview for a movie. I think the movie was Pet Sematary. I do remember that. But, yeah, dude. So we were in this, like, right, like, two like, in here in 02/2001, we were about things were about like, DVR was about to become a thing, and it's hard for people to not picture the world without these things. Yeah. But, Oysterhead was coming into a time in where, you know, yeah, there were more cable stations and what like, it was odd for a cable station to play an oyster head show. Right? To turn on a channel and see the Crimson Dago on stage. Right? Like, what is this? What's going on? I'm like, what the like, what is happening here?
So and it was cool. They had a cool aesthetic. You know, you know, Les is a great aesthetic musically. You know, I think Trey, this was like his
[00:54:00] Unknown:
Hop in on him. Trey. Less is always Yeah. Is doing his thing.
[00:54:04] Unknown:
Totally charismatic as hell. Trey, this was his, like, ski hat era, his beanie era. You know? Or he would just, yeah, wear these fucking beanies and whatever. Right? Okay. So so we hit pseudo suicide. We hit the we really, failed the marshmallow test here. Yeah. Where we hit the, like, the we we ate dessert first.
[00:54:31] Unknown:
Yeah. We did that delay. How edgy it was, and you jumped out you you you were all over it. The fact that, like, you know, mentioning, like, suicide in a song, like, I don't know. I mean, you're kinda flirting with danger with that one, and they Definitely. I mean pull it off.
[00:54:47] Unknown:
Yeah. For sure. Now, like, this song was never on the radio. I don't think any of these songs were on the radio. So, you know, there's that.
[00:54:58] Unknown:
There is that.
[00:55:02] Unknown:
Alright. Let's keep moving. So let's go to number one. Do it.
[00:55:06] Unknown:
K.
[00:55:07] Unknown:
Little faces. Yes. I I you know, I hope this is a song you're thinking of using in the outro. It was a con it was a well, it was a contender for the intro. I really thought of I almost can't imagine introing this podcast without this song. It's the first song and it does introduce the band. But, I understand what you did. Yes. So, you know, I get it. Little Faces was a great introduction. It was, like, perfect, right? Another one where I think, like, Trey coming in with his voice, he was he his voice singing over the guitar parts. Mhmm. You know what I mean? Like, he's singing the notes. He's singing the words while playing the notes, the same notes.
[00:56:03] Unknown:
Yep. It is very cool.
[00:56:06] Unknown:
Very cool.
[00:56:07] Unknown:
It was less his fault. Like, when he did the whole, like, are you in the right are you in the right place? Like, I just couldn't I couldn't resist that. It really was like the song that changed your Yeah. Do not turn off your TV. There's nothing. Your TV is not broken. Don't worry. That's right. The podcast is okay.
[00:56:25] Unknown:
Do you know that, Jimi Hendrix is, Axis Bold of Love album? Are you like? Sure. Oh, yeah. So, like, do you know the intro to that album? The radio station EXP. You know what? That might have escaped me. Yeah. You know? Just go back and check it out because it's like Okay. It's, like, really weird. And he's saying things like your radio is not broken. Don't worry. You know? Yeah. He starts out like it's a radio station. This is radio station e x t. Right. Do not try do not adjust your settings. You know? It's yeah. It's kinda like fourth wall stuff for 1960.
[00:57:04] Unknown:
Yeah. It's clever. It's like, you wish you were here, right, with with Floyd. They kinda did something similar with their the intro to that song with the like, it's on the radio.
[00:57:14] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. Alright. So Little Faces. Little Faces keep no track of I don't even I don't know what any of these songs are about, and a lot of them appear to be just about drugs, the invention of drugs. You know, really some fucked up stories, I guess, that we'll we'll hear. Little faces. No no idea. Like, it just sounds like the the nightmares of children.
[00:57:39] Unknown:
Yeah. It really does. Right? Because he talks about their little hands later and then their and then their faces again. I don't know what what the obsession is.
[00:57:49] Unknown:
Yeah. Okay. You might have to help me on the next couple. OZ is Ever Floating is about the inventor of the inventor of LSD or the inventor of John c Lilly. Right?
[00:58:07] Unknown:
I was wondering. I know the lyrics, but I never knew there was a point to it. You know, with a lot you know, when Les and Trey get together, I assumed that the lyrics were just gonna get nonsensical squared. And,
[00:58:21] Unknown:
So he invented sensory deprivation.
[00:58:24] Unknown:
Oh, okay. Okay. So a different type of psychedelic experience. He's a psycho. He's considered a psychonaut.
[00:58:30] Unknown:
Psychonaut. Right. Yeah. Oz has ever I got her again, don't have no idea what the song is about, but it's like it the chorus says Oz is ever flowing, something the things that mean the world to doctor John c Lilly.
[00:58:48] Unknown:
Mhmm.
[00:58:49] Unknown:
This this doesn't even rhyme. No. It's just a story about this guy. Oh, it's awesome. Ever floating. So, like, yeah, I guess you're floating sensory deprivation. Yeah. Floating in magne it's like, you know, you see you do this today, magnesium float tanks.
[00:59:07] Unknown:
Yep. Yeah. I haven't done that yet. Have you have you experienced a a Yeah, dude. I went down
[00:59:13] Unknown:
the major rabbit hole. There was a time where I was going to I was doing it once a week.
[00:59:19] Unknown:
Oh, shit. Oh, I'll talk about it.
[00:59:22] Unknown:
Yeah. There's a place in Westchester called East Coast Float Spa. I think it still exists. And you know what, man? Like, I'm not I'm not gonna do the story justice by doing it here, but I'm just gonna say I stopped going because, the person at the front desk accused me of taking somebody else's shoes. Right. And, like, he just insisted. I could tell them no. He was like, did you take this did you take this pair of shoes? And I was like, no. He like, for for somebody running a magnesium sensory deprivation flow tank, he was very unchill about the shoe incident and, you know, like, he just wouldn't accept me. Like, he just wouldn't accept me telling so I had to stop going because of this.
[01:00:10] Unknown:
So good.
[01:00:11] Unknown:
Yeah. That guy guy that would steal shoes. I mean Like, dude, I'm not stealing someone's shoes. I don't I don't understand what this is. Steal. Yeah. Like, I like this place, and I can't ever come back. Dude, I've had some wild wild experiences. Yeah. Well, that's what it's I was like, dude, it's not even my world. Like, it's just would never be in my world to take somebody's fucking shoes. I just don't understand anyway. But it's pretty rad, I have to say. Highly recommend it if you can if you can access a really, especially if you can do it in a stall and not a tank.
Which is stand up versus lay down? No. The difference? No. More like a shower stall. Like, they they fill up the shower stall, and that's, like, a little you know, maybe seven feet tall. Yep. Yep. So you can, like, you know, you're in there totally dark. You go for an hour. Dude, you have to really confront your own self. I mean, it helps if you can play fish in your head. I tell you, it really, really helps a lot, but like really dealing with yourself because you're there for an hour.
[01:01:22] Unknown:
That's like going into solitary confinement. It sounds like tough for like an hour
[01:01:27] Unknown:
Without the ability to see or hear anything. Yeah. Or feel anything. Yeah.
[01:01:32] Unknown:
Wow. Okay. Cool. Yeah. Dude, I've heard,
[01:01:36] Unknown:
I've heard it's Confronted some real darkness.
[01:01:41] Unknown:
Yeah. I mean, I bumped into that with, like, meditation practice. If you do it if you do it, you have to do it for a while before you bump into what you're describing, but it's, yeah, things things show up that you didn't know were there.
[01:01:53] Unknown:
Yeah. You know, I'm a complete sober guy. Like, I'm not I don't Yeah. You know, really especially, I don't fuck around in a sensory deprivation tank. Right? So shout out doctor John c Lilly. You know? Ozz is ever floating. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. What's mister I thought
[01:02:10] Unknown:
it was about the gold standard, but I guess I guess I'm I guess I'm wrong.
[01:02:14] Unknown:
Maybe. Well, maybe maybe there's this connection. Who the fuck is mister oysterhead? So, like, do we do have do we have any idea? That's the next song. When all else has been done, it's it. Along comes Mr Oysterhead. It's just I thought it was maybe just something that sounded cool. But is it maybe they're like, you know, is there any meaning to it whatsoever?
[01:02:40] Unknown:
I mean, when I listened to it yesterday and the few days before, I was like, it's it's clearly they're talking about Satoshi, but it's like it's like. He was. Inspiration. Inspiration
[01:02:50] Unknown:
to us all. I mean, that would be crazy. I guess, like, you know, one of the
[01:02:59] Unknown:
Maybe it's Odell.
[01:03:00] Unknown:
I remain adamant that Trey really wasn't channeling any signal in this in his drug era. Just bangers.
[01:03:08] Unknown:
Yeah. I think it's all nonsense. I'm gonna go with the nonsense squared. I'm back to that.
[01:03:12] Unknown:
Yeah. But mister oyster head is song number three. It's cool. It's another one. Not much to say about it, though. But shadow of a man is the song I wanna talk about. Mhmm. So this is the song I was referring to before with,
[01:03:27] Unknown:
Stewart Copeland and his arrangement of percussive sounds. He he does all of them in this song. K. This is the eeriest
[01:03:35] Unknown:
song you might ever hear.
[01:03:37] Unknown:
Mhmm.
[01:03:39] Unknown:
Too bad you can't play the clip.
[01:03:42] Unknown:
I can I can play it?
[01:03:43] Unknown:
But, this song is like, Billy came back from Vietnam just a shadow of a man. So it's about this guy, comes back, shadow of a man, you know, married this woman who, you know, although her name was, like, May Pan, she changed her name to missus Grant after three stillborn children. Billy said, I am just a portion of the man I was before I went to Nam. Like, holy fuck. And now he drinks and snorts amphetamines just as often as he can because he's a shadow of a man, spent his time in Vietnam. Like, what a fucking song. What a fucking just a powerful song. So I have a little story, a little side story. Have I ever told you about I told you about my friend who, is, you know, a drug dealer at fish shows and stuff. I don't know. Yeah. You mentioned. Yeah. You mentioned you mentioned a friend. Yeah. He, in '19 well, when Oysterhead happened, right, he had gone to jail for, tried to rob somebody with a fake gun.
Oh, shit. And she it was a woman, and she, like, looked at him and laughed. Just fucking laughed and, like, called the police, and he ended up going to jail. And he was in, he was in a bunch of PA different PA county jails. He ended up in Somerset out by Pittsburgh.
[01:05:08] Unknown:
K.
[01:05:09] Unknown:
And, his name is, I don't know if I should say his name. But, Yeah. Don't say his name. You're good. He was out in Somerset, and then he was there when the plane crashed out there. Right? Oh, I know. New shit. Flight 93. Right? He was there. He was in prison. Wow. But I had I wrote a song called blank came back from Somerset just a shadow of a man. Because, like, I think the lyrics were like, he had his asshole in his hand.
[01:05:42] Unknown:
Oh, man. It's about him getting raped in prison, basically. You know? I'm I'm I'm putting that slowly putting that together.
[01:05:51] Unknown:
I have it pulled up if you want me to. Yeah. And I have to tell you, dude, the everyone should just get the album. The album version, I think, is a is actually even a billion times earier than that. Because there's it's the it's production wise. And I guess, you know, the twenty twenty shows, I think, learned from that and brought all those sounds in.
[01:06:13] Unknown:
I see. That makes sense. Like, all the patches and and and tone yeah. All this I would guess that everyone listens to that and it's like, is this even music?
[01:06:21] Unknown:
What the fuck did I just listen to? But, like, why do they why do these guys like this? But, check out the album version too and just Yeah. Trust Check out the video. The the visuals on that, Les has,
[01:06:33] Unknown:
like, glasses on with, like, a flashlight on each each side of his, like, temple of his head. It's incredibly creepy and eerie, and it fits everything else. And Trey with his analog guitar.
[01:06:43] Unknown:
Radon Balloon is a that's just a Traejon right there. Right? Yeah. I think so. Just a straight up, like you know, Trey kind of on his on his solo albums had one just song that only he could play on acoustic guitar. Mhmm. Right? Like, it reminded me of, like, in law Josie Wales. Yep. You know, just songs like that where it's just, you know, it's just him being master of acoustic guitar, radon balloon. It's just I know the radon balloon has words, but, like Yeah. It's basically just a tray John.
[01:07:19] Unknown:
Yep. A Trey John. Acoustic John.
[01:07:22] Unknown:
The Army's on Ecstasy, man. That is a song.
[01:07:25] Unknown:
Yeah.
[01:07:26] Unknown:
It'd be cool to get a clip of that, I guess, too, if you but not from the show. If you have the album Yeah. Let me die. No. I could pull up the album. No problem. Armies on ecstasies, and it's just so great, dude. So it's so I don't know. Like, these guys sounded like they had a lot of fun
[01:07:42] Unknown:
playing these songs. Yeah. I mean I mean, like I said, like, they're so edgy in the sense, just the content. Like, they're making fun of USA Today pretty, pretty hard. Like, it's in the lyrics. Like, oh, I read it in USA Today. Like, it So, yeah. Poking fun at, like, mainstream media already. It's loaded with conspiracy theory. Like, Right? Inaccurate. Yep.
[01:08:08] Unknown:
I read all about it in The USA Today. They stepped up your intestine to make it go away, but it's because it's hard to it's hard to beat the enemy on old MDMA. That's just like it's an and it's it's an anthem. You got rubberneck lines. Really is. The the line I remember from that song is don't don't don't wake a man when he's trying to be dead. Rubberneck lines is I'm lying in bed at double barrel pistol under, like, under my pillow beneath my head. It's like, don't wake a man when he's trying to be dead because of rubberneck lines. What the fuck? I don't know what rubberneck lines even means, but, like, what a line. Like, don't wake a man when he's trying to be dead.
[01:08:51] Unknown:
Yeah. It's wild. So, and it's, like, kinda has this, like, libertarian kind of vibe to it.
[01:08:57] Unknown:
Like, it's like
[01:08:58] Unknown:
you know what I mean? Like, I don't know. The whole I look at Les I've always looked at Les Crickles. Like, he's some sort of like He really does.
[01:09:08] Unknown:
I don't know. Just a one of one. You know? He's a one of one type of man just like Trey. You know? Like, they're both and them coming together is just you know? Wow. So I want so the only other song I wanna say anything about is birthday boys because I learned something about it. I learned something about it listening to the listening to the 2020 show. So, you know when Trey's birthday is?
[01:09:35] Unknown:
I I don't know. I was I don't have his birthday on it. His birthday is September '30. Okay. And September 30. So that's my wedding anniversary is on Trey's birthday. Fuck out of here. Oh, look at this dude. Me.
[01:09:48] Unknown:
The fuck can't get away from this guy. You cannot. So September 30 is Trey's birthday. I know I mark it every year. Every year, I try to, like, play a song and post it online. Just that, you know, I try to honor this man. Right? But it turned out, I learned this at the 2020 show that I listened to that Les Claypool's birthday is is the twenty ninth. So their birthdays are a day apart. So they made this song, Birthday Boys. And the Birthday Boys really is also a bit of a Trey John.
[01:10:20] Unknown:
Yes.
[01:10:22] Unknown:
But it's, like, got mandolin. It's got, I don't know who maybe it's Les playing the mandolin.
[01:10:29] Unknown:
It could be. He's definitely multi instrumental.
[01:10:32] Unknown:
But Trey
[01:10:33] Unknown:
just rips.
[01:10:34] Unknown:
Trey rip Trey sounds like Billy Strings, like, on acoustic guitar playing the song. Yeah. I mean, it is like he rips. Like, even even in 2020 when you didn't think Trey still had it in him, just fucking rips, dude. That's cool. I I I can tell you, like, there's a guitar player. There's nothing, like, more you wanna do in life than, like, impress people with your guitar playing, and it never happened. It's almost, like, never happens. Like, you go through your whole life. You'll never impress anybody really for the most part. You know, Trey just fucking picks guitar up and just start to just just start shredding, dude. It's like especially on an acoustic guitar where, you know, it's just not that, you know, it takes a, you know, it takes a different level of hand strength precision, you know.
[01:11:19] Unknown:
Right.
[01:11:20] Unknown:
But you have more it is more impressive because you can have these open sounds, and you can really just just do a lot. Like, Billy Strang's playing acoustic guitar is so impressive. Right? It's how fast he is and Yeah. You know. Birthday Boys really showcases, it just showcases that now the band Oysterhead,
[01:11:43] Unknown:
you know, in a different way. So so I have Horace, they have a little jam, and then they do the chorus, like, super fast. Oh, that's why it's super fast tempo. Do you do you want me to do you want me to jump to the the double time thing? Nah. It's fine. Okay. Do you mean me? I think they got the gist. It's large. It's hard to know, like, when to, when to fade out of stuff because
[01:12:02] Unknown:
Totally did. But, you know, it's, sound clips live sound clips are the future.
[01:12:08] Unknown:
They really are. I feel I feel it in my bones.
[01:12:12] Unknown:
And you know what, dude? Yeah. Dude, we're just it's like the oyster head episode had to be the one where we just decided to try all this shit.
[01:12:20] Unknown:
I just have so much more energy. Like, I'm so I've I'm I'm legitimately inspired.
[01:12:26] Unknown:
So, yeah, I mean, it's an incredible album. And, like, I have to say, dude, like, when they came back in 2020, I was shocked. I was shocked, and I was shocked at the caliber at which they played the album. Like, these guys like, were they working on it? Did they keep it current for them? Did they play it in their own with their own bands? Unless Claypool play this stuff with his band? I don't know. I I don't know. Came back ready to fucking go. Like, Les Claypool by the way, so it was during that song, Birthday Boys, that, Les Claypool says, look. Got look. This crowd's confusing me because I spent the last six months touring with Slayer.
And, like, these guys are smiling. Like, that's weird. I don't know how to deal with that. Right? Yeah. Yeah. And so then they said, let's play the song, like, the way Slayer would. And, they basically played it the same exact way, but, like, with less singing it in Slayer's voice.
[01:13:21] Unknown:
And when we finished What song did they play? Birthday boys. That birthday Oh, they play birthday boys in in a Slayer arrangement?
[01:13:29] Unknown:
Trey basically is like, alright. Let's let's admit that that didn't sound like Slayer. I don't want anyone thinking we think. They people need to know we don't think that sounded like Slayer. Yeah. We don't think that. That's funny. You know, I'll put a link to that. I don't know if there's a link. It's on live fish. But Oh, well, we'll we'll figure it out. Yeah. People who listen to the show should consider a Live Fish subscription. You don't make any money from that, but it's a $100 for a year. It's probably the best deal you could ever imagine for great music having access to almost their entire catalog.
[01:14:01] Unknown:
Yeah.
[01:14:02] Unknown:
You know, it's a no brainer. I have I feel like there's not a situation where I wouldn't renew that subscription. You know what I mean? And I haven't been working in two years. And it's like, that's probably the last thing it's gonna go.
[01:14:15] Unknown:
That's funny.
[01:14:17] Unknown:
You know? And it's like there's a lot of there's there's relisten. There's other ways to listen to, like Yep. You know? But it's kinda hard to give up live fish.
[01:14:26] Unknown:
Yeah. Especially once you have live fish to the to the soundboards. The sound the soundboard quality, it's like compared to the audience recordings, it's just it's just hard to go back. I gave up on NugsNet
[01:14:37] Unknown:
a little bit because NugsNet turned out to be, like, a $150 for the year. Still great deal. Still worth it, but I just I find that I don't always I'm not always listening to that. I'm not I'm not always using it. It was fish live fish I'm always using constantly.
[01:14:52] Unknown:
And Nugs Net, that was they also offered, stream streamed concerts. Right? For, like, free or for discount rate or if you remember? You know? They used to they used to live stream shows similar to how fish does, but for Yeah. Well, what? Nuts net is live fish. I mean, essentially, it's the same guy. Okay.
[01:15:10] Unknown:
Nuts net is more of, like, all of the other Nuts, it gives you, like All the other hip jam bands. On freeze. I mean, it's, like, you know, 1,500 fucking on freeze shows. Twiddle Yep. Moe, you know, and that's just, like, the tip of the iceberg of what's on Nuggs Net. It's, like, you know, probably a hun you know, a 100 plus bands with, you know, a you know, dozen at least dozens of shows. Snug's net is is incredible, but, you know, it's not yeah. It's not these things are not cheap.
[01:15:42] Unknown:
That's right.
[01:15:44] Unknown:
Well But, live fish for $99 for the year, assuming that and it hasn't really gone up. You know, we haven't really had dealt We haven't had any shrinkflation.
[01:15:53] Unknown:
Yeah. I can't wait to do the Twitter episode.
[01:15:58] Unknown:
Is are you being serious?
[01:16:00] Unknown:
I mean, I'm not not being serious. Alright. Because I like, don't fuck with me. Don't fuck with me. No. I'm not fucking with no. No. I only brought it up because no. Because because I I know people that are maybe are are into them enough to, like, have on the show. But, you know what I mean? They may actually be worthwhile to, like,
[01:16:17] Unknown:
Yeah. They do. Help me out a little bit. Sometimes I feel a little gay for how much I how much like, how affected I am by Twiddle. Because I feel like way. They were the same way. My friends were the same way, and I just I couldn't I couldn't get in the right They strike a note. They and, you know, this is the Oysterhead episode. They struck a note, but, like, just to get into it, Twiddle strikes a very special note. And I don't know. It likes I've not been in, like, drug recovery, but I feel like it I'm I'm like I don't know. I have a special empathy for things that hit that note for some reason. Okay. Okay. I catch you. I feel like they do. I feel like that's the fucking vibe and which is just, like, it's all about, like, appreciate life, like, as much as you can.
Right. And it speaks to me a lot. Just optimism
[01:17:08] Unknown:
and, gratitude, it sounds like. And, you know, that was kind of the that was kind of the that was kind of the the message I got from my friends that really into them that were, like, not pitching it to me, but, like, trying to get an overview before I saw that one. And I had to leave. The show I saw, it was a 100 degrees. I had to go home. Like, I couldn't stay in that field and and lock in. They're also but in some ways, they're like a Fantasy Camp
[01:17:29] Unknown:
band version of of Phish. Like, everything you love about Phish, the fun, the compositions, like, they have all they they have it all, you know. And but with something, you know, with their own things that are great. Let's try to think if there's anything we missed on Oysterhead here.
[01:17:50] Unknown:
Yeah. I mean, I do wanna mention Polka Dot Rose. Yeah. Sorry. That's my my might be my favorite song on the album. And I don't think I get my it gets much love for some reason. I I just
[01:18:02] Unknown:
because it's not I I actually I I I recall it, but I don't think I could like, it didn't didn't do anything for me that I could place it. But good. What what can you play it? Yes. So I figured out why figured out why the song was not one of the songs that I really that impacted me that much. Well, trace fingerprints aren't on it at all.
[01:18:28] Unknown:
Correct. Yeah. That's a, Les Claypool song for sure.
[01:18:33] Unknown:
That's why you like it. It No. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. It's cool. It's it's totally less. Right? It's, like, totally his personality, his sound. It's like you know?
[01:18:44] Unknown:
And I did like the, I don't know what kind of playing Trey was doing on that with the is that an effect, or or was that just sliding around on the fretboard? I think he was just doing these weird jazz chords in there. Yeah. I think I thought they were just chords, but just played maybe on the upstroke
[01:19:02] Unknown:
and, like, do can be true. Like, sometime sometimes it's like he he'll blow you away just by playing some weird jazz chords with his freakishly big hands.
[01:19:13] Unknown:
But funny, I had a Carol Kaye clip I almost sent to you. Remember I was saying I sent you in blue. Guess what? Carol Kaye is a YouTube feed now nonstop.
[01:19:21] Unknown:
Oh, really? Okay. The one thing you sent me. Yeah.
[01:19:24] Unknown:
Yeah. Because Baseload is it was a fan well, but well, she did the baseline to Hickey Burr, which we played Yeah. At PubKey. I know. But anyway My daughter still sings it now. I see her. She's still, like, singing it all the time. That's that's great. But she, where was I going with that? Oh my god.
[01:19:43] Unknown:
I don't know. Carol Kaye, Les Claypool, Polkadot
[01:19:47] Unknown:
has does not have trace signature. She did this thing where she was talking about the metronome, and she just, like, was like, yeah. And she was, like, talking it was, like, some interview that got chopped up into little clips. Yeah. She was talking about it. She started out as a bass guitarist, which is there's something called a bass guitar, which I didn't know was a thing. And she played the bass guitar in the context of jazz before she got into like pop music and being a session musician. And she started playing these chords, and it was like Stash. It was literally Stash. And they were she was like, you know, jazz stuff. And it was literally the first the the chord the chord progression to to to Stash.
That's true. Send it to you. I'll send it to you after we're after we're off here just so you get to hear it. See what I'm talking about. But, Trey's a Trey's a magician, man. He really is.
[01:20:33] Unknown:
Yeah. And it's like you know, they're probably songs that he just his his creative decision was, like, let's make let's leave this as a less John.
[01:20:47] Unknown:
Right. Right? Right. Like polka dot rose and, yeah, some of the other songs that, I Stuart doesn't have his signature anywhere. I don't I doubt he wanted any with Trey and,
[01:21:00] Unknown:
No. He doesn't have a John. He doesn't have a John here. Doesn't have a John. I mean, his his fingerprints are on every song, obviously, but, like Yeah. Pretty much. Yeah.
[01:21:09] Unknown:
Yeah.
[01:21:10] Unknown:
Owner of the world is actually, believe it or not, the one it's, like, the closest thing to an accessible pop song.
[01:21:18] Unknown:
Yeah.
[01:21:19] Unknown:
Right? We'll let people get to hit that themselves. But, like, you know, that's, like, that's, like, the one song that it's almost doesn't belong on the album because it's just very accessible. Mhmm. It's like straight up chord progression. Yeah.
[01:21:33] Unknown:
Yep. Pretty linear.
[01:21:35] Unknown:
And maybe the owner of the world is about John c Lilly. I think just the whole album is about John c Lilly because I'm I'm guessing he's mister oyster head and, you know, I don't know.
[01:21:49] Unknown:
Yeah. I I think saw that. I never thought about who mister Oysterhead was until this until until we got together on this.
[01:21:57] Unknown:
I think it's what it'll remain to be. It'll remain a mystery. And, you know, you know, look, you know, you wonder we talked about, like, the whole time was we were talking, like, what's the tie in to Bitcoin or anything like that? And I think it's just more like it's not about Bitcoin. Just like, you know, just like none of it is. This is about our lives. You know? It's about our lives, how we and our you know, we have history. We have a history with this band and this music as part of us. And we're the ones leading the way through you know, we're the pioneers.
You know? And pioneers are bringing this music with us because it's like there's learned lessons. There's important information that's not necessarily about the thing. It's more just it's important that we're very sure about our music here. Right? We're sure about what we're doing. We but, you know, we have faith. And for some reason, like, our this is, like, when I think about this podcast, like, our music and this our stories about our music is part of what fuels our faith. I feel like out on the pioneering, you know, out on the frontier.
I like that. Maybe that's a good place to close it out. I mean, I would ask if do if you have closing thoughts. I I will say one thing. But if they're bad? And ears. No. If you're closing thoughts are bad, I'm gonna end it there. Alright.
[01:23:41] Unknown:
That's seriously good. What eyes and ears open. No. I think I think Oysterhead represents what can happen when you, are open to eager to collaborate with people you may not normally work with.
[01:23:57] Unknown:
And when the best people come together, and you can you know? Correct. It's okay. And, like, we can have our side projects. Right? We can be in five bands. I could have have five podcasts.
[01:24:15] Unknown:
Okay.
[01:29:29] Unknown:
Billy came back from Vietnam just a shadow of a man. He was a shadow of a man when he came back from Vietnam. Billy came back from Vietnam just a shadow of a man. Her name to missus Graham, after two stillborn babies. Billy said, I am just a portion of the man I was before I went to now.
[01:30:48] Unknown:
Now he drinks and scoots and ketamine just as often as he can. He's the shadow of the man, spent his time
[01:33:07] Unknown:
are sensitive to the brightest side of daylight. She knows what it's like to be the topic of conversation while birthday boys are wallowing in acres of agitation. I don't mind if you stand around and look at me tonight. I quite like it because like us are blind to the dirt that gathers into the toes of moderation. Gina knows. Moderation. Gina knows. You can come around, but don't you talk to me. I might even look for conversation. You can come around, but don't you talk to me? You can come around, but don't you talk to me. I'm nine moment for conversation.
You can come around, but don't you talk to me. I don't mind if you come around and drink up all my wine. Won't be the first time. Sometimes I find little treasures hidden deep within my drawers. Gina knows. You can come around, but don't you talk to me. I'm not in the mood for conversation. You can come around, but don't you talk to me. You can come around, but don't you talk to me. I'm not in the mood for conversation. You can come around, but don't you talk to me. You can come around, but don't
Introduction and Live Audio Experimentation
Phish's Hiatus and Side Projects
Oysterhead: Formation and Members
Side Projects and Musical Exploration
Phish's Musical Evolution and Influence
Oysterhead's Unique Sound and Lyrics
Song Analysis and Personal Stories
Reflections on Music and Collaboration
