Les Claypool

Music Fests Like Coachella Drive Concert Sales to New Heights

How Music Festivals Keep The Music Industry Afloat

This week's New Times cover story examines the music industry's only 21st-century success story: The incredible boom in live music in general and festivals in particular. Since you might still be in the throes of a Coachella hangover--or maybe you're getting ready to camp out at That Damn Show Sat ... More >>

Modest Mouse @ Crescent Ballroom

McDowell Mountain Music Festival 2013 (VIDEO)

Are you still sleeping off the hangover you picked up at the 10th annual McDowell Mountain Music Festival? In case you somehow missed it, MMMF 3013 brought some great acts to Phoenix. We're still tapping our feet every time we hear a song by The Roots or The Shins and we've got our fingers crossed t ... More >>

10 Things We Learned at McDowell Mountain Music Festival 2013

This weekend McDowell Mountain Music Festival celebrated its 10-year anniversary in style, at a new primo location of Margret T. Hance Park, with good beer from Deschutes, and with awesome bands like The Shins, The Roots, Balkan Beat Box, Les Claypool, and more. You can catch up on our reviews, in ... More >>

14 Animated GIFs of Hippie Shenanigans from McDowell Mountain Music Festival

They came, they saw, they danced. And twirled, strutted, flipped, and bounced. Attendees of last weekend's McDowell Mountain Music Festival at Margaret T. Hance Park found plenty of ways to feel the music during all three days of the event, including those folks of crunchier, groovier, and dread-hea ... More >>

Dr. Dog and Les Claypool's Duo de Twang, McDowell Mountain Music Festival, 3/24/13

Dr. Dog, Les Claypool's Duo de Twang, and More @ McDowell Mountain Music Festival at Margret T. Hance Park|3/24/13The last day of a music festival is always an exercise in mixed feelings. The majority of the crowd is exhausted, sunburned, and dehydrated, but through it all, watching the headlining b ... More >>

Top Five Must-See Shows in Phoenix This Weekend

Who's excited for the Instagram pictures Questlove is going to post of Phoenix this weekend? I sure am. The Roots will be in town on Saturday, March 23, to play as part of McDowell Mountain Music Festival, plus, Questo will be dropping a DJ set at Bar Smith afterward. That's sure to yield some good ... More >>

Heartless Bastards: Songwriter Erika Wennerstorm Aims for "Clint Eastwood-meets-Nancy Sinatra" Sounds

Timberlake-style audacity aside, it takes some serious stones to open an album with a six-minute-plus slow burning anthem. But that's what Erika Wennerstrom does with "Marathon," the opening track of her band Texas-via-Ohio band Heartless Bastards' 2012 opus, Arrow. See also: -Questlove of The Ro ... More >>

Questlove of The Roots Is So Much Better at Instagram Than You

Of all the stupid things we do with our phones, Instagram might be the worst. Not only has the app falsely convinced us all we're professional photographers, but it's done something even worse: It's encouraged our worst vainglorious tendencies. No one is Amaro-toning his or her real life. There are ... More >>

Yonder Mountain String Band: Bluegrass for People That Don't Like Bluegrass

"I don't feel at all that we have made it in the bluegrass world. We exist on the fringe at best," Yonder Mountain String Band bassist Ben Kaufmann lamented back in 2003. "The bluegrass music we are writing is different than the other bluegrass music that is out there. I think it is going to take pe ... More >>

Les Claypool: Eccentric Bassist Would Rather Be Fishing

If Primus bassist Les Claypool had a bumper sticker on his car, it would most likely read: "I'd rather be fishing." As much as Claypool likes to create strange and esoteric music, he also loves heading out on the water and zoning out. See also: -Les Claypool's Duo de Twang and Deer Tick Added to ... More >>

McDowell Mountain Music Festival 2013 Announces Local Lineup Featuring Kongos, Fayuca, and More

McDowell Mountain Music Festival's 2013 lineup, featuring The Shins, The Roots, Deer Tick, Les Claypool's Duo de Twang, and more, has expanded to include a host of local Phoenix-based acts. The weekend festival will now Kongos, Mergence, Banana Gun, Fayuca, The Veragroove, Yellow Minute, Decker, and ... More >>

The Shins and Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeroes Added to the Expanding McDowell Mountain Music Festival Lineup

The quickly expanding lineup of McDowell Mountain Music Festival 2013 has added two more big names to the roster: The Shins and Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeroes. The 2013 installment of the festival is looking to have the most impressive lineup in MMMF history, as The Shins and Sharpe join Th ... More >>

Top Five Phoenix Music Stories of the Week

The news waits for no one -- at least that's what we read somewhere -- so it's perfectly understandable that you, the reader, might have missed out on a musical tidbit, breaking news about your favorite venue, or one of our rants. So enjoy this digest-style sampling of some of our biggest stories f ... More >>

Les Claypool's Duo de Twang and Deer Tick Added to McDowell Mountain Music Festival 2013

Do you hear that? Off in the distance? It's the sound of a bass guitar being slapped. Furiously slapped. That's kinda what Les Claypool (Primus, Oysterhead, Frog Brigade) does, and I'm betting that's what he'll be doing with his Duo de Twang (Claypol plus MIRV) on Sunday, March 24. The act has been ... More >>

Buckethead on His Time in Guns 'N' Roses: "No Answer."

In the world of eclectic guitarists, Buckethead stands out. With his face hidden by a hockey mask and long dark hair cascading out of a KFC bucket perched on his head, and using guitars shaped like human torsos and other visages of the macabre, he is not easily missed. And, yes the man born Brian ... More >>

Primus @ Mesa Amphitheatre

Them's the Rules, or Why I Like The New Lenny Kravitz

Kravitz, looking tough as a kiddo.​If you honestly love music, you've got rules about it. Here are a few my mine. 1. Non-jazz artists and bands may feature no more than two saxophone solos during the duration of their career. 2. Bass guitars should be strung with two to four strings, bu ... More >>

Stripper Pole Action, Devo Devastates, Primus' Spacemen, and Other Highlights From Day Two of Arizona Fall Frenzy

Luke HolwerdaDevo performs yesterday during day two of Arizona Fall Frenzy.​Whoever was manning the hose at Arizona Fall Frenzy had a perfect sense of timing.Temps soared into the triple digit range during the second day of the three-day concert, but luckily the promoters thought ahead and man ... More >>

Wavves at Rhythm Room

​"Oh yeah," Nathan Williams of Wavves leered as I introduced myself last night at The Rhythm Room.  "You're the guy who wrote the article with the 'Wavves spits on a guy' headline."  That wasn't the headline, exactly, but the article he was referring to clearly set the stage for an inter ... More >>

10 Things Under $10 This Weekend: D.I.Y., Europop, and Danny NSK's Benefit

The Bollox are scheduled to perform tonight at Club Red in Tempe. Can't find enough scrilla to take you S.O. go see Star Trek for the 16th time? Don't wanna take out a loan just to go see Les Claypool or Peter Murphy live and in concert? Then check out our list of ultra-affordable events happe ... More >>

Buckethead: Under the Bucket

Future Shock: Alicia Keys, Buckethead, The Hives, and more

Adrian Belew

Mike Dillon's Go-Go Jungle

Have you ever really looked at your hand?

Primus

You can dress them up

Fish On

Les Claypool stays alive by swimming through subcultures

Top 10 selling CDs at Zia Record Exchange, 3851 East Thunderbird Road

Chart-busters for the week

Watt, Me Worry?

Legendary bassist Mike Watt doesn't care what you think is punk rock

Colonel Claypool's Bucket of Bernie Brains

Is Les Claypool the Frank Zappa of side projects?

Cheese Wizards

Primus scrape the mold off their sabbatical with a retrospective DVD, new songs and a tour celebrating their cheesiest album

Lightning Bolt

Wonderful Rainbow (Load Records)

Trey Cool

For his first official solo album, Phish's Trey Anastasio scales back the guitar and hauls out the funk

Perfect Truth

Cee-Lo breaks from the Mob in a solo quest to save hip-hop

Blowing Rufus' Mind

A roundup of the latest batch of eclectica that fell through the cracks

Obsessions, Passions, Perversions

New Times music critics reveal their deepest, darkest record-buying secrets

Easy Being Green

Fred Green explores new rhythmic permutations on its third album

Carry That Waits

Tom waits for no one, but the lowlife bard's new album is well worth the six-year wait

Calendar for the week

Dry Cleaning

Ex-Phoenician Tim Alexander steps out from Primus' drum seat to lead Laundry

Shango-La

Pulling influence from Cobain as well as Coltrane, Charlie Hunter leads the charge for alt. generation jazz

BEAVERS AND PENGUINS AND PACHYDERMS, OH MY!PRIMUS PUTS THE BASS IN YOUR FACE--ALONG WITH DOSES OF INNOVATION AND CARTOON WEIRDNESS