Speaker 1: It's Josh freaky. What a couple of dump shits.
Speaker 2: Hello Primates, you've found Primus Tracks. Congratulations. There are so
Speaker 2: many places to find Primus Tracks, including at Primus Tracks,
Speaker 2: on Instagram and threads. There's a Facebook page appropriately titled
Speaker 2: Primus Tracks, and the email address if you wish to
Speaker 2: contact Primus Tracks is Primus Tracks pod at gmail dot com.
Speaker 2: I'm doctor Josh bald, one of the hosts of Primus Tracks.
Speaker 2: He is coming to you for the thirty ninth floor
Speaker 2: of Primus Tracks Towers in Mexico City. It's Encyclopedia Frankie Bearstein.
Speaker 1: Hello guys, and thank you very much for six thousand
Speaker 1: follows on Primus Tracks Facebook.
Speaker 2: Six thousand. All right, it seems like yesterday you were
Speaker 2: banging on the door of one thousand and you were
Speaker 2: You were for people to like and follow so they
Speaker 2: would both surpass on Wow, six thousand to what do
Speaker 2: you attribute your recent success and popularity.
Speaker 1: Both pictures, Yeah, informative posts, cool footage, commemorative reminders, very nice,
Speaker 1: such and such was released on a day like these.
Speaker 2: So you're essentially doing the exact opposite of what I'm
Speaker 2: doing on the Instagram.
Speaker 1: Well, we gotta go. We gotta make it interesting for
Speaker 1: the followers, so there's unique content on each account.
Speaker 2: Yes, I'm providing worthless information. So you're what you're doing
Speaker 2: seems to be working very well. Yes, thank you all
Speaker 2: for following those socials. We put out as much relevant
Speaker 2: information as we possibly can. Well Today, Frankie, we are
Speaker 2: talking about Oxy Content Girl. We are near the end
Speaker 2: of our Monolith of Phobos journey. Oxyconton Girl is track
Speaker 2: nine on your Monolith of Phobos record. It is five
Speaker 2: minutes and three seconds long. Music by Claypool and Lenin
Speaker 2: lyrics by Claypool. Here are your credits, Frankie Less, Claypool vocals, bass,
Speaker 2: mellotron and drums. In fact, this is the only track
Speaker 2: of which Less plays drums on the record. Sean Lennon vocals, guitar,
Speaker 2: auto harp. Frankie, are you familiar with the auto harp?
Speaker 1: What is that?
Speaker 2: I have seen some folk bands using it. A lot
Speaker 2: of people across musical genres use it. It looks like
Speaker 2: a miniature harp, but there are these buttons that you
Speaker 2: press and when you depress the button, it sends a
Speaker 2: bar down across the numerous strings to formulate chords for you,
Speaker 2: so you can strum strum the chords while holding down
Speaker 2: simply a button as opposed to fretting a guitar neck.
Speaker 2: So here's the auto harp.
Speaker 1: Interesting.
Speaker 2: So the guy's left hand is covering a bar, this
Speaker 2: wood bar here that has the buttons on it. As
Speaker 2: you can see, it kind of looks like a miniature harp,
Speaker 2: but it's actually a member of the zither family. And
Speaker 2: so he's strumming with his right hand. Here's a taste
Speaker 2: of the sound. Pretty cool sound, and of course you
Speaker 2: hear it on Oxy Cotton Girl as well. Now the
Speaker 2: question is Frankie who brought the autoharp to Rancho Relaxo.
Speaker 1: It's really fascinating to this cover Dead. There's pretty much
Speaker 1: a unique instrument on almost every single track.
Speaker 2: The cosmic rain drum, the melotron shows up quite a bit,
Speaker 2: there's some interesting percussive elements throughout, and then this autoharp
Speaker 2: appears out of nowhere. I don't know if Wiley Woods
Speaker 2: left it behind after hanging around one day, or if
Speaker 2: this was another infamous Less Claypool craigslist pick up. Not sure.
Speaker 2: I have seen a handful of people use it in
Speaker 2: a variety of settings, and it's got a really neat
Speaker 2: sound to it, and just by virtue of pressing a
Speaker 2: button to get your cord, because when you depressed the button,
Speaker 2: it mutes the strings that are not necessary for forming
Speaker 2: the chord. So it really is an instrument that a
Speaker 2: beginner can pick up and strum some chords. So it
Speaker 2: sounds great.
Speaker 1: Did you see it a Renaissance fair?
Speaker 2: I have been to a ren fair. I don't recall
Speaker 2: if I ever saw this auto harp there. I think
Speaker 2: the autoharp was invented or patented in the late nineteenth
Speaker 2: century in the United States, but it's certainly inspired by
Speaker 2: instruments such as zithers. In true American fashion, somebody thought
Speaker 2: to shortcut it by adding a button that bars the
Speaker 2: chord for you. Thanks technology, all right, So Oxycutt and
Speaker 2: girl Frankie, what do you have on this one?
Speaker 1: Oxy is another one of those relatively rare tracks because
Speaker 1: it was It has been performed only twenty times to date.
Speaker 1: It was kind of prevalent during the twenty sixteen tour.
Speaker 1: It was not performed at every show, of course, and
Speaker 1: the last performance to date was that Boulder, Colorado show
Speaker 1: in twenty seventeen, where they did the full album back
Speaker 1: to back has not been performed again since. So Oxy
Speaker 1: America Lariot, They've been left behind. Yeah, I do have
Speaker 1: a quote about the song Oh Please. While the album's
Speaker 1: lyrics are so real, is Oxy Counting Girl at topical
Speaker 1: meditation on the opio with Crisis, to which Les replied,
Speaker 1: it definitely is. I have friends that were junkies, and
Speaker 1: I grew up around substance abuse and alcoholism. I have
Speaker 1: teenagers and I am concerned about what's going on with
Speaker 1: opiate abuse. My friend's daughter is deep in heroin world
Speaker 1: because she started off on oxy. Now she doesn't even
Speaker 1: know where she is. Lyrically, Oxy Counting Girl is a
Speaker 1: dark tune, but it's my way of voicing my concern
Speaker 1: and exercising some of those demons through a character. And
Speaker 1: then Lennon said, there's definitely an anti big pharma theme
Speaker 1: on the record. You have oxy content, but also Cricket,
Speaker 1: which is about a kid that gets hooked on prescription
Speaker 1: drugs legally and it ruins his life. One of the
Speaker 1: biggest evils in America is the contradiction between big pharmacy
Speaker 1: pushing legal drug dealing on kids and adults, while there's
Speaker 1: a war on criminalized drugs that is ruining a whole
Speaker 1: other subsection of society. Have either of you had personal
Speaker 1: experience with addiction? Lennon said, I'm lucky that I don't
Speaker 1: have an overtly addictive personality. I know a lot of
Speaker 1: people that just can't be around certain substances. I've never
Speaker 1: really had that severe problem with anything. And then let's
Speaker 1: said I was a pothead for many years. I grew
Speaker 1: up around addicts. My uncle was a tweaker for thirty
Speaker 1: years and died at fifty. My grandparents were also alcoholics.
Speaker 1: Since I was a little kid, I was always reinforced.
Speaker 1: It was always reinforced in me by my parents that
Speaker 1: we had an addiction issues in our family and to
Speaker 1: be very careful. Because of that, I've always been a
Speaker 1: moderate guy. I've tiptoed around the volcano, but only tip toe.
Speaker 1: I never jumped in ever. Since my kids were very young,
Speaker 1: I've told them stories of friends of mine that went
Speaker 1: too far. My body stole a nitrous tank from the dentist,
Speaker 1: filled up a garbage back and ended up passing out
Speaker 1: inside and he's suffocated. Mike Keiths no visas stories who heavy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and certainly this is familiar lyrical territory, which we'll
Speaker 2: talk about the lyrics. But certainly that interview reveals just
Speaker 2: that that this is based on some kind of personal
Speaker 2: experience for somebody who's close to less the lyrical the
Speaker 2: composer of the lyrics here. And it's not an unfamiliar topic. Certainly,
Speaker 2: we've it's been addressed many a time. But Sean noted
Speaker 2: that this is the second track on the record that
Speaker 2: takes on the U. Yeah, the legal drug epidemic. I
Speaker 2: don't know if I mentioned Demon Copperhead less time Frankie
Speaker 2: when we talked to Cricket and the Genie. But that
Speaker 2: book by Barbara Kingsolver, as far as a fictional account
Speaker 2: of the opioid crisis, is about as good as it
Speaker 2: gets for describing how awful it was for a certain
Speaker 2: segment of the population. And I cannot recommend that book enough.
Speaker 2: It is enthralling, it is frustrating, it's beautiful, but it's
Speaker 2: it is so representative. I think of of what the
Speaker 2: opioid crisis did to essentially especially to rural America, and
Speaker 2: the numerous lousy outcomes from that crisis, which you know,
Speaker 2: we I think we tend to leave it behind in
Speaker 2: the in the in the pre COVID years, but it's
Speaker 2: still happening. It's still a huge problem because you have
Speaker 2: you have people in schools carrying narcan around, Like teachers
Speaker 2: have a narcan in their desks, right. I I know
Speaker 2: of an educational assistant at a at a high school
Speaker 2: in my area who was handing narcan to kids. Now
Speaker 2: this this was a this was a controversial thing, but
Speaker 2: this assistant was handing narcanda to students and saying, if
Speaker 2: you ever see one of your classmates odeing, hit them
Speaker 2: with this. So like people are carrying it around like
Speaker 2: that tells you how how badly these drugs are being abused.
Speaker 2: This tracks are real pick me up, isn't it, Frankie.
Speaker 2: I guess that's why this track that's it's very deep
Speaker 2: on the record, so because if they led with this,
Speaker 2: I think it'd be a huge downer for everybody. So
Speaker 2: let's get into the track itself. I want to play
Speaker 2: a handful of parts from it, Frankie, because I'm once
Speaker 2: again coming back to this record after a long absence,
Speaker 2: especially the second half here, Frankie, I haven't heard these
Speaker 2: tunes in quite some time. I had forgotten that there
Speaker 2: were a couple distinct parts to Oxy Conton Girl that
Speaker 2: have quite a bit of charm to them and listen ability.
Speaker 2: But I wanted to start at the beginning because I
Speaker 2: want to play this bass intro because it reminded me
Speaker 2: of something Gladie came glad some Champagne.
Speaker 1: I had forgotten how complex that intro was.
Speaker 2: I think he's just sliding up one step, but he's
Speaker 2: doing a fun picking pattern for sure, and that is
Speaker 2: always stuck with me. Once this main lick kicks in, Frankie,
Speaker 2: this to me sounds somewhat of a default twenty first
Speaker 2: century Claypool's strumming pattern. It's it's kind of bouncy, but
Speaker 2: it's it's something that we are familiar with.
Speaker 3: But he takes it in a different direction here, and.
Speaker 2: Certainly when the vocals kick it so.
Speaker 1: She loves coon and rowin the world.
Speaker 2: She didn't know what to do. That's so blue, so catchy. Yeah,
Speaker 2: by the way, uh, that's that's an earworm, just two words.
Speaker 2: But the delivery is the payoff there, so we get
Speaker 2: that pattern through much of the tune. I wanted a
Speaker 2: forward to about a minute eighteen seconds because right here
Speaker 2: the bass and the melotron and the rest of the
Speaker 2: instrumentation builds a nice wall of sound and and it
Speaker 2: returns near the end of the tune. There's a lot
Speaker 2: of tension in the instrumentation here to name the stage
Speaker 2: building and then and then we get that transition to
Speaker 2: this bullet mic part that I really really like.
Speaker 3: Anyone.
Speaker 2: That descending driver to the eer is is great. The
Speaker 2: melotron and bass aer and lockstep during the verse, but
Speaker 2: then when they go to that bridge, the melotron is
Speaker 2: off making sounds. The baseline changes, so there's a bit
Speaker 2: of a release there, uh, and more dynamics. But I
Speaker 2: love the contrast of building that wallow sound with a
Speaker 2: Unison riff and then letting it drop out for that
Speaker 2: bullet mic part so that you know it's this is
Speaker 2: not an all a tune. There's a lot of different
Speaker 2: fun to break down.
Speaker 1: These my favorite parts for sure. Oh that breakdown, huge
Speaker 1: shift sample breakdown.
Speaker 2: Get your horns ready, move up one step. There it
Speaker 2: is again, it's a very sabbath like rift to me.
Speaker 1: Love love the part very.
Speaker 2: Much, so so that drops to halftime on the drums
Speaker 2: really cool riff there uh, and Less's Drummonds sounds pretty
Speaker 2: good in that part. And man, yeah, I like that
Speaker 2: riff a lot. And and they just give it to
Speaker 2: us for that one part. They don't come back to it.
Speaker 2: So you have to you have to savor it while
Speaker 2: you get it, which is what kind of makes this
Speaker 2: you know, as we've been talking about this album, it's psychedelic,
Speaker 2: it's progy uh. And so to just give us that
Speaker 2: one part, or to give us that once and then
Speaker 2: move on from it is very progy uh to me.
Speaker 2: So I love that idea. And you know, Sabbath really
Speaker 2: experimented with a lot of psychedelia too in there in
Speaker 2: in their records, whether it's those interstitial tracks or something
Speaker 2: like Planet Caravan. They're certain they certainly weren't averse to it.
Speaker 2: So that, yeah, to me, that's that sounds very Sabbath like,
Speaker 2: really satisfying part. Then we come back to the standard
Speaker 2: parts of the tune, and then I want to play
Speaker 2: near the end here because the autoharp is doing some
Speaker 2: really cool stuff as we make our way out of
Speaker 2: this tune.
Speaker 1: Very catchy melody on the other harp certainly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's very jaunty. It's it's very it's cheerful almost,
Speaker 2: uh and and it has that just because I know
Speaker 2: what it looks like and what it sounds like and
Speaker 2: how it's employed. It almost does sound like a medieval
Speaker 2: dance there. Yeah, although you know, I don't know how
Speaker 2: how good fuzz pedals were in the fourteen hundreds for
Speaker 2: that guitar part, but it sounds it sounds almost medieval.
Speaker 2: It's very interesting. So this one moves, This is a
Speaker 2: This was a nice surprise. I don't think we've ever
Speaker 2: come upon a track on any of these records that
Speaker 2: we would label filler, And anybody who would call Space
Speaker 2: Farm filler hit your head checked, all right. It's one
Speaker 2: of the most brilliant compositions of the twentieth century. So
Speaker 2: there really is no so far, I haven't heard a
Speaker 2: track on this record that I would say they just
Speaker 2: threw it on there. I think each of these is
Speaker 2: fairly inspired. So what are you what do you what
Speaker 2: do you get from this tune instrumentally, Frankie, what are
Speaker 2: you focusing in on instrument wise when you're listening to it?
Speaker 1: Definitely all the layers that are to it, because it's
Speaker 1: got that pretty intricate intro and then the galloping baseline,
Speaker 1: but then it changes, and then you got the breakdown,
Speaker 1: and you got the the autoharp. It's just the melotron.
Speaker 1: It is just so full of details. It's very rich
Speaker 1: in layers and sounds.
Speaker 2: Definitely, I love the inclusion of the melotron. I think
Speaker 2: we mentioned it already. We knew that there was melotron
Speaker 2: hanging out at Rancho Relaxo because Tom Wade used it
Speaker 2: for Coattails of a Dead Yet way back in ninety nine.
Speaker 1: So it's it's not a twangy song despite being performed
Speaker 1: on the resonator.
Speaker 2: Oh that's a great point. No, it doesn't sound twangy
Speaker 2: at all. It's it's certainly a different approach that he
Speaker 2: uses there. I wonder if the because we have so
Speaker 2: few live performances, we're gonna hear one later. I wonder
Speaker 2: if the packet n Base seemingly just makes it a
Speaker 2: little bit sharper, which is what we've been hearing with
Speaker 2: a lot of the other tunes that were recorded on
Speaker 2: the resonator. I would actually like to hear the attack
Speaker 2: of the packet n base on that bassline for a
Speaker 2: live performance of this tune, and you know, we've we've
Speaker 2: got a summer tour coming with CLD playing some some
Speaker 2: some tunes. So you never know, Frankie, you never know
Speaker 2: they might reach back and give us something that was,
Speaker 2: as you noted, left behind yep in the before times.
Speaker 2: I would say that I'm a fan of this song.
Speaker 2: I don't think it takes too long to get where
Speaker 2: it needs to go. That bass intro is only about
Speaker 2: twenty five seconds long. This one starts, it starts to
Speaker 2: fade right around the you know, the song runs out
Speaker 2: at about the four and a half minute mark, so
Speaker 2: you get about thirty seconds of fade noise outro, which
Speaker 2: is fine. So but the song itself, you know, four
Speaker 2: solid minutes with three distinct parts, pretty cool stuff. Let's
Speaker 2: talk about these depressing lyrics. Let's go I don't want
Speaker 2: to it makes me so sad. No, this is These
Speaker 2: lyrics are I wouldn't say typical Claypool lyrics, but the topic,
Speaker 2: as we noted, certainly is. And I like the pun
Speaker 2: of so blue because when when somebody says they're blue,
Speaker 2: that usually means they're down on the dumps.
Speaker 1: But it means she's literally turning blue.
Speaker 2: Yes, she has ceased breathing due to taking a hit
Speaker 2: on some some bad drugs. I I this goes right
Speaker 2: back to what he said in the interview that that
Speaker 2: first full line, she was an OxyContin girl in a
Speaker 2: heroin world. So she's, you know, she's she's got one addiction,
Speaker 2: but she's in a world where everybody else is doing
Speaker 2: something else, and she was, and she didn't know what
Speaker 2: to do when she ran out a pill. She scored
Speaker 2: on the street, and now her lips are turning blue.
Speaker 2: So she went from something that was relatively safe as
Speaker 2: far as not killing you, as far as it's lethality, uh,
Speaker 2: into taking big risks on the street because you don't
Speaker 2: know what's in that stuff. So I listened to a podcast,
Speaker 2: uh Frankie that the in which the host is really
Speaker 2: pro drug like recreational drugs, but he always says check
Speaker 2: your shit, like if you're gonna score street drugs, test
Speaker 2: at first. So I know that doesn't apply to me
Speaker 2: because that's not one of my hobbies, but it's it's
Speaker 2: good advice. The other thing I wanted to point out
Speaker 2: is he's telling us a story that she was daddy's
Speaker 2: little girl in a bubblegum world. So she she went
Speaker 2: from a bubblegum world to the heroin world. So she's
Speaker 2: certainly a child of privilege, being described as weaning off
Speaker 2: the silver.
Speaker 1: Spoon, A drama drama club kid.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, drama club kid. All right. She goes to
Speaker 2: New York wants to get on stage, but before you
Speaker 2: knew it, she was hooked on drugs, so it didn't
Speaker 2: really work out for her, seemingly. And then so this
Speaker 2: bullet Mike part, didn't anybody tell her not to? Did
Speaker 2: anyone say she shouldn't go? And so this is this
Speaker 2: is the downside, right of following your dream. So anytime
Speaker 2: anytime somebody says I'm going to LA, I'm going to
Speaker 2: New York and I'm gonna make it big, you know
Speaker 2: that it's an infinitesimal chance that that's actually going to happen.
Speaker 2: And one of the downsides is what Less is describing here,
Speaker 2: that you can fall into really lousy circumstances and in
Speaker 2: a bad crowd for lack of a better term. So
Speaker 2: these questions, didn't anybody tell her not to? Did anyone
Speaker 2: say she shouldn't go? That's really interesting because if he
Speaker 2: if he's talking about like, don't go to New York,
Speaker 2: don't follow your dreams. That's really interesting. So who stepped
Speaker 2: up and said she shouldn't ought to? Who's going to
Speaker 2: be the one to drive her to the er? I
Speaker 2: love that Enjamment and the way he delivers it, so
Speaker 2: certainly Broken Dreams. Does this sound like a Does this
Speaker 2: sound like a familiar theme, Frankie?
Speaker 1: Definitely.
Speaker 2: You're a big film guy, Frankie. So I'm I'm thinking
Speaker 2: of a couple of movies that kind of reflect this, this,
Speaker 2: this Broken dream these.
Speaker 1: I was going to point out that this storyline and
Speaker 1: lyrics kind of reminded me of Try Try Try by
Speaker 1: Jonas Akerlund, which was actually an accompanying short film to
Speaker 1: the single of the same name by the Smashing Pumpkins.
Speaker 2: Oh, I've never seen that a company.
Speaker 1: Oh it's oh it's really really hard to watch. Oh boy, yep.
Speaker 2: Okay, so there's a parallel. I was thinking something like
Speaker 2: Requiem for a Dream as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, pretty good film as well.
Speaker 2: Oh man, a disturbing film. It really stuck with me.
Speaker 2: I think I saw it in college, and I haven't
Speaker 2: seen it since. I don't need to, Okay, So some
Speaker 2: of the imagery is seared into my mind forever. So
Speaker 2: there's a lot of media out there that that plays
Speaker 2: on this same theme. So obviously Claypole is not the
Speaker 2: only one writing about this, but the imagery that he
Speaker 2: provides is is pretty stark. You know, the Oxyconton girl
Speaker 2: was fending for her boyfriend too. When they ran out
Speaker 2: of cash. He put her on the streets and then
Speaker 2: they called her baby Blue. This is so dark.
Speaker 1: The thing about this song, which makes it kind of
Speaker 1: different to the other Claypool songs of the same nature,
Speaker 1: is that in other songs, Les just puts the character
Speaker 1: out there and they have a tragic downfall, but there
Speaker 1: is no intervention from Liz in terms of an opinion.
Speaker 1: As a narrator, he's just putting their story out there.
Speaker 1: But with this one, he is actually inquiring as to
Speaker 1: why these have to happen. So that kind of makes
Speaker 1: this one different.
Speaker 2: And I think it's a product of it being based
Speaker 2: on someone he is close to that he's asking these
Speaker 2: questions now as opposed to, yeah, this here's this tweaker
Speaker 2: that did these tweaker things and we know that's bad.
Speaker 2: This is this is why does this happen to people?
Speaker 2: And I think he's doing something important here, which is
Speaker 2: he showing that this can happen to anyone. Right, this
Speaker 2: kid's from a privileged background, they're in the drama club,
Speaker 2: they're they're pursuing acting. Everything seems to be going to
Speaker 2: plan for this kid. But at any time, when when
Speaker 2: there's some kind of adversity or there's some kind of misfortune,
Speaker 2: anybody can fall into this because these these drugs are
Speaker 2: incredibly addictive, uh, and it's really hard to break that
Speaker 2: addiction once you're into them. And I think what a
Speaker 2: lot of us do in society, Frankie is we and
Speaker 2: I'm using the Royal we is we fall into defison
Speaker 2: thinking we think that yes, the you know, the poor
Speaker 2: have more of a predilection for drugs, which is not
Speaker 2: the case. There's a lot, there's so many variables that
Speaker 2: go into it. So this, you know, this idea that
Speaker 2: anybody can fall into it and one person is not
Speaker 2: more likely than the other, is uh. I think the
Speaker 2: right attitude to have about this.
Speaker 1: This.
Speaker 2: I think this is a great real world example that
Speaker 2: this can happen to anyone. Just that part that her
Speaker 2: boyfriend has to pimper so they can both get their
Speaker 2: fix is so sad. Yeah, this is such a downer
Speaker 2: of a tune. Lyrically, this might be one of the
Speaker 2: darkest sets of lyrics we've ever gotten from Claypool. Last
Speaker 2: part here, she never really had a clue. When she
Speaker 2: took a hot hit, she scored off the street, her
Speaker 2: lips started turning blue. Who knew what to do? And
Speaker 2: so then we're getting to those blue lips meaning she's dead,
Speaker 2: she's dying, she's dead. That just coming back to that.
Speaker 2: Who's going to be the one to drop her at
Speaker 2: the er? And it's drop her at the er. It's
Speaker 2: not take her in and say help my friend. It's
Speaker 2: you pull up, you put her at the doors, and
Speaker 2: you leave because the people that would take her there
Speaker 2: probably don't want to be involved because there would be
Speaker 2: a law enforcement involvement after that. So, really really fascinating
Speaker 2: set of lyrics here, and not you know, I'm a
Speaker 2: lyrics guy, so I come, I'm all singing the words
Speaker 2: and you know, letting the images play in my head.
Speaker 2: And so this is a This is a set of
Speaker 2: lyrics I don't necessarily enjoy coming back to because it's
Speaker 2: just such a reminder of how a lot of people
Speaker 2: are just trying to cope with the challenges of life.
Speaker 2: So thanks for that visceral set of lyrics.
Speaker 1: Also, it also kind of, i mean, film wise, it
Speaker 1: also kind of reminded me of Gia, which is another
Speaker 1: really spectacular film. Yeah, have you watched that? Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: been a while with Angelina Julie really really incredible performance
Speaker 1: and a really tragic story as well.
Speaker 2: Can you restack that one for me? I can't remember
Speaker 2: all the major plot points.
Speaker 1: Gia became a prominent supermodel in the eighties. She was
Speaker 1: on the cover of pretty much every fashion magazine you
Speaker 1: could think of, but her drug addiction escalated into heroine abuse,
Speaker 1: and through that heroine addiction, she contracted AIDS well HIV,
Speaker 1: which developed into AIDS and by the time she passed
Speaker 1: away in a hospital Beth, her mother recalled how when
Speaker 1: she she tried to pick her up from the beth,
Speaker 1: the skin of her back peeled off and it stayed
Speaker 1: glues to the sheets.
Speaker 2: Yikes. Yeah, this is a this is a horrifying subject,
Speaker 2: just to see what this does to humans and their
Speaker 2: bodies and their minds and uh and and much of
Speaker 2: this stuff is engineered by pharmaceutical companies. Yes, that is
Speaker 2: so weird and.
Speaker 1: When when Les saith I used to be a potthab,
Speaker 1: I mean that seems so harmless and inocuus. Does it compare, Yeah,
Speaker 1: compared to heroin.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I smoked a shitload of weed in the day.
Speaker 2: It just affected my memory. The recip is fine, you know,
Speaker 2: like you're you're okay. It's a lot harder to come
Speaker 2: back from this other stuff. It's just a reminder just
Speaker 2: to really watch yourself and watch out for your friends.
Speaker 1: And I guess that's also what makes this record unique.
Speaker 1: And it's what Sean mentioned in that interview we quoted
Speaker 1: back when we were discussing Cricket. He said, a lot
Speaker 1: of progressive and psychedelia gets associated with with drug use
Speaker 1: in a way that almost tends to glorify that drug use.
Speaker 1: And whereas this record has nothing but cautionary tales about
Speaker 1: drug use.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, And that's uh, that's certainly front and center
Speaker 2: in this track. Who Well, we've talked about it enough
Speaker 2: that beautiful music can only mean one thing. Frankie, it's
Speaker 2: time for Primates takes. If you want your take on
Speaker 2: the track up for discussion, read right here on the podcast.
Speaker 2: All you have to do is go to Patreon dot
Speaker 2: com Ford slash Prime must Tracks, and there the universal
Speaker 2: constant is primates takes. We have a lot of takes today, Frankie.
Speaker 2: When it comes to Oxy Cotton Girl, Hug Guy, Frankie says,
Speaker 2: another one of them Claypool happy uplifting tunes with sad,
Speaker 2: disturbing lyrics underneath. I don't know if it is another
Speaker 2: version of the Jilly story, but this song is so
Speaker 2: catchy and beautiful and definitely one of my biggest favorites
Speaker 2: on the album. And yeah, indeed, and parenthetically, he adds, Frankie,
Speaker 2: how the hell you don't like SIDEB of this tremendous album?
Speaker 2: Would you like to respond to hugey.
Speaker 1: Upside B?
Speaker 2: I think you said you didn't didn't listen to it
Speaker 2: as much as Side A, Right?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean because I tend to listen to some
Speaker 1: of these tracks more in the context of listening to
Speaker 1: the record back to back. I don't pull out Oxy
Speaker 1: or America to mix them with my playlist, but I
Speaker 1: do I do love Side B. Yes, there, Well, I
Speaker 1: guess this is actually side C or D.
Speaker 2: I guess I suppose if you divide it in half,
Speaker 2: that's uh what we're looking at here, but way to
Speaker 2: cover yourself, Frankie, whew bullet dodged?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Uh? Did you feel like Neo leaning backwards and dodging
Speaker 2: all those matrix bullets?
Speaker 1: Definitely? Although that one that that guy shot the scratch
Speaker 1: my arm up?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I clipped your arm that right? Uh. Eric and
Speaker 2: Australia are resident curmudgeon, says Less found an able collaborator
Speaker 2: in mining the ills of American society. They ain't never
Speaker 2: gonna run that well dry. This one overstays its welcome.
Speaker 2: Interesting because I was observing that it didn't for me
Speaker 2: because of the intro, outro and then the meat of
Speaker 2: it being a bit more brief.
Speaker 1: Well, Eric just told you it does.
Speaker 2: Eric's tolerance is notoriously limited. Yes, is that representative of
Speaker 2: all Australians? I'm kidding all right. So Mickey Water says,
Speaker 2: I love the song, but it's yet another cautionary tale
Speaker 2: of drug use gone wrong, which is getting to be
Speaker 2: an overused subject matter. Basically a sequel to Gilly's on Smack.
Speaker 2: I guess that's the second Gilly's reference there, Brooks. Uh oh,
Speaker 2: I better do this.
Speaker 1: Uh oh, Brooks breaks a Bill.
Speaker 2: Brooks says I absolutely love the way Lesson Shawn's voices
Speaker 2: blend on this track, and the change in the middle
Speaker 2: goes hard and album highlight for sure. I cut your
Speaker 2: stuff now, here's my microphone. Brooks, Yeah, I do with
Speaker 2: it what you will. If he was smart, he would upgrade.
Speaker 2: John Shreeve says this is a masterpiece. The subject matter
Speaker 2: is tragic, the music urgent and tells a story on
Speaker 2: its own. This hits hard when it reminds you of
Speaker 2: old friends.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if it reminds you of old friends, then you
Speaker 2: are you are deep in thought right now. Thanks John Shreven,
Speaker 2: Thank you for all these primates takes about this here
Speaker 2: Oxy Cotton Girl track masterpiece. It is pretty damn catchy.
Speaker 2: It's very poppy in spots, but it's still so Claypoolian.
Speaker 2: And I think this is a and I think we've
Speaker 2: said this about a few tracks. It's a really good
Speaker 2: mix of the two of them and their stylings. You
Speaker 2: would never get that so blue dual vocal on A
Speaker 2: for sure. Yeah, really embracing that kind of songwriting. Both
Speaker 2: of them are live cuts. A jam vehicle live cuts,
Speaker 2: the jam vehicle live cuts.
Speaker 1: What's going on here?
Speaker 2: I'll tell you what's going on here? Disembodied voice of
Speaker 2: Tim Soyer. It's one count them one live cut of
Speaker 2: Oxy Cotton Girl is just just a result of the
Speaker 2: paucity of performances, Frank.
Speaker 1: Oxy being that infrequent on the set lists actually made
Speaker 1: it very difficult to provide in terms of a good
Speaker 1: quality recording. It was unfortunately, was not performed at any
Speaker 1: of the webcasts. So I cherry picked these performance which
Speaker 1: I think sounds decent.
Speaker 2: This is May seventeen, Older Theater at the Fox Theater
Speaker 2: and Boulder Fox Theater.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Boulder, that's when they did the full album for
Speaker 1: the last time.
Speaker 2: Oh no, you weren't at this one. You were at
Speaker 2: the Goblin shows in Colorado, Okay, at the Atene That's right.
Speaker 2: Release the DVD, yeah, rat, And of course they have
Speaker 2: to milk that for applause.
Speaker 1: You have to.
Speaker 2: Yet another false ending. Let's move forward, man, That sounded great.
Speaker 2: Let's move forward here. And by the way, this is
Speaker 2: a it's a seven minute track, so there's probably a
Speaker 2: lot of intro outro. I would imagine base noodling and
Speaker 2: then noise here at the end in a little Jemmy
Speaker 2: spot love that melotron less is really locked into that
Speaker 2: bouncy rhythmic pattern, and I think, I guess it would
Speaker 2: be hard to break out of it with that drum beat. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but that's a lot of fun. That's a fun little
Speaker 2: slice of Oxy Cotton Girl, and it makes you wonder
Speaker 2: why it disappeared from the setless in favor of other tunes.
Speaker 2: It's fun, it's bouncy, it's got a really cool heavy
Speaker 2: part in the middle.
Speaker 1: So it might bring them down to performance.
Speaker 2: It might. I guess when you're singing that every night,
Speaker 2: it might affect you one way or another. Do you think, Frankie,
Speaker 2: that this is gonna sneak into your midnight run playlist?
Speaker 2: Not for the time being, We'll put it in definite
Speaker 2: hold on that. Well, come back in a little while.
Speaker 2: We'll circle back to this, as they'll say, Well, I
Speaker 2: guess I can say this, get the narcan Oxycotton Girl.
Speaker 2: You've been tracked. Next time, Frankie, we find out what
Speaker 2: happens to all bubbles eventually, Childhood's end purs primates primatrons,
Speaker 2: people of Earth. Thanks for sticking around for Oxycotton Girl.
Speaker 2: Definitely go for a walk, do something that cheers you up.
Speaker 2: Peta dog, We'll be back next week with another Sordid Tail,
Speaker 2: which is actually pretty timely because there's a new biopic
Speaker 2: about the secondary subject of this upcoming track. Anyhow, Frankie,
Speaker 2: are you planning on seeing that?
Speaker 1: Frankie, I wasn't planning to, and I guess I'm definitely
Speaker 1: not now that I've read so many negative reviews about it.
Speaker 2: One of us has to in the name of research.
Speaker 1: All Right, please watch it.
Speaker 2: Sure, I'll write off the ticket cost as a business expense.
Speaker 2: Sounds good, That's how I could justify it. All right, everybody,
Speaker 2: thank you all for listening. We'll see you next time
Speaker 2: later days.
Speaker 1: Willa, Mace, so so.
Speaker 3: So so.
Speaker 1: So so so so