Comprised of Phish guitarist Trey Anastasio, Primus bass player Les Claypool, and Police drummer Steward Copeland, Oysterhead formed in April 2000 for a one-off performance. They specifically formed for the Super Jam series organized by New Orleans-based Superfly Entertainment during one night of the city's Jazz and Heritage Festival. Despite their original intention to only perform together one time, the band went on to record a full length album in 2001, called The Grand Pecking Order, and go out on a short tour. I attended their show that year at Constitution Hall in Washington DC and I remember enjoying it, but the band definitely went off into some crazy, psychedelic, freak-out tangents.
Oysterhead reunited on the main stage at the 2006 Bonnaroo Festival, an event partially run by the aforementioned Superfly Entertainment. I was also in the crowd for this festival set, which was even more 'out there' than the show I'd seen in DC and although entertaining for a short time was difficult to stick with in the sweltering heat of the day.
Here's Oysterhead performing Oz Is Ever Floating on the Conan O'Brien show, presumably in 2001. The man mentioned throughout the song, Dr. John C. Lilly, died at the age of 86, two days before the release of the album.
According to Wikipedia, "In the early sixties he [John C. Lilly] was introduced to psychedelics like LSD and (later) ketamine and began a series of experiments in which he took the psychedelic either in an isolation tank or in the company of dolphins. These events are described in his books Programming and Metaprogramming in the Human Biocomputer: Theory and Experiments and The Center of the Cyclone, both published in 1972."
1 comment:
i actually owned this album. listened to it a bunch, and then sort of never again.
it was good, but weird, then weird but good, then sort of couldnt stand the test of time.
I think i was going through a big Police phase...and in 2001, stuart copeland performing was the closest thing to seeing the police.
ak
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