Early on in their career, Les Claypool and Larry LaLonde of Primus had a side-project by the name of Beanpole, which also included Derek Greenberg and Adam Gates from Spent Poets. The group aligned in the studio to produce weird, uninhibited records that never made it past the session. Now, thanks to Sean Lennon, co-collaborator in Claypool Lennon Delirium and son of John Lennon, recordings of Beanpole from 1984 through the late 1990s are being unearthed and released via his Chimera label. All My Kin, a 15-track record of unreleased Beanpole music, is due out on August 31st.
“The idea behind Beanpole was to give musicians a chance to have fun in their studios without the pressure of having to produce tracks that were commercially viable,” Derek Greenberg told Rolling Stone.
“To get the vibe of recording a Beanpole song, you have to place yourself in a secluded farm valley full of mutant hillbillies trying to recreate melodies that were found on a broken record of Disneyland ride music,” LaLonde added.
“Musicians were encouraged to perform on instruments that they had not mastered,” continued Greenberg. “Musicians were not given much opportunity to learn their parts before the record button was pressed. Since the musicians knew they could not provide a polished performance, they were uninhibited by the need to demonstrate anything other than a modicum of competence. Mistakes were encouraged. Proper recording and mixing techniques were generally ignored.”
Beanpole’s music was originally meant to release through Claypool’s Prawn Song, the short-lived sister label to Mammoth Records, which released the music of Primus side-projects, and beyond.
“This effort was rejected by Mammoth Records and–from my understanding–Les’ Prawn Song label was dropped from Mammoth Records as a result,” Greenberg explained.
Of course, as the news came out that Sean Lennon would be taking Beanpole’s music on his own label, Greenberg reacted with “shock and disbelief.”
Today, you can listen to the first delightfully weird track from the album, “Farmer Loved an Onion”, below:
[via Rolling Stone]