Today, Primus announced three additional tour dates around their September festival appearances at River City Rockfest in San Antonio and Louder Than Life in Louisville. Between the two music festivals, the trio will make stops at the Georgia Theatre in Athens, Highland Brewing Company in Asheville, and Hard Rock Live in Biloxi, Mississippi. All three newly added performances will feature Primus as the headliner, with no opening support.
Two weeks ago, bassist and bandleader Les Claypool issued a statement from the road saying that Primus will take a break from touring. “This will be the last Primus run for a bit as we will need to cool-out for awhile, recharge and work on our nunchaku skills,” explained Claypool. “So, if you want to get your Goblin Rock fix, now is the time to do so as it will be the last time to witness the glory of the Desaturating Seven production. See y’all on the highway…”
In conjunction with these newly added dates, JamBase reports that “there are no additional Primus tour dates planned after the September performances,” according to a Primus representative.
Claypool’s other project, The Claypool Lennon Delirium, however, was in the studio recording new music back in February. The seemingly unlikely duo of Primus bassist and Beatles offspring/Ghost Of A Saber Tooth Tiger leader Sean Lennon released an album back in 2016 and toured heavily in Monolith of Phobos‘ support. While Claypool tends to keep his side projects short, the duo collaborated again in 2017 for a special Record Store Day release, which featured four cosmically psychedelic covers, including “Astronomy Domine” by Pink Floyd, “Boris the Spider,” by The Who, “The Court of the Crimson King” by King Crimson, and “Satori” by Flower Travellin’ Band. Again, the CLD impressed beyond measure. Now, with Primus taking time off, we’re keeping our fingers crossed that The Claypool Lennon Delirium will make an official return with new music soon.
In other related news, Sean Lennon is giving “Beanpole” the label treatment via his own Chimera. Beanpole is an old side-project by Les Claypool and Larry LaLonde of Primus and 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, recordings of Beanpole from 1984 through the late 1990s are being unearthed and released via Lennon’s Chimeralabel. All My Kin, a 15-track record of unreleased Beanpole music, is due out on August 31st. Listen to the first track here.
Primus and Mastodon continue tour tonight in Chicago, IL. See below for a full list of tour dates.
