Primus Almost Makes a Classic

I think this photo sums up the problem with Primus.

Pork Soda by Primus (1993)

Format: CD (was also released on vinyl)
Interscope 7 92257-2

Primus is a band based out of San Francisco that have completely unique sound.  They were formed in 1984 by bassist Les Claypool. They went through many personnel changes and in 1989 they released Suck On This, a live album funded by Claypool's dad. They released Frizzle Fry in 1990 and had two "hit" singles, "John the Fisherman" and "Too Many Puppies" and went on tour with Jane's Addiction that same year, further increasing their popularity. They were signed to Interscope records and released Sailing the Seas of Cheese in 1991, which has the popular MTV hits "Jerry Was a Race Car Driver" and "Tommy the Cat." I formed an alternative funk/metal trio called Pinocchio with bassist Jason Grosso (now in Rotors to Rust) and Matt Davison and they were really into these guys as well as Jane's, Fishbone and Red Hot Chili Peppers. During this period Primus toured with U2, Rush (their self-proclaimed idols), Anthrax, Public Enemy, and Fishbone.

Pork Soda:
This album was released during the peak of the band's popularity and debuted at Number 7 on the Billboard Top 10. I have mixed feelings about the album. I hadn't listened to this CD in quite awhile and wasn't really looking forward to listening to it again but I was quite surprised. The first several songs on the CD are great. I began to wonder why I didn't have such positive memories and even thought about going on a Primus spree "for the sake of research" but about half way through I remembered why I hadn't played the album in awhile after all. Read on.

The album starts with the very brief "Pork Chop's Little Ditty," which also closes the album and sets the stage for an album that swings in a lot of stylistic directions. The first full-length song "My Name Is Mud" and is a disturbing song about a murderer who needs to get his victim "in the mud before he starts to smell." We learn that he just got done killing someone over "a common spat" and has hit him in the head with a baseball bat. Not your typical rock lyric. The bass guitar is tuned so low that you can sparsely discern the notes while the guitar provides atmospheric support. The song is like a nightmare in living color as Claypool channels the killer and sonically gives us a view into his mental state. The next track, "Welcome to this World" is just as chilling in its own way. Claypool wines, "Welcome to this world of fools, of pink champaign and swimming pools / Well, all you have to lose is your virginity. / Perhaps we'll have some fun tonight so stick around and take a bite of life. / We don't need feebleness in this proximity." It is as if he is some demonic influence on a young teenager, informing him about the  meaninglessness of life and introducing him to life's hedonistic pleasures. There were a lot of tunes in this period of "hair bands" that celebrated this lifestyle approach but Primus' plea for pleasure is tinged with despair. The crazy chromatic opening lick here suggests the insanity of this approach to life. It's hard to tell if this is supposed to be funny or chilling. The next song, "Bob"  is even more disturbing and perhaps suggests the eventual ending to the journey begun in the previous tune. The lyrics: "I had a friend that took a belt, took a belt and hung himself / Hung himself in the doorway to the apartment where he lived / His woman and his little bro came home from the grocery store. / Only to find him dangling in the apartment where he lived," Again the music seems to be blackly humorous and sickly insane. With these three opening songs we are given dark view of life in sunny California in the early 1990's, a land of glamor, fantasy and dark desires.

I took a trip to Los Angeles, California around this period and was shocked to see the debauchery of the place. Pornography was everywhere you looked and any strange fetish you might have could be easily satisfied for a price. It seemed like paradise after the smog cleared out every morning but there were  not a lot of people walking the streets like New York. Everyone stayed inside their cars. I visited Hollywood expecting glamor and just found sex joints and ugliness. I remember finding Marylyn Monroe's star and seeing it covered with vomit, which seemed to sum everything up for me. The media there seemed to be totally caught up in the glamor of movie and rock stars and there were plenty of "Playboy Mommies" there, to quote Tori Amos. I could understand the alienation and pointlessness that the younger generation was feeling. Nothing seemed real and it was only really great when the sun went down, when you couldn't see what it really looked like.

The beginning of Pork Soda, with these three songs, promises a great album, totally original in style an thoughtful in content. But then, things slowly go down hill from there. It is as if Primus was striving for greatness but then just gave up or ran out of ideas. "DMV" is another nightmare portrait...about waiting in line at the Department of Motor Vehicles. Not that I can't relate, but this seems a strange turn to take at this point in the album. The song ends with lyrical stupidity that keeps rearing it's ugly head throughout the rest of the CD: "I waited in line near an hour and fifteen. / And if I had my druthers, I'd screw that chimpanzee." Huh, huh, funny...

The album seems to be heading in a new direction with "The Ol' Diamonondback Sturgeon," literally a fishing story, but with some charming mythological quality to it. But then we're back to stupidity again with "Nature Boy" (a man dances naked it his bedroom and "strokes and strokes" his cat...). By the time "Mr. Krinkle" came on, everything started to sound the same and the lyrics are either archaic or just plain too clever for their own good. All flash, no substance. The album hits the bottom with the awful "The Air Is Getting Slippery," which sounds like a reject from the Doctor Dimento Show. Really, by the time you get to "Pork Soda" ( a stupid tribute to stupid people who drink beer all day), it seems like the band is just jamming and trying to fill out the album. I have to admit I enjoyed the long funk workout "Hamburger Train," which I would love to dance to sometime. Shelli? You up for it?

The CD really should have been an EP consisting of the following songs in this order;

"Pork Chop's Little Ditty" (pt 1)
"My Name Is Mud"
"Welcome to this World"
"Bob"

****

"Wounded Knee" (a delightful percussion feature with a gamelan sound)
"Hamburger Train
"Pork Chop's Little Ditty" (pt2)

This would make a classic album on vinyl, with side one being a portrait of Hell in California and side two being a great demonstration of the band's considerable chops and music inventiveness. As Pork Soda stands, it is a victim of the expected long running time for CD's and it overstays it's welcome.
Of course, you can always pick it up and program it yourself.

By the way, the sound quality on this CD is fantastic, with a deep soundstage and an immediate non-processed sound. Much better than a lot of recordings sounded in those dark early digital days. It sound like Primus is in your listening room. Michael Fremer says the vinyl is even better. I bet he's right...

UP NEXT:
Primus' "Brown Album"
Will Primus redeem itself in 1997?

Feel free to leave comments below and disagree with me. I'd love to hear from more of you!