Chimera Music Resurrects Unreleased Primus Side-Project, BEANPOLE

I never paid much attention to the creative efforts of Sean Lennon until a few years ago.  I had a friend that was into his 1998 debut, Into The Sun, when that came out. and I’ve heard it mentioned positively, in more recent years, but If I ever listened to it myself, I couldn’t honestly tell you.  What I have always remembered is that the album was released by The Beastie Boys‘s Grand Royal label.  I also knew that Lennon was, momentarily, a member of the Japanese outfit, Cibo Matto, albeit joining after, Viva La Woman, the only album of theirs that I regularly listened to.  Both of these connections were viewed as positives in my mind, but nothing that prompted me to avidly seek out his other work.  Then, in 2013, I stumbled across the project Mystical Weapons, an all-instrumental collaboration between Lennon and Deerhoof drummer, Greg Saunier, which involved elements that ventured into the territory of such acts as Pink Floyd, Battles, the solo work of Tyondai Braxton, and Bitches Brew-era MIles Davis.  It sounded like anything but the work of his famous father, and it was clear that Sean was interested in exploring the weird shit.  Although it seems that the rest of the world slept heavily on this release, it’s the one thing that actually woke me up to him and caught my attention.  It’s also the first time that I became aware of Lennon‘s own label, Chimera Music.  It’s because I was already familiar with Mystical Weapons that the announcement of him working with Primus frontman, Les Claypool, didn’t sound as shocking or out of character for me when news of their collaboration as The Lennon Claypool Delerium hit in 2016.  It actually made sense.  Now this working relationship between the two is yielding a new release on Chimera that consists of old/shelved material credited with, at least partially, sinking Claypool‘s own Prawn Song imprint, while officially ending his relationship with its distributor.

Right out of the gate, I’ll let you know that this is a confusing project to even attempt to present clearly, or effectively.  On one hand, the press release seeks to deliver it with an air of mystery, obscured by the context of urban lore.  On the other hand, Rolling Stone was chosen to announce the release and used their platform to, essentially, abandon all of that drama involving the more fantastical backstory that it was packaged in.  Instead, they delivered what appears to be the slightly more authentic and informative origin behind this effort.  What I’m hoping to do is just hit you with both, the best that we can, to provide a more well rounded idea regarding the overall concept, here.

First off, the project is called Beanpole.  The press release included an image of this man, which we are left to assume is supposed to be Beanpole “himself.”

The Beanpole album being released is titled All My Kin.  Here is the description that was both provided to us and listed on the Chimera Music product page

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All My Kin is the strange and somewhat unbelievable album collecting the music of an artist by the name of Beanpole. “Starving artist” must have been their mode of recording as stories of farming, eating, and disfigured animal-human hybrids course throughout the record. Very little is known about Beanpole, but it is widely recognized by collectors that most of the music originated from the late 1980s and early 1990s. Some sources maintain Beanpole is still active, although evidence remains unsubstantiated.

Primus’ Les Claypool claims he attempted to release a decade’s worth of Beanpole recordings on his Prawn Song label in the ‘90s. We’re told that the tracks were delivered to the mastering studio on worn-out cassette tapes and dusty DATs. As legend has it, when Claypool played the mastered tracks to his distributor, the response from company executives was poor. As a result, Claypool was summarily dismissed from his business relationship with the distribution company, effectively ending his label. For nearly 20 years thereafter, the tracks were to remain forgotten.

Fast forward to 2016 when Claypool was touring with Sean Lennon as The Claypool Lennon Delirium. Les played the old, neglected recordings to Sean, who decided that the world was finally ready for Beanpole!

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One thing that we know of the Beanpole project, based on the press release, is that it “includes members of Primus.”  To be more specific, it refers to it as a “Mysterious Lost 1980s Recording” “which features members of Primus and Spent Poets.”  Even more specifically, it appears to simply consist of them, as Beanpole the man, is clearly a work of fiction.  Rolling Stone specifies that the Primus members referenced are Larry LaLonde and Claypool, himself, with Adam Gates and Derek Greenberg coming from Spent Poets, which was a fellow Bay Area outfit that ran from 1989 – 1993.  Gates is a musician and graphic designer that’s been closely affiliated with the Primus camp for decades, even co-founding Prawn Song Design alongside Les and LaLonde in the mid-90s, to provide website and design work for various companies and record labels at the time.  He would later leave to work with Liquid Audio and, eventually, take on the role of Associate Creative Director for Pixar Animation Studios INC.  He’s also responsible for working on the Primus Tales From The Punchbowl CD-ROM in 1995, as well as helping with live video/visuals for their later tours.  On the performance front, Adam has played the long-running character, Bob C. Cock, for Primus, as well as being credited with additional bass and vocals on the song “Los Bastardos” from their album Sailing The Seas Of Cheese.  He also appeared on Claypool’s Highball With The Devil album for his Holy Mackeral project and backed him live on that tour, among several others collaborations, over the years.  In short, the members of both groups are tightly linked/associated.

As far as the sound and theme surrounding All My Kin, Sean Lennon breaks it down as follows:

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“It’s a concept album for post-modern America.  It chronicles the epic tale of Chicken Boy and his dangerously interrelated family. Years of isolation have resulted in the birth of a child who is part man and part poultry.  Despite obvious adoration for their uniquely feathered offspring, having fallen upon hard times they consider the unthinkable: will Chicken Boy be sacrificed to feed his hungry family?”

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To that description, Claypool adds “If Fellini, Dali, and Captain Kangaroo got together in their teens and ate peyote, this is the album they would have recorded.”

As for the creation project, Larry LaLonde tells Rolling Stone that “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,”

Derek Greenberg elaborates by informing the publication that “Musicians were encouraged to perform on instruments that they had not mastered,.”  Adding that they 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.”  He also explains that “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.”  He also states that his reaction to discovering Sean Lennon‘s interest in releasing these old recordings was “shock and disbelief,” but that hearing that the Chimera label-head actually liked Beanpole was “very gratifying to know.”

Of course, not everybody took a shine to the recordings, or else they wouldn’t have remained shelved for the last 2-and-a-half decades, or so.  Recognizing the fact that they were not “commercially viable” was kind of a deal breaker prompting Mammoth Records, an independent sub-label of Atlantic, to effectively sever its distribution deal and sister-label status with Claypool‘s imprint.  So, while Beanpole is clearly a side project masquerading under the concept of being the product of some fictional outsider artist, for theatrical/entertainment purposes, that aspect of the story that refers to the project being soundly rejected and fucking up business connections for Les and Prawn Song appears to be completely true.  Greenberg claims that, once Claypool attempted to release the album on Prawn Song, “This effort was rejected by Mammoth Records and – from my understanding – Les’ Prawn Song label was dropped from Mammoth Records as a result.”  As for it completely going under, Prawn Song actually still exists, albeit in a slightly different format, while Mammoth became defunct back in 2006, after selling to Disney, 9 years prior, anyway.  Prawn Song was initially formed to put out the first ever Primus release, the live album, Suck On This, back in 1989.  It later became a subsidiary of Interscope when the band signed to them and released Sailing The Seas Of Cheese in 1991.  Prawn Song, ultimately reverted back into a truly independent label that, in recent years, has formed a new association with ATO Records, which not only helped put out the last few Primus efforts in the US, beginning with the joint release of Green Naugahyde in 2011, but is also responsible for releasing The Lennon Claypool Delerium‘s debut, Monolith Of Phobos.

As for Beanpole, All My Kin can be pre-ordered in digital and physical formats — with it’s decidedly Edward Gorey-esque cover art — through Chimera Music, now!

Check out the first single, “Farmer Loved An Onion,” below, followed by the complete tracklisting.

    Tracklisting – All My Kin

1. His Name Is Beanpole
2. Chicken Boy
3. Cousins
4. Supper Time!
5. Farmer Loved An Onion
6. Lunch Time!
7. Pumpkin Pickin’ Time
8. Grandma
9. Sponge Boy
10. Midnight Snack!
11. Embryo
12. Judge Wapner
13. Monkey Boy
14. Children In Your Garden
15. Dinner Time!