A little while ago, my cousin blogged about beavers (kinda) and I left her a comment directing her to the Primus' video for 'Winona's Big Brown Beaver' which is awesomely bizarre. She suggested I tell the story of how I met Les Claypool on my blog, so here it is:
After high school, I was working at CD World (r.i.p.) with my friend Jon who was my introduction to Pink Floyd (I will forever be grateful to him). Jon's uncle was the stage manager for Phil Lesh, who was touring at the time. One day Jon asks me if I want to go see Phil Lesh with him, for free, and go backstage and all that. Duh, yes. And who was opening? Les Claypool. Jon and I were both somewhat obsessed with Les at the time, and Jon had built his own bass in woodshop our senior year. He'd told his uncle about the bass, and I guess his uncle had said something to Les Claypool about it. So we go to the show, we go backstage before it starts, it was some venue in North Jersey where backstage was just a big parking lot, so we saw all the tour buses and a few people just hangin around. Jon's uncle is showing us around a bit, and then Les Claypool just strolls by.
"Oh hey, Les," says Jon's uncle. "Remember I told you about my nephew who built the bass?"
And here is where Les Claypool, with the first words I've ever heard him utter off-stage, spoken in his strange nasally voice, solidified his reputation as the weirdest motherfucker alive:
"Oh, yeah, did you uh, didja make it out of chocolate?"
Jon just looked at him. I just looked at him. Neither of us could speak for what seemed like an entire minute in bizarro world.
"Um, no?" Jon said.
"Oh, well you should've, that would've been really cool."
And that was our conversation. I'm not a shy person, and don't think I really get starstruck (though haven't many too many famous people) but the weirdness of his question left me completely dumbstruck. And in an awkward finish, Jon's uncle snapped a photo of Jon and me with Les, which I have but don't have a scanner. To this day, if I ever see Les in person again, I only hope I'm armed with a chocolate bass.
2 comments:
Ha -- love it! You must start carrying around a chocolate bass with you at all times... on the subway, at the beach, etc. etc. It will also serve as a convenient snack if you get hungry.
(And when did CD World close? Sadness! I remember visiting you there!)
I think CD World closed when I was a senior in college. I guess they couldn't compete with iTunes. Very sad! I think our beloved Tower Records (by the mall) closed too not too long after. :( It wouldn't be nearly as fun getting together on Thanksgiving to hover around the computer searching for digital albums.
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