OYSTERHEAD LAUNCHES FALL TOUR IN SEATTLE

If you are planning to attend an Oysterhead show on their current tour, you need to be aware of a few things. First, you should have a fairly strong grasp on reality before subjecting yourself to this onslaught on your senses. Les, Stewart, and Trey will show no mercy on you if you're having problems walking on solid ground lately. From the first note (or first bass rumble I should say), their music launches a full frontal assault on your previously held notions of reality and self. If you've taken the plunge into the psychedelic pool, you're probably familiar with having to navigate through some of the murky depths of such an inner journey, and in turn having to go toe to toe with those nasty inner demons. During an Oysterhead show, you might find yourself looking over your shoulder and catching a frightful glimpse of that nasty little demon materializing next to you in a puff of red smoke, just grooving to the music, casting rather bestial glances back at you. Yet, you haven't ingested a single dose of anything. The music alone transports you to that mystical plane where the innerspace becomes the outerspace and your psychic baggage is strewn all over the floor in front of you. At one point in the show, bassist and evil-doer Les Claypool, looking his Oakland psycho-streetpimp creepiest, stepped to the mic to say something to the crowd, (which always makes me recoil at first, because I realize that I will soon be compelled to interpret and digest his maniacal verbal grenades, only to have my fingers blown off). In his nasally sinister voice, Les posed the burning question: "What is Oysterhead? Is it Trey Antipasta?" The crowd roared with approval. "Is it Stewart Copeland?" Well, hell yeah, it's Stewart too, the crowd retorted in so many words. "Or is Oysterhead you?" Gong! That's just it. Oysterhead is us, or at least a reflection of us and our current sentiments. Oysterhead is essentially three of the greatest rock musicians on the planet, who use their immense stores of talent to tap into the general mood and reflect it back to us as honestly and intensely as they know how.

Granted, most, if not all, of their material was written and arranged before the events of 9/11, but their current interpretations of this material is fraught with fear and anxiety, confusion and black humor, rage and determination, emotions which been boiling over in the cauldron of our collective conscience. "Armies on Ecstasy" was about as poignant as it gets considering what's going on. But the way they stretched this song out and reached all of it's insidious possibilities with such blistering intensity took the crowd right into the middle of a psychological war that left no one unscathed. It really got me thinking about how we're wasting so many innocent lives by bombing Afghanistan with the largest assemblage of war machines this world has ever seen, yet what we should do is surround the Taliban with the largest assemblage of speakers this world has ever seen, and blow them out of their caves with 24 hours of non-stop Oysterhead. Hey, Claypool is a colonel anyway, so Uncle Sam should just suit'em all up in some fatigues, set em up in an old warehouse on an abandoned landing strip in Uzbekistan, and let them unleash their sonic Tomahawks on the unsuspecting scalps of the Taliban. They'll come running out of the hills in their flowing robes with their hands over their ears faster than you can say "Enduring Freedom."

Oh yes, and secondly, do not bring your children to this show. This is not pretty music. Aesthetically it is dark and ugly, weird and evil all at once. In fact, it feels illicit, downright pornographic. Trey is fleshing out the demons with this music, and he does so masterfully of course. There simply are no blissful moments of the jammed out joy grooves so abundant at the Trey Band shows last summer. This is hard-edged, dark-meat Phish Trey all the way, which admittedly has a beauty all its own. He even dusted off his old Languedoc guitar to conjure up some of the darker grooves of yore. Drummer Stewart Copeland looks and sounds like an ageless Viking god of thunder, pounding out menacing rhythms that feeds the pagan ritual atmosphere of the show. All he needed were the sheepskin leggings and a dram of goat's blood to guzzle down between songs. And he's enjoying the hell out of it, as if he's finally realizing his destiny. Then there's Colonel Les, who is apparently realizing his own destiny as well, what with Oysterhead providing the perfect vehicle for his sinister leads and marrow-melting undertones. Add to that his collection of freaky masks and freaky musings, along with a seizure-inducing light show, and you've got yourself one scary musical monster that has the power to permanently stunt the development of an otherwise healthy child.

So, hopefully you've heeded the seriousness of my abstract rants and review of the show, and maybe you'll be more prepared to survive your upcoming engagement with Oysterhead. I know a lot of you out there are hungry for setlists and play by play details, but the sheer gravity of the experience as a whole overwhelmed my abilities to recall the real specifics. I just walked out of the smoking remnants of the Paramount feeling like my head was a crispy husk, as if Oysterhead had brought the war of worlds back home, and my brain was the battlefield. But you know, there's a sense of peace that comes with that too. That the demons have been flushed out, faced down and conquered, through music, without one innocent life lost.

At the end of the show, Stewart victoriously thrust his sinewy arms of gold into the air, as if he realized Oysterhead had just won the war. Hell, it's a long tour Stewart. Ya'll may have won the first battle in Seattle, but do you think you can win the war?

Make no mistake America, and Canada too: you've been warned!

Beau Gordinier
Jambase Seattle Correspondent
Go See Live Music!