Yesterday, Les Claypool used his Facebook Page to offer up a chance for his followers to join in on the reality show he’s making with Ween guitarist Mickey “Dean Ween” Melchiondo. If you recall, we’ve been tracking the progress of the show which is currently in production and will feature Les’s fishing and musical hi-jinks with Deaner.

[Photo via Larry Ferrari of Ween Forum]

Here’s how you can get involved with the reality show…

Do you wanna fish with Claypool and Deaner? If so, use your smartphone/Iphone and send us a close up video saying so, “I wanna fish with Claypool and Deaner!” is the phrase we are looking for. Be creative but try to keep it head or face shot and 5 seconds MAX. Email submission to ClaypoolDeanerFish@lesclaypool.com

This mission has Vine written all over it. We can’t wait to see what people come up with.

Primus front man Les Claypool brought his Duo De Twang acoustic duo to New York City last night for a gig at the Gramercy Theatre. Claypool welcomed his friend and reality TV show co-star Mickey “Dean Ween” Melchiondo out for a cover of Battle of New Orleans.

[Photo via Larry Ferrari of Ween Forum]

Deaner returned later to provide backing vocals during a raucous version of Pipeline and finished the night by adding some solos to the Duo’s take on Cocaine Blues. Lo-res videos of Battle of New Orleans and Pipeline have already surfaced thanks to ZumicNews…

READ ON

Earlier this year we reported on a reality show starring Les Claypool and Mickey “Dean Ween” Melchiondo that will “fuse sportfishing with music and comedy.” It’s now been over two months since the news broke about the project, so we did a little digging to see where we’re at.

Early last month Deaner posted a report on his MickeysFishing.com site in which he reveals that he spent three days filming the pilot with Claypool in Fort Lauderdale…

From Austin I went to Fort Lauderdale, FL to do a week of charters, followed by three days of filming a pilot episode of a new fishing show with Les Claypool. We had some issues with bad weather but we did get some fishing in and shot some great footage of us hanging out on the boat jamming as well. Les is an avid fisherman and a great guy and I had a great time jamming with him, we hit a groove immediately and he is one of the most talented musicians I’ve ever played with.

We can’t wait to hear some of these on-boat jams between Claypool and Melchiondo.

SouthFlorida.com’s Go Guide went into specifics about where Les and Mickey fished, reporting that the pair were seen fishing in Pompano Beach’s Lake Santa Barbara and Dumbfounding Bay near Aventura.  The report goes on to say that Claypool and Melchiondo expect to film many episodes of the show in Fort Lauderdale, though they are still in the process of shopping it to “cable TV networks.” The bad weather Deaner mentioned on his website led to “intermittent battles with  sailfish and free-jumping kingfish, some mahi and jacks, plus an accidental snagging of a sea turtle (quickly released).”

What can we expect from the show? One Ween Forum user has shared his vision…

READ ON

When he’s not performing with Primus, bassist Les Claypool has been scheduling shows with his Duo de Twang project which finds him pairing up with long-time musical collaborator, guitarist Mirv.

After a number of West Coast gigs, Duo de Twang will finally head east this April for a run of shows that includes the group’s first-ever Atlanta, NYC, Philadelphia and Washington D.C. shows.

Here’s the full list of Les Claypool’s Duo de Twang dates…

Mar-20 San Rafael, CA Terrapin Crossroads
Mar-22 Los Angeles, CA The Troubador
Mar-23 Pioneertown, CA Pappy and Harriett’s
Mar-24 Phoenix, AZ McDowell Mountain Musicfest
Apr-18 Atlanta, GA Terminal West
Apr-19 Live Oak, FL Wanee Music Festival
Apr-20 Athens, GA Georgia Theatre
Apr-22 Saxapahaw, NC Haw River Balroom
Apr-23 Asheville, NC Orange Peel
Apr-26 Philadelphia, PA TLA
Apr-27 Washington, DC The Hamilton
Apr-28 New York, NY The Gramercy

[via JamBase]

Back in the early ’00s The Police drummer Stewart Copeland formed a band called Oysterhead with fellow “alpha musicians” Les Claypool of Primus and Trey Anastasio of Phish. Recently, Copeland invited Claypool and the current incarnation of Primus to his Sacred Grove studio for a jam session.

Copeland has just posted a short segment from their jam session to his official YouTube page. Take a look at this incredibly weird vid which includes Copeland on trombone for part of it…

Stewart Copeland and Primus

We’ve run a number of stories over the years about Mickey “Dean Ween” Melchiondo’s love of fishing and second career as a charter boat captain. Today, comes word that Deaner will be teaming up with Les Claypool of Primus soon to shoot a reality show that will “fuse sportfishing with music and comedy.”

For the new show, which will be produced by South Park masterminds Trey Parker and Matt Stone, Deaner and Claypool will bring celebrity guests out on the water for fishing trips. In addition to starring in the program, Melchiondo will also provide the soundtrack.

Deaner explains the concept of the show a little further…

“The show is personality-driven,” says Melchiondo, 42, a Trenton native. “The idea is to get the show on after Anthony Bourdain or ‘Tosh.O.’ It’s a fishing show that you do not have to be into fishing to enjoy.”

Other than mentioning it will be a “cable” show, there’s no word yet on what station Parker and Stone are targeting for the show to air on. That will probably be determined after the pilot is created and offers to broadcast the program are received. We’ll be sure to keep you posted on any more news about this exciting development.

Here’s a look at Deaner and Les fishing off the coast of Northern California…

Primus front man Les Claypool will play a set of acoustic shows this October with longtime collaborator Marc “MIRV” Haggard billed as “Duo de Twang.” The pair will first play at Phil Lesh’s Terrapin Crossroads venue in San Rafael, Calif. on October 4th before performing at the free Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival on October 6th at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. Tickets for the Terrapin Crossroads show are on-sale now, so pick ‘em up if you’re interested.

One of the first big sit-ins of Summer Camp took place last night at the Moonshine Stage where Grateful Dead / Furthur guitarist Bob Weir came out during the Primus set for The Other One at the second day of the annual festival in Chillicothe, Illin. The Primus/Bobby connection stems from drummer Jay Lane who has been the drummer in Ratdog since Weir formed the group and currently mans the kit for Primus as he did from the group’s start until 1988. In fact, Les takes credit for introducing Lane to original Ratdog bassist Rob Wasserman and “putting Ratdog together.”

[All Photos by Mike Sherry]

The last Claypool/Weir collaboration took place at All Good in 2009 when the Primus bassist emerged during a stuff jam and stuck around through a cover of Tomorrow Never Knows, a song that Bobby had sat in with Claypool’s solo band on at Gathering of the Vibes 2000 and 2007. Also at GOTV 2000, Les was Ratdog’s guest on a pair of bass jams and a Spanish Jam that led into, you guessed it, The Other One. Furthermore, back on January 31, 2006; Weir, Lane and Claypool teamed up for a set billed as “Performance 3″ at a tribute to “Dr. Don” Pearson at The Fillmore in San Francisco. Bobby was at the festival along with Jackie Greene and Chris Robinson for a trio set earlier in the day.

Other highlights from Friday at Summer Camp included moe. guitarist Al Schnier sitting in with Keller Williams and Umphrey’s launching into their second version of Tool’s 46 & 2.

Check out a full gallery of Mike Sherry’s photos…

READ ON

Earlier this afternoon organizers of the Summer Camp Music Festival announced the late night acts for this year’s event. Les Claypool and the Dead Kenny G’s will perform in the barn on the Friday night of the festival. Gigantic Underground Conspiracy, featuring members of the Disco Biscuits, Big Gigantic, Conspirator and the Underground Orchestra will play a late night set on the Saturday night of the festival, while Pretty Lights will be performing the late night show on Sunday.

The 2012 Summer Camp Music Festival is set to take place at Three Sisters Park in Chillicothe, Illinois from May 25 – 27. As usual, moe. and Umphrey’s McGee will headline. Primus, Gov’t Mule and the Weir, Robinson, Greene Acoustic Trio are also set to perform along with dozens of other acts. You will need a separate ticket for late night shows and details about how to purchase these ducats will be announced soon. Not So Early Bird tickets for the festival itself are on sale now.

What happens when you put together three of the best drummers in the history of rock with one of the genre’s best bassists? Tool’s Danny Carey, Stewart Copeland of The Police, Rush’s Neil Peart and bassist Les Claypool recently got together to jam at Copeland’s studio and have shared a clip called Count Drumula from the session…

Peart and Copeland shared the video with members of their respective fan clubs, but no one’s talking about whether this was just a one-time jam session or a future supergroup. We sure hope it’s the latter, though hopefully they’ll recruit a vocalist as singing isn’t Copeland’s forte. We’ll be sure to keep you posted on any news about this project.

[via No Treble]

I had two options for this week’s piece. I could do what I normally do – create as diverse a list of artists as possible or I could just say fuck it and make this one all about Warren Haynes. I have gone with the latter. What we have here is audio from four different sets at this past weekend’s Mountain Jam all of which feature Haynes on every track. Next week we will return to our regularly scheduled programming, this week – it’s all about Warren.

[Thanks to edtyre for this week's photo]

And we continue to take all the selected tracks, normalize them, create some simple fades and put it into one easy to download MP3 for you.

Click here to download the Last Week’s Sauce Podcast

Artist & Title: Derek Trucks & Susan Tedeschi Band – Coming Home
Date & Venue: 2010-06-05 Mountain Jam – Hunter, NY
Taper & Show Download: edtyre

This band has two sets of brothers: Derek & Duane Trucks and Oteil and Kofi Burbridge. Add Nigel Hall and Susan Tedeschi and it’s a pretty ridiculous lineup. Warren joined the band for the Delaney & Bonnie classic Coming Home. The Derek Trucks & Susan Tedeschi band next play July 2nd at the Cape Cod Melody Tent.

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And there is video:

READ ON for tracks from Gov’t Mule, Les Claypool, and Levon Helm…

While you might not think of the middle of March as “Festival Season”, we’ve got audio from two separate festivals this week in our audio & video recap of what’s been going on recently. Jam In The Dam returned to The Melkweg in Amsterdam after taking a year off in 2009, while moe. had their first festival of the year up in Rutland, VT for the appropriately titled snoe.down.

[Thanks to OtherOneK for this week's photo]

We also check in with Widespread Panic as they played their first live shows of the year and we listen in on some of the acoustic mini-sets that Wilco has been throwing into the three-hour shows they’ve been playing. We lead off with a gorgeous Neil Young cover and also have some audio and video from Orchestra Morphine’s most recent gig.

And we continue to take all the selected tracks, normalize them, create some simple fades and put it into one easy to download MP3 for you. Click here to download Last Week’s Sauce Podcast #4

Artist & Title: Cowboy Junkies – Don’t Let It Bring You Down
Date & Venue: 2010-03-23 Space, Evanston IL
Taper & Show Download: darktrain

As Neil Young says on 4 Way Street, this next song is guaranteed to bring you right down. It’s called Don’t Let It Bring You Down. The Cowboy Junkies perform a fantastic rendition of it. Cowboy Junkies next play April 15th in Buffalo NY.

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Video from a very intimate gig in Davenport. Read more about it here:

READ ON for tracks from Les Claypool, moe., Orchestra Morphine, Widespread Panic and Wilco…

It’s no secret that many of our readers have had plenty of spirited discussions over the last few months, or maybe years, discussing what classic album Phish would cover at the next Halloween show. The concept of this live “Musical Costume” was launched by Phish on Halloween in 1994 when they performed The Beatles White Album in its entirety. Errr, except Good Night which was played over the PA system. And while Phish has done it three additional times – and a fourth if you include Dark Side Of The Moon on November 2nd, 1998 in Utah – they have also inspired many other bands to follow suit.

This week’s B List takes a look at ten other bands that have taken on the assignment of covering another band’s album in the live setting.

1. Jiggle The Handle covered Paul Simon – Graceland
8-12-2000 – Berkfest, Great Barrington MA

Leading off this B List we’ve got one of my favorite small jambands of all time, Boston’s Jiggle The Handle. This complete album performance was announced in advance. Well, it was announced they’d be performing AN album, and the choices were out there, it was between Graceland, Rift, Sgt. Pepper’s and Animals.

Humorously, the band started and ended their full performance of Graceland with teases of the opening tracks from the three albums not chosen, and a Jiggle The Handle tune – Walk Right Out Your Door. They bring on a little extra help from a number of other Boston-area-bands calling on: Dan Rockett, the horn section from Addison Groove Project and both Andrew & Brad Barr from The Slip.

Selected Audio: Teases > The Boy In The Bubble

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READ ON for nine more bands that have tackled live full album covers…

This new weekly feature will contain two things we very much enjoy here at Hidden Track: 1) Bands that tour aggressively and have open taping policies and 2) The tapers that are there to capture the moment. Every Wednesday we will look back at the previous week to see who was on tour and what recordings have already been dithered, tracked and uploaded.

Artist & Title: Club D’Elf – Big Light In The Sky
Date & Venue: 2009-03-20 – The Lizard Lounge, Cambridge MA
Taper & Show Download: Jason Sobel
Club D’Elf, a rotating cast of musicians fronted by bassist Mike Rivard, celebrated their 11th anniversary last week. Supporting Micro last Friday were: Tom Hall (saxophones), Paul Schultheis (keyboards), Mister Rourke (turntables), Jerry Leake (percussion), and Dean Johnston (drums). Visit their website for upcoming shows in Massachusetts and Connecticut.

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READ ON to hear four more tunes from last week…

Our friend Mike Sherry attended last Saturday’s Oddity Faire date in Los Angeles and has filed this report complete with his amazing photos…

[All Words and Photos by Mike Sherry]

LA’s Wiltern Theatre, an art deco icon preserved & updated for rock shows, made a perfect venue to play host to the Oddity Faire, Les Claypool’s winter tour with a rotating cast of ‘odd’ supporting acts. This stop featured Saul Williams, Yard Dogs Road Show and locally-based Mutaytor, as well as between-set carnival acts and stilt-walkers roving the lobby.

The Yard Dogs feature former Frog Brigade guitarist Enor alongside a formidable ensemble of musical & dance talent. The live band adds to the delivery as the charades range through bizarre, comic and burlesque. This made for a natural pairing with The Mutaytor, another troupe fusing unique talents into a collective artistic force. While the Yard Dogs dazzled with sword-swallowing & feather dancing, Mutaytor thrilled with high-flying acrobatics, fire spinning/hooping and a just-as-sexy brand of Drop the Laundry. Oingo Boingo bassist Johnny Avila rocks deep grooves throughout as a trio of kit drummers, more percussionists, guitar & horn section are augmented by smartly sequenced electronica. Did I mention they hail from Burning Man?

Over three hours into the night the main event commences, and all the previous pomp is replaced by a simple stage riser for drummer Paulo Baldi and percussionist Mike Dillon, a chair for cellist Sam Bass (all three sporting identical fright masks) and a microphone set. After a short vamp Les comes out to join the three, his mood hard to gauge initially from beneath the Clockwork mask, but pretty quick the sure thump on the strings through Rumble of the Diesel predicted a solid set.

READ ON for more of Mike’s review and his incredible photography…