Five Frogs on a Log

Previous Grapefruit genre anthologies have shown how the various strands of British psychedelia developed tangentially in subsequent years: I’m A Freak Baby observed how the blues-based, harder-edged element of the genre gradually morphed into hard rock/proto-metal, Dust On The Nettles examined the countercultural psychedelic folk movement, while Come Join My Orchestra looked at the post-“Penny Lane” baroque pop sound. Our latest attempt to document the British psychedelic scene’s subsequent family tree, Lullabies For Catatonics charts the journey without maps that was fearlessly undertaken in the late Sixties and early Seventies by the more cerebral elements of the underground, inspired by everyone from Bartok, Bach and The Beatles to Dada, Dali and the Pop Art movement. Suddenly pop music was no longer restricted to moon-in-June lyrics and traditional song structures. Instead, it embraced the abstract, the discordant and the surreal as pop became rock, and rock became Art.

Though they emerged alongside grunge acts like Nirvana and Pearl Jam, the Smashing Pumpkins were the group least influenced by traditional underground rock. Headed by principal songwriter and frontman Billy Corgan, they fashioned an amalgam of progressive rock, heavy metal, goth, psychedelia, and dream pop, creating a layered, powerful sound driven by swirling, distorted guitars that churned beneath Corgan's angst-ridden lyrics. One of the most visible alternative rock bands of the early '90s, they achieved mainstream success over the decade with classic releases Siamese Dream and Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness before entering an uneven and often tumultuous chapter that carried them into the 2000s.

Fans of progressive rock music already have it hard enough as it is. The casual music listener already thinks we’re pretty snobby, a little elitist, kind of neurotic, and well, pretty strange. (Pun intended.) But when a progressive rock enthusiast tells a friend they are listening to the third and final album in a trilogy based on Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke‘s film 2001: A Space Odyssey…

From the warped mind of Primus frontman comes the release of Colonel Les Claypool s Fearless Flying Frog Brigade s Live at the Great American Music Hall. This two set, 12-track collection was recorded live over two nights in San Francisco. Set 1 includes five Claypool originals bookended by superb King Crimson and Pink Floyd covers, while Set 2 is comprised of an unabridged performance of Pink Floyd s legendary 1977 concept album, Animals. This release is limited to 3000 copies worldwide and serves as both a whimsical and potent homage to some of Claypool’s biggest musical influences.