I really must thank Danivon for opening my eyes to something new. Or rather for opening my ears.

Way back when we were discussing better bass players than Sheryl Crow here, a topic as wide-ranging as 'better basketball players than Ronnie Corbett', he threw in the suggestion of Les Claypool.

I had never heard of Les Claypool so I looked him up on Wikipedia, where I found that he is the bass player for Primus. Not only that, he is referred to as a virtuouso player with an eclectic mix of styles. All of that sounded right up my street, and then I saw that I share a birthday with him, although I beat him into the world by a year.

One of the greatest pleasures in life for me is to watch virtuoso musicians playing, whatever the style, and I could not believe that I had managed to avoid all knowledge of one who seemed to be playing music I would like.  I had heard of Primus but just assumed they were yet another metal band.

While I was in HMV the other day I made an impulse buy of a Primus live DVD (Hallucino-Genetics tour, 2004).  I figured that if he was that good I would like to see him play and not just listen to a studio album.

I put the disc in the player yesterday with some trepidation, not knowing what to expect and I was totally blown away.  Sometimes it takes a while to get into new music, and to hear songs a few times, but every track in that concert was stunning straight away.  It is already one of my favourite concert DVDs.

I was left even more amazed that the band had been going for 20 years without me ever being exposed to them.  I am now starting to wonder about all those other bands which I know by name only…  I am going to have to chase down bands like Wishbone Ash and Ethel the Frog in case it turns out that I am missing something.