Rahul Sharma (Editor)

The Grand Pecking Order

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Released
  
October 2, 2001 (U.S.)

Length
  
51:46

Artist
  
Oysterhead

Label
  
Elektra Records

Recorded
  
The Barn, April 2001

Producer
  
Oysterhead

Release date
  
2 October 2001

The Grand Pecking Order httpsuploadwikimediaorgwikipediaen44cOys

Genres
  
Rock music, Alternative rock, Experimental rock, Hard rock, Avant-garde music

Similar
  
The Big Eyeball in the Sky, Of Whales and Woe, Purple Onion, Highball with the Devil, Live Frogs Set 2

Oysterhead the grand pecking order full album


The Grand Pecking Order is the only album by American rock band Oysterhead, released on October 2, 2001. The album was recorded in guitarist Trey Anastasio's Barn recording studio. Oysterhead was intended to be a single performance, but the project spawned this album and a mini-tour in support of the album.

Contents

Many of the songs from that first performance are on the album, including "Little Faces" (a reworked version of "I Am Oysterhead"), "Mr. Oysterhead," "Rubberneck Lions," "Pseudo Suicide," and "Owner of the World." The song "Oz is Ever Floating" refers to the album's recording engineer, Oz Fritz, and his beliefs in psychoanalyst Dr. John C. Lilly. The song "Birthday Boys" is about the temporally-proximate birthdays of Claypool (September 29) and Anastasio (September 30) while in Las Vegas in 2000. The song "Radon Balloon" would appear as a reworked instrumental version on Anastasio's self-titled album as "Ray Dawn Balloon." The song "Wield the Spade" was based on a speech by Romania's final communist leader, Nicolae Ceauşescu.

Eventually, the release of this album was supported by a brief tour of North America.

Reception

Allmusic gave the album praise, remarking "It would be a difficult task to even find three musicians with voices as uniquely dissimilar as those of Trey Anastasio, Les Claypool, and Stewart Copeland, much less attempt to effectively fuse them together within the same band -- and yet, this is precisely what Oysterhead manages to pull off on their debut album." They clarified that "the characteristic trademarks of each member are still firmly in place -- Anastasio's fluid guitar passages, Claypool's monstrous low-end bass tone, and Copeland's deft hi-hat and cymbal work -- but unlike many albums by previous supergroups[...] the musicians seem to be carefully listening and playing off of one another at all times -- and enjoying themselves doing so."

Track listing

All songs, unless otherwise noted, are music: Trey Anastasio, Les Claypool, and Stewart Copeland; lyrics: Anastasio and Claypool.

Personnel

  • Trey Anastasio - guitar, lead and backing vocals
  • Les Claypool - bass, lead and backing vocals
  • Stewart Copeland - drums, miscellaneous percussion, spoken word on "Wield the Spade"
  • Credits

  • Mixed by Toby Wright
  • Recorded by Oz Fritz (see also TapeOp #75 Oz Fritz interviewed by Eli Crews)
  • Cover painting and illustrations: Tim Slowinski
  • Photography: Danny Clinch
  • Charting

    No. 41 on the Billboard 200 Chart

    Songs

    1Little Faces4:57
    2Oz Is Ever Floating2:49
    3Mr Oysterhead4:51

    References

    The Grand Pecking Order Wikipedia