Four Foot Shack is the debut album of Duo de Twang, they’re country music duo formed by my favourite bassist and vocalist Les Claypool and M.I.R.V. guitarist Bryan Kehoe.
The album contains one original song and fourteen cover songs (although many of the covers are Primus or Les Claypool songs which is a bonus).
It was released on the 4th February 2014 by ATO Records. The genre of the album is Country and Bluegrass. The album lasts for 57 minutes roughly, and it’s definitely worth your time if you’re a fan of Claypool or Primus, or looking for something new to get into or to get some work done.
The aptly named twosome features Claypool’s signature bass playing and guitarist Bryan Kehoe’s guitar work coloring in and out of the lines of some good ol’ chicken-fried, well, twang paired with sparse percussion.
A bluegrass version of the Bee Gee’s ‘Stayin’ Alive’ is one thing. It is epic to hear an era-defining classic with belching slap bass and Claypool affecting a swamp-drenched vocal style. But naturally, we’ve come to expect this from Les, a man who takes “not to be taken seriously” more seriously than anyone else in music.
The “ah-ah-ah-ah”’s from the original become “howh-howh-howh-howh” in Claypool’s hands while Kehoe unleashes a funky guitar solo in place of the original’s bridge. Then there’s their take on “Man in the Box.” Here, the grunge anthem is turned into a chugging, Tennessee Three-sounding jamboree, over which Claypool – with his tongue embedded into his cheek at this point – takes Layne Staley’s vocal melody into cartoonishly operatic territory. Elsewhere, their amazing take on a fairly accurate (relatively speaking, of course) recreation of “Battle of New Orleans,” turn Primus’s “Jerry Was a Race Car Driver” into a surprisingly serpentine sprint, and somehow manage to translate the definitive surf-rock track “Pipeline” into a coherent, Western—style soundtrack. You can see the tumbleweeds drift by as Claypool sings the song’s melody with as much satirical gusto as anything he’s recorded.
The album isn’t any kind of milestone or career-defining collection; then again, it isn’t supposed to be, either. I enjoy it greatly as it is a new take on some of my favourite tracks. But in reality it’s simply Les Claypool dicking around with other people’s songs. And, you know what? It’s still more fun than most of the Top 40!
Ellie Thornton Music 