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       LES CLAYPOOL
Special Selection August 09 Decades from now, when historians begin studying the development of the bass guitar in our generation, they will look to one man. That man is Les Claypool. Beginning with his 90’s jam band Primus, Les has played with a countless number of bands playing a multitude of instruments. His bass selection ranges from an old family banjo strung up bass stylies, to his classic six-stringer, to a wooden hinge-like instrument Claypool may or may not have invented called the Whamola. Claypool's funky, creative playing style on the electric bass mixes finger-tapping, flamenco-like strumming, and slap techniques. He is a multi-instrumentalist, novelist, music producer, actor, film director, fly fisherman, and indeed an awesome dude.
Nominated by Frizzle The Farout
Image Credits
Filename: lesclaypool.jpgSource: Scott Penner on flickr cc Url: http://www.flickr.com/photos/penner/3745482204/ 
Filename: lesclaypool_1.jpgSource: Scott Penner on flickr cc Url: http://www.flickr.com/photos/penner/3744692689/ 
Filename: lesclaypool_4.jpgSource: Scott Penner on flickr cc Url: http://www.flickr.com/photos/penner/3744651251/ 
Filename: lesclaypool_2.jpgSource: Scott Penner on flickr cc Url: http://www.flickr.com/photos/penner/3744654567/
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Les Claypool was voted MORE AWESOME than:
 Chewbacca  The Couch Dress  Moustache Balaclava  Shaved Ball Cap  Giant Nintendo Controller  Little Superstar  Meat Suitcase  Mock Apple Pie  BigDog Robot  Dwight K. Schrute  Mister Rogers doing The Wave  The Hamburger Bed  Bob Ross  Beer Maids  Hedgehogs  Paul Bunyan  Space Invader Invasion  Brawndo: The Thirst Mutilator  James Earl Jones Counts to 10  Literal Video Versions  Gene Wilder's Willy Wonka  The Lone Ranger  Marilyn Manson  Daft Punk  Danny Way Jumps the Great Wall  Emperor Norton  Competitive Eating  Afro Samurai  The Motherland Calls  Jackalopes  Capes  Georgia Guidestones  Coalition to Ban Dihydrogen Monoxide  Los Pikadientes De Caborca  Wienermobile  Holy Hand Grenade  Manticores  Shreddin Les Claypool was voted LESS AWESOME than:  Jesus Riding A Dinosaur  Jesus Christ  Theo Jansen's Art  Nikola Tesla  Crop Circles  Roller Derby  Freerunning  Miracle On Ice  Aurora Borealis  Flying Spaghetti Monster  Rollerman  Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton  The Man with No Name  Banksy  MST3K  Extent of the Universe  Mark Twain  Walking on the Moon Walking on the Moon  Napoleon
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    WALKING ON THE MOON
Year One Tournament of Champions Champ, August 2009 Champion It is pretty amazing how humans are able to escape Earth , go to the moon and walk on it. It is a symbol of national pride for Americans but also a beacon of hope for all humans because it shows us that no task is too large and no obstacle too high to overcome. "One small step for man, one giant leap for Mankind" Niel Armstrong
Nominated by Love of the Awesome
Image Credits
Filename: walkingonthemoon_flag.jpgSource: Public Domain Url: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Buzz_salutes_the_U.S._Flag.jpg 
Filename: walkingonthemoon.jpgSource: Public Domain Url: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AldrinFootprint.jpg 
Filename: walkingonthemoon_buzz.jpgSource: Public Domain Url: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Aldrin_Apollo_11_(jha).jpg
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Walking on the Moon was voted MORE AWESOME than:
Chewbacca The Couch Dress Moustache Balaclava Giant Nintendo Controller Jesus Christ Little Superstar Meat Suitcase  Sasquatch Nikola Tesla  General Lee 01 Crop Circles Mock Apple Pie  El Chupacabra BigDog Robot  Robocop on a Unicorn Roller Derby Freerunning Dwight K. Schrute The Hamburger Bed  Wingsuit Base Jumping Wingsuit Base Jumping Bob Ross Aurora Borealis Flying Spaghetti Monster Beer Maids Hedgehogs  WAKE n' BACON  Zombies Rollerman Paul Bunyan Space Invader Invasion Brawndo: The Thirst Mutilator  The Brick Testament Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton  Captain James T. Kirk The Man with No Name Banksy  Library of Congress James Earl Jones Counts to 10 Literal Video Versions  Chuck Norris vs. Bruce Lee Gene Wilder's Willy Wonka  Hunter S. Thompson Extent of the Universe  Dante Bucci  Burj Dubai Marilyn Manson Mark Twain Mark Twain Daft Punk Danny Way Jumps the Great Wall Emperor Norton  Silly Putty Afro Samurai Jesus Riding A Dinosaur  The Lost City of Atlantis The Motherland Calls Jackalopes Capes  Tim and Eric Awesome Show Georgia Guidestones Coalition to Ban Dihydrogen Monoxide Los Pikadientes De Caborca Wienermobile Les Claypool Les Claypool Holy Hand Grenade Shreddin Walking on the Moon was voted LESS AWESOME than: Brawndo: The Thirst Mutilator
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Now This is a match i've been waiting to see for a while. On one hand we have The Dude's discription of Awesome, the "important" Awe inspiring awesome that goes hand in hand with Walking on the Moon. However look to the left and you have the righteous "genuine" awesome of Les Claypool and his bass. Now i want you to ask yourselves, with what most of you and myself have experienced with the word awesome in the decades past and this one does it really mean to inspire awe? Look above at the Awesomeoff page head and tell me something different.
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I grew up in a house where my father was obsessed with the space program, and I've always been jealous of growing up in a time period where space exploration is supposed to be mundane. So looking at men who stepped foot on another world, who left the cosmic shallows and embarked on a journey away from the safety nets provided by low-Earth orbit, is a million times more awesome than even my favorite musicians. Not saying Les isn't an Awesome bassist, but in the bigger picture... no contest.
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No bassist in history has ever been recorded slapping the strings of a bass guitar as fast as Claypool can.
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Its been interesting to see how some musical entries get worked, and others take off. Seems to me Les Claypool does something that most people understand--he plays bass guitar. We know that that instrument does, what it is used for, what its general limitations are. When we see what he can do with a bass in his hand, it is undoubtedly awesome. Marilyn Manson pops up, and well, he's more of a freak personality than a mind bogglingly talented musician. He may stand for something, and some people may really respond to that, but being a symbol is apparently just not as awesome as exuding talent. Claypool is getting a lot of votes from me, because I simply can not believe he can play a bass like that. He's like Danny MacAskill with a guitar.
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Not even Victor Wooten?
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After the death of Metallica's bassist Cliff Burton, Les Claypool auditioned for the empty space in the band. Claypool did not earn the spot because James Hetfield said quote "He was too good".
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Hell yeah. If you're too good for Metallica, you must be some sort of godlike figure.
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not really, metalica in facts suck bigtimes. the only reason they a revered like gods is that their music went mainstream and a few of their songs were acceptable for mainstream radio-stations. Metalica has nothing on Megadeth or Iron Maiden.
( don't hate me i'm a troll! )
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I actually agree. Metallica is a bunch of sellouts. They had one or two good albums, but then they kicked me off Napster, and I hate them for it.
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clearly an unbiased opinion.
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If this was the song by The Police I'd vote for it, but literally moon walking? Too geeky a nomination by far!
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Just pretend it's the Police, then.
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Your sense of awesome is on the moon right now.
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Geeky...once again, I don't get you Yorky
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You don't get me? It's simple: if it's the kind of thing I imagine the spotty kids who used to sit at the front of the class would like, it's not awesome.
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Yeah, but most of us ARE those spotty kids who sat at the front of the class. Hence, Awesome.
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And, human beings walking on another FREAKING WORLD is pretty f***ing Awesome. Geeky or not, It takes stones to cram yourself in the computing equivalent of a four function calculator and hurl yourself to another celestial body!
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If they'd opened up the selection process I'm sure there wouldn've been no shortage of volunteers.
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OK, so strapping yourself to a pillar of flame, onboard the largest non-nuclear explosive device ever built, tearing yourself free from the planet's gravity and taking steps on a surface further away than anyone has been before isn't awesome?
And as for volunteers, it's hard to find volunteers who have the skills required to pilot a lunar module or re-entry vehicle using nothing but a slide-rule, brains and guts. Totally awesome. reply
It's difficult to find volunteers who are qualified to be a f***ing crossing guard, let alone fly to another world.
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Look, lets not slag volunteers in general; as someone who relied on volunteers to put on our provincial Special Olympics Games, I can vouchsafe the fact that volunteers are awesome.
But I doubt I could find any with the neccessary skillz to fly a Saturn 5. reply
That wasn't really meant to disparage volunteers as a concept. My point was that, judging from Youtube, every redneck with a video camera would volunteer to do ridiculous things, but that doesn't mean that they would, 1. be qualified or 2. actually do it when the chips were down.
When you and two of your closest buddies are sitting on top of 6 million pounds of rocket fuel. Steaming, seething, ready to explode at a moment's notice, you might have second thoughts about taking that trip. Especially knowing that the computers that run everything onboard are substantially less complicated than even the most basic cellular phone. Mankind's greatest endeavour. End of story. I may have nominated Mark Twain, but I'm going to go ahead and call Walking on the Moon the single most Awesome entrant of the month.
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Obviously no-one just has the skills to fly a lunar lander and safely put it on the moon: that comes with training. What they would need to look for in volunteers is the aptitude to absorb that training and the medical and physical fitness and mental robustness to survive the mission and be able to think straight while under considerable mental and physical strain.
Needless to say, I'd do it. In my world where I'm the model of normality everyone would jump at the chance, hence my comment about there being no shortage of volunteers. reply
And yet a couple messages ago you thought walking on the moon was 'too geeky' for you to vote for it.. yet now, you are saying you would volunteer, and give your life to the cause of space exploration... you're getting hard to follow yorky.
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I'm not being inconsistent at all: being asked to take part in a space mission, especially a Moon landing, would be totally awesome - nominating "Walking on the Moon" (but not the record by The Police), however, is geeky.
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yah thad be cool if we really went to the moon!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Moon_landing_hoax_conspiracy_theories
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I find it interesting that most people that believe the moon landings were a hoax cite photographic evidence to prove we didn't go, but typically no little to absolutely nothing about photography. Which leads me to my conclusion. If you do not believe we went to the moon, then you are f***ing retarded, and I'm sending Buz Aldrin to your house! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOo6aHSY8hU
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With moon landings, atlantis, nostradamas, georgia guidestones and jesus riding t-rex, expect the crazies this month. I'm not sure what will be bigger this month; the conspiracy theory/new age bloc or the music bloc.
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I hadn't noticed just how wacky many of these candidates were until you pointed it out. This should be a fun month!
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A month that makes Emperor Norton look sane. We're in trouble!
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