Review of Electric Apricot (2007) by Sarah B — 01 Feb 2010

From the mind of les claypool, who brought us such bands as primus and the flying frog brigade, comes his first full length movie, electric apricot: quest for festeroo. this film is a rock mockumentary, much in the style of Spinal Tap, that parodies the jam band scene.

if you don't know what jam bands are, then you will find that they are the kinds of bands that followed the Woodstock Festival, led by hippies and burnouts. les plays the drummer Lapdog in the band Electric Apricot, joined by his bandmates Aiwass (les's frequent collaborator in real life bob cock), the band's leader and bassist, Gordo (Bryan Kehoe), the guitarist, and Herschel (Jonathan Korty), the keyboardist.

their band is just starting up and gaining fame with its hit song "burning man", named after the eponymous festival, and they soon land a spot on the famous hippie concert called Festeroo, an obvious take on the real life concert Bonnaroo.

the film chronicles each band members history and lives, and shows each of their positives and negatives as bandmates. its quite a funny film as well, with cameos by well known actors/comedians such as seth green, arj barker, and matt stone.

its very accessible as well, and doesn't stray into the realm of most of claypool's work, which is usually bizarre and hard to swallow. worth a watch definitely.