Funky bass savant Les Claypool, probably best known as the funny front man / bass player / singer of 90’s funkmetal madman rock trio Primus, is a passionate fisherman.

He started fishing with his father as a young kid in El Sobrante, California.

When I was growing up we didn’t have any money. I come from a long line of auto mechanics and what we did on weekends was that if I wasn’t digging or something with my dad or fixing some deck or remodeling a bathroom or whatever, we were out floating around in San Pablo Bay trying to catch sturgeon or we were out in the ocean, salmon fishing. Every year we would take camping vacations in the same spot. What do you do when you camp? A lot of fishing.

There’s an aquatic theme and references to fishing in many of his lyrics for Primus and side projects like Sausage, Oysterhead, Les Claypool and The Holy Mackerel, The Frog Brigade, Colonel Claypool’s Bucket of Bernie Brains, … Songs and artwork about water and sailing, fish and fishing are all over Les Claypool’s discography.

Hemingway wrote a lot about fishing and bullfighting. Bukowski wrote about booze and horse racing. And I just write a lot about fishing. A lot of people would call it an obsession, because it’s in everything, but I just write a lot about fishing.

Fly Fishing Around The World
Les Claypool appeared on an episode of ESPN 2’s Fly Fishing Around The World, a television program that features guest-celebrities fly-fishing. The show cuts relaxing and amusing footage with introspective interviews, all shot in the peaceful surroundings of lakes and rivers.

Les joins host John Barrett on a fly fishing trip to Henry’s Fork in Idaho in these 2 episodes of Fly Fishing Around The World

South of the Pumphouse

Les Claypool wrote a novel, titled “South of the Pumphouse” in which he tells the dark tale of two brothers and a redneck-friend on a fishing trip, drugs, misconceptions and a murder.
This link will take you to a podcast in the Authors On Tour series of Les Claypool reading excerpts from the story, telling fisherman stories and doing a QandA during the presentation of his novel.
ClaypoolPodcast.mp3

Most of my friends, they don’t know or care for what I do. One of my fishing buddies is George Siefert, who was the coach for the 49ers in all the Super Bowls and all that stuff. And you know what? When I hang out with him, we talk about fishing, because he doesn’t give a shit about what I do, and I don’t give a shit about what he does because I don’t pay attention to football. So he’s just George, and he knows where the salmon are.

Fisherman Chronicles
The Fisherman Chronicles is a three-part story, a series of songs over the course of various Primus albums about fish, fishermen and fishing experiences.

John the Fisherman (Fisherman’s Chronicles, Chapter I)

John the Fisherman tells the tragic tale of a young boy who spends his childhood dreaming of being a fisherman.

When he was young you’d not find him doing well in school,
His mind would turn unto the waters.
Always the focus of adolescent ridicule,
He has no time for farmers daughters.
Alienated from the clique society,
A lonely boy finds peace in fishing.
His mother says john this is not the way life’s supposed to be.
Don’t you see the life that you are missing?
And he says…
When I grow up I want to be,
One of the harvesters of the sea.
I think before my days are done,
I want to be a fisherman.

Now years gone by we find a man that rules the sea.
He sets out on a dark may morning .
To bring his catch back to this small community.
He doesnt see the danger dawning.
Four hours up, oh the ocean swelled and swelled,
The fog rolled in it started raining.
The starboard bow. oh my God were going down!
The do not hear his frantic mayday.
And he says
When I grow up I want to be,
One of the harvesters of the sea.
I think before my days are done,
I want to be a fisherman.
Ill live and die a fisherman.
Calling john the fisherman.

Fish On (Fisherman’s Chronicles, Chapter II)

“Fish On” tells three stories of Claypool’s own fishing experiences, about a fishing trip on Muir Beach, about Les’ father catching a six-foot long sturgeon in San Pablo Bay and about Les fishing for sharks and stingrays in Bolinas Lagoon.

Primus - Fish On

Felt a pang late one afternoon
I was fishin’ off Muir beach
With Larry LaLonde
Grabbed a tuna salad sandwich
And I started to chew
Pretty soon Ler’s yellin
Fish on. Fish on

I was just a little pup
And it was derby day
Was dad and me and Darrell
Out in San Pablo bay
Taco flavored Doritos
And my orange life vest
Dad caught a hundred pound sturgeon
On twenty-pound test
Now he fought that fish for an hour
And a half
Darrell’d say “Jump ya sons a bitch!”
And he grabbed for the gaff
When we got him in the boat
He measured six feet long
I was so danged impressed I had
To write a song called
Fish on

T’was a bright and sunny day
It was me and Todd Huth
Fishin’ shark & Stingray
Out of Bolinas Lagoon
Well hey, hey, hey I’ll be screwed,
Blued and tatooed
Looks like I got me one of them fish on
Fish on.

The Ol’ Diamondback Sturgeon (Fisherman’s Chronicles, Chapter III)

“The Ol’ Diamondback Sturgeon” tells the adventure of a sturgeon that ends up hooked onto a fishing line.

The old diamondback sturgeon came swimming along
Minding his business one day
Rooting and slipping and urging to spawn
In the mud flats of San Pablo bay…
Picked up a scent and he followed his snout
Found what was to his surprise
Was a morsel, a tidbit, a tight piece of grass shrimp
Was there right before this buck’s eyes…
The diamondback approached and he opened his mouth
And sucked up this savory fill
But then suddenly to the diamondback’s surprise
Through his lips (?) cut the cold barbed steel…
In panic the diamondback swam to the north
Swam to the east, west, and south
But the harder he swam he still could not break free
From the tugging that pulled at his mouth…
The old diamondback sturgeon came swimming along
Minding his business one dayyyyyyyy…..

I don’t think I’ll ever find what I’m looking for. I’m never content. I’m like the salmon going up the stream. I’ve got to keep moving forward.

Brit Award winning pop singer-songwriter Robert Peter Williams ( Take That, Robbie Williams ) is a soccer freak. He is a supporter of League One Port Vale Football Club in Stoke-on-Trent, his hometown in the United Kingdom.

Williams is a football investor / shareholder (£240,000 in Port Vale FC ).

“I’ve been a Port Vale fan all my life. When I was younger I was in the Railway Paddock and I used to dream about sitting in the chairman’s box.”

“Although I can’t be at the Vale often, my investment is just to say that my heart is still there and I’m a huge supporter. I’m really excited about what we may be able to do with the club in the future.”

Robbie is also an active soccer player. He’s been spotted, being a pretty talented juggler actually, playing with a ball on various occasions. He’s been joining a Bayern München ( Germany ) training session, playing with Tokio’s team Urawa Red Diamonds ( Japan), with Richard Witschge and Ruud Gullit before a concert in the Amsterdam Arena ( The Netherlands), …

This is a video of Robbie Williams playing football with Marcelo Tinelli in Argentina on stage before a concert :

As a UNICEF UK ambassador Robbie Williams organized Soccer Aid, a charity football match raising over £3 million for children in Africa and around the world. The event was a match between two teams of celebrities and World Cup legends, one representing England and the other the Rest of the World. This match was played in May 2006 at Old Trafford, Manchester.

English Team Celebrities and Soccer Legends :

* Robbie Williams
* David Gray
* Jamie Theakston
* Bradley Walsh
* Jonathan Wilkes
* Ben Shephard
* Ronnie O’Sullivan
* Damian Lewis
* Angus Deayton
* Dean Lennox Kelly
* David Seaman
* Tony Adams
* Paul Gascoigne
* Jamie Redknapp
* Les Ferdinand
* John Barnes
* Bryan Robson
* Graeme Le Saux

International Team Celebrities and Football Legends

* Gordon Ramsay ( Scotland )
* David Campese ( Australia )
* Patrick Kielty ( Northern Ireland )
* Eddie Irvine ( Northern Ireland )
* Gareth Thomas ( Wales )
* Ben Johnson ( Canada )
* Sergei Fedorov ( Russia )
* Brian McFadden ( Republic of Ireland )
* Alastair Campbell ( Scotland )
* Craig Doyle ( Republic of Ireland )
* Alessandro Nivola ( United States )
* Michael Greco ( Scotland )
* Gianfranco Zola ( Italy )
* Marcel Desailly ( France )
* David Ginola ( France )
* Dunga ( Brazil )
* Lothar Matthäus ( Germany )
* Peter Schmeichel ( Denmark )
* Diego Maradona ( Argentina )
* Ruud Gullit ( Netherlands )
* Gustavo Poyet ( Uruguay )

A haka is a tribal dance in Maori culture ( New Zealand natives ). Hakas traditionally have various uses in everyday Maori life. They are used to tell a story, to express emotions and opinions, but are best known in their most aggressive form : The Ka Mate War Dance.

Warriors used the Ka Mate to prepare for a battle. To focus their strength. To proclaim their powers, To celebrate the triumph of life over death, but mostly to challenge and intimidate the opponent.

Haka performers accompany the rough body moves by rhythmically chanting vocals, crying out loud and grunting. The typical movements of body percussion ( like hands slapping against the chest, feet stamping on the ground , slapping the biceps, … ) are often combined with finer facial expressions ( grimaces like showing teeth and the white of the eyes, poking out tongues, sniffing through the nostrils, glaring, …).

Sports teams around the world have been known to perform war hakas immediately prior to international matches, as an alternative to just standing still while the national anthem sounds.
The haka reflects the importance of the game, it motivates the teams and their supporters to greater efforts, and, of course, like in the old days on the Māori battlefields, the hakas challenge the opponent in an intimidating way. And crowds go wild … Sports is war. And entertainment.

The International Rugby Union Team of New Zealand, the All Blacks, have been doing hakas since 1906. Sometimes hakas written especially for the occasion, occasionally since 2005 a new haka named “Kapa o Pango”, but most commonly the “Ka Mate”.

The “Ka Mate” generally opens with a set of five preparatory instructions shouted by the leader, before the whole team joins in. These are the words, for those of you who like to sing along with some of the following video clips :

Leader: Ringa pakia! Uma tiraha! Turi whatia! Hope whai ake! Waewae takahia kia kino!

Leader: Ka mate, ka mate
Team: Ka ora, ka ora
Leader: Ka mate, ka mate
Team: Ka ora, ka ora

All together :
Tēnei te tangata pūhuruhuru
Nāna nei i tiki mai whakawhiti te rā
Ā upane, ka upane
Ā upane, ka upane
Whiti te rā, hī!

Translation :

Leader:
Slap the hands against the thighs!
Puff out the chest!
Bend the knees!
Let the hip follow!
Stamp the feet as hard as you can!

Leader: ’Tis death, ‘tis death (or: I may die)
Team: ’Tis life, ‘tis life (or: I may live)
Leader: ’Tis death, ‘tis death
Team: ’Tis life, ‘tis life
All together :
This the hairy man that stands here…
…who brought the sun and caused it to shine
A step upward, another step upward
A step upward, another step upward
The sun shines!

It is death, it is death: it is life, it is life; this is the man who enabled me to live as I climb up step by step toward sunlight.

Other teams and sports known for doing the haka include :

• The Kiwis : New Zealand’s national rugby league
• The Falcons : New Zealand’s national Australian rules football team
• The Tall Blacks : New Zealand’s national basketball team
• The Brigham Young University Cougars : football team based in Provo,Utah, United States
• The University Of Hawaii : football team, based in Honolulu, Hawaii.
• The Euless Trinity Trojans : highschool football team based in Euless,Texas, United States
• Several more teams in the US and Mexico ( Los Borregos Salvajes de Monterrey, UDLA, Los Aztecas, …) have started doing hakas in the past few years.
• Haka popularity is also growing in Hawaii, because of similarities between Maori and Hawaii tribal culture.(New Zealand is, like Hawai, Samoa and a 1000 more islands part of the Polynesian region)

VIDEO
These are some fragments and documentaries about the haka :

New Zealand All Blacks doing a haka (01:49):

Trinity’s Trojan Football team performing a haka trojan style (02:01):

The Tonga team and the All Blacks face to face both doing a haka (01:06)

The All Blacks doing a haka in France (0:59) :
[youtube]83U_Vg1GRvA [/youtube]

The All Blacks doing Kapa o Pango (2:20):

A funny clip of the All Blacks doing a haka in 1979 (0:38)

Documentaries :

A documentary about the history of the haka in All Blacks football (05:31):

The origin of the Haka in University of Hawaii Warrior Football (5:03):

Explanation of the words of All Blacks haka Ka Mate (01:55):

Brazilian defensive midfielder Gilberto Aparecido da Silva, nicknamed “Parede Invisível” (The Invisible Wall), a member of the Brazilian National Team ( the Seleção ), has played most of his career for Northern London club Arsenal FC. Gilberto is also a passionate cavaquinho / mandolin player.

Silva spends a lot of his spare time studying the cavaquinho, which is a 4-string small mandoline / guitar (that looks pretty much like a ukelele).
When he moved to the United Kingdom at the beginning of his career for Arsenal FC (2002) he started attending mandoline classes.

“I can just about manage one or two things on the mandolin. I’m advancing very slowly, but just about ok.”

He’s been doing public performances at his local pub in St. Albans. Later he switched instruments and also began studying the classical 6-string guitar.

“There is a hidden scene of Brazilian musicians in London. My mandolin teacher plays in a pub where I like to go with my sister. He plays with others on guitar, double bass, drums; it’s a mix of Brazilian music with jazz, something really nice.”

Silva is always in the mood for playing samba music with his team mates in the Brazilian National Team, between international matches.

“Ronaldinho is the one who organizes the samba singalongs behind the scenes at Brazil games. He’s the leader, right! The captain of samba ! But I’m not there yet. It’s only now that I’m getting better, because you need to practice the whole time.”

Gilberto Silva, Denílson Pereira Neves and Julio Baptista : Arsenal samba.

This clip was shot in Gilberto Silva’s house in Hertfordshire. After a home cooked Brazilian diner, these 3 friends started playing the cavaquinho and singing and dancing.

This is another clip of Gilberto Silva playing and singing :
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Canadian race car driver (CART, NASCAR, F1) and multiple world championship winner Jacques Joseph Charles Villeneuve, recently debuted as a singer-songwriter. He released an acoustic-pop-rock album called “Private Paradise”, featuring himself singing and playing the guitar.

The single “Accepterais-tu ?”, in which he asks his loved one to marry him, written in Canadian French, is one of 4 songs in French, the other 9 tracks are in English. Villeneuve co-wrote one song with his sister Melanie, a song about their dad, Formula One driver Gilles Villeneuve, who died in a 140 mph crash in the final lap of the 1982 Belgian Grand Prix, when Jacques was eleven years old.

Jacques Villeneuve bought his first guitar and started writing songs in 1996, at the beginning of his Formula One career. During the late 1990s Villeneuve was engaged to Australian singer Dannii Minogue who stimulated his desire to express himself through music.

I am stupidly passionate about music, it has become a bit of a drug. I buy tons of CD’s. It makes my wife crazy, but you know it’s cheaper than buying watches or stuff like that!

About music as a career :
“Right now when I think career I still think racing. Music has to be fun, it has to remain fun. A career brings a lot of obligations and a lot of stuff that you don’t actually want to do. You kind of have to be slightly politically correct, you have to bend over backwards to please people here and there, and other stuff that you don’t want to do. So the plan is to keep music as a professional hobby.”

About performing live :
“I didn’t get into music for the live performances. I really like writing and then working in the studio and seeing how a song can come to life, and performing comes with the music. I’m not a singer and I don’t have the training, so it just has to remain fun, like a jam session. I don’t really get nervous when I get on stage because not being a singer allows me to make mistakes!”

This is a clip of Jacques Villeneuve singing and talking about his music.

Puerto Rican Major League Baseball outfielder Bernabé “Bernie” Williams Figueroa ( New York Yankees) is also an accomplished jazz guitarist.

Growing up in Vega Alta ( Puerto Rico ) Bernie, a very devoted classical guitar student, wanted to become a professional musician. As a young man, growing into a naturally athletic body, Williams shared his free time between playing baseball and studying music. As his baseball playing skills developed Bernie was forced to choose between music and sports.

Soon he became a pro baseball player (switch hitter for the New York Yankees (1991-2006)), but he never stopped playing and studying music. Nowadays Williams is a critically-acclaimed jazz recording artist.

This is a video of Bernie williams playing live in New Milford, Connecticut (February 2007).

“I grew up listening to salsa, that’s the main rhythm we have.”
“ When I was in school I was more into the classical guys,” he says. We listened to Bach and Mozart, Haydn, Scarlatti, Vivaldi.”
“And a few years after I graduated from high school I picked up an electric guitar in New York and got hooked, astounded the way I could change the sound with pedals and all that.”
Then I got into the blues and started listening to Muddy Waters, the Kings – B.B., Albert and them, Eric Clapton, Robben Ford.”
“Then I was introduced to jazz by way of the blues, listening to the big guys, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Charlie Parker. As far as pure guitar people I listen to a lot, it’s been Robben Ford, Pat Metheney, George Benson, Alan Holdsworth, Mike Stern, Scott Henderson, people like that. They’re not afraid to try different things. I always want to keep my mind challenged with the music I listen to.”

Major league pitcher (Chicago White Sox All Star) and 1993 Cy Young Award winner Jack Burns McDowell aka “Black Jack”, played (guitar / bass guitar / singer) in various bands in the alternative rock scene since the early 90’s.

During his 11 year professional baseball career he recorded 5 albums, and managed to plan shows in baseball off-season. McDowell toured with The Smithereens (with support act V.I.E.W) and he’s a ( party ) buddy of Pearl Jam’s singer Eddie Vedder.

Since 1992 “Black Jack” has been the frontman of Stickfigure, a power pop rock ‘n’ roll band, named after his wiry, long and lanky perfect pitcher’s stickman bodyframe ( 6-foot-5-inch, 180-pound ).

Jack’s main influences and favorites are REM, The Smiths, Julian Cope, The Beatles, Pixie Frank Black, Radiohead, Catherine Wheel and The Catholics.

This is a video of the song Damage Control by Stickfigure :

Long before his succesful career in the music industry, the legendary mellow, smooth, romantic Spanish crooner Julio Iglesias was, while attending law school in Madrid in the early sixties, for a short period goalkeeper for the Real Madrid soccer team.

In 1963, his career as a football athlete was cut short after a car accident. Iglesias started playing the guitar soon after he had been hospitalised. Still recovering from his injuries a nurse gave him a guitar, and Julio Iglesias began writing songs.

“I had a car accident, very, very strong car accident,” remembers Iglesias. “I had what they call paraparexia, which is not a paraplegic. It’s a compression in the cord, in the sense of the neck … my spinal cord, and I was very, very ill for three years.”
“Doctors thought that I would never walk again. But slowly, I started to recover. And to increase dexterity in my hands, I began to play the guitar.”

The soccer images of Julio Iglesias playing with a ball at the Estadio de Real Madrid are part of a presentation clip for his 1968 contribution to the Eurovision Contest Song Festival. This is the complete clip together with the song.

NBA heroes Shaquille O’Neal, LeBron and Dwight Howard :
electric boogie dance contest battle at East Practice at All-Star 17/02/2007.

Funny All-star show-off :

Most people probably remember 48-year-old former number 1 ranked professional tennis player and multiple Grand Slam winner John McEnroe for his tirades of terror / anger explosions. He is less known for his other passion, playing rock guitar.

McEnroe, a left-handed tennis AND guitar player, surprised the crowd at the BlackRock Tour of Champions event in Belfast (24/02/2007) performing on stage with Pat Cash, Wayne Ferreira, Henri Leconte and Anders Jarryd with local rock band ‘Ed Zealous’.

Check out this clip / picture slide show. The music is all live, with McEnroe singing and playing Jimi Hendrix’ classic “Foxy Lady” :

This funny short clip is John McEnroe singing live karaoke style :