After the breakthrough gold-record certified success of Primus' 1991 major-label debut Sailing the Seas of Cheese, they decided to take a break in between opening act gigs on the Cheese tour and cut an E.P. of 5 cover songs in 1992 called Miscellaneous Debris to help keep their momentum going. It also gave Les Claypool (bass/vocals) a chance to dig even more into his fairly new 6-string fretless bass that he had debuted on Cheese, as well as giving drummer Tim "Herb" Alexander and guitarist Larry "Ler" LaLonde a chance to play outside of the traditional Primus style for a bit. Les doesn't played any fretted bass on this small collection of cover songs.

The E.P. consists of 5 tracks:

1)Intruder: This is an old Peter Gabriel song and one of my personal favorites of his. Herb's drums are thundering on this song with a nice use of slight delay on parts of his kit. Ler's guitar part is very faithful to the original and Les' fretless sound gives the song an even more sinister feel. The lyrics deal with a guy breaking into some woman's house and snooping around her belongings and cutting her phone line while waiting for her to get back home. Twisted stuff that has an awesome groove.

2)Making Plans for Nigel: This cover was the first big single for one of my favorite all time British bands, XTC. This is extremely similar to the original with the exception of the tempo being a bit faster than the original and Les putting some really cool distortion on his bass.

3)Sinister Exaggerator: One of my favorite songs by the weird and mysterious band The Residents. They are famous for never revealing the identities of who is in the band, choosing instead to go by aliases. They also happen to be one of Les Claypool's biggest influences and favorite bands. Ler's guitar is appropriately creepy and I especially loved Herb's almost tribal drum work on this song. The vocals are killer and very twisted.

4)Tippie Toes: A great song by the legendary New Orleans funk group The Meters. The only thing lacking in this is that with Primus only being a trio, the awesome hammond organ part of the original version has been left out. Primus' compensates for this by making the song much shorter than the original. I love how slippery the original bass line sounds on Les' fretless.

5)Have a Cigar: If you don't know who did this song originally, you've apparently been living under a rock your whole life (just kidding!). A lot of my friends who are Pink Floyd fans hate what Primus did with this song since Les combines both the bass and organ parts into his bass line. But this is surprisingly faithful with the main difference being some really cool light distortion once again on Les' bass. I was actually very impressed with Ler's guitar solo during the extended outro.

And sadly that's it. 5 songs and it's over. But for the 20 or so odd minutes of this CD, Primus does a great job. While I would have preferred an entire album, this release was recorded very quickly while they were in between supporting gigs opening for the likes of Rush, U2, and Public Enemy/Anthrax (among others) for their marathon tour in support of Sailing the Seas of Cheese. One thing I do like a lot is the production they utilized on this album. It has to be my pick for the best sounding album that Primus had made up to that point and it sounded much better than their next full album of original material, 1993's bloated and lackluster Pork Soda.

If you're a passive Primus fan, this E.P. might not seem to be worth your time. But if you're a Primus junkie like I am, it is definitely a must have and an interesting little footnote in the Tim "Herb" Alexander era of Primus (he would quit the band in 1996).

Recommended: Yes

Great Music to Play While: Driving