The Claypool Lennon Delirium's "Blood And Rockets" video is a trippy fever dream
Aux Features music video
Later this month, Sean Lennon and Primus’ Les Claypool will drop their second album as The Claypool Lennon Delirium. South Of Reality arrives on February 22 via ATO Records, and it’s been previewed with “Blood And Rockets,” a six-and-a-half-minute sprawl of eerie psych-rock that sets the duo’s acid-soaked sensibilities against a lyrical tapestry encompassing outer space, rocket scientist Jack Parsons, and Aleister Crowley’s Ordo Templi Orientis.
Now, as was undoubtedly destined, the song has received a gorgeous mindfuck of a music video from animator Rich Ragsdale that brings the song’s subjects and themes to vivid, unnerving life. Goats, horns, and pentagrams abound, as does a swarm of nipples and a number of dick-shaped rockets.
In a statement to The A.V. Club, Lennon calls the video “absolutely historically accurate in every way, down to the finest detail.” He also offers a bit of context on Parsons and Crowley. Read it below.
Jack Parsons is an American hero. He pioneered the liquid fuel technology that got us to the Moon. He founded the company that later became NASA, and so a large crater has been named after him on the dark side of our Moon. But most interestingly, he was a devout leader in Aleister Crowley’s cult, the Ordo Templi Orientus, and practiced orgiastic chemically fueled sex magic at his house in Pasadena in his free time. Some say his preoccupation with the occult lead to his mysterious self inflicted demise. The video we present to you today, directed by Rich Ragsdale, is absolutely historically accurate in every way, down to the finest detail. All the names and dates have been preserved. The role of Baphomet was played, quite convincingly, by the ghost of another American hero, Marlon Brando. We hope you enjoy it.
Ragsdale also discussed the video’s origins with us. “Last year, Sean sent me a book on the life of Jack Parsons and asked if I could turn it into an animated music video. Since I’m not a professional animator this made perfect sense – challenge accepted,” he said. “After months of not seeing the sun, the final result is a deep dive into a pulp sci-fi world of explosives, rocket science, and sex magick, where Babylonian goddesses cavort with Jack’s disembodied head and space phalluses impregnate celestial orbs… or at least I think that’s what’s going on.”
We think so, too? Watch the full thing above. We’re still not sure if it’s SFW, but one might want to err on the side that it isn’t.
13 Comments
Yeah, this isn’t good at all, but at least you got a quote directly from Sean Lennon!Wait, shouldn’t this have like an advertisement tag included?
OK, I mean I knew that Sean always sounded like his dad, but this song sounds like a song John Lennon would have written and recorded had he not been killed.
Looking forward to seeing them in April!
I’ve stumbled into seeing Les Claypool live twice now (once as Duo De Twang at a festival a friend dragged me to) and once as Primus (with Sean Lennon and Dinosaur Jr also playing) and I had such a good time. I never paid a lot of attention to Primus, but holy shit does Les put on a show. Between those two shows, he definitely converted me as a fan.
The only time I saw him was years ago at All Good. Gabby La La opened and her set was horrible, but then she played with Les and the show kicked total ass. That was probably 2004 so I’m hyped to see him again.
I’m sure he’s going to be great! Enjoy it!
Thanks!
Totally. I saw Primus with the Meat Puppets in 1994 and it’s still one of the best shows I’ve ever seen, and I’m not even a big Primus fan.
This sounds exactly like I would expect a band with Sean Lennon and Les Claypool would sound.
Who doesn’t love Hercule Satan, the World Martial Arts Champion, Protector of Earth, and the man who defeated Cell?
They should’ve opened the video with “And Now for something completely different…”
The video, and the music, are brilliant. I love them both. Crowley would approve. Parsons would approve. The write-up was great…
.. except for the following deviations from perfection:
1. “Goats, horns, pentagrams” are not limited to Satanism and it does all religious practice a wicked* disservice to label them as such.
2. Crowley was not a God-damned Satanist*, and neither was Parsons.3. Babalon is not Babylon is not Babalon. One is a city, the other a Great Whore.Otherwise, well done. Never would have seen the video otherwise.[disclaimer: I am not a Thelemite, but I do have a first edition of one of his books on my Important Stuff Shelf (can’t call it an altar no no no) and I have most of his published works. I am not an OTO like Parsons, though I was allied with them in the Hymenaeus Beta days. I am also not a rocket scientist, as far as I know. I am, however, programmed to respond, knee-jerkily, to misrepresentations of marginal faiths, sometimes even when I know what I’m talking about. And I read the same Jack Parsons book Ragsdale read, as well as Parson’s own writings (which I think he read too).* yes, I know. That’s the joke.
Les Claypool and John Lennon carrying a lot of weight here.