MAYNARD JAMES KEENAN knows how to clown around.Granted, you would have never guessed from his roles as front man for the experimental heavy-rock bands Tool and A Perfect Circle, but in mid-'90s Los Angeles Keenan used to rub elbows with the likes of Bob Odenkirk, David Cross and Janeane Garofalo at a local club that would host a small weekly variety show. Every other week, Maynard and his band would would close the night. The other band that they shared the closing spot with? Tenacious D.
"That's where Puscifer started, at [the variety show] Tantrum," Keenan said. "Then, of course, we did a little small bit in 'Mr. Show': Puscifer did a tribute show to [David Cross' petty criminal character] Ronnie Dobbs."
But as Tool and A Perfect Circle took off, the ever-changing Puscifer project went into limbo until 2007. That year, Keenan released Puscifer's debut, "'V' Is for Vagina," which was followed the next year by a couple of remix recordings of that CD, then a 2009 EP of new and live songs.
But it wasn't until February of last year that Keenan put the revolving cast of Puscifer back on stage for a series of shows in Las Vegas and some southwestern states. Now he's bringing Puscifer to the East Coast, and it's a large-scale affair requiring a semi-trailer truck due to the amount of materials needed to put on the four different shows that Puscifer may perform on any given night. But don't expect a straight-ahead rock show.
"This has more in common with Adult Swim than MTV," Keenan said, referencing the willfully wacky, late-night comedy-and-animation block on the Cartoon Network.
Keenan said Puscifer isn't so much a rock concert as it is a variety show consisting of an overriding theme, comedy sketches, live music and other acts. It is for this same reason that Keenan has been describing his group as a "troupe" and their shows have been taking place in theaters instead of traditional rock venues.
"That's kind of the side of the show we need to present," he said. "We could make it a band, I suppose, and just go into a club and play. But I've done that so there's no point in doing that. I had to wait until it got a little bit big enough to take it into a better setting so that we could actually present it as a troupe with a soundtrack. A performance, not a concert."
In fact, don't even ask Keenan what goes on in a Puscifer show; if you do, he's likely to ask you if you're the "kind of kid at Christmas Eve dinner that was just negotiating with your parents to open up presents the night before Christmas?"
There are shaky camera-phone videos on YouTube of the group playing in front of flashing neon walls and randomly hung TV sets. There are also live reviews for a country-themed Puscifer performance that apparently had all the subtleties of "Squidbillies": fake mustaches, huge wigs, lewd jokes and a country-and-western backdrop.
However, Keenan thinks any prior research into what Puscifer is, or preconceived notions about what it should be, would only hamper the unique experience he has spent so much time orchestrating.
"The best way to approach this band — I'm sorry, troupe — is just to show up with no expectations," he said. "You just got to come as you are and enjoy. That's kind of why we're doing this in theaters rather than in rock clubs because right away we're going to get people coming out who haven't really been in that theater before. It's already a new experience for them — they don't even know where the bathrooms are. You're kind of back on your heels as it is and it's exciting."
Photo courtesy Puscifer
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