Meat Puppets

For the Internet community slang term, see Internet sock puppet.

Meat Puppets are a three-piece rock band, formed in January 1980, in Paradise Valley, Arizona. The Kirkwood brothers, Curt and Cris, played guitar and bass, respectively, and Derrick Bostrom played drums. They began rehearsing together by learning songs from Bostrom's collection of punk rock 45s. After briefly toying with the name "the Bastions of Immaturity," they settled on the name Meat Puppets in June, 1980, after a song by Curt of the same name which appears on their first album.

History

Early career (1980-1990)

Their early works (the In A Car EP and Meat Puppets LP) were wholeheartedly punk, with vocals so feral in their delivery they were often indecipherable, but ultimately humorous and ingenious once discovered. The musicianship was mostly thrash, yet the songs were tinged with a subtle, haunting element like that of a long abandoned ghost town. Their brand of cathartic, explosive hardcore attracted the attention of legendary punk label SST, who released their first record in 1982.

Unsatisfied with the result, the band spent plenty of time in the studio before the release of 1983's Meat Puppets II. The band's exciting experimentation with psychedelia, acid rock, and quieter tunes on top of a core western-style thrash sound, gave them their one acknowledged classic album, and propelled the record to legendary status.

The Meat Puppets burgeoning musicality led to more intricate and melodic efforts on 1985's Up on the Sun, which was a cohesive collage of songs that further demonstrated their abilities to capture a sound that had all of the wonder of the desert. The album granted them their first major mainstream exposure, and many fans still consider it to be their masterpiece.

Over the next decade, the Meat Puppets remained on SST and released a series of albums, touring almost relentlessly upon the underground circuit. After the release of Out My Way in 1986 however, the band was briefly sidelined by an accident when Curt's finger was broken after being slammed in their touring van's door. The accident delayed the band's next album, the psychedelic Mirage, until the next year. The result was a very meticulously crafted release in early 1987, and their most polished sound to date.

Subsequently, their next album, the heavier, power-trio-rooted Huevos came out less than six months afterward, in late summer of 1987. In stark contrast to its predecessor, Huevos was recorded in a swift, firey fashion, with many first takes, and minimal second guessing. The album was named, not only after the Spanish word for eggs, but was also a reference to the Spanish slang use of the word "Huevos" to mean "testicles." This was significant not only with regard to the songs themselves, but to the bold, rough manner in which they were recorded. These recordings were completed in only a matter of days, and along with a few drawings and one of Curt's paintings taken from the wall to serve as cover art (a dish of three boiled eggs, a green pepper, and a bottle of Tabasco sauce), was all sent to SST shortly before the band returned to the road in route to their next gig.

Monsters was released in 1989, featuring Curt-as-guitar-hero on such extended jams as "Touchdown King" and "Flight of the Fire Weasel."

Major career (1991-1995)

As numerous bands from the seminal SST label, and other kindred punk-oriented indies, grappled with the "going major" decision, so did the 'Pups. Two years after their final studio recording for SST, 1989's Monsters, the trio released its major label debut, Forbidden Places, on the indie-friendly London Records. A three-year break saw the band's studio return with 1994's Too High To Die, produced by Butthole Surfers guitarist Paul Leary. The album featured "Backwater", a minor hit on alternative radio, and a hidden-track update of "Lake of Fire." Too High To Die earned the 'Pups a gold record (500,000 sold), outselling their previous records combined. That same year saw the 'Pups in their brightest mainstream spotlight as the band achieved sudden popularity when Nirvana's Kurt Cobain invited Cris and Curt to join him on MTV for acoustic performances of "Plateau", "Oh Me" and "Lake of Fire" (all originally from Meat Puppets II). The resulting album, MTV Unplugged in New York, served as a swan-song for Nirvana, as Cobain died six months after the concert. "Lake of Fire" became a cult favorite for its particularly wrenching vocal performance from Cobain. Subsequently, the Nirvana exposure and the strength of the single "Backwater" (their only charting single) helped lift the Meat Puppets to new commercial heights.

1995's No Joke! was the final album recorded by the original Meat Puppets lineup. Unfortunately, Cris Kirkwood was now a heroin addict, whose heavy and compulsive use of the drug increasingly dominated his life. This was a major departure from the psychedelic drugs with which the Meat Puppets had always been associated; his erratic behavior soon became too much for the band to cope with.

First hiatus and reunion (1996-2000)

Derrick recorded a solo EP under the monicker Today's Sounds in 1996, and later on in 1999 took charge of re-issuing the Puppets' original seven records on Rykodisc as well as putting out their first live album, Live in Montana. Curt formed a new band in Austin, TX called the Royal Neanderthal Orchestra, but they changed their name to Meat Puppets to release Golden Lies in 2000 and Live in 2002. The line-up was Curt (voc/git), Kyle Ellison (voc/git), Andrew Duplantis (voc/bass) and Shandon Sahm (drums). Sahm's father was the legendary fiddler-singer-songwriter Doug Sahm of The Sir Douglas Quintet and Texas Tornados. The concluding track to Classic Puppets entitled "New Leaf" also dates from this incarnation of the band.

Break up (2001-2005)

Around 2001-2002, the Meat Puppets dissolved as Curt has gone on to release albums with the groups Eyes Adrift and Volcano. In 2005, he released his first solo album entitled Snow.

His brother Cris was arrested in December 2003 for attacking a security guard at a post office with the guard's baton. The guard shot Kirkwood during the melee. Kirkwood was subsequently denied bail, the judge citing Kirkwood's previous drug arrests and parole violations. He eventually went to prison for felony assault. He was released in July of 2005.

Derrick Bostrom began a home page for the band about six months before the original trio stopped working together. The site went through many different permutations before it was essentially mothballed in 2003. In late 2005, Bostrom revamped it once again, this time as a "blog" for his recollections and as a place to share pieces of Meat Puppets history.

Second reunion (2006-present)

On March 24, 2006, Curt Kirkwood polled fans at his MySpace pagewith the following bulletin: "Question for all! Would the original line up of the Meat Puppets interest anyone? Feedback is good - do you want a reunion?!" The response from fans was overwhelmingly positive within a couple of hours, leading to speculation of a full-blown Meat Puppets reunion in the near future. However, a post made by Derrick Bostrom on the official Meat Puppets site dismissed the notion. [http://meatpuppets.com/puppets/?p=59#comments

An April 26, 2006 billboard.com story reported ^* that Cris Kirkwood and Curt Kirkwood would reunite as the Meat Puppets without original drummer Derrick Bostrom. Primus drummer Tim Alexander was announced as Bostrom's replacement. The band will record and release their eleventh studio album in late 2006 or early 2007.

Discography

Studio releases

Album Cover	Date of Release	Title	Label	US Billboard Peak	US sales
1982	Meat Puppets	SST	Did not chart
1983	Meat Puppets II	SST	Did not chart
1985	Up on the Sun	SST	Did not chart
1987	Mirage	SST	Did not chart
1987	Huevos	SST	Did not chart
1989	Monsters	SST	Did not chart
July 9, 1991	Forbidden Places	London	Did not chart
January 25, 1994	Too High to Die	London	62
October 3, 1995	No Joke!	London	183
September 26, 2000	Golden Lies	Atlantic	Did not chart
2006/2007	(untitled studio album)

Live and Compilation releases

No Strings Attached (1990)
Live in Montana (1999)
Live (2002)
Classic Puppets (2004)

EPs

In a Car (1981)
Out My Way (1986)

References

Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "Meat Puppets". All Music Guide. Retrieved June 13, 2005.

External links

Gourt Home::Gourt :: Meat Puppets