|
Meat Puppets Information
|
|
The 'Meat Puppets' were a three-piece punk rock cover band in Scottsdale, Arizona, formed in January 1980, originally calling themselves the Bastions of Immaturity. The Kirkwood brothers, Curt and Cris, played guitar and bass, respectively, and Derrick Bostrom played drums. They started calling themselves the Meat Puppets in June, 1980, after a song by Curt of the same name.
Their early works (the In a Car EP and Meat Puppets I 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 breakneck thrash, but 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, 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. The release of Out My Way in 1986 was somewhat affected by a freak occurrence, where Curt's finger was broken after being slammed in their touring van's door. The accident sidelined the band for some time, and subsequently, the album was limited to an EP. The psychedelic Mirage and power-trio Huevos followed in 1987. Monsters was released in 1989, and then the band finally landed on a major label in 1991, with Forbidden Places.
In 1994, the band found themselves suddenly popular when Nirvana's Kurt Cobain played "Plateau", "Oh Me" and "Lake of Fire" (all originally from Meat Puppets II) among other songs with Curt and Cris on MTV. The resulting album, "Nirvana Unplugged in New York," served as an unintentional swan-song for the band, as Cobain committed suicide shortly after the concert, and "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" helped lift the Meat Puppets to new commercial heights with Too High To Die from 1994 which earned them their first gold record.
1995's No Joke! was the final album recorded by the original Meat Puppets lineup. Unfortunately, Cris Kirkwood had become well addicted to heroin at this point and although drugs had always been associated with the band, his erratic behavior soon became too much to cope with. 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 concluding track to Classic Puppets entitled "New Leaf" also dates from this incarnation of the band.)
In December of 2003, Cris Kirkwood was arrested 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. In August 2004 he was sentenced to 21 months in prison.
Since parting from the second Meat Puppets lineup, Curt Kirkwood has gone on to release albums with the groups Eyes Adrift and Volcano. In 2005 he released his first solo album entitled Snow.
The Meat Puppets have been on indefinite hiatus since 2001.
Discography
| 'Year' | 'Title' | 'Label' | | 1981 | In a Car (EP) | World Imitation | | 1982 | Meat Puppets | SST Records | | 1983 | Meat Puppets II | SST Records | | 1985 | Up on the Sun | SST Records | | 1986 | Out My Way (EP) | SST Records | | 1987 | Mirage | SST Records | | 1987 | Huevos | SST Records | | 1989 | Monsters | SST Records | | 1990 | No Strings Attached | SST Records | | 1991 | Forbidden Places | London | | 1994 | Too High to Die | London | | 1995 | No Joke! | London | | 1999 | Live in Montana | Rykodisc | | 2000 | Golden Lies | Atlantic | | 2002 | Live | DCN | | 2004 | Classic Puppets | Rykodisc |
|
|
