PHOENIX ROOTS NOISE ROCKERS MEAT PUPPETS RAGE AGAIN
MEAT PUPPETS’ riot of noise, psychedelia, classic rock and countr y was always going to rile the purists of 1980s hardcore punk. “When we first heard the term ‘hardcore’, we thought it referred to Neil Young – the real shit as opposed to Black Oak Arkansas,” laughs drummer Derrick Bostrom. “But it meant that skinhead shit. And we were longhairs wearing overalls and smoking grass.”
This misfit status would leave them drenched in spit when touring with Black Flag, but albums like II and Up On The Sun remain high-water moments of ’80s underground rock. Meanwhile, their noised-up, cosmic roots music so seduced Kurt Cobain that he invited singer/guitarist Curt Kirkwood and twin brother/bassist Cris to perform three Meat Puppets songs for Nir vana’s MTV Unplugged performance in 1993.
They formed in 1980, Stooges/Damned disciples who “played as hard as we could, to get that Dionysian psychedelic buzz,” says Bostrom. They rejected punk orthodoxy from the off: Curt was deep into “Henry Cow, Gentle Giant, pretty much any well-played progressive stuff ”. Signing to SST Records – founded by Black Flag guitarist Greg Ginn and home to landmark punks Minutemen and Hüsker Dü – they recorded their feral debut in three acid-soaked days.
Their ragged, glorious second album marked their turn for twang. “We wanted to slow things down,” says Bostrom, “and Curt was learning to fingerpick and writing country-ish songs.” II’s weird Americana – plus lengthy live jams on the Dead’s New Minglewood Blues – further alienated the skinheads, but won them a rave in Rolling Stone. This attention inspired II’s painstakingly crafted, equally impressive follow-up, Up On
The Sun. “I remember Ginn hearing that album for the first time, and he was clearly thinking, ‘Shit, this is even further out there,’” said Curt Kirkwood. “We didn’t fit the machismo of punk’s boys club.”
“Up On The Sun was the last time we had such sternness-of-purpose,” sighs Bostrom. Slower to sign to a major label than their contemporaries, they floundered in the big time until the Kirkwoods guest-starred on Nirvana’s Unplugged episode. “MTV were aghast these long-haired nobodies were special guests on their show,” remembers
Bostrom. “We gave Kurt a stick to beat those industry fuckers with.”
What followed were what Bostrom calls their “lost years”: the dr ummer quit in 1999 (“for my mental health”), while Cris fell into heroin addiction, lost his wife to an overdose and, in 2003, was shot by a security guard in a scuffle outside a post office, and served jail time. Curt kept the group going and, miraculously, the original line-up re-formed for 2019’s Dusty Notes, and are overseeing a new vinyl reissues campaign. As for future new material, Bostrom says: “Curt is woodshedding, and Cris is doing good. Cris’s life is the Meat Puppets story – how far can you take it, and still come back? Not everybody comes back. But we’re still here.”
In A Car and Up On The Sun, plus new live LP Camp Songs (1991-95), are available now on Megaforce.
“We didn’t fit the machismo of punk’s boys club.” CURT KIRKWOOD