A Short History of the Meat Puppets

When brothers, Cris and Curt Kirkland were young when they heard the news that they had inherited a lot of money from their grandfather. He was a millionaire who had made his money as an inventor. The two brothers had grown up in the sixties. Their family had moved around a bit between Arizona, Mexico and Texas. The money meant two things. Firstly they didn't have to get jobs (proper jobs) for quite a while. And secondly they could start the band they had dreamed about starting, but they could do it properly.

The Kirkland brothers called the band The Bastions Of Immaturity which, to be honest, was a pretty lame name. It was soon changed to the Meat Puppets. By this time a third person had joined the band. Derrick Bostrum was a fan of punk and jazz. The Meat Puppets played a number of shows in and around the Phoenix area and they soon had interest from the SST label which had been set up by Greg Ginn. The label signed them. Next thing they knew they were playing gigs with the likes of Black Flag in 1981, at the same time that they released their debut album, simply called 'Meat Puppets'.

The album highlights that the band were already good musicians by this time. The songs were fast but had an underlying roots feel. The lyrics attempted to deal with regret and tragedy but did so with some wit, humor and a sense of purpose. For example: 'The rain falls softly on the barren trees, across the ocean blows a little breeze. Soon my factory's gonna shut down, I'll go back to accepting ground. But until that day this walking mire to greater heights will aspire'. So basically, the lyrical idea was that there's a lot of trouble ahead but that doesn't matter as we are all able to rise to better things. It's a basic pop and rock device to engage an audience with positivity. However the Meat Puppets were able to do it with a certain lyrical flair that was beyond many of their contemporaries.

Their second album has become famous for a different reason. Three of the songs from it were played by Nirvana on their MTV Unplugged performance in 1993, eleven years after 'Meat Puppets II' was actually released. Its a fine album with some fine playing and includes the quiet to loud dynamic used by the likes of Nirvana and the Pixies. Some of the songs retain a rootsy flavor that's tinged with country but presented as punk. There's even a hint of slack stoner-rock too, which the band will take into their third album.

'Meat Puppets II' was followed by 'Up On The Sun' and, indeed, the songs on this, their third, album are much looser that their previous ones. Maybe this had something to do with it being recording on the fly in just three days. Again, there's an amalgamation of styles. A bit of jazz here and there, some psychedelia too. By this time the Meat Puppets had established the sound(s) which would be used for their other releases.

The thing which really set the Meat Puppets apart from other similar bands was their poetic lyrics. Many bands had the chops or the look but few had the grasp of word-play which the Meat Puppets had at their disposal. After a few albums they ended up somewhere between 'cowpunk' (which is a terrible label) and hillbilly alt.rock country punk (which is a bit of a mouthful). But at least they ended up somewhere other than a simple hardcore band, which is how they started out.