Review #141: Meat Puppets - Up On the Sun (1985)

UP ON THE SUN

Year: 1985

Genre: Punk Rock, Folk Rock, Psychedelic Rock
Sub-Genres: Post-Punk
Label: SST Records
Tracks: 12
Length: 33 Minutes
Style: Happy
My Rating: 6/8

Even in the beginning, the Meat Puppets were always a little different from their hardcore brethren -- they frequently injected psychedelic rock elements into otherwise thrashy songs, had a taste for country music, and a bizarre LSD-influenced sense of humor. Of course, this uniqueness attracted the attention of none other than SST Records, who released their first LP. By 1984, they came out with their second album, which was very different from the first, and expanded fully upon their new country and folk-influenced style of music. Curt now sings in an earthy, warbly voice rather than a raving Darby Crash-like growl, and the music became mostly slower, and less hardcore-oriented. In 1985, the band released their third album and fourth release in total, "Up On the Sun", which expanded on the sound of "Meat Puppets II", and it was not very popular with most of the hardcore crowd at all. However, this release was one of the various albums in the year 1985 which marked the beginning of a new movement which eventually broke into the mainstream in the early '90s. But enough with that. Now's the time to listen to "Up On the Sun", the third Meat Puppets album ('cause I've already reviewed everything before this)!!

1. Up On the Sun
Mid-paced beat. Strong bass, noodly little guitar sounds, and calm, clean vocals from Curt Kirkwood. In some parts, there's a bit of vocal harmonizing going on 'tween the Kirkwood brothers. Very folky guitar sound.

2. Maiden's Milk
Very neat-sounding guitar playing in the intro part! Both the bass guitar and lead guitar play in harmony, going up and down the scale, sounding great. The lead guitar really sounds nice on this song. After that, the song speeds up a little, and the bass-line here is great in just about all parts. Beautiful lead guitar. Reminds me of ice and snow and stuff. Everyone's whistling... there's no lyrics, so I guess that means it's virtually an instrumental aside from the whistling. In the later parts of this song, there's another beautiful, deeper-sounding lead guitar two-note tone going on. It sounds like a ringing bell. It's a really nice song.

3. Away
Similar speed to the song before it. Beautiful harmonized vocals in the chorus section. The vocals sound a bit mumbly in other parts, but in a good way. In some parts, the guitar sounds really twangy like a banjo or something. Definitely one of the best songs on the album!

4. Animal Kingdom
Even faster than the song before it! This song's evidentally about animal kingdoms being everywhere... amazing, ain't it?? There's weird animal-ish sounds being made with the guitars also. Pretty neat. It's actually one of the shortest songs on the album... just a minute and twenty seconds.

5. Hot Pink
Another song I enjoy a lot. It takes the speed down a few notches, and there's really good vocal harmonies here. Great bass guitar melody in the build-up to the chorus section, combined with those funky little lead guitar melodies that overlap. And then in the chorus, the lead guitar sounds like an 'Animal Kingdom' itself... I used to have these little cassette tapes about "Frog and Toad" when I was really young, and the theme tune for those tapes sounded like the lead guitar on that part of the song... probably why I associate it with animals! But yes, this album's about all sorts of things that are the color of HOT PINK. "Pink"... te-he!!

6. Swimming Ground
They made a 7" single for this song a couple years later. This one's pretty fast, and the guitar melody here sounds really nice with the effect they used for the guitar here! A little bit of falsetto background vocals here. Kurt sings here about how one of his favorite places he knows of was a little swimming ground far away from civilization. After this song ends, so does Side A of this album... let's listen to what's on the other side, now.

7. Buckethead
The guitar here almost sounds like ska in some parts. In other parts it just sounds like folk music on speed. Great bass melody, once again. These Puppets of Meat sure are talented musikians, hur hur! In the mid-section, there's a spacey part with echo-y sounds of guitar strokes and little animals from the Animal Kingdom. The melody goes up a couple octaves in the ending part... something done in a lot of pop music but rarely ever in punk rock.

8. Too Real
Typical Meat Puppets power-folk with a little bit of Black Flag-style punk-metal riffage sandwiched inbetween. And this evolves into a nice guitar solo starting in the middle of the song.

9. Enchanted Pork Fist
Starts out with a very fast section, similar in speed to their early work! Sorry, but when I hear "Enchanted Pork Fist", I giggle a little bit. Just sounds funny. The song slows down a bit for the main parts of the song. Holy shit, they must've eaten those RED PISTACHIOS! I never could figure out why they made red ones, I mean, they just painted they red, and like the song says, they really DID get your figures red! I dunno what was the point of it. Great psychedelic-sounding guitar solo mid-song. The song ends in a manner similar to how it began.

10. Seal Whales
I bet a Seal Whale would be really cute. I bet they WERE really cute, until they all were killed in a mass-extinction when the sharks realized how fucking TASTY they were! This song iz another instrumental piece, with folk guitar playing and stuff. There's one part about 2/3 into the song where there's a bunch of false endings, but by the end of the song it's all back to normal n' shtuff.

11. Two Rivers
Another fast type of song. Watery guitar melodies, and a dark bass riff. One-third into the song, Curt begins singing in a lonely, echoey voice. It's a tad mysterious-feeling.

12. Creator
Yup, this one's pretty fast too. It's quite energetic, with really nice guitar melodies. I swear I heard him say something about alligators. That's kind of funny. "Making love to open windows"? Gotta have a HUGE dick to do THAT!! Anyways, this song's not very long, so, there's not much I can say, but it's pretty good.

So, THAT is "Up On the Sun". This iz probably the most recent Meat Puppets album I've ever listened to, so as I expand my knowledge of these meaty ol' puppets, I will try to bring you more reviews of them. In some ways I enjoy this one more than "Meat Puppets II", but in other ways I don't. It's not quite as raw or "punk" feeling as Meat Puppets II, but it sure does have some really good songs which all have a really good sound and feel to them. A lot more psychedelic folk stuff going on here. I wouldn't say this one places as much emphasis on country either, here. But yeah, Up On the Sun is good and you should listen to it! Stay Legit.

Top 3 Favorites:
1. Maiden's Milk
2. Hot Pink
3. Away

Review #96: Meat Puppets - Meat Puppets II (1984)

MEAT PUPPETS II

Year: 1984

Genre: Punk Rock, Folk Rock, Country
Sub-Genres: Post-Punk, Psychedelic, Hardcore
Label: SST Records
Tracks: 12
Length: 30 Minutes (Medium-Length)
Style: Mysterious/Happy/Emotional
My Rating: 6/8

The Meat Puppets are a band from Phoenix, Arizona. As you may have earlier read, the group was formed in 1980 and played mostly hardcore punk for the first half of the '80s. The first two records, a 7" EP called "In a Car" and a 12" LP called "Meat Puppets", were reviewed by me during the Winter and are both great examples of this style. During "Meat Puppets", their style began to shift towards a more psychedelic sound, with even some nods to country & western music along the way. In this album, that style is pretty much taken to full effect. The Meat Puppets stopped writing angry, typical hardcore songs save for a few; writing new, folk and country-influenced songs, with... ACTUAL LYRICS! With that said, Curt's vocals sound pretty different here -- gone is the Darby Crash-esque gibberish and screaming, and now that style is replaced by whiny, twangy, warbling cries and singing. Many of the songs are slower, and some feature very little guitar distortion at all. As you can guess, many in the punk crowd didn't really like this very much, but the band still found its fans...

1. Split Myself In Two
A fast, straightforward song similar to the style of the first album, but instead with a new vocals style in lyrics. Even with that, the lyrics are pretty nonsensical, but more coherent than the older songs, or so to speak.

2. Magic Toy Missing
This is an instrumental song. It's a fast song with a rawhide-like bass melody, and the focus is mainly on the lead-guitar. In the middle of the song, it gets more exciting in my opinion, with the lead guitar getting progressively more interesting, a little acoustic guitar, and stuff like that. Great song.

3. Lost
This one mellows it down a notch... more of a psychedelic country tune. The lyrics seem to just be about being lost in general... in an attic... on a freeway... he talks about being "tired of living Nixon's mess"... does he mean Richard or Dale?

4. Plateau
This one's kind of slow. Curt sings about a plateau and a bucket and a mop and a book about birds and Greenland and Mexico and stuff. I have no idea if there's anything more to those lyrics. 3/4 through the song, a layer of guitar distortion can be heard.

5. Aurora Borealis
Another instrumental song. This one's slower and more trippy, though. Good, interesting guitar leads. The bass and beat and pretty good too.

6. We're Here
A soft beat. The whole song's not too loud. It's a good song, still, though. The vocals are sung in harmony, here. I like the riff that goes after the chorus and before the verse. It's real cool. End of Side 1.

7. Climbing
A really country-ish feel to this one. The vocals are real mellow. They are really good on this one. Two thirds in, the vocals end, and they are replaced by an acoustic lead-section. You can start to hear the bass guitar coming out at this point, too. It's got a lot of character to it.

8. New Gods
This one also sounds a lot like something from the first album, but of course, with real lyrics. The lyrics are about some guy going to visit Mexico and being told "not to drink the water, and not to touch the food". That must've sucked. He had some Pepsi-Cola, also. The wild, chaotic guitar solo tell more tale which could not be uttered by the narrator.

9. Oh, Me
Another slower, quieter one. The guitar sounds really neat, here. You can hear little strands of trippy, aquatic-sounding guitar notes off to the side. It's very good. The chorus is pretty catchy. So many nice little subtleties in here...

10. Lake Of Fire
The only song which has a theme that I can directly decipher... it's basically a song describing Hell, talking about people boiling and frying and dying there, being tortured by demons for eternity... the song's a little bit sadder, the riff is more distorted and dirty-sounding, but the chorus seems to have just a shred of optimism of it. Nirvana pretty much made this song famous on their own when they played it on their famous "MTV Unplugged" performance nearly 10 years after this album first came out.

11. I'm a Mindless Idiot
Another instrumental. It's sort of slow, but slightly faster than "Lake of Fire". There's almost what sounds a bit like a ukulele in this one...

12. The Whistling Song
As the title suggests, there is a bit of whistling in this one... of course, sung vocals, too. It's a very good last song... the chorus section is simply a whistled melody. One of the more country-influenced songs here. Nice guitar solo at the end. And that's all, folks.

With their next album in 1985, the Meat Puppets at one point shed almost all of their "traditional" punk elements. This album finds a nice middle ground, and it's quite entertaining. As I mentioned earlier, 9 years later in 1993, Nirvana re-ignited relevancy with this album to the current media when he played three songs from this album, with Cris and Curt Kirkwood actually joining them for those performances... Cris and Curt, huh? That's actually really funny! There are people with names like "Chris" and "Kurt" in both bands! A lot of people in the punk scene back then disliked this album, because it deviated majorly from the normal punk sound, but others in the scene, such as the members of Black Flag loved them, and the two bands often played together. Well, that's all I have to say for now. Seeya!

Top 3 Favorites:
1. Magic Toy Missing
2. Whistling Song
3. Oh, Me

Review #35: Meat Puppets - Meat Puppets (1982)

MEAT PUPPETS

Year: 1982
Genre: Punk Rock
Sub-Genres: Hardcore, Noise, Post-Punk
Label: SST Records
Tracks: 14
Length: 21 Minutes (Medium-Length)
Style: Angry/Weird
My Rating: 7/8

Hardcore-Punk's two main strongholds in the United States were in Los Angeles and New York City. However, somewhere out in the desert in Arizona were a couple of bored-ass punks who decided to start their own band. Less than a month ago, I reviewed their first record, "In a Car", a five-minute EP which was almost nothing but extremist thrash with almost ridiculous-sounding screamed vocals which were extremely unintelligible. Well, for the most part, this album is even more of that, but it marks the start of a transition towards a later sound that the band would become more famous (or infamous) for. There are two covers of old country songs, "Tumblin' Tumbleweeds" and "Walking Boss". There are also a few slower songs, and there is a more prevalent psychedelic LSD-inspired sound throughout the record.

1. Reward
A pretty fast song with trippy-sounding guitar and more weird, meat-puppety vocals. Not a very long song.

2. Love Offering
Similar beat to the previous song. Curt Kirkwood sounds like a kid with Down's Syndrome, here.

3. Blue-Green God
Some twangy guitar noises in this one. More aggressive vocals here, sounding like Darby Crash or something. It's pretty cool. Nobody ever really told us what color God was before this song came out, anyways.

4. Walking Boss
This is a cover of a song by Doc Watson. And so, it's slower than a lot of the other songs on here. This is about as clear as the lyrics get, here. It's a little quieter, as well. There's a solo about one minute and twenty seconds in. This is the longest song on the album.

5. Melons Rising
My favorite song on the record! This is about as insane as the album gets, and it's pretty close to what you'd hear on "In a Car". Basically demented screams, a very fast beat, and fuzzed-out guitars. I love how Curt's voice sounds the most in the first "verse" for some reason. It's under a minute long.

6. Saturday Morning
A very good song. This one starts slow, but it gets really cool and fast halfway through. Ends with a guitar-solo.

7. Our Friends
This is an instrumental. It's pretty slow, too. It actually reminds me a lot of Flipper (the band). It's got that slower beat, bass-driven melody, with a layer of trashy guitar-noize in the foreground. I find something very beautiful in that. This song ends Side 1.

8. Tumblin' Tumbleweeds
Another country song. It's a cover of a song by Bob Nolan. And it's slow. However, I doubt the original sounded nearly as crazy is this. According to the band, they were really tripping on LSD when they recorded this entire album. It really shows, here. And I love it.

9. Milo, Sorghum, and Maize
An instrumental song. Begins with a strange little jam, but then the song really kicks off into the fast-n-hard mode about one-third into it.

10. Meat Puppets
A SONG named after the BAND! It's got a weird lead-driven riff, groovy bass, and more raging vocals. The riff gets even cooler at about a minute into the song.

11. Playing Dead
Another song I really like off of this record! This one has a pretty nice intro, but then the first verse starts and the song gets more aggressive. The vocals aren't quite as loud, here, but the rest of the music makes up for it.

12. Litter Box
A little box is a place where cats like to shit. I coulda sworn I actually heard Curt use WORDS in this one part of the song! This song iz pretty short.

13. Electromud
Shortest song on the album. It's also the fastest! It's pretty similar to "Melons Rising" in those aspects, as well as the vocals. There's also a solo in this song.

14. The Gold Mine
This one's pretty fast as well. I really enjoy Curt Kirkwood's raving maniac vocals throughout this album. It almost speaks to a certain part of brain 'er something. Unfortunately, the song isn't very long, so it ends with a few seconds of feedback. So does the album. So, I guess that means we're at the end.

Even more-so than the "In a Car" EP, this album, to me anyways, paints a picture of an almost ridiculous amount of rage and energy accumulated in those of us who are fucked-up, stuck in the middle of nowhere with nowhere to go, but seein' the same shit everywhere over and over again. I base this on nothing, however. All I'm sayin' is that if being into punk rock in the rural midwest makes you feel like crap at times, being into punk rock in the rural southwest has gotta be even shittier. Maybe. I hear they have a lot of acid down there... Anyways, not long after this came out, the band began writing more mellow, psychedelic songs (which they already were bordering on doing here) for their third record, which would be released in 1984, "Meat Puppets II". Curt Kirkwood would take up new, strange musical talents like USING WORDS to sing, as well as other stuff that I'm probably forgetting. As a result, the Meat Puppets started to alienate their hardcore-punk audience. Still, they likely were alienating them in the first place, since they never really whined about Ronald Reagan or stuff like that that a lot of popular bands at the time did then (sort of like how a band would criticize George W. Bush or even Barack Obama nowadays), and they had long hair n' stuff as well. But as for this album... well, it's pretty simple. Many of the songs follow a similar theme, but there's still a lot of diversity.

Review #2: Meat Puppets - In a Car (EP) (1981)

IN A CAR (EP)

Year: 1981
Genre: Punk Rock
Sub-Genres: Hardcore
Label: Word Imitation Records
Tracks: 5
Length: 5 Minutes (Very Short)
Style: Angry/Weird
My Rating: 6/8

Long before the Meat Puppets performed with Nirvana on MTV, or became known for their more mellow, folksy-type music, they were one of the most intensely weird and crazy bands around. Hailing from Arizona, these guys even then were not your average bread & butter punk band. "In a Car" is the first record they released, and it's only about 5 minutes long. It features violent, thrashing drums, ear-slicing guitars, and hyper, unintelligible screams and vocals fuelled by LSD and being a punk rocker in a boring part of the desert, which I admire very much. The album sounds more psycho than a Germs live concert in the '70s. This album is very short, so I think it's appropriate that this review should also be short. That, and I just wrote a long Butthole Surfers review. Anyway, here we go:

1. In a Car
Starting with bass, then kicking into full throttle, this is a fast song that reminds me of aimlessly running through the hot sun (or driving "in a car"). Something fast. Kurt Kirkwood's vocals sound really high-pitched and raspy, which for some reason makes me feel like the creature on the cover of the album is actually singing instead of a person. The vocals get progressively more uneasy towards the end, and you gotta love the constant crashing of the drums.

2. Big House
This one sounds happy for some reason. The singing almost sounds like some sort of prototype for Kurt Cobain's style of singing (which wasn't supposed to be that clear either). The only intelligible lyric in the whole song is, well, in the title. I also noticed that the speed seems to go a few notches down later on in the song.

3. Dolphin Field
LOTS of screaming. Still, I could imagine a lot of screamo-listening bastards hating this anyways for its unpolished sound and lack of pussyish sounds. More interestingly, I'd like to see one of them "dolphin fields". Maybe it's a thing in Arizona that is kept secret from the rest of the worrrrllllddddddddd..sd;las;dlsad

4. Out in the Gardener
NOT "Out in the Garden"... it's "Out in the Gardener". Maybe Kurt Kirkwood was banging a gardener when he thought of the title for this song. But anyways, this is an intrumental track, and it's mostly got some interesting trippy guitar-work and a bouncy beat.

5. Foreign Lawns
Like, lawns in Mexico or Japan or Germany, I suppose. This is my favorite track on the album, and it's also the shortest. It's almost funny listening to how ridiculous those screams sound. Almost sounds like Darby Crash for a brief moment or two. The song ends with an out-of-place clean-sounding strum of the guitar. But anyways, that's the end!

The Meat Puppets did another album of this style in the next year, but maybe never anything this aggressive ever again. In that album, they would begin experimenting with elements of country music, and after that, they invented "cowpunk" in their famous 1984 work, "Meat Puppets II."