Hello, today's band were one of the more notable groups on the roster of SST Records (who released all of their aetix albums), they started as a punk rock band, but like most of their SST peers, the Meat Puppets established their own unique style, blending punk with country and psychedelic rock, and featuring Curt's warbling vocals .... N'joy
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Out of all of the bands that made SST Records a towering force in the American underground during the mid-'80s, Meat Puppets lasted the longest, surviving where other bands fell apart. Meat Puppets never had the dedicated following of Hüsker Dü or the Minutemen -- two fellow SST bands who played the same circuit as the Puppets -- but they were able to carve out a long career where other hardcore bands could not, because they always drew from conventional hard rock as well as punk. Not only did they play hard, loud, and fast, but they also had elements of the blues-rock of ZZ Top, the ambling folk-rock of the Grateful Dead, and Neil Young's country-rock and hard rock. As they grew older, the band matured musically, developing an accomplished instrumental technique and moving closer to the traditional hard rock that was always underneath their punk. But they never quite abandoned their punk roots, even when they briefly broke into the mainstream in the early '90s.
The core of Meat Puppets was Curt (guitar; born January 10, 1959) and Cris Kirkwood (bass; born October 22, 1960), a pair of brothers born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona. As teenagers, the Kirkwoods played in local rock & roll bands, primarily playing mainstream rock and hard rock. After graduating from a Jesuit prep school, the brothers formed Meat Puppets in 1980 with drummer Derrick Bostrom. Unlike the Kirkwoods' earlier bands, the Meat Puppets were directly inspired by punk rock; they were so committed to keeping the music punk that they refused to rehearse.
A little over a year after their formation, Meat Puppets released their first EP, In a Car, on World Imitation. At this point in their career, the band was at its noisiest, playing furious hardcore with avant-garde leanings. Greg Ginn, the lead guitarist for Black Flag and the head of SST Records, heard the record and offered the Meat Puppets a contract with SST. In 1982, the band released their full-length eponymous debut album on SST, which continued in the experimental vein of their EP. Meat Puppets didn't develop their own distinctive voice until their second album, Meat Puppets II, which was released in 1984. On Meat Puppets II, the band created a fusion of punk and country that sounded unlike anything else in the American underground. With their second album and constant touring, Meat Puppets began to cultivate a dedicated cult following across the U.S. that continued to grow throughout the rest of the decade. In 1985, the group released their third album, Up on the Sun, which earned them their first reviews in mainstream music publications. Up on the Sun also demonstrated that the band was beginning to streamline their sound, moving closer to traditional blues-rock, country-rock, and psychedelia. This shift toward conventional hard rock continued throughout the late '80s, as the band gradually sanded away their rougher punk edges.
After releasing an EP called Out My Way in 1986, Meat Puppets released two critically acclaimed albums -- Mirage and Huevos -- in 1987. By the release of Mirage, Meat Puppets had established themselves as college radio stars, as well as popular attractions on the American underground circuit. Monsters, their final album for SST Records, was released in 1989, and its heavy rock attack foreshadowed the approach the band would adopt in the following decade. The straightforward sound of Monsters wasn't greeted favorably by the band's cult following, and the record stiffed on college radio. Following the weak reception of Monsters, Meat Puppets broke up. In 1991, they re-formed and signed a major-label deal with London Records. Before they recorded their first album for London, SST issued the compilation No Strings Attached in 1990. The following year, Forbidden Places, the group's major-label debut, appeared in the stores. Forbidden Places was neither a commercial nor underground success.
For two years after the release of Forbidden Places, Meat Puppets were relatively quiet, playing a couple of gigs every once in a while. In 1993, they re-emerged as an opening act on Nirvana's In Utero tour. Toward the end of the tour, Nirvana taped an appearance for MTV Unplugged, during which they covered three songs from Meat Puppets II with Meat Puppets themselves. The exposure on MTV Unplugged helped set the stage for the commercial breakthrough of the band's second major-label album, 1994's Too High to Die.
Released around the same time as MTV Unplugged originally aired, Too High to Die didn't gather much attention at first, but after Kurt Cobain's suicide in April, the record and its first single, "Backwater," began to move. This was due to radio's acceptance of "Backwater," but also to MTV's constant airings of Nirvana's MTV Unplugged. By the summer of 1994, "Backwater" was a genuine hit, climbing to number two on the album rock charts and just missing the pop Top 40. None of the other singles from Too High to Die performed quite as well, but the album was a success, becoming the group's first to go gold. Meat Puppets released No Joke!, their follow-up to Too High to Die, in the fall of 1995. However, this album received mediocre reviews and little airplay, and disappeared from the charts and radio a few months after its release.
Following this setback, the Pups effectively went on hiatus. Derrick Bostrom recorded a one-off EP of goofy, saccharine pop covers for the Amarillo label in 1996 under the name Today's Sounds; he subsequently took a job with a multimedia company, also overseeing both the band's website and Rykodisc's 1999 Meat Puppets reissue campaign. Cris Kirkwood, unfortunately, did not fare so well. With the influx of fame and cash, his drug problem had worsened during the No Joke! sessions, and in 1995, he married Michelle Tardif, whose own addictions and run-ins with the law sent things spiraling out of control. Tragedy struck in December 1996, when the Kirkwoods' mother died, and again in August 1998 when Tardif died of a drug overdose. After virtually disappearing for a short time, Cris began to sort out his addictions in rehab programs, and his attendant legal problems in court. Meanwhile, the band's label, London Records, was swallowed up by Universal in a corporate mega-merger.
An overloaded Curt Kirkwood had already relocated to Austin, Texas, prior to Tardif's death; there he formed a new outfit dubbed the Royal Neanderthal Orchestra with ex-Pariah members Kyle Ellison (guitar) and Shandon Sahm (drums; also the son of Doug Sahm), plus former Bob Mould bassist Andrew DuPlantis. Eventually, this group took over the Meat Puppets name (although neither Bostrom nor Cris Kirkwood was ever officially removed from the lineup). Curt secured a release from his prior contract and signed with Breaking, an Atlantic subsidiary. Golden Lies, Meat Puppets' first new album in five years, was released in the fall of 2000. Seven years later, after a lengthy struggle with substance abuse, Cris Kirkwood reunited with brother Curt and new drummer Ted Marcus for the release of Rise to Your Knees. Touring lasted through the end of 2007, while sporadic shows kept the bandmates busy in 2008.
They also returned to the studio that year, and their 12th studio effort, Sewn Together, was released in the spring of 2009. The band continued to stay busy, announcing that they would be performing Up on the Sun at the Animal Collective-curated All Tomorrow's Parties in 2011. They also continued to work on new material, and went into Spoon's HiFi Studio in Austin to work on their 13th studio album, Lollipop. It was released in April of 2011 by Megaforce Records. In 2013, Meat Puppets attempted to take a simplified approach for their 14th album, Rat Farm, and the Kirkwood brothers were joined by return drummer Shandon Sahm and Curt's son Elmo on guitar.
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Although the Meat Puppets would later become best known for their intriguing blend of country, punk, rock, folk, psychedelia, and whatever else they could toss in their musical blender, the trio's 1982 self-titled full-length debut was a furious hardcore album. Totally ferocious and red hot, the album rarely lets up on its full-throttle attack -- Curt Kirkwood's vocals bear little resemblance to the wasted, off-key country-rock warbling on such seminal releases as Meat Puppets II and Up on the Sun; instead, the singing style consists of larynx-shredding screaming that renders the lyrics incomprehensible. Still, there's something special about such slop-rockers as "Love Offering," "Blue-Green God," "Saturday Morning," and "Our Friends." And as a sign of things to come, for a few brief fleeting moments, the band attempts to conquer country (on covers of "Walking Boss" and "Tumblin' Tumbleweeds"). This 1999 Rykodisc reissue more than doubled the original album's track listing, including their early In a Car EP and a total of 12 outtakes/demos, the best of the bunch being covers of the Stooges' "I Got a Right," Neil Young's "I Am a Child," and the Grateful Dead's "Franklin's Tower."
Meat Puppets - Meat Puppets ( flac 333mb)
01 Reward 1:12
02 Love Offering 1:29
03 Blue-Green God 1:23
04 Walking Boss 2:52
05 Melons Rising 0:53
06 Saturday Morning 1:30
07 Our Friends 2:12
08 Tumblin' Tumbleweeds 2:03
09 Milo Sorghum And Maize 2:16
10 Meat Puppets 1:38
11 Playing Dead 1:28
12 Litter Box 0:50
13 Electromud 0:48
14 The Gold Mine 1:02
In A Car EP
15 In A Car 1:21
16 Big House 1:07
17 Dolphin Field 1:09
18 Out In The Gardener 1:04
19 Foreign Lawns 0:37
Bonus Tracks
20 Meat Puppets 1:33
21 Everybody's Talking 2:42
22 H-Elenore 1:39
23 Hair 1:26
24 I Got A Right 2:40
25 I Am A Child 2:14
26 Franklin's Tower 4:52
27 Milo Sorghum & Maize 1:32
28 Electromud 0:45
29 Love Offering 1:03
30 Saturday Morning 1:11
31 Magic Toy Missing 1:28
32 Unpleasant 1:02
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A year and a half separated the Meat Puppets' first and second albums, and that time made all the difference in the world; sounding uncertain and fidgety on their debut, they had clearly found their groove, and 1984's Meat Puppets II was not just a quantum leap over their earlier recordings, it defined the parameters of their sonic landscape and is still justly regarded as their finest work. the Meat Puppets' earliest material found them trying to reconcile their obvious love of country and psychedelic rock while bashing away at hardcore tempos, but on Meat Puppets II they relaxed a bit and learned to let each song follow its own lead, and the jolly irony was that as they became more comfortable with their eclecticism, they also created a more unified approach that flattered the instrumental skills of guitarist Curt Kirkwood, bassist Cris Kirkwood, and drummer Derrick Bostrom, as well as the group's songwriting. The speedy chicken picking on "Magic Toy Missing," the punky roar of "Split Myself in Two," the languid noise of "Lake of Fire," and the relaxed, spaced-out groove of "Aurora Borealis" may not have had much in common on the surface, but the group's sense of stoned, sunny wonder permeated them all, and Curt's stellar guitar work and spaced-out vocals were a massive improvement over the blunt yet mushy attack of the first album. And though Meat Puppets II was a long way from slick, Spot's slightly more precise production and engineering gave the album a roomier, more approachable sound, and Curt's judicious palette of guitar overdubs allowed this to stumble gracefully in between vintage hard rock and neo-Grateful Dead influences. It would take Kurt Cobain's endorsement of the album almost ten years after the fact to alert the mainstream to the importance of Meat Puppets II (Nirvana covered three songs from the LP in their MTV Unplugged concert), but the album's playful trippiness was a welcome blow against the hegemony of the nascent indie rock scene, and decades later its energetic charm and resinous insights remain a delight.
Meat Puppets - Meat Puppets II (flac 316mb)
01 Split Myself In Two 2:24
02 Magic Toy Missing 1:22
03 Lost 3:26
04 Plateau 2:22
05 Aurora Borealis 2:45
06 We're Here 2:43
07 Climbing 2:43
08 New Gods 2:13
09 Oh, Me 3:02
10 Lake Of Fire 1:57
11 I'm A Mindless Idiot 2:30
12 The Whistling Song 2:57
Bonus Tracks
13 Teenager(s) 3:36
14 I'm Not Here 1:55
15 New Gods 2:14
16 Lost 3:03
17 What To Do 2:35
18 100% Of Nothing 1:50
19 Aurora Borealis 2:29
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On their second album, the Meat Puppets staggered away from the attempts at punk formalism that hobbled their debut, and with their third LP, 1985's Up on the Sun, they well and truly came out of the musical closet -- not only weren't they punks, they could easily pass for hippies and didn't feel the least bit self-conscious about it. The country influences that played such a big part on Meat Puppets II had faded a bit on Up on the Sun, as a sunburned psychedelia took center stage and the band allowed themselves to get good and trippy. However, Up on the Sun revealed the Puppets had learned one very valuable lesson from punk, and that was to get to the point. The album has an air of carefree drift, but it doesn't meander, and the performances are remarkably tight, full of energy and purpose even when the songs are redolent of goofing off. The title cut churns as Curt Kirkwood's precise but languid guitar figures dance with his brother Cris' insistent basslines and the percussive color of Derrick Bostrom's drumming. "Maiden's Milk" is playful as the abstract jangle of the opening section gives way to a tie-dyed jig, complete with whistling. The swirly phase-shifting and circular melody on "Swimming Ground" sounds as comfortable as a cool dip on a hot day. And the speedy attack of "Buckethead" and "Enchanted Forest" testifies to how strikingly well this band had learned to work as a unit. Up on the Sun isn't as revelatory as Meat Puppets II, and it lacks a song as memorable as "Lake of Fire," but the band rarely sounded as joyous or played with the same fire and accuracy as they demonstrated here, and it's arguably their most purely pleasurable work.
Meat Puppets - Up On The Sun (flac 383mb)
01 Up On The Sun 4:04
02 Maiden's Milk 3:20
03 Away 3:27
04 Animal Kingdom 1:25
05 Hot Pink 3:27
06 Swimming Ground 3:06
07 Buckethead 2:22
08 Too Real 2:12
09 Enchanted Porkfist 2:30
10 Seal Whales 2:20
11 Two Rivers 3:21
12 Creator 2:11
Bonus Tracks
13 Hot Pink 3:55
14 Up On The Sun 4:29
15 Mother American Marshmallow 4:28
16 Embodiment Of Evil 1:53
17 Hot Pink 8:37
Meat Puppets - Up On The Sun (ogg 144mb)
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Out of all of the bands that made SST Records a towering force in the American underground during the mid-'80s, Meat Puppets lasted the longest, surviving where other bands fell apart. Meat Puppets never had the dedicated following of Hüsker Dü or the Minutemen -- two fellow SST bands who played the same circuit as the Puppets -- but they were able to carve out a long career where other hardcore bands could not, because they always drew from conventional hard rock as well as punk. Not only did they play hard, loud, and fast, but they also had elements of the blues-rock of ZZ Top, the ambling folk-rock of the Grateful Dead, and Neil Young's country-rock and hard rock. As they grew older, the band matured musically, developing an accomplished instrumental technique and moving closer to the traditional hard rock that was always underneath their punk. But they never quite abandoned their punk roots, even when they briefly broke into the mainstream in the early '90s.
The core of Meat Puppets was Curt (guitar; born January 10, 1959) and Cris Kirkwood (bass; born October 22, 1960), a pair of brothers born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona. As teenagers, the Kirkwoods played in local rock & roll bands, primarily playing mainstream rock and hard rock. After graduating from a Jesuit prep school, the brothers formed Meat Puppets in 1980 with drummer Derrick Bostrom. Unlike the Kirkwoods' earlier bands, the Meat Puppets were directly inspired by punk rock; they were so committed to keeping the music punk that they refused to rehearse.
A little over a year after their formation, Meat Puppets released their first EP, In a Car, on World Imitation. At this point in their career, the band was at its noisiest, playing furious hardcore with avant-garde leanings. Greg Ginn, the lead guitarist for Black Flag and the head of SST Records, heard the record and offered the Meat Puppets a contract with SST. In 1982, the band released their full-length eponymous debut album on SST, which continued in the experimental vein of their EP. Meat Puppets didn't develop their own distinctive voice until their second album, Meat Puppets II, which was released in 1984. On Meat Puppets II, the band created a fusion of punk and country that sounded unlike anything else in the American underground. With their second album and constant touring, Meat Puppets began to cultivate a dedicated cult following across the U.S. that continued to grow throughout the rest of the decade. In 1985, the group released their third album, Up on the Sun, which earned them their first reviews in mainstream music publications. Up on the Sun also demonstrated that the band was beginning to streamline their sound, moving closer to traditional blues-rock, country-rock, and psychedelia. This shift toward conventional hard rock continued throughout the late '80s, as the band gradually sanded away their rougher punk edges.
After releasing an EP called Out My Way in 1986, Meat Puppets released two critically acclaimed albums -- Mirage and Huevos -- in 1987. By the release of Mirage, Meat Puppets had established themselves as college radio stars, as well as popular attractions on the American underground circuit. Monsters, their final album for SST Records, was released in 1989, and its heavy rock attack foreshadowed the approach the band would adopt in the following decade. The straightforward sound of Monsters wasn't greeted favorably by the band's cult following, and the record stiffed on college radio. Following the weak reception of Monsters, Meat Puppets broke up. In 1991, they re-formed and signed a major-label deal with London Records. Before they recorded their first album for London, SST issued the compilation No Strings Attached in 1990. The following year, Forbidden Places, the group's major-label debut, appeared in the stores. Forbidden Places was neither a commercial nor underground success.
For two years after the release of Forbidden Places, Meat Puppets were relatively quiet, playing a couple of gigs every once in a while. In 1993, they re-emerged as an opening act on Nirvana's In Utero tour. Toward the end of the tour, Nirvana taped an appearance for MTV Unplugged, during which they covered three songs from Meat Puppets II with Meat Puppets themselves. The exposure on MTV Unplugged helped set the stage for the commercial breakthrough of the band's second major-label album, 1994's Too High to Die.
Released around the same time as MTV Unplugged originally aired, Too High to Die didn't gather much attention at first, but after Kurt Cobain's suicide in April, the record and its first single, "Backwater," began to move. This was due to radio's acceptance of "Backwater," but also to MTV's constant airings of Nirvana's MTV Unplugged. By the summer of 1994, "Backwater" was a genuine hit, climbing to number two on the album rock charts and just missing the pop Top 40. None of the other singles from Too High to Die performed quite as well, but the album was a success, becoming the group's first to go gold. Meat Puppets released No Joke!, their follow-up to Too High to Die, in the fall of 1995. However, this album received mediocre reviews and little airplay, and disappeared from the charts and radio a few months after its release.
Following this setback, the Pups effectively went on hiatus. Derrick Bostrom recorded a one-off EP of goofy, saccharine pop covers for the Amarillo label in 1996 under the name Today's Sounds; he subsequently took a job with a multimedia company, also overseeing both the band's website and Rykodisc's 1999 Meat Puppets reissue campaign. Cris Kirkwood, unfortunately, did not fare so well. With the influx of fame and cash, his drug problem had worsened during the No Joke! sessions, and in 1995, he married Michelle Tardif, whose own addictions and run-ins with the law sent things spiraling out of control. Tragedy struck in December 1996, when the Kirkwoods' mother died, and again in August 1998 when Tardif died of a drug overdose. After virtually disappearing for a short time, Cris began to sort out his addictions in rehab programs, and his attendant legal problems in court. Meanwhile, the band's label, London Records, was swallowed up by Universal in a corporate mega-merger.
An overloaded Curt Kirkwood had already relocated to Austin, Texas, prior to Tardif's death; there he formed a new outfit dubbed the Royal Neanderthal Orchestra with ex-Pariah members Kyle Ellison (guitar) and Shandon Sahm (drums; also the son of Doug Sahm), plus former Bob Mould bassist Andrew DuPlantis. Eventually, this group took over the Meat Puppets name (although neither Bostrom nor Cris Kirkwood was ever officially removed from the lineup). Curt secured a release from his prior contract and signed with Breaking, an Atlantic subsidiary. Golden Lies, Meat Puppets' first new album in five years, was released in the fall of 2000. Seven years later, after a lengthy struggle with substance abuse, Cris Kirkwood reunited with brother Curt and new drummer Ted Marcus for the release of Rise to Your Knees. Touring lasted through the end of 2007, while sporadic shows kept the bandmates busy in 2008.
They also returned to the studio that year, and their 12th studio effort, Sewn Together, was released in the spring of 2009. The band continued to stay busy, announcing that they would be performing Up on the Sun at the Animal Collective-curated All Tomorrow's Parties in 2011. They also continued to work on new material, and went into Spoon's HiFi Studio in Austin to work on their 13th studio album, Lollipop. It was released in April of 2011 by Megaforce Records. In 2013, Meat Puppets attempted to take a simplified approach for their 14th album, Rat Farm, and the Kirkwood brothers were joined by return drummer Shandon Sahm and Curt's son Elmo on guitar.
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
Although the Meat Puppets would later become best known for their intriguing blend of country, punk, rock, folk, psychedelia, and whatever else they could toss in their musical blender, the trio's 1982 self-titled full-length debut was a furious hardcore album. Totally ferocious and red hot, the album rarely lets up on its full-throttle attack -- Curt Kirkwood's vocals bear little resemblance to the wasted, off-key country-rock warbling on such seminal releases as Meat Puppets II and Up on the Sun; instead, the singing style consists of larynx-shredding screaming that renders the lyrics incomprehensible. Still, there's something special about such slop-rockers as "Love Offering," "Blue-Green God," "Saturday Morning," and "Our Friends." And as a sign of things to come, for a few brief fleeting moments, the band attempts to conquer country (on covers of "Walking Boss" and "Tumblin' Tumbleweeds"). This 1999 Rykodisc reissue more than doubled the original album's track listing, including their early In a Car EP and a total of 12 outtakes/demos, the best of the bunch being covers of the Stooges' "I Got a Right," Neil Young's "I Am a Child," and the Grateful Dead's "Franklin's Tower."
Meat Puppets - Meat Puppets ( flac 333mb)
01 Reward 1:12
02 Love Offering 1:29
03 Blue-Green God 1:23
04 Walking Boss 2:52
05 Melons Rising 0:53
06 Saturday Morning 1:30
07 Our Friends 2:12
08 Tumblin' Tumbleweeds 2:03
09 Milo Sorghum And Maize 2:16
10 Meat Puppets 1:38
11 Playing Dead 1:28
12 Litter Box 0:50
13 Electromud 0:48
14 The Gold Mine 1:02
In A Car EP
15 In A Car 1:21
16 Big House 1:07
17 Dolphin Field 1:09
18 Out In The Gardener 1:04
19 Foreign Lawns 0:37
Bonus Tracks
20 Meat Puppets 1:33
21 Everybody's Talking 2:42
22 H-Elenore 1:39
23 Hair 1:26
24 I Got A Right 2:40
25 I Am A Child 2:14
26 Franklin's Tower 4:52
27 Milo Sorghum & Maize 1:32
28 Electromud 0:45
29 Love Offering 1:03
30 Saturday Morning 1:11
31 Magic Toy Missing 1:28
32 Unpleasant 1:02
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A year and a half separated the Meat Puppets' first and second albums, and that time made all the difference in the world; sounding uncertain and fidgety on their debut, they had clearly found their groove, and 1984's Meat Puppets II was not just a quantum leap over their earlier recordings, it defined the parameters of their sonic landscape and is still justly regarded as their finest work. the Meat Puppets' earliest material found them trying to reconcile their obvious love of country and psychedelic rock while bashing away at hardcore tempos, but on Meat Puppets II they relaxed a bit and learned to let each song follow its own lead, and the jolly irony was that as they became more comfortable with their eclecticism, they also created a more unified approach that flattered the instrumental skills of guitarist Curt Kirkwood, bassist Cris Kirkwood, and drummer Derrick Bostrom, as well as the group's songwriting. The speedy chicken picking on "Magic Toy Missing," the punky roar of "Split Myself in Two," the languid noise of "Lake of Fire," and the relaxed, spaced-out groove of "Aurora Borealis" may not have had much in common on the surface, but the group's sense of stoned, sunny wonder permeated them all, and Curt's stellar guitar work and spaced-out vocals were a massive improvement over the blunt yet mushy attack of the first album. And though Meat Puppets II was a long way from slick, Spot's slightly more precise production and engineering gave the album a roomier, more approachable sound, and Curt's judicious palette of guitar overdubs allowed this to stumble gracefully in between vintage hard rock and neo-Grateful Dead influences. It would take Kurt Cobain's endorsement of the album almost ten years after the fact to alert the mainstream to the importance of Meat Puppets II (Nirvana covered three songs from the LP in their MTV Unplugged concert), but the album's playful trippiness was a welcome blow against the hegemony of the nascent indie rock scene, and decades later its energetic charm and resinous insights remain a delight.
Meat Puppets - Meat Puppets II (flac 316mb)
01 Split Myself In Two 2:24
02 Magic Toy Missing 1:22
03 Lost 3:26
04 Plateau 2:22
05 Aurora Borealis 2:45
06 We're Here 2:43
07 Climbing 2:43
08 New Gods 2:13
09 Oh, Me 3:02
10 Lake Of Fire 1:57
11 I'm A Mindless Idiot 2:30
12 The Whistling Song 2:57
Bonus Tracks
13 Teenager(s) 3:36
14 I'm Not Here 1:55
15 New Gods 2:14
16 Lost 3:03
17 What To Do 2:35
18 100% Of Nothing 1:50
19 Aurora Borealis 2:29
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
On their second album, the Meat Puppets staggered away from the attempts at punk formalism that hobbled their debut, and with their third LP, 1985's Up on the Sun, they well and truly came out of the musical closet -- not only weren't they punks, they could easily pass for hippies and didn't feel the least bit self-conscious about it. The country influences that played such a big part on Meat Puppets II had faded a bit on Up on the Sun, as a sunburned psychedelia took center stage and the band allowed themselves to get good and trippy. However, Up on the Sun revealed the Puppets had learned one very valuable lesson from punk, and that was to get to the point. The album has an air of carefree drift, but it doesn't meander, and the performances are remarkably tight, full of energy and purpose even when the songs are redolent of goofing off. The title cut churns as Curt Kirkwood's precise but languid guitar figures dance with his brother Cris' insistent basslines and the percussive color of Derrick Bostrom's drumming. "Maiden's Milk" is playful as the abstract jangle of the opening section gives way to a tie-dyed jig, complete with whistling. The swirly phase-shifting and circular melody on "Swimming Ground" sounds as comfortable as a cool dip on a hot day. And the speedy attack of "Buckethead" and "Enchanted Forest" testifies to how strikingly well this band had learned to work as a unit. Up on the Sun isn't as revelatory as Meat Puppets II, and it lacks a song as memorable as "Lake of Fire," but the band rarely sounded as joyous or played with the same fire and accuracy as they demonstrated here, and it's arguably their most purely pleasurable work.
Meat Puppets - Up On The Sun (flac 383mb)
01 Up On The Sun 4:04
02 Maiden's Milk 3:20
03 Away 3:27
04 Animal Kingdom 1:25
05 Hot Pink 3:27
06 Swimming Ground 3:06
07 Buckethead 2:22
08 Too Real 2:12
09 Enchanted Porkfist 2:30
10 Seal Whales 2:20
11 Two Rivers 3:21
12 Creator 2:11
Bonus Tracks
13 Hot Pink 3:55
14 Up On The Sun 4:29
15 Mother American Marshmallow 4:28
16 Embodiment Of Evil 1:53
17 Hot Pink 8:37
Meat Puppets - Up On The Sun (ogg 144mb)
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3 comments:
Hey, Could you reup Up On The Sun in flac? Thank you so much for all your groovy work.
Could you please re up these meat puppets albums? Thank you!
Hello. Are the albums on this page part of what you were referring to when you wrote you've "lost access to a number of disks." Just curious if these albums were impacted as well. Thanks for the re ups.
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