Meat Puppets
The Meat Puppets formed as a three-piece band in Scottsdale, Arizona circa 1979. The Kirkwood brothers, Curt and Cris, played guitar and bass, respectively. Derrick Bostrom played drums throughout the Meat Puppets' 20+ years of existence in a straight 4-4 metronomic style that served as an underpinning for the Kirkwoods' sometimes intricate fretboard work.
Their early works (the In a Car ep and Meat Puppets I lp) were wholeheartedly punk, with unintelligible vocals on surreal themes and often ferociously sloppy musicianship. Yet they never lost a certain southwestern flair, and even did a cover of "Tumblin' Tumbleweeds". These sounds gave way to psychedelia, acid rock, and quieter tunes alongside the western-style thrash on Meat Puppets II, and to more gentle and groovy songs with solid melodies on 1985's Up On the Sun.
Over the next decade, the Meat Puppets released a series of albums, both on SST Records and finally on major labels, which unabashedly hearkened back to ZZ Top and Led Zeppelin without being derivative. In 1994, the band found themselves suddenly popular when Kurt Cobain played "Plateau" and other of their songs with Curt and Cris on MTV. Curt is the only original member left in the band as of 2002.
Discography
SST LPs/EPs
- In A Car (1981)
- Meat Puppets I (1982)
- Meat Puppets II (1983)
- Up on the Sun (1985)
- Out My Way
- Mirage
- Huevos
- Monsters
- Too High to Die
- No Joke