I'd Love to Turn You On #123 - Meat Puppets – Up On The Sun

Meat Puppets first burst out of the Arizona desert in the early 80s as one of the key bands on legendary punk label SST.  But while they started out loud and fast, they were never really punk.  Growing up outside of any scene that would constrain them, they were free to indulge in whatever influence sparked their fancy.  Brothers Curt and Cris Kirkwood, along with drummer Derrick Bostrom, brewed up a psychedelic stew of punk, country, and classic rock that found an audience among the freaks and weirdos of the emerging alternative nation.  Many of them formed bands of their own.  Some of them became huge, most prominently Kurt Cobain who turned over a whole segment of Nirvana's Unplugged appearance to a sit-in with Curt and Cris.  All the songs they played on Unplugged came from the Pups' legendary second album Meat Puppets II.  As great as that album is, its follow-up, 1985's Up On the Sun, is even better.  This is where the Meat Puppets truly come into their own, creating intricate compositions with the talent to back them up, yet still retaining a garage band feel.

The title song is a beautiful laid-back jam, meandering in the best way possible.  It might seem strange to kick off an album with its most mellow tune, especially for a band still considered punk at the time, but "Up On the Sun" perfectly sets the tone for everything to come.  They follow with the instrumental "Maiden's Milk" and the song's intro showcases the band's talent for tricky compositions with Cris' hyperactive basswork leading the way.  The song relaxes into a pleasant groove, complete with whistling, and some nice guitar leads from Curt.  The band's complex side also comes through later in the album on "Enchanted Pork Fist," which jumps from light-speed prog-fusion to an infectious arena rock chorus and back again, all within two and half minutes.  The band also knows how to get funky with Cris and Derrick forming a super tight rhythm section on "Away" and "Bucket Head."  If there's any song that deserves all-time classic status, it's the country-flavored "Swimming Ground."  A relaxed reminiscence of summer days of yore, one can easily picture this tune covered by a clever bluegrass ensemble or jam band, though it's hard to picture anyone besting the original.  The album closes with a pair of reflective songs, the pastoral "Two Rivers" and the metaphysical "Creator."

Meat Puppets continued to make great music for SST throughout the 80s, and moved up to a major label at the dawn of the 90s.  Their music may have gotten more mainstream but always retained a uniquely skewed point of view.  The Unplugged appearance, as well as the alternative music explosion, exposed them to a wide audience for the first time and they even scored a couple of hits.  But substance abuse and personal issues caused the band to fall apart by decade's end.  And then, in the late 2000s, came a miraculous return.  They've made several great records recently and tour constantly.  The material from Up On the Sun is still part of their repertoire, in fact they played a fantastic 10 minute version of the title track at the Bluebird a few years back.  Whether you're an old fan or new, a Meat Puppets show is always a good time.  And Up On the Sun is a great album to either check out for the first time or revisit after a long absence.  It's one of those that just never gets old.

            - Adam Reshotko

Fables of the Reconstruction: Meat Puppets - Up On the Sun

The consensus seems to be that the Meat Puppets’ second album, Meat Puppets II, is their best. Nirvana covered a few songs from it for their MTV unplugged release—“Plateau” “Oh, Me” and “Lake of Fire.” Pitchfork named it one of the hundred best records of the 80s, and it’s among the 1001 Albums You Must Listen To Before You Die. It’s long been available as a Ryko vinyl reissue, complete with a gatefold cover that includes essays attesting to the album’s status as a classic. And I agree; it’s an all-time great. But I’ve always preferred the band’s third release, Up On the Sun.

It’s a more consistent and cohesive work than its predecessor, with no jarring transitions back and forth between screechy hardcore and jangling country. The sound is more mature and confident, fuller, more nuanced and layered. The beauty lies in the interplay between the Kirkwood brothers, Curt on guitar and Cris on bass, both of them spinning spirals of scales that blend and swirl in and out of one another, forming lovely moirés of sound—an effect that’s enhanced by copious overdubbing. I got the album right before summer vacation between my sophomore and junior years in high school, listened to it everyday, several times a day, and I marveled at how I heard something new with each play. Yet it still feels and airy, not overwrought, because the sonic density is in service to a dozen wonderful songs, standard two-and-a-half minute affairs that are easy to hum along with, full of weird lyrics about “birds that dance on invisible air” and “pistachios” and a “hot pink tornado.” All the singing is off-key, but somehow it sounds just right. If the lyrics were sung in tune, the album would be too slick and kind of boring (like some of the band’s later albums).

And it’s a psychedelic album from an era that was decidedly unpsychedelic – the mid-1980s. Legend has it that when the Meat Puppets played at the Rainbow Music Hall in early 1984, a year before Up On the Sun came out, they were on somewhere between five and ten hits of L.S.D. Some readers may recall that they opened for Black Flag along with Nig Heist, who were hauled away in cuffs because they got naked on stage. Barry Fey himself apologized to everyone and promised to never allow such offensive crap to grace a Colorado stage again, oblivious to the fact that the audience was full of punks who were pleasantly entertained by such crap, and more offended by the likes of Barry Fey. Who knows if the rumor is true, but back then I believed it, and it deepened my appreciation for the band. In those days, Grateful Dead concerts were just about the only readily available option for hallucination chasers. I’ve never heard the Dead mentioned as a direct influence for the Meat Puppets, but Up On the Sun’s relaxed but richly ornate sound suggests that they were, especially on “Swimming Ground,” which bears an uncanny resemblance to “Sugar Magnolia.” It makes sense, too, because Greg Ginn, who ran SST, the Meat Puppets’ record label back then, was (and is) a major Dead Head, which was pretty radical back then: SST was a punk label, and hippy music was blasphemy against the dogma of punk, which the Meat Puppets abandoned entirely for their third record. So it’s not only a classic example of tenacious psychedelia, it’s an historical artifact, and a significant one, because it, along with a handful of other albums, many of them released on SST, documents pretty much the exact moment when punk broke open and paved the way for post punk and the whole wonderful DIY scene we have going today.

What Are You Listening To Lately (Part 11)?

Sly & the Family Stone - Stand!
If it were not for the just-OK "Somebody's Watching You" and the slight excess of "Sex Machine," this album would be perfect - the absolute inverse in its brightness, drive, and optimism of There's a Riot Goin' On's murk, languor, and pessimism. There's nary a hint of the darkness that would consume Sly a year or so after the making of this album - it's all hope and optimism and direct confrontation of problems, none of the resigned negativity he'd essay on the next record. And it's beautiful for most of its length, with "Everyday People" standing as not just one of Sly's best songs, but one of the best pop songs of all time. A true, indelible, A+ moment. But it's only one standout of Sly's grand statement of purpose - or at least of the purpose he espoused in 1969. On nearly any other record, "Everyday People" would be a career-topper the artist would try forever to recapture. On Stand! the song, brilliant as it is, finds at least three others on par with it - the bruising funk of "Sing A Simple Song," the tense equality plea of "Don't Call Me Nigger, Whitey" and the nearly-surpassing-it masterpiece of "I Want to Take You Higher." It's a landmark album, kept half a star short for me only by some minor flaws which in truth never cross my mind while it's playing, only in reflection afterwards.


Meat Puppets - II
In a way, their best because it's got the most breadth but it's also a little on the side of wild youth - they got wiser as they continued, and I for one appreciate that. But even so, they're pretty damn smart even this early on in their career and I don't think they were ever more fun, singing however they feel it without worrying about, y'know, pitch and stuff and playing their wacked out guitar/bass/drums the same way. Which just means that Kurt & co. cleaned them up a bit for their respectable stab at the MTV crowd, not that Nirvana improved on the melodies or the words. Cobain was right to pick three songs from this album for their big acoustic special because it's the Puppets' catchiest, their easiest to absorb (especially in the cleaner Nirvana versions) and he knew as well as anyone that "grunge" fans fans not acclimated to the underground that spawned Nirvana would be able to glom on to these shoulda-been hits more readily then the thrash of the first record or the wide-eyed (or should I say wide-pupiled?) psychedelic wonder of some of the later ones. So yeah, I guess it really is their best, a repository of melodies, riffs and memories, even though I find that I don't always go to this for my Puppets fix, which just means there are more great ones lurking out there.


Various Artists - Produced by Trevor Horn
Before I had any idea who Eno was, before I made any connection between Phil Spector and the multitude of hits he produced, I could identify a Trevor Horn production within a few bars. So his 80's material collected here holds a special place for me. He's the magic link between ABC, my heroes in Art of Noise, my favorite Pet Shop Boys song, the wacko "Buffalo Gals," and my otherwise inexplicable attraction to Yes and Godley & Creme. I don't necessarily need his 90's and 00's stuff the way I love his 80's, but neither do I mind hearing how he's developed (though I have yet to develop my own tastes enough to enjoy t.A.T.u for more than 2.5 minutes at a time.). Like the key AoN releases, like "Buffalo Gals," like "Owner of a Lonely Heart" and "Cry," the bulk of the 80's material here takes me to a sentimental place that I enjoy visiting. And if I don't love it all equally, this is a fundamental piece of my musical development. Eno and Spector came later and I can't in truth say that they've meant more to me.