If there is one modern band that knows the perils of breaking up and getting back together again, it is Meat Puppets. Starting off its career in the early 1980s in suburban Phoenix, Meat Puppets adopted a distinct stature in the realm of punk rock, providing listeners of the time with a slightly edgier alternative to the likes of Phil Collins and Olivia Newton John.
By the time the mid-1980s rolled around, Meat Puppets' respective fans, and even the band members, were becoming tired of their increasingly humdrum punk sound. Seeking to conjure up a remedy to the problem, the band began to experiment with an array of different genres on its album "Meat Puppets II," principally with psychedelic rock and country western ambiance. Coincidentally, other bands such as Reverend Horton Heat and Th' Legendary Shack*Shakers were fusing other genres with country western sounds, and, along with Meat Puppets, they created the subgenre of "cowpunk" or country punk, which draws influence from British psychobilly and southern American blues.
Before "Meat Puppets II" was released to the public, the band feared that its fans would suspect the band had abandoned its hardcore rock roots. Meat Puppets' worries proved futile, as its experiments with "cowpunk" only opened the door to new breeds of listeners and a newfound prized position under its Solid State Transmitters Records label alongside the company's esteemed 1980s acts, including Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr. and Soundgarden.
The 1990s started off with a bang for Meat Puppets: continued success with record sales and an invitation from Kurt Cobain, a fan of the band after seeing the band deliver the opening act for Black Flag, to join him for an MTV Unplugged performance. Shortly afterward, the Puppets released its most successful and critically-acclaimed album, "Too High to Die," which collectively outsold all of its prior albums combined. After over a decade of success, no one could have foreseen the troubling years that Meat Puppets had ahead of itself. After bassist and founding member of Meat Puppets, Cris Kirkwood, lost his wife and a close friend to drug overdoses, he slipped into a downward spiral of drug addiction. Touring with the band proved far too difficult for Cris, as free drugs were everywhere to be found. Thus, Meat Puppets went on a hiatus. During the lull, each of the band members worked on individual projects, yet in 2002, when Cris found himself in a bloody scuffle with a security guard and faced jail time, the band fell apart.
Early in 2006, guitarist/singer Curt Kirkwood polled fans on Meat Puppets' MySpace page, asking if anyone would be interested in seeing the band reunite. The response was overwhelmingly positive and reassured the band that despite its late 1990s antics, the band's fans still wanted more. This past July, the band released "Rise to Your Knees" with new drummer Ted Marcus, who was previously a senior audio engineer and sound designer for MTV. D.C. fans can check out Meat Puppets on Sunday at 8 p.m. when the band takes the stage with opening acts The Comas and Jay Reatard at the Black Cat. The album's reviews, while generally mixed, all expressed satisfaction with Puppets' return. Thanks, MySpace.
