Meat Puppets II

Meat Puppets II is the second album by the Phoenix, Arizona band the Meat Puppets, released in 1984. It is a departure from their self-titled debut album, which consisted largely of noisy hardcore with unintelligible vocals. It covers many genres from country-style rock ("Magic Toy Missing", "Climbing", Lost") to slow acoustic songs ("Plateau", "Oh Me") to psychedelic guitar effects ("Aurora Borealis") to hard rock ("Lake of Fire").

The cover art is by Curt Kirkwood and Neal Holliday.

Rykodisc reissued the album in 1999 with extra tracks and b-sides, including a cover of the Rolling Stones' Aftermath-era track "What To Do."

The Meat Puppets' SST labelmates The Minutemen covered "Lost" on the EP Tour-Spiel and their last studio album, 3-Way Tie (For Last). Three of the album's songs were covered by Nirvana (as the Kirkwood brothers joined them onstage) during their "Unplugged" show for MTV ("Plateau", "Oh, Me", and "Lake of Fire").

Reception

Kurt Loder in an April 1984 review in Rolling Stone described Meat Puppets II as "one of the funniest and most enjoyable albums" of the year, feeling that the band had developed beyond thrash music to become "a kind of cultural trash compacter" in which they blend head-banging with "a bit of the Byrds...Hendrix-style guitar...and...Blonde on Blonde-style wordsmithing". In his review for The Village Voice, Robert Christgau gave the album an "A–" and felt that Curt Kirkwood had combined "the amateur and the avant-garde with a homely appeal", which resulted in a "calmly demented country music" in a "psychedelic" vein.

Meat Puppets

Meat Puppets are an American rock band formed in January 1980 in Phoenix, Arizona. The group's original lineup was Curt Kirkwood (guitar/vocals), his brother Cris Kirkwood (bass guitar), and Derrick Bostrom (drums). The Kirkwood brothers met Bostrom while attending Brophy Prep High School in Phoenix. The three then moved to Tempe, Arizona (a Phoenix suburb and home to Arizona State University) where the Kirkwood brothers purchased two adjacent homes, one of which had a shed in the back where they regularly practiced.

Meat Puppets started as a punk rock band, but like most of their labelmates on SST Records, they established their own unique style, blending punk with country and psychedelic rock, and featuring Curt's warbling vocals. Meat Puppets later gained significant exposure when the Kirkwood brothers served as guest musicians on Nirvana's MTV Unplugged performance in 1993. The band's 1994 album Too High to Die subsequently became their most successful release. The band broke up twice, in 1996 and 2002, but reunited again in 2006.

Meat Puppets (album)

Meat Puppets is the first album by American band the Meat Puppets, released in 1982. The album is unlike their later, better-known releases due to its hardcore punk sound.

The album was recorded in a matter of days, there are very few overdubs and many of the tracks are first takes. Like other early SST albums the sound quality is rather spotty; there is noticeable fuzz in the background of the music. The band opted for this because they felt more comfortable recording live with only a few microphones rather than employing conventional studio separation techniques. In 1999, Curt Kirkwood stated, "The first [album] was our LSD record. We were three days in the studio, and we tripped the whole time. And it was really cool, and really trying, too, because we went insane."

The 1999 Rykodisc reissue features the entire In a Car EP as well as 13 other bonus tracks, many of them studio jams or outtakes, and a video clip of the band performing "Walking Boss" live. The booklet also has liner notes by Gregg Turkington and recording notes by drummer Derrick Bostrom.