We were already painfully aware of our limitations, that the same “straight” critics who praised our album were coming away disappointed from our performances. We all pointed fingers at each other, but at the end of the day, the truth was obvious. For the moment at least, our reach had exceeded our grasp. Our only option was to close our eyes, hold our noses and roll up our sleeves. It would take a couple years and a lot of work before we really began to put it all together and become the band we wanted to be.

But not everyone back then shared this low assessment of our live shows. Plenty of folks dug the way we interspersed breakneck punk rock with long clumsy psychedelic jams and tentative workouts of future Puppets classics. For them, the sloppy sense of discovery found in these shows was the real deal. I happen to hold that opinion myself, which is why I regret not keeping more recordings from back then. I would tape every show I could, but I only kept the highlights for my own personal collection. I left the rest of them with our sound man. Unfortunately, we had a falling out, and I didn’t have the presence of mind to get our live tapes out of his house before we fired him. To make matters worse, I lost an entire box of masters when our van was broken into during a trip to Los Angeles.

Happily, every so often an old fan crawls out of the woodwork with a handful of heretofore unheard audience recordings. A new one just came to my attention just this week: witness Peteykins of the Princess Sparkle Pony blog, who shares three shows from 1984-5, and describes his preference for those years. Peteykins is like a lot of Puppethead tapers. For one thing, he’s somebody I probably once knew but have now completely forgotten (sorry man; it was a long time ago). Second, he was kind of afraid to post shares for fear of pissing off the band. So, my purpose here is twofold: first, to popularize his recordings (and maybe take down his blog in the process due to heavy traffic — again: sorry man), and second, to encourage the rest of you. Tapers: if you got shows, by all means rip em and put em up somewhere before the tapes rot!

As far as I can tell, the Sparkle Pony recordings of these shows are the only ones in existence. I’m pretty sure I don’t have copies of any of ‘em. So, I’m as anxious to hear this stuff as the rest of you are. I’m sure it’s terrible!

GET EM HERE, and remember: if you have issues, you’ll have to contact Peteykins yourself. I’m not your dad.

“Shot prior to the release of their breakthrough “Too High To Die” LP at the Ventura Theater, in beautiful Ventura California in 1993. Contains the super-rare Cris Kirkwood original “David Beware (Film The Trolls)” overture. They also jam out “Attacked By Monsters” & “Sam”. Edited in camera, Mannequins and Trolls courtesy of the stores on California Ave.”

For a look at some of Dave’s more current work, check out his video for “Rotten Shame.”

The European cassette-only “Bethel” compilation dates back from 1983, and traces its origin to an offer to contribute to a collection of “industrial” artists. Since the Meat Puppets were busy mining country and classic rock at the time, we were somewhat unsure of our place alongside of such artists as Boyd Rice, Foetus and Nurse With Wound. But I dutifully snipped a few minutes from a warm-up noise jam from one of our home rehearsals and sent it in. At one point, Curt says, “I blow my nose in your soup.” After the recording cuts off, entirely by accident, the next thing on the tape is my voice saying, “I think I’ll have a bowl of soup.” Impressed by the odd serendipity, I left it on the submission. Unfortunately, the compilers didn’t catch on, and faded the track out before my spoken line. Disappointed, I listened to “Bethel” once then threw it into the archives. There were to be better Pups noise jams over the years, and this one had little to recommend it.

But fans have clamored for this track ever since I included it in my band discography. Thanks to Cranio and his “The Thing On The Doorstep” blog, I can cross that one off my list. And now that you’ve heard it, so can you. One interesting item of note: my copy came in a thin cardboard box with skeletons riding bikes printed on it. Cranio’s copy appears to have come in standard cassette packaging with a teal cover.

The Thing On The Doorstep: Various – Bethel

If there were anyone left at that label with a clue, I wouldn’t need to take such a project on myself, it’d get an official release. Now, thanks to Meat Puppets Yahoo Message Board member “nathang78,” I don’t have to do a damned thing; he’s done it for me. His “Rare Meat compilation includes all the tracks from the Polygram days and as many others as he can find, including stuff from the “Classic Meat” album, the “Keats Rides A Harley” comp, and the much-desired “You Love Me” EP, offered as a giveaway back during Curt’s first attempt to reform the band eight years ago.

You can download the 180 meg rar file HERE (password=meatpuppets)

From nathang78′s included readme.txt:

Except what is missing as listed below, This is meant to be a comprehensive
collection of tracks from various compilation, soundtrack, single, and
promotional CDs.

Like a lot of young bands, we assumed we could get by in the recording studio with nothing but enthusiasm. We discovered that the studio required a very different set of skills than did live performing. For instance, it’s hard to flop around and rock out when you have to keep your headphones from falling off. Veering off mike is also not an option. For a band that relied so heavily on its feral group mind, taming the beast long enough to make a recording both authentic and audible was a challenge.

To get a whole album’s worth of acceptable performances took three separate sessions (though perhaps only the three of us could have told them apart). The vocals on the first session are actually overdubbed. But after leaning against the wall for an hour, convulsing into a mike while wearing “cans” over his ears, Curt proclaimed the effort to be worthless. The second session went so badly no tape survives from it. We returned the following week determined to emerge with keeper takes. We blew off trying for fidelity: we just shoved all the instruments together and stuck a bunch of mikes around — separation be damned. We imbibed whatever we could get our hands on until we were good and twisted and just let howl for as long as the instruments would stay in tune. Anxious to get it over with, we proclaimed ourselves to be satisfied and beat it.

Now, you the fans can decide if we were right. Almost every song from the first album is represented here in an alternate version, some of them multiple times. You can also check out our tune-ups, as well as a healthy selection of warm-up covers. Some of them made it onto the Rykodisc reissue of the first album, but royalty restrictions forced us to leave some of them off. Now you can have them for free!

Thanks once again to Jon Boshard for keeping his copies of these tapes long after I lost track of my own, and for sharing.

(Note: In making these recordings available to the public, I’ve decided to use file sharing services, rather than make my web host take the full brunt of the bandwidth hit. These services can be unpredictable, so I’ve uploaded to three different ones. Please be advised that these are large files, and some ‘net connections will be unable to handle them. The files have been tested on both Macintosh and Windows platforms and they work fine. Files on this site are presented “as is.” I can’t offer tech support, nor can I mail them to folks unable to download them. (Let the browser beware.) Good luck, and happy listening!



Download Part One from Rapidshare
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Download Part Two from World Of Webcams

Download Part One from Megaupload
Download Part Two from Megaupload

Since I am in Phoenix and the station is in Hollywood, the show is prerecorded. In keeping with Luxuria programming, the show focuses on bubblegum, lounge music, obscure rock, jazz, novelties, pure pop and cheesy listening music.

About Derrick Bostrom

Derrick Bostrom gained notoriety as the drummer and founding member of the legendary U.S. band the Meat Puppets. One of the longest-lasting bands from the indie scene of the 1980′s, the Meat Puppets released ten albums, including 1994′s certified gold “Too High To Die.” That album spawned the hit, “Backwater,” which can still be heard on classic rock stations to this day. The band was also featured on Nirvana’s best-selling “Unplugged” album, which included three Meat Puppets songs.

Though the original trio disbanded after fifteen years in 1996, Bostrom continues to maintain the group’s web site. In the late 90s, his solo group, Today’s Sounds, released ” Songs Of Spiritual Uplift” featuring versions of such songs as “Pac Man Fever” and “Let’s Turkey Trot.” He also produced the Meat Puppets reissue series for Rykodisc records.

Though retired from live performing, Bostrom retains a voracious musical appetite. He spends much of his spare time in the dusty corners of second-hand shops, thrift stores and dollar bins, gleefully scooping up the ephemeral leftovers not appropriated by other collectors. Bostrom shares the fruits of his labors on his program for LuxuriaMusic.com, “C’mon! Live A Little!”

In addition to the Meat Puppets web site, where he shares his archives and anecdotes relating to the band’s past, Bostrom also maintains Bostworld, a blog devoted to “trash, treasure, oddities, obsessions and obligations.”

http://derrickbostrom.com/

http://meatpuppets.com

About LuxuriaMusic

LuxuriaMusic programming is an original mix of music content not found anywhere else. LuxuriaMusic features an intoxicating and often hallucinatory blend of musical genres, featuring Exotica, Lounge, Space Age Bachelor Pad, Bossa, Bollywood, Bubblegum, Soft-Psych, Go-Go, Latin Jazz, Sophisticated Rock and Surf music.

Current programming is a mix of live, taped-for-broadcast and automated shows. Most live programming airs between the hours of 1PM – midnight, Pacific Time (-0800 GMT).

The LuxuriaMusic radio format was developed by Chuck Kelley (music consultant on “Pulp Fiction” and “From Dusk till Dawn”) and The Millionaire (from Combustible Edison) in the late 1990′s and launched an Internet radio broadcast on February 14, 2000. LuxuriaMusic ranked #73 in the November 2000 Arbitron ratings, and in the Top 30 among “internet only” stations. In December 2000, Clear Channel Communications bought LuxuriaMusic’s parent company Enigma Digital. LuxuriaMusic.com ceased operations in May 2001.

The LuxuriaMusic radio stream was relaunched in March 2003 after a 22-month hiatus. The relaunched LuxuriaMusic is owned and operated by LuxuriaMusic, LLC with corporate headquarters in San Francisco, California and broadcast studios in Los Angeles, California. Chuck Kelley and Eric Bonerz (Program Director of the original LuxuriaMusic) are co-program directors. LuxuriaMusic is made possible by a staff of dedicated volunteers from around the world.

One show is from Phoenix in February 1985, and features pre-release versions of tracks from “Up On The Sun.” The band appears in characteristic dress: Curt in a blue tee-shirt and prescription sunglasses, looking every inch the popular high school preppie gone wrong that he was. Cris is in a suit jacket no doubt foisted upon him by his girlfriend. I’m wearing my beloved “GOAT” tee shirt, which I got from a fan but lost somewhere along the way. A simple statement of Satanism made properly palatable for the REM generation. Dullsville gets my highest commendation for bravely ignoring the crumbling quality of his video. The tracking errors are so 20th century.

Another from his collection, a show from the early 90s, is a typical example of the sublime offhand pyrotechnics we could produce when inclined. I’m pretty sure the performance is from McCabe’s in October of 1994, though the lack of gratuitously enthusiastic recognition from the audience when we play “Backwater” would seem to peg it from before that single was released. Also included among the standard fodder is our version of Neil Diamond’s “Longfellow’s Serenade.” Always the crowd pleasers, these guys. The footage also offers a very brief glimpse at the red boxer shorts with yellow polka dots I had on that night.

Along with the band footage is Dullsville’s own video artistry in the added title sequences, though on occasion he dares to add effects to the live footage itself. But the effects only add to the overall atmosphere of stoney fandom exuded by the collection. Get yourself a grabber and download these files to your video iPod quick, before your next road trip. You won’t want to leave home without them.


The Dullsville Collection (This account was deleted.)

The Dullsvillain Collection (Long live The Villain!)

Recently, Jon Boshard sent me a copy of the rough mixes from that first session. I have a lot of tapes of the band from the early 80′s, but somehow this one never made it into my collection. In fact, I’d forgotten it even existed until Jon brought it to my attention. Jon probably got the tape from his business partner Joe Carducci, the man responsible for bringing us to SST Records in 1981.

The backing tracks are essentially complete, save for a few effects added during the mixing session. We were very happy with the session, which came off without a hitch –that is, until we started on the vocals. Curt’s ambition had grown considerably since our previous record, but at this stage his vision still outstripped his ability. He encounted major problems controlling his voice, especially when he needed to shift back and forth between higher and lower registers. In order to cover all the notes, he was forced to develop a rudimentary if unsatifying strategy, which can be best observed on vocal for “Plateau.” On that track, he starts out real low, then suddenly switches to high yelp. (Years later, we were amused at Kurt Cobain’s studious duplication of Curt’s limitations on his “Unplugged” version of the song.)

Curt agonized over whether to go back into the studio and attempt to redo the vocals, leave them as they were, or just scrap the whole project. Fortunately, he got comfortable with the takes over time, and we moved on to bigger concerns (like convincing SST to let us actually finish the album). Stripped of their out-of-control vocals, the tracks themselves reveal a great deal of craft. The arrangements are detailed, the tempos are controlled and we’re actually listening to each other. The highlights, for me, are “Oh Me” and “The Whistling Song.” On these two cuts especially, you can hear just how hard we’re trying to move in the opposite direction from our previous album. You can tell that we’re really holding things down, keeping the tempo just as slow as possible before the whole song falls apart. This kind of playfullness is evident throughout the recordings.

Unfortunately, there were those who viewed our efforts as a betrayal of “the form.” Coincidentally or not, “Meat Puppets II” languished unfinished for six months. SPOT became “unavailable,” and no one seemed to be able to locate him or the tapes. We seethed resentment over the delays, and began to imagine conspiracies and ulterior motives at the label, especially after we discovered that Husker Du, the Minutmen and even Black Flag had “post-hardcore” albums in the works. “Meat Puppets II” wasn’t released until the spring of 1984. Even after the album got a glowing four-star review in Rolling Stone magazine, our disatisfaction with SST hardened, and the relationship settled into a stifling atmosphere of mutual suspicion.

In making these important outtakes available to the public, I’ve decided to use file sharing services, rather than make my web host take the full brunt of the bandwidth hit. These services can be unpredictable, so I’ve uploaded to three different ones. Good luck, and happy listening!


Download from Rapidshare

Download from World Of Webcams

Download from Megaupload

We rehearsed costantly in preparation for this tour. We bought lots of new gear, followed a regimen of diet and exercise, and even took herbal “performance enhancers” like ma huong and ginseng before the shows. (These probably bolstered our confidence more than our stamina.)

We were determined to put on a “professional show.” You can hear it in the rather subdued, almost polite stage patter in between songs. You can tell we’re concentrating, trying hard to “recreate” the “Mirage” material. Even such elusive live rarities as “Beauty’” “The Mighty Zero” and “A Hundred Miles” are still in the set list. They would be dropped by the end of the year.

As you can tell from the recording, we’re comporting ourselves reasonably well, valiantly attempting all the difficult parts and tricky time changes from both “Mirage” and “Out My Way.” Attention is paid to pacing, and though it never actually happens, an effort is made to offer up solid vocal performances. We’re still pretty sloppy, but consistantly so. You can even hear us attempt three part harmony on “Mirage,” The Wind And The Rain” and “I Am A Machine.” Yours Truly even has a solo lead vocal on “Bad Boy.”

It was also our first tour with Dave Claassen behind the sound desk. From this point on, we managed to record just about every show, either getting board tapes, air tapes or both. Unfortunately, on this tour, we had not yet seen the wisdom of procuring decent media, so the recordings are a little murky.

By the end of the tour, however, we pretty much decided that doing this sort of material night after night was a drag. We jettisoned the stuff we didn’t enjoy playing, and began woodshedding a set of comparative “barn burners,” which became the “Huevos” album. We focused on creating more energy on stage, got looser still, and started breaking our songs open into extended jams and medleys. The party was just beginning.

(Note: It seems this file was too big for some people to download, so I’ve broken it into two smaller pieces. Please be advised that they are still pretty large, and some ‘net connections will still be unable to handle them. They’ve been tested on both Macintosh and Windows platforms and they work fine. Files on this site are presented “as is.” I can’t offer tech support, nor can I mail them to folks unable to download them. Let the browser beware.)


Download Part ONE (63 mg)
Download Part TWO (67 mg)

Not Swimming Ground
Lake Of Fire
Quit It
Leaves
Get On Down
Beauty
Mirage
Love Our Children Forever
Out My Way
Plateau
Swimming Ground
A Hundred Miles
The Mighty Zero
The Wind & The Rain
I Am A Machine
She’s Hot
Liquified
Bad Boy
Lost/See See Rider
Burn The Honky Tonk Down
Baby What Do You Want Me to Do
Up On The Sun
I’m Bad I’m Nationwide
White Lightning
Maidens Milk

Jack and I initially bonded way back in 1976, first over comics, then over rock and roll. But mostly we were into humor, and it showed up as much in our musical collaborations as it did our comics. Though most of Jack’s original songs back then were bittersweet and ultra-introspective, we attacked the rest of our material — cover versions culled from classic rock and my collection of punk rock records — with a zaniness that presaged my efforts with the brothers Kirkwood. Years before anybody was garnering kudos for a “roots” approach to punk, the Atomic Bomb Club attacked the Beatles, Hendrix and anything else that caught our fancy with a ridiclulous ferocity and sense of irony that strongly influenced the Meat Puppets. Cris and Curt even sat in on bass occasionally.

Over at Bostworld, I give tribute to this legendary musical excersize, revisit the old days, catch up with Mr. K, and pass along some audio links for your historic approval.

Head over to Bostworld to check out the Atomic Bomb Club