Meat Puppets II [Remaster]

Performer: Meat Puppets
Engineer: Jeff Weatherby; Spot
Distributor: Ryko Distribution

Notes: This remastered edition of MEAT PUPPETS II is an enhanced audio CD which contains regular audio tracks and multimedia computer files, as well as bonus and previously unreleased tracks. Meat Puppets: Curt Kirkwood (vocals, guitar); Cris Kirkwood (vocals, bass); Derrick Bostrom (drums). Reissue producers: Derrick Bostrom, Tami Blevins, Ian Gilchrist, Troy Hansbrough. Recorded in 1983. Includes liner notes by Michael Azerrad, Derrick Bostrom, Robert Azerrad & Tom Carson. Digitally remastered by Stuart Sullivan (Arkadelphia's House Studio, November 1998). This is an Enhanced CD, which contains both regular audio tracks and multimedia computer files. Personnel: Curt Kirkwood (vocals, guitar); Derrick Bostrom (drums). Recording information: total Access, Redondo Beach, CA. The early-1980s post-punk musings of the Meat Puppets give new meaning to the term "alternative country." Instead of adding a country flavor to traditional rock, or overdriving a honky-tonk sound, the group achieved a genuine marriage of avant-rock weirdness and earthy Americana on this, their defining release. The frenzied two-step of "Magic Toy Missing" and "Lost" mates hoedown with electric freakout. The group's tripping-in-the-desert sense of neo-psychedelia is displayed at its apex on the twisted classic "Plateau" and the acid-drenched country-punk of "New Gods." Like Neil Young (a strong influence), the Meat Puppets were blessed with a totally natural sense of strangeness that allowed them to be both of the earth and beyond it simultaneously. This reissue's generous helping of bonus tracks helps sweeten an already immensely appealing pot. The Meat Puppets' second album, 1984's appropriately titled Meat Puppets II, has since gone down in the rock history books as an all-time classic, and rightfully so. The Meat Puppets were one of the first punk acts to inject different musical styles into their sound, something that was an absolute no-no at the time -- especially the sparkling sounds of country. The trio resembles a more conventional band than on their white-noise self-titled debut; the songwriting had improved dramatically, and you could even clearly decipher the playing and singing this time around. As many '90s alt-rock fans know, Meat Puppets II reached a whole new generation of fans when Nirvana covered the album's three best tracks on their MTV Unplugged special from 1994 -- "Plateau," "Lake of Fire," and "Oh, Me." But this was an incredibly consistent recording from beginning to end; other highlights included the instrumentals "Magic Toy Missing," "Aurora Borealis," and "I'm a Mindless Idiot," the rockers "Split Myself in Two" and "New Gods," plus such mellower fare as "Lost," "We're Here," "Climbing," and "The Whistling Song." An essential recording that sounds as fresh and inviting as the day it was released. [The 1999 Rykodisc reissue containes seven additional tracks, including the contrasting two-part epic "Teenager(s)," as well as "What to Do" and "100 Percent of Nothing."] ~ Greg Prato

Spin (5/01, p.110) - Ranked #28 in Spin's "50 Most Essential Punk Records". Spin (4/99, p.165) - "...the Meat Puppets conjured a distinct, hybrid style- dubbed country punk - and througout the 80's made some of the decade's most free-thinking, vital music....on MEAT PUPPETS II those influences blend with desert still and sunset air to form the record that Kurt Cobain said made him love music..." Entertainment Weekly (3/26/99, p.87) - "...Part ZZ Top on peyote, part Grateful Dead on steroids, the guitar-driven trio's eccentric genius emerges on [this] souped-up rerelease..." - Rating: A- Magnet (p.102) - "The visions carved into II's grooves are inspiring..." The Wire (5/99, p.63) - "...they tilted towards Country music played in the unnatural glow of a desert nuclear test..." NME (Magazine) (4/17/99, p.37) - 8 out of 10 - "...A beautiful record, almost religious in its intense, sincere belief in music for its own sake."

Formed in Arizona by brothers Curt and Cris Kirkwood and their friend Derrick Bostrom, the Meat Puppets combined punk, blues, folk, and country music to bizarre yet entertaining effect. Led by guitarist/vocalist Curt, the substance-friendly band hit a creative peak in the mid-1980s, but didn't achieve mainstream success until 1994's TOO HIGH TO DIE. Shortly before this breakthrough, Puppets fan Kurt Cobain invited the Kirkwoods to play three of their songs (from MEAT PUPPETS II) with Nirvana on the renowned UNPLUGGED session. Later the group fell apart, with Cris developing a severe drug habit, Derrick handling the Puppets' legacy, and Curt forging ahead with a new line-up.

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