Damn. How long has thing been online?

Joy At Sea Pre-Concert With Meat Puppets

Archive.org is finally good for something besides the Wayback Machine.

The Meat Puppets have finally joined the Live Music Archive!

Get your flac on, Meatheads!

After the release of “Meat Puppets II” in 1984 and “Up On The Sun” in 1985, the Meat Puppets found themselves transformed. No longer mere “local boys made good,” we became players on the national stage. As more people began to take us seriously, we began to take stock of what what the band meant to us and what we wanted to do with it. We experienced lots of growing pains as we struggled to assess our goals and ambitions. But back in those days, nobody had a road map. What exactly did success look like for a punk rock band in 1980′s America?

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.

This just in from Dave Markey:

“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.”

I got another great bite the other day while trolling the web with my ego feeds. Amidst the endless social networking pages (“Now Playing: Backwater”), reviewer hype (“original drummer Derrick Bostrom declined to participate”) and right wing rants against so-called lapdogs of the “liberal media,” I found another effort by a generous fan. Once again, I am saved by my energetic constituency from having to expend any effort.

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

This Saturday, March 31st at 3PM, Pacific Time, internet radio station, LuxuriaMusic.com will debut my new hour-long show, “C’mon! Live A Little.” You can find the station at its web site, http://www.luxuriamusic.com/. You can also find it in the iTunes Radio pane under both “Eclectic” and “50s/60s Pop.” (1.FM – LuxuriaMusic).

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.

I know we’re all getting pretty tired of the endless debate — you know the one: “since I have a discriminating ear, I prefer the Nirvana version” versus “you fucking fools can’t see the Meat Puppets for the gods they are.” Lately, however, one YouTube denizen who calls himself “Dullsville” has been putting his money where his mouth is, posting whole swatches of classic live performances for the whole world to see.

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!)