The Meat Puppets spent the late eighties living out of a second-hand RV. We travelled the country like a rock and roll gypsy caravan — roadies, girlfriends, Curt’s pit bull and a trailer full of gear in tow. After driving all day, we’d hit town in the afternoon, winding right past the nicer neighborhoods until we reached that night’s shit-hole. As soon as we finished loading in and doing our sound-check, I’d make for the pavement, looking for anything else to do: a thrift store, a comic store, healthy food, even a laundromat. In the meantime, the Kirkwoods would pitch their nightly floating dope carnival in the parking lot.

But the grind was wearing us all down. With no new product to promote that year, attendance at our shows was dropping. As gates decreased, we got shorter and shorter shrift from the promoters. Meanwhile, we developed superstitious rituals: “warming up” before every show with muscle-wrenching “stretches” and loading up on herbal stimulants. We’d get on stage and pound on our instruments until we wore ourselves out — or until the audience left. We fought with everyone: our label, our booking agent, club employees, each other, sometimes even with the fans. We were exhausted. We’d been living hand-to-mouth for too long, playing too many piddly-shit gigs for too little money. We were squandering our reputation and burning ourselves out. Curt finally told us he couldn’t take any more.

During a break from touring, we cut a new demo and, for the first time in years, beat the bushes for major label interest. A couple of label reps came out to some shows, but none took the bait. In the end, Curt had no choice but to deal once again with SST. During a visit to California, he cut a rough version of “The Void” using Greg’s new drum machine. He liked the results. I’d been pushing him to use a drum machine on our next record, wanting a more level playing field against the rest of the mid-eighties rock world already on the sequencer bandwagon. I was tired of comping along in the background, and wanted the chance to actually compose my parts.

First, I laid down a basic kick and snare pattern on drum pads, playing along with Curt to a click track. Then the brothers came in one at a time and overdubbed their own bass, guitar and vocals. After they finished their parts, I composed my fills using the drum machine keyboard. Finally, I added live cymbals, replacing the click track with real high hat. This strategy suited us well, for at the time we were barely speaking to each other. I don’t think all three of us were ever all in the studio at the same time.

The finished product had a calculated hair metal sound to it. Just to make sure nobody missed the point, we added entirely too much reverb. The songs were pretty basic, and the poetry was stingy by Meat Puppets standards. Mostly, Curt just wanted to rock out; he didn’t want to be bothered by the rest of it. The album is hampered by our crappy “self production” and the leaden mechanical drum tracks, but the best songs eventually found life on stage. “Light,” “Attacked by Monsters” and “Touchdown King” became concert staples.

Once we delivered “Monsters,” we began our preparations for yet another season in the R.V. But a funny thing happened. Atlantic Records offered us and SST a nice sum for the rights to release the album. But Greg wouldn’t even consider giving it up. They had planned their whole season around the release, and everything was already printed and pressed. Both sides dug in. Suddenly, it became a lot harder to get somebody from either label on the phone. “Monsters” was a flop — poorly promoted and poorly received. We went out for another round of shitty gigs. This time around, all the opening acts had major label albums. While their promo teams beat a path to their dressing rooms, we were selling handmade tee shirts for gas money. We couldn’t even find our record in stores. We felt screwed.

It was around this time when rumors began to circulate that we were finished. And the rumors weren’t far from true. I hardly even felt like I was in a band any more. Nothing but inertia kept me going — that and the desire to see how the story was going to end. I didn’t want to give Cris and Curt the satisfaction of giving up before they did. I stopped smoking grass that summer, and spent most my time trying to make sense of our disastrous finances. When a major label contract finally arrived in the summer of 1990, it was a predictably shitty deal. But it was a lifeline, and we grabbed it. What choice did we have?

You’d think, given my critical eye for my own work, that I’d rate “Monsters” dead last. And it’s true: artistically, the album is my least favorite. But as a tactic to attract a major label deal, it was a complete success. And even if our new partners at London/Polygram didn’t particularly “get” the Meat Puppets, for a while at least it seemed the change would breathe new life into the band. And for a while at least, it did.

“Three Little Pigs” (“Monsters” Demos): MirrorCreator | Mediafire

“Three Little Pigs” Sessions MirrorCreator | Mediafire

“Monsters” Mixes: MirrorCreator | Mediafire

“Monsters” Studio Sessions: MirrorCreator | Mediafire

The American independent music scene had become a horse race by 1986. The revolution was over; it was time to get serious. Husker Du and the Replacements were odds-on favorites to win; the Meat Puppets were expected to place or show. “Rolling Stone” deemed us only a couple tweaks away from greatness. We had begun to second-guess ourselves. Each Puppet accused the other of holding the band back. But everyone could agree that my sins were the greatest. I just didn’t seem to care anymore. I balked at the band’s direction. I rarely showed up for rehearsals. To be honest, the magic was draining out of it for me.

Things got a lot less fun as the year progressed. A week into the first leg of the tour, our sound man slammed Curt’s finger in a van door, breaking it in two places. Curt regained his dexterity in a few weeks, but the experience left us all shaken. The hastily-rebooked make-up dates were a punishing slog. Everywhere we went, disgruntled promoters complained about poor attendance. Finally, during the last show of the tour, we accidentally left all the cash earnings from the trip in our unlocked vehicle. We returned home flat broke.

I spent the next month hidden away, licking my wounds. My brother Damon offered some encouragement. You just have to keep practicing, he told me. Keep working on your instrument, keep getting better. Let the work lead the way. The rest will follow if you let it. I took his advice to heart. I moved out of the condemned duplex I was renting and in with friends. I bleached my hair, started working out, and tried to regain my confidence.

While I sulked, the Kirkwoods kept busy. They acquired a mixer, some microphones and an 8-track reel-to-reel tape recorder. Cris bought a drum machine and a headless bass with a graphite neck. Curt picked up a clumsy guitar synthesizer. As they got proficient with their new toys, the brothers began to woodshed material for the next album. Once I resurfaced, we decided it would be most productive if Cris and I got together by ourselves to work out the arrangements.

But just as he had with the songs on “Out My Way,” Curt kept a lot of the words and melodies to himself until we got into the studio. Once again, I had to comp along in the dark. Cris coached me through a lot of it, writing rhythm patterns and adding little bits of business that made the changes distinctive. But the material remained largely impenetrable to me.

I was also hamstrung by my equipment. Swept up in the general enthusiasm for new gadgets, I purchased an unwieldy midi drum set with triangular controllers and a library of awful samples. They were unforgiving and difficult to control, demanding intense concentration. My performances on that kit were tentative and lacking in spontaneity. I was never able to relax, let go and swing — something hard enough to do in the studio under the best of circumstances.

Once we got into the studio, we chafed under Chaton’s strict no-drug policy. We had to sneak behind the building to partake of our primary creative tool. But even under these oppressive conditions, we rose to the occasion. Outtakes from these sessions offer the best available insight into how the Meat Puppets constructed their music in the studio. Both brothers are excellent here: at once inventive and precise. For my part, I focused on keeping things simple. Listening to these recordings now, I’m struck by how good our studio chops actually were. We really stuck with it until we got it right.

But despite all the hard work and loving attention, “Mirage” is a flawed work. Though a growing core of self-described “Meat Heads” identified with our unabashed stoniness and manic fretboard antics, most listeners were unable to connect with the album’s lysergic themes and florid yet sterile production. Some of the better tunes didn’t even make it onto the album, deferred instead until “Huevos,” where they would receive their just due in a more energetic environment. But we scored with tracks like “Beauty,” “The Mighty Zero,” “A Hundred Miles,” and “Love Our Children Forever.” Other tracks, such as “Quit It,” “I Am A Machine” and the title track itself, have perhaps not aged so well.

Regardless, we grew by leaps and bounds during the creation of “Mirage.” We’d never worked so hard on an album, and after it was finished, we worked even harder. We converted Cris’ garage into a practice space; there, we really began to put on muscle. We reconnected as a working unit, throwing ourselves into rehearsals until we finally built the band up into the live act we wanted to be. Once we got “Mirage” out on the road in front of an audience, we quickly discarded the tunes that refused to catch fire. We substituted a batch of new Curt songs designed to be more fun for us and less challenging to the listener. I ditched the electronic drums and invested in a beautiful Gretsch kit, which I was able to play the shit out of.

Less than six months after the release of “Mirage,” we squeezed a studio session in between two legs of the tour, banged out ten new songs in three days, and released them almost as quickly. “Huevos” was funky, raw and loose — everything “Mirage” was not — and we were immensely pleased with it. Critical reception was tepid; speculation about our major label chances ceased. But we’d proven something to ourselves. The media didn’t understand where we were going, but we finally did. Over the years, as “punk” turned to “indie,” and then to “alternative,” the ground continued to shift and shrink beneath us. The “mainstream” became the only direction left. We continued to knuckle under, pushing ourselves along, browbeating each other into line and upping the ante. But no matter what we did, or how determined we were to polish it out, the magic remained. In the end, it was all we had.

Home Board Rehearsals: MirrorCreator | Mediafire

Home Multi-track Runthroughs: MirrorCreator | Mediafire

Studio Outtakes Part One: MirrorCreator | Mediafire

Studio Outtakes Part Two: MirrorCreator | Mediafire

In early 1986, the Meat Puppets convened in a Phoenix suburb to record the follow-up to 1985′s “Up On The Sun.” We had informed our label, S.S.T. Records, that we would no longer record in California. Henceforth, we would hire the studio of our choice, produce our own sessions, and deliver master tapes when they were completed.

Chaton Studio was a converted guest house behind the home of a wealthy Paradise Valley couple who’d started the studio to record the Phoenix Symphony. The studio impressed us as much for its relaxed isolated desert setting as for the pedigree of its house engineer. Steve Escallier’s diverse client list included Fleetwood Mac, The Babys, Glen Campbell and Lawrence Welk.

The band was already behind schedule. Caught somewhat by surprise with a hit album on our hands, we’d spent most of the previous year either promoting “Up On The Sun” or recuperating from our heavy touring schedule. Curt’s two-year-old twins occupied the lion’s share of his attention. By the time we entered the studio, we’d only managed to bring a half dozen new songs to a point of completion. But touring was our only source of income and we needed new product to promote. Our plan was to release a quick EP, tour in the spring and get to work on a proper album in the summer.

I had problems with the project from the beginning. I hadn’t warmed to songs like “She’s Hot,” “Mountain Line” or “Other Kinds Of Love” in rehearsal or on stage, but I hoped they’d reveal themselves to me in the studio. They never did. With their long instrumental passages and opaque incomplete lyrics, the tunes Curt brought to the table struck me as more appropriate for the Dixie Dregs than the Meat Puppets. Furthermore, they required a musical fluency beyond my reach. Curt seemed to be staking a claim as the indie Mahavishnu John McLaughlin of his day, but I was no Billy Cobham.

All the same, the few outtakes that survive reveal an undeniable craft. Laid bare here in various stages of completion, these tracks offer a rare inside view of our surprisingly disciplined work ethic. Song structures were fully realized by the time we got into the studio. Little is left to chance. Even the solos seem to have been composed beforehand. Cris appears to be having the most fun, whereas Curt and I are all business.

We had to work quickly. Since I never learned their lyrics or melodies, I didn’t discover what the songs were actually “about” until after they were finished. We relied on working titles throughout the sessions. “Other Kinds Of Love” apparently enjoyed some input from Sandig at one point. “Not Swimming Ground” was so obscure that we were never able to come up with a proper title for it. Our decision to include “Good Golly Miss Molly” as the final track was a tacit admission to the paucity of our offerings.

Cris and Curt were proud of the finished product. Their playing was never better. Curt had put punk rock solidly behind him and was really starting to feel his oats as a songwriter. But I was left to scratch my head at the direction he was taking us. Even today, “Out My Way” feels like a wrong turn. I eventually came to appreciate the record, but I always thought of it as a lost opportunity. Lacking the tight immediacy and quirky charm of our best records, “Out My Way” struck me as self-indulgent and sterile, a brooding exercise in fretboard dexterity. It would be the first — but alas, not the last — of our misfires.

DOWNLOAD: MirrorCreator | Mediafire

I still like to keep abreast of what’s being said about my old group. And if it floats my boat sufficiently, I’ll poach it for inclusion here. Case in point: I’ve long toyed with the idea of putting together a “lost album” of sorts, all the various promotional tracks and b-sides released during our Polygram days, but never collected anywhere, and for the most part no longer in print.

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:

This post is for all of you who kept your copy of the first album. I know there are a few of you out there for whom the apparent disparities between Meat Puppets records is no mystery, who were able parse the whole tapestry without feeling betrayal every time we released a new album. There may even be a few of you who wish they could hear more from the first album sessions. Well, your patience has finally paid off: here’s almost an hour of outtakes.

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: MirrorCreator | Mediafire

DOWNLOAD PART TWO: MirrorCreator | Mediafire