Paradise: Land of the Meat Puppets
NOW Toronto, February 9, 2001
"The Meat Puppets dodge death" by Kim Hughes
Neither drug addiction nor label woes derail Curt Kirkwood
MEAT PUPPETS Golden Lies (Breaking/Atlantic) Rating: NNNN you expect a guy like meat pup-pets singer/guitarist Curt Kirkwood to have issues. Junkie ex-bandmate brother, tortuous ordeal when his record label was swallowed by Universal, more hipster cred than cash money over the years. You just don't expect him to be so together. And ambitious. And hilarious. Evidently, what doesn't kill you makes you violently outspoken.
That's the case as the now Austin-based Kirkwood campaigns for notice of the Meat Puppets' unapologetically accessible new disc, Golden Lies -- a snazzy amalgam of psychedelically inclined lyrics and the kind of cowpoke punk/pop that the group has consistently made, and made well.
In 93-94, Meat Puppets fan Kurt Cobain cut some of their songs with them for an MTV Unplugged set, and their own Too High To Die disc produced the hit single Backwater. But apart from that blip, the Arizona-bred combo has existed on the edge, ironically inspiring young musicians who would eventually eclipse them in sales and status. (See grunge.)
It's an irony not lost on Kirkwood. Between howling rants about listening to pygmy music and "stuff made by people who live on islands," he offers a caustic 20-year view of the hypocrisy of the music industry.
Was he ready for the sudden spotlight cast on him when Nirvana outed themselves as major Pups fans?
"It's ridiculous to think people like my brother and me wouldn't have expected that one day," Kirkwood sputters from a tour stop in Virginia. The band's scheduled appearance at Lee's Palace Tuesday was cancelled at press time.
"Acting like you're ill-prepared for fame is a trend. The luggage of alterna-rock is to act as though you're put-upon.
"All this instant integrity, it's always just the artist and his little termite stick probing for credibility. That's the hallmark of alterna-stuff. Tattoos and piercing have become Grranimals for adults. Shit, Britney Spears would have to do porn if she wanted to turn things upside down the way the Beatles did. The Beatles, biggest band in the world, decided to drop a bunch of acid and just say, "Fuck you, world.'"
Kirkwood makes no apologies for carrying on the band with a completely new lineup. And he isn't about to let the tragedies surrounding the group stand in the way of potential success. (Kirkwood's brother, former band bassist Cris, is still struggling with the heroin addiction that killed his wife; vocalist/guitarist Kyle Ellison lost his brother to suicide; drummer Shandon Sahm lost his dad, musician Doug Sahm, to whom Golden Lies is dedicated; vocalist/bassist Andrew Duplantis seems to be OK.)
Since their dawning days in the mid-80s recording for the influential SST label, the Pups have always been the up-and-comers' favourite band, in part because of Kirkwood's atypical songwriting -- from pop to desert-scorched country by way of screeching punk and then some. An ill-fated deal with London, which admittedly produced the aforementioned hit, was the closest they came to mainstream attention.
Kirkwood describes the fate he suffered at the hands of Universal during the merger as "indentured servitude."
"As far as I'm concerned, I came out on top," Kirkwood says of the merger and the limbo it thrust the band into. "I still own my own business, I don't have to work for any schmucks the way they do. They're employees, even if they are the CEO. I'm not. I rule, and there's hardly anyone who can crow as much as I can and get away with it, because it's fucking true.
"We have old fans who won't go away, and some new ones. That's why I kept it the Meat Puppets -- we've always had these diehards that make up the core of the show."