Paradise: Land of the Meat Puppets
Toronto Sun, February 8 2001
"No Meat ... again!" by KIERAN GRANT
TORONTO -- It's been 61/2 long years since the Meat Puppets last blazed their way through these parts.
But devotees of singer-guitarist Curt Kirkwood's Tempe, Ariz., psych-cowpunk-acid-blues-crunch crew will have to wait a little longer now that the band has blown out next Tuesday's show at Lee's Palace.
According to show promoters Against The Grain, the Meat Puppets couldn't get immigration clearance for their soundman straightened out in time for the show. When a chance to play Good Morning America on the same day presented itself, well, playing to several million viewers instead of 300 punters must have seemed a bit more prudent.
It's the second time in a row the legendary rockers have cancelled a Lee's Palace gig. Last time, in late 1995, marked the beginning of a grim period that Kirkwood is only now overcoming with the recent release of the Meat Puppets' 12th album proper, Golden Lies.
Meat Puppets set out in 1981 on a remarkable creative trajectory that re-thought the possibilities of post-punk music. Magnificent discs Meat Puppets II, Up On The Sun and Mirage morphed from blistering punk to intricate folk-rock and glistening desert soul, all coloured by hallucinogenic worldview of Kirkwood and his bassist brother Cris. By 1994's Too High To Die, which came on the heels of a tour with Nirvana and an appearance on that band's Unplugged album, the Meat Puppets scored a No. 2 hit with Backwater.
Sadly, it was around that time that Cris Kirkwood developed a vicious drug problem and ultimately went AWOL. Then corporate turbulence at the group's label, London/Universal, left the Meat Puppets on ice.
Curt Kirkwood pressed on, determined to see out a musical journey that's lasted two decades.
"No one at Universal would touch Golden Lies," a candid and oddly eloquent Kirkwood told me in a recent interview. "They just wouldn't put it out; wouldn't drop us."
Golden Lies, a mostly-great album that was assembled over a couple of years with a new, Austin-based Meat Puppets lineup, was finally released on Breaking Records, an Atlantic-backed boutique label run by Hootie & The Blowfish.
Kirkwood considered dropping the Meat Puppets banner before "waking up and realizing I couldn't get away with it.
"It's hard when you're dealing with drug addiction," he says. "You just think that it's going to go away. When it didn't, I was still in the Meat Puppets. I'm here as much as a testament to my brother's work as I am my own."
As for any fan criticisms that the Meat Puppets aren't the same without two Kirkwoods?
"They're not my fans then," he says. "They have no right. It's up to me: I'm Wonka. They can go die.
"Nobody has any idea how incredibly painful this has been outside the music. The music is a hobby for me."
Meat Puppets plan to play a make-up date later in the year.
Refunds, meanwhile, are available at point of purchase.