The Meat Puppets Rock

How can the Meat Puppets still be so underrated? Sure, they had three songs on an album that sold five million copies, but many people think Kurt Cobain wrote those. Yes, they had a brief radio hit in the early '90s when all of Cobain's indie rock heroes (including Daniel Johnston, the Melvins, and the Butthole Surfers) were getting major-label deals, but they never found the indie-to-mainstream success of R.E.M. or Soul Asylum. Meanwhile, bands like the Replacements, the Pixies, and the Minutemen are lionized in books and movies, but the Meat Puppets aren't given the respect that they deserve. They weren't even granted a chapter in Michael Azerrad's supposedly definitive indie-rock memoir Our Band Could Be Your Life, and they're as good as or better than most of the bands that the book covers. Also, it's hard to think of any '80s college rock heroes who could put on as captivating a show as the Meat Puppets did at the Knitting Factory last August 29.

Kurt and Cris Kirkwood are recording and sharing a stage for the first time since 1995, and it's a rare rock reunion that doesn't feel fueled by money or show any bitterness between the band members. The Kirkwoods (and new drummer Ted Marcus) showed no bitterness about getting back together or playing songs that were 15-25 years old--they were just happy to survive lineup changes, drug addictions, and scrapes with the law to still be making music in 2007, something which cannot be said of many of their peers. "It's really been way too long," said a smiling Kurt when his band took the stage, and no one could argue with him.

The Puppets ran through a set heavily focused on albums like Meat Puppets II, Up on the Sun, and Too High to Die, and didn't once mention that they have a new album out. But the lesser-known songs still sounded great next to the classics, from the jugband punk of their second album to their radio-friendly '90s alt-rock material. Album tracks like 'Lost' and 'Comin' Down' sound deceptively simple on record, but live the Puppets got to display their impeccable musicianship. Few musicians can ever claim to have made guitar emote the way that Kurt Kirkwood did on 'Plateau,' 'Up on the Sun,' or any of mysterious stories that they set to their distinct, old country-inspired rock. Their use of traditional song structures, harmonizing, and whistling give their songs a folky sound that none of their peers can lay a claim to. Perhaps their inability to fit into a genre accounts for their lack of public appreciation; most of their songs are too folky for Hüsker Dü fans and too aggressive for the guy who yelled 'Judas!' at Bob Dylan in 1966. But those who dismiss the Puppets are missing out on a musical adventure that's nearly impossible to find elsewhere.




The Puppets closed the evening with some of their best-known songs, including the one hit ('Backwater') and the one that Nirvana made a hit ('Lake of Fire,' which sounds as much like a standard as any of the traditional songs covered on Nirvana Unplugged.) The chorus of the latter ("Where do bad folks go when they die/They don't go to heaven where the angels fly...") is still one of the finest to ever come from indie rock's heyday, and it would've served as a chilling ending, but the Puppets decided to send us home with the bouncier, catchier former. The more uplifting ending further perplexed anyone wondering why these guys didn't bigger, but we should just be grateful that they're still playing together.