Me Puppets

My first experience with a music subculture was with the remnants of the Houston Punk scene in the mid 80's. The kids were completely annihilating music, answering the destructive (but still rock-rooted) early punk sounds with faster harder ever more chaotic noise. After a show, my ears would ring for days - the aftermath of Marshall stack amplified distortion bouncing off warehouse walls and through my skull.

I didn't really find the sound I was after, but those were my people. I'd explored other musical avenues but found them too confining. This was a place one could experiment (and perhaps find a more forgiving audience too). Not to romanticize too much, my people were urban, sarcastic, bitter and ugly folk who pretty much thought the world was screwed.

Naturally I gravitated toward bands who entered this subculture kind of like me. They hadn't fully embraced the punk ethic but they found a home among the weirdos anyway - bands like the Minutemen, Glass Eye, and the Meat Puppets.

Meat Puppets II was an especially inspiring album. It was obvious these guys could play (at a time when it was easier to join a band by having no skills whatsoever). They wrote introspective songs; harmonized; and culled ideas from country and bluegrass. The Meat Puppets thrashed it up too, but their fuck you's seemed aimed at fellow punkers more than at the establishment. Their vocals were flat (and these guys had about as much range as a Tyson chicken) but their harmonies were tender - perhaps in a way that can only develop from an intense sibling relationship.

It was great hearing my early musical heroes perform last Sunday night at a Chicago street fest. The often awol Cris Kirkwood was amped up, maybe too much since he stayed ahead of the beat. They played a lot off of II naturally, including my favorite, Lost. During New Gods, Chicago's Underground Poet Laureate - Thax Douglas - came up and read a new poem, Meat Puppets #4. Towards the end of the set they finally broke into their one crossover hit, Backwater, which excited the small crowd.

The Kirkwoods aren't exactly known for witty banter of which there was very little Sunday night. The highlight in that regard being this exchange...

Cris: (addressing crowd) We'd like to thank Westfest. I said we'd like to thank Westfest but...

Curt: (addressing his pedals) Oh no, I can see the water rising. Here we go. (sarcastically takes on his brother's voice) Gee, I wish I was still on drugs. I wish it was those days again. Thanks for inviting me to your party, I'm gonna shit on your rug.

Cris: (head inflated and red, starts saying some gibberish that sounds like a deflating balloon then holds his bass up like a violin) Nice bass.

Now that's the sort of banter only brothers can give you.