Fresh Meat Puppets

In a small room behind a bar on East Houston St. in Manhattan, a.k.a. the Mercury Lounge, one of the legends of rock pumped out tunes from several of their albums for over an hour. I got a ticket at the door the night of the show, and someone in front of me complained that he could not even sell an extra ticket he had. Everyone was next door at some gig or other. None of my rock and roll afficianado friends could make it. (Lame excuses, like "I'm in Newfoundland right now" or "I've already seen them, about 25 years ago."

So, something must be wrong with me, right? Guess I'm old, and probably in the way of the 20-somethings who were standing behind me. (Actually there were a few pre-generation-X'ers there to keep me company.) To my way of thinking, seeing Cream try to jam after a 40-year hiatus is not worth a $100 ticket; but seeing the guys who influenced everyone from post-punk hardcore to alt-country to contemporary acid-rock, in a small venue where I could practically cough on them, was worth far more than the $18 I paid.

Curt Kirkwood and his brother Chris can still rock the house, of course, and Curt is like a walking manual of guitar technique, pumping out everything from rockabilly solos to blues-tinged acid rock. But that is not even the point. I know some people are saying, "Oh them, I saw them in 1983." That's great. Wish I had too. But the point is, in 1983 they were not the guys who had influenced everyone from Pavement and Soundgarden to Nirvana and Pearl Jam; they were not the natural predecessor of Green Day, who resemble them more than anyone (power pop trio with tight harmonies over guitar-driven folkish melodies); they were not the guys who were doing alt-country when Uncle Tupelo was not even a thought and a Jayhawk was just a bird. They are now. Playing in the kind of venues that they started in, but with a dozen albums to draw material from.

And so they did. Aside from the first two albums I know they played stuff from Up on the Sun, Too High to Die, and Golden Lies. Chris, as I guess everyone knows, has had a major issue with drug addiction, and anyone who didn't know it before would know after one look. But he can still play the bass in his aggressive style that beats the instrument into submission - quite literally at some points - and also manages to keep up with Curt's pace and sound. The new drummer, Ted Marcus, lacks nothing in energy, and though true Pups fans may be nostalgic for Derrick Bostrom, I can't see that this would make a tremendous difference in the quality or authenticity of the show. As for the vocals, the Kirkwoods famously recorded most of Up on the Sun out of tune, intentionally, so asking if they can still handle the vocals is a bit of an odd question. I do wish they had a little more gain on the mikes, but the vocals came through pretty much as you would expect if you were familiar with their albums.

I've seen quite a few reunion concerts. The first post on this blog covered a concert by Wire. I saw Nektar do their best show ever in 2003 - some 30 years after I first saw them. I heard the Psychedelic Furs a few years ago at Town Hall - by coincidence they were playing again the day after the Pups, but I didn't go. Not every revival is a good idea; the Furs seemed to lack real enthusiasm for what they were doing, and the change in personnel seemed more damaging for them. I cannot compare this Meat Puppets show to what they did in 1983, since I wasn't there, but in the intimate (stuffy, crowded, overheated, post-adolescent...) atmosphere of the Mercury Lounge it felt like the real deal.

Note to long-haired neo-hippie speed freak types: This is not 1980. There is no mosh pit at the Mercury. There were not enough people to catch a 6-foot guy leaping off the stage. You injured someone and nearly yourselves. This is not Never-Never Land. Grow up.