BY WILLIAM LENNON
In their early days, The Meat Puppets were more interested in capturing the essences of Jack Kirby and surrealist artists like Francis Picabia than making music. Fronted by the Kirkwood brothers Curt and Cris, they’re maybe best known for their 15 minutes of fame courtesy of an appearance in Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged. But their crowning achievement is clearly Meat Puppets II, an album the Chili Peppers’ Flea once called “the warmest, coolest fucking record.” (Curt Kirkwood has gone on record saying that Meat Puppets II was “expressly intended to be recorded on acid.”) A grease fire of rockabilly and trailer park punk, they sound like patchouli smells, like peyote tastes, and like a dip in a lake of fire burns. Just right.
