About
Out of Phoenix, Arizona came one of the most genuinely weird and wonderful bands of the American underground, the Meat Puppets. Brothers Curt and Cris Kirkwood, along with drummer Derrick Bostrom, started making noise in the early 1980s as part of the SST Records scene, rubbing shoulders with Black Flag and Hüsker Dü while carving out something entirely their own. Their early hardcore roots quickly gave way to something far more psychedelic and sprawling, blending punk energy with country twang, desert-baked folk, and lysergic guitar work that defied easy categorization.
Curt Kirkwood's guitar playing became the band's defining voice, loose and melodic in a way that felt simultaneously effortless and visionary. Albums like Meat Puppets II and Up on the Sun are genuine classics of the American underground, records that sound like the Sonoran Desert filtered through a warped television set. Their 1994 major label record Too High to Die brought mainstream attention and the unlikely hit Backwater, boosted considerably by the Kirkwood brothers joining Nirvana for their legendary MTV Unplugged performance.
That Unplugged moment introduced Meat Puppets to a massive new audience and cemented their influence on the grunge generation, though their impact had already been felt for years. They remain a touchstone for anyone who digs music that refuses to sit still, equally beloved by punk lifers, alt-country devotees, and psych rock explorers.
