Meat Puppets Up On The Sun CD

This remastered edition of UP ON THE SUN is an Enhanced CD containing both a full audio program as well as multimedia computer files. Includes bonus and previously unreleased tracks.

Recorded in May 1983 & November 1984 through January 1985. Includes liner notes by Steve Schinder, Derrick Bostrom, Richard Grabel & Steve Appleford.

Digitally remastered by Stuart Sullivan (Arkadelphia's House Studio, November 1998).

The Meat Puppets' masterpiece, UP ON THE SUN, is an enduring delight that sounds like nothing else in this world. It's very much a guitar-lover's record, with Curt Kirkwood lysergic lines and ornate filigrees floating over chiming chords or undulating across crunchy strummed chords. The Meats typically have a rather laissez faire relationship with the concept of singing on-key, but the laid-back, almost hushed singing here is one of the record's unabashed delights.

UP ON THE SUN juxtaposes loose and lazy vocals with trippy wordplay and solid, skilled musicianship. Joyous, chiming gems like "Maiden's Milk," with its happy insane-asylum whistling, and the glistening "Swimming Ground," sound like music for Peanuts characters on acid, loose and shambling and ecstatically sunny. The delightfully named "Enchanted Porkfist" features tight riffery that strongly echoes the Allman Brothers. But amid the happily stoned atmosphere is an undercurrent of seriousness, especially on the wistful title track and the minor-key "Two Rivers," which has a Zen-like simplicity to its lyrics, and a haunting melody that shimmers, eddies, and swirls most hypnotically. The 1999 reissue contains some interesting early mixes, which should please the record's many devotees.

What does a band do when they're trying to follow up a masterpiece? Release another masterpiece, of course. That's exactly what the Meat Puppets did with 1985's Up on the Sun. Issued one year after Meat Puppets II, the songwriting had become more focused, the performances were tighter, and Curt Kirkwood's vocals had progressed from a high-pitched warbling to a soothing monotone. Up on the Sun catches the Arizona trio in a relaxed mood, for the most part; the tunes aren't wound up as tightly as its predecessor, with the album-opening title track, the instrumental "Seal Whales," and "Hot Pink" being fine examples. Other highlights include "Maiden's Milk," which contains some great instrumental interplay between the band members, as well as the upbeat "Away," the funky "Buckethead," the psychedelic "Two Rivers," and the furious "Enchanted Porkfist." As with the other 1999 Meat Puppets reissues on Rykodisc, rarities and demos are included as bonus tracks, including a haunting demo of the album's title track. ~ Greg Prato

Additional Tracks

Meat Puppets: Curt Kirkwood (vocals, guitar); Cris Kirkwood (vocals, bass); Derrick Bostrom (drums).

Reissue Producers: Derrick Bostrom, Tami Blevins, Ian Gilchrist & Troy Hansbrough.

Personnel: Curt Kirkwood (vocals, guitar); Cris Kirkwood (vocals); Derrick Bostrom (drums).

Recording information: total Access, Redondo Beach, CA.

This is an Enhanced CD, which contains both regular audio tracks and multimedia computer files.Spin (4/99, p.165) - "...Expansive acoustic guitars and fat, melodic bass lines swim in liquid distortion -- finding a place where Carl Perkins meets the Clash-- as the band rolicks through choreographed stringbusters and dreamy discourses..."
Entertainment Weekly (3/26/99, p.87) - "...Part ZZ Top on peyote, part Grateful Dead on steroids, the guitar-driven trio's eccentric genius emerges on [this] souped-up rerelease..." - Rating: A-
Alternative Press (7/95, p.83) - Ranked #30 in AP's list of the `Top 99 Of '85-'95' - "...UP ON THE SUN is by far the Meat Puppets' best record....The Puppets' brand of nonsense lyrics and blissed-out rockitude never sharper, UP ON THE SUN is perhaps the only truly great record that no one ever says is truly great....a damn fine drinking record, too..."