Meat Puppets Launch Remastered Reissue Series of SST Catalog

10-06-2023

(KLM) Meat Puppets have shared new animated video for "Up on the Sun," featuring artwork by drummer Derrick Bostrom, and produced by Spod to celebrate the launch of the reissue of their classic SST catalog.

The classic Meat SST catalog spanning 1981 through 1989 is being reissued by Megaforce Records on 180-gram vinyl and CD. The CD will contain bonus music from the previous 1999 Rykodisc pressings.

The series kicked off today, October 6, with the Meat Puppets' debut 7" EP (1981)-also known as In a Car-and Up on the Sun (1985), followed by a February reissue of Meat Puppets II (1984), with additional titles on the way.

The band is simultaneously releasing Camp Songs, a new live album from the Too High to Die era, 1991-95. "Back in those days, the Puppets were at peak powers," says drummer Derrick Bostrom. "We played constantly in support of a hit album, so we got way out there." The band is also sharing a live version of "The Wayward Wind," the country classic written by Stanley Lebowsky and Herb Newman, recorded April 5,1994 at the Music Centre in Utrecht, Holland.

The Puppets-Curt Kirkwood, Cris Kirkwood and Derrick Bostrom-originally released seven albums on Greg Ginn's influential LA-based SST, beginning in 1981 through 1989's Monsters. "Our back catalog is an American treasure and should be in the Smithsonian," says bassist and co-founder Cris Kirkwood. "Megaforce is doing a huge service to the planet to make sure our music continues to get into the hands of everyone who needs to have the coolest record collection on the block."

Formed in Phoenix,1980, Meat Puppets exploded onto the scene with the blazing untitled 7" EP, In a Car. Originally released on World Imitation Records, the recording took place in a single day, June 4, 1981, with each song around a minute long. "In a Car is the best representation of what we sounded like live, back when we first started out. We were definitely on," says Bostrom. "We began to make such a hellacious racket that we knew we were on to something." The 7" caught the attention of SST Records, and countless others. "The Meat Puppets' first record was pretty amazing to us when it came out," adds J. Mascis, leader of Dinosaur Jr.

Recorded and mixed over three days, 1985's Up on the Sun is the high-desert psychedelic followup to Meat Puppets II. Curt remembers, "I was trying to get outside of style, if anything. I always thought it was a pretty different album for us, one that stands out. I love the sound of it."

"It was just like magic," says Curt, of the SST years. "You could make a record, with no thought to how much it will cost. There were no time worries, no money-but it wasn't required. There wasn't any production. You just go in and play. It was like you were doing a gig. Then we kind of figured out how to mess around with production, when we produced Up on the Sun. But even that was done in three days. No one was trying to figure out how to make things sell, they were just letting you do it."