30 Years In, Meat Puppets Are Still Going

Comments (0) By Darryl Smyers Thursday, Jun 18 2009

Curt, meanwhile, moved to Austin and tried to start his post-Puppets musical career. He ended up forming a new version of the band with drummer Shandon Sahm, son of legendary Texas singer-songwriter Doug Sahm. But the resulting album, Golden Lies, only hinted at the past greatness of The Meat Puppets.

Meanwhile, Cris was released from prison in 2005, and Curt posted a bulletin on his MySpace page asking if fans would enjoy a reunion of the original Meat Puppets lineup. The response was overwhelmingly positive, but drummer Derrick Bostrom declined to take part.

Where do bad folks go when they die? Not the Pontiac Garage.

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The Meat Puppets perform Friday, June 19,at House of Blues' Pontiac Garage.

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"Derrick hadn't played drums with anyone for a long time," says Curt. "I cannot conceive of not being in The Meat Puppets. But for Derrick, it was different."

After recruiting drummer Ted Marcus, Curt and Cris Kirkwood launched Meat Puppets version No. 3 in 2007, and released Rise to Your Knees later that year. The recently issued Sewn Together ups the ante considerably, as it's filled with cuts that span nearly every aspect of the band's history: "Blanket of Weeds" is classic, mind-bending country psychedelia; "Rotten Shame" returns the band to its punkier origins.

"The musical identity of the band is still intact," Kirkwood says. "Certain [newer] songs can sound like they could fit on any of our previous albums."

Thankfully, he means the better albums.