Meat Puppets 6/16/11

While I hate to be so repetitive and not delivered my promised article on The Stooges I just saw a show last night and it was a doozie.

Attending with my band mate Alex Adler, his room mate Hee-Jae, and his brother whose name escapes me we arrived as the first band, Trotsky Icepick was finishing up. That was my, and the promoter's first big mistake. These last few songs were mesmerizing. I knew nothing over them prior, but I am certainly now a fan. It's hard, in fact for me impossible not to compare them to Guided by Voices. They are certainly peers in every way though perhaps with greater musicianship. Though my exploration into their world is very fresh I recommend anyone reading to follow suit after this energizing performance.

So at this point I was so heated up I needed to find a swimming ground immediately. But we, for some reason had another act in between. Flamingo, one of the oddest looking bands I've ever seen. Adler thought they must have been in high school, but I thought they were older guys that just looked like babies. There was a nerdy drummer who looked like Jimmy Flemion, Elijah wood on bass, and a guy I was pretty sure the other guitarist (by far the best member) was either tripping or autistic. Then came the front man. He was the biggest embarrassment I have seen onstage. They were the kind of band that seems like they don't even listen to music, and judging by the front man's hair they've never even seen a picture of a real rock band before.

While they started off strong every song went on for an excruciatingly long time. The first few were instrumentals and had enough excitement to get you real amped for the vocals. After what seemed like 25 minutes the vocals came in and on top of the band's ungodly image and painful song lengths they pushed the set into unarguable suckage. However, it got even worse. This disgusting excuse for a front man also thought himself a comedian and tortured us with banter even more excessive than his songs. The material was almost entirely self-deprecating fat jokes, which we all know were never good enough for any of the great fat comedians. As a fat guy myself I am reluctant to criticize a front man for his weight, but in addition to being "annoying fat" (the range beyond acceptability and below sympathy) he attempted to use it to his advantage and this was far more embarrassing than his unfortunate build. The music continued for at least an hour, successfully killing my buzz from Trotsky Icepick.

Luckily the Meat Puppets were up next. What's left to say about the Puppets? Not much. They are probably the best live band, barring only Flash Gilmore & the Funbeatles and Guided by Voices, to appear on stage in the last 30 years. They've still got it, they play the hits, they jam, they blow your mind. Yeah, yeah, it would be better if Derrick Bostrom were still with them, but Shandon Sahm is just fine.

See the Meat Puppets, as many times as possible.