Meat Puppets - Up on the Sun

Meat Puppets
Up on the Sun
SST, 1985(reissued in 1999 by Rykodisc)
Grunge-ness: 5/10
Laid back jams: 10/10
Turning my initial disapointment into pleasant surprise: 8/10

Oh, the Meat Puppets. I never figured out how these guys fit into the Seattle scene. Up until a few weeks ago the only album of theirs that I'd listened to was Too High To Die, and I liked it for it's psychedelic, rootsy rock feel. After listening to a few tracks from its follow up, No Joke, though, I decided I better stick to the basics, and never listen to any other Meat Puppets album again. After coming across a few of the Rykodisc reissues, however, I broke my own boycott, and gave Up on the Sun a listen. Thanks for nothin, ego.

Initially, I was dissapointed by the lack of heavy, crunchy guitars (like in "Backwater," duh), but on the second time around, I finally let those expectations go. Lo and behold, hidden in these tracks is some subtle and funky psychedelia. I'm not talkin about Phish style jams here, but there's no reason why fans of A Picture of Nectar can't appreciate jammy tracks like "Buckethead" and "Enchanted Forest."

These songs are right to the point. Don't let all this "jam-band" talk fool you. The Kirkwoods hold these songs close to the three minute mark, which doesn't leave a lot of room for explorations of themes or subtle repetition. Plus, the original 12 tracks are amended here with five more tracks. If Phish were to reissue anything, they'd run out of space before adding another half track.

Speaking of bonus tracks, I can't believe "Hot Pink" is really a great one. Why they left this off the original, I could never guess, but it's goofy and pretty, and great. But, they kinda blow it by adding a second version, which is twice as long as the last bonus track. This one's kind of a snoozer, but not quite a loser, bruiser, chooser, cruiser, two-time loser, muser, and a user. (I got all those words from a rhyming dictionary...)

The alternate version of the title track is like a whole new track. It's obvious that not a lot of time was spent on second takes, but this mellow version adds a little underwater guitar and feels more vacationy than the original. Plus, right in the last seconds, a fuzzy guitar solo, just like in the Meat Puppets I remember.