by Daniel V. Garcia
Daily Lobo
Musical limbo.
That's where you find yourself trying to decide if you like a new band. After listening to Curt Kirkwood's Snow, I came out liking it.
It's an atmospheric Americana endeavor with hooks gentle enough for background music but persuasive enough to win one over from musical limbo.
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As the main singer and songwriter of the Meat Puppets, Kirkwood could have credited it as a Meat Puppets album, he said.
"To a large degree, if I felt like it, I could've slapped a Meat Puppets name on it even if nobody else was on it but me. That's my prerogative," Kirkwood said. "I didn't feel like doing that because then I would've had to put a band together."
On tours with bands like Sonic Youth, Kirkwood has opted to accompany himself with only his guitar and without a backing band, he said. He will do this during the tour slated to begin in Albuquerque with Son Volt and Drive By Truckers.
"It's like being the ventriloquist or magician that opens for Elvis," he said. "If you get a bunch of rock bands, I always thought it was bizarre to have trap set after trap set, and so I'm glad to not have to add to the equipment set to the side of the stage."
The Meat Puppets were highly influential on Nirvana. Three of their songs were covered on Nirvana's Unplugged in New York album, which Kirkwood played on. On the way to a rehearsal for the session, Cobain spit on some fans who verbally abused him after he refused to give them his autograph, Kirkwood said.
"He spit a big loogey onto them. I was like, 'Right on, punk rock,'" Kirkwood said. "Here's this dude who's the biggest thing there is, and getting pissed off like anybody would if somebody called him an asshole. What rat teenager wouldn't want to have Kurt Cobain spit on them now? There's your gift that's better than an autograph. It was rare, because I mean really he was just dogged by the stuff that he considered responsibilities."
The Meat Puppets stopped playing music in 1995 because Kirkwood's bandmate and brother, Chris, was battling an addiction to heroin. After being shot and incarcerated, Chris is doing better, Kirkwood said.
"You can say being a junkie and getting shot and put in prison is just like him having a cold, so we had to take a couple of weeks off," Kirkwood said. "It's my brother, so I understand the whole deal. That's why we had to take a chill. It took a lot longer than I thought it would."
The Meat Puppets will likely reunite in the near future, with the exception of Derrick Bostrom, the drummer, Kirkwood said.
"We've got a drummer that we're getting set to play with, and haven't played with him yet. Hopefully that will work out," he said.
