For the Meat Puppets, it simply gave more people the chance to discover what was there all along.
Host Marc With a C follows Curt Kirkwood, Cris Kirkwood, and Derrick Bostrom as they leave SST Records for London Records, navigating the leap to a major label with Forbidden Places, breaking through to a wider audience with Too High to Die, and revealing another side of their all-too “Automatic Mojo” on the intimate and barely-known Camp Songs (a live compilation released in 2023 that contains performances from this era). Along the way, we'll also revisit one of the defining moments of the decade, when an appearance alongside Nirvana on MTV Unplugged introduced millions of listeners to songs the Meat Puppets carried with them for years.
This isn't a story about "selling out". It's about what happens when this incredibly singular band suddenly finds itself in the spotlight. Forbidden Places refined the band's ever-expanding palette, Too High to Die channeled that adventurous spirit into some of the most immediately memorable songs of their career, while things like the 10” EP Raw Meat and Camp Songs stripped everything back to reveal just how well-rounded the group always really was. Through changing audiences and growing expectations, the Kirkwoods never stopped sounding like themselves.
In this episode, we explore the strange relationship between underground credibility and mainstream success, the strangeness of "Alternative music" in 1994, how one unforgettable television performance reshaped the band's public perception, and why the biggest hit in a catalog often tells only a fraction of the story. We'll also examine the creative momentum that carried the Meat Puppets through one of alternative rock's biggest cultural moments without sacrificing the oddball perspective that made them impossible to imitate in the first place.
Because for the Meat Puppets, the destination was never fame, it was always the next song waiting just beyond the swirlin' backwater.
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