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September 24 - 30, 2009
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• Back on a mission:
The Meat Puppets reunite for their kind of show
by Dave Kirby
• America’s obscure runaway daughter
Mysterious Hope Sandoval resurfaces with album, tour
by Ben Corbett
 Back on a mission:
The Meat Puppets reunite for their kind of show
by Dave Kirby
You could hear the faint hum of highway miles sighing in the background when we caught up to Curt Kirkwood by phone last week. The Meat Puppets were on tour behind Sewn Together, their second CD since Kirkwood and his brother Cris re-started their musical collaboration in 2006.
But if there was any psych about being out on the road behind his trademark franchise, which was effectively locked up in has-been stasis while Cris languished in a decade-long narco-stupor that only a couple years in jail finally cured in 2006, Kirkwood kept it folded and well stowed beneath the van’s third bench seat.
“I never quit. I kept touring all the way. I toured Meat Puppets without Cris and Derrick [Bostrom, original drummer]… I haven’t had a year off ever. I wasn’t touring in the Meat Puppets, but I did a solo record and did a shitload of touring for that. I love touring.
“I mean, it’s not a return for me. Cris was in jail and basically beating off for 10 years, so I’m sure he probably enjoys it. Maybe there’s something to be missed about being confined all that time, I don’t know, but I imagine he likes being back out,” Kirkwood said.
The trio, with New York drummer Ted Marcus assuming Bostrom’s seat since 2007, returns to the area for a gig at the Fox after opening for Ween earlier this month at Red Rocks. The Meat Puppets are a club band anyway, close quarters being more sympathetic to Kirkwood’s rangey, stoned-in-the-desert guitar incendiaries.
And while much of the mainstream and beat press has lavished praised on Sewn Together for its tight weave of dry, disincarnate, spikey psychedelic punk and keen songsmithing sensibilities, Kirkwood shrugs it off. We noted that the band’s “reunion” CD, 2007’s Rise To Your Knees, seemed draped in gauzy, somewhat impromptu impressionism, while Sewn Together has the feel of a more deliberate, projective offering, as if a little preen and a little finish had worked its way into Kirkwood’s historically militant low-fi recording style.
Eh, maybe not.
“Any assessment is fair; it’s supposed to be subjective. We didn’t really spend a lot of time on it — I usually don’t unless there’s someone else involved in the production. I mean, I have a lot of songs, but I pretty much knew which ones I wanted to put on the record. There wasn’t a lot of question about that,” he said.
Kirkwood comes across like a guy holding a few extra cards, kind of a half-interested savant that has been cranking out these shardy bits of mezcal-rock for the better part of three decades, usually immune and unbruised by whatever underground/indie/counter-whatever trend that may come along.
Originally bred from the hardcore scene in and around their hometown of Tempe, Ariz., in the late ’70s, and still tapping into a nihilist vibe from time to time (“I think of us as a stubborn effort to show people, in a microcosm, just how much humanity sucks”), Kirkwood quickly tired of the uniformed scenesters and gratuitously aggro club crowds that made up much of the early ’80s core brigade, and drifted off into saguaro freakoutville — fleet and singeing guitar lines wrapped around hints of backcountry low-fi, fuzz-drenched grey noise chaos framing songs of paranoia and tripping and liberation and insidious characters.
Mainstays in the late ’80s SST Records cadre of pre-grunge indie rock, they finally broke huge with the help of Kurt Cobain, who promoted their fortunes by covering a few songs from Meat Puppets II on Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged in New York with Kirkwood himself sitting in for guitar assist, and then promptly uncorked their only chart hit with “Backwater,” from 1994’s Too High To Die.
But it was Meat Puppets II that many, not just Cobain, have regarded as the band’s defining moment, and predictably enough, plenty of over-eager post-millennial writers have gone so far as to say that this year’s offering is their best since that early vinyl.
Kirkwood isn’t buying.
“I tell them that Meat Puppets II is a piece of shit, so that’s not saying much.”
Whether it was or wasn’t, Kirkwood doesn’t like to go back that far.
“No. I mean, it’s all the same in some ways. It’s all… in the present. There are references from that time period. I don’t listen to it now and go, ‘I made that,’” Kirkwood said. “I don’t compare stuff very much, like go back. I can, I can ghost-edit crap that’s already done or whatever. But I tend to not do it. It’s just… kind of pointless, I guess. I have enough stuff to do, and I don’t like to listen to my own stuff that much anyway.”
So it’s a life: playing the endless tours and finding a way to appreciate the audiences. Or at least not hate their guts.
“I like the crowds. We always have pretty good people come out to see us. They don’t cause trouble. I’ve learned not to resent the audience… which, I kind of have before. Back when it was punk rock.
“I mean, I went to see Pat Benatar the other night and there were all these middle-aged women getting thrown out for fighting… So, yeah, compared to that, our shows are pretty good.”
Respond: letters@boulderweekly.com
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On the Bill
KGNU, PBR, and the Boulder Weekly Present the Meat Puppets with opening acts Dead Confederate and UME at the Fox Theatre on Sept. 26. Doors at 8:30 p.m.
303-443-3399
 America’s obscure runaway daughter
Mysterious Hope Sandoval resurfaces with album, tour
by Ben Corbett
Once in a while a musician comes along who composes some fairly incredible music, then disappears for a while. Years later, the artist returns, fully restored, bearing yet another trove of songs gathered on the journey. Hope Sandoval is one of these. A living antithesis to your prototypical hit factory, each time she reappears on the radar, the singer-songwriter manages to make a noticeable splash before once again disappearing into the musical abyss. Sandoval made her first musical appearance in David Roback’s band Opal in the late 1980s. After replacing Kendra Smith as Opal’s lead vocalist, Sandoval and Roback soon formed the group Mazzy Star, releasing their well-received but underplayed 1990 debut album, She Hangs Brightly. Undaunted, Mazzy Star released their second album in 1993, So Tonight That I Might See, enjoying instant and sweeping radio success with the critically acclaimed hit, “Fade Into You.” In a pinnacle stride, Mazzy Star was poised to capture a much wider audience, and Sandoval’s 1994 duet “Sometimes Always” with The Jesus & Mary Chain only catalyzed the course of her trajectory. But it kind of stopped there, as Mazzy Star slowly faded into the background. For whatever reason, Sandoval seemed uninterested in stepping out of her niche of dark-tinged café balladry and into the big industry trappings that always appeared within easy reach. After Mazzy Star’s 1996 release, Among My Swan, Sandoval disappeared into the underground altogether, beginning the aforementioned trend of coming and going when the muse struck. Five years later, enter Sandoval’s new group, The Warm Inventions, with their 2001 release, Bavarian Fruit Bread, which was accompanied by a 2002 world tour. The Inventions’ trademark sound of psychedelic melancholia laced with Sandoval’s dreamy, cavernous vocals was no huge departure from Mazzy Star. But once again, aside from an occasional EP released under The Warm Inventions, Sandoval disappeared from view. Now seven years later, it’s hard to say whether her new forthcoming album, Through the Devil Softly (Sept. 29), takes its name from a not-so-subtle spin on the classic Ingmar Bergman film, Through a Glass Darkly, but it certainly fits. Like Bergman, Sandoval has always been less interested in trite, plot-driven trivialities, concentrating more on the expression of scenic moods and inner landscapes. And where David Roback once served as Sandoval’s creative foil, co-writing all the music for Mazzy Star, The Warm Inventions has ex-My Bloody Valentine drummer Colm Ó Cíosóig picking up the role, with Sandoval handling the bulk of songwriting chores. For Through the Devil Softly, the Irish rock band Dirty Blue Gene (who Sandoval had yet to meet before beginning the tour) co-wrote and performed on half of the album, which was recorded cross-continentally between America and Ireland. Dirty Blue Gene will be pulling double duty for the tour, both opening for The Warm Inventions, then backing them for the main event. During live performances, a shy Sandoval plays on a darkened stage with only the barest glow of light, demanding absolute concentration from her audiences (the last time Mazzy Star played in Boulder, Sandoval stormed off the stage mid-set, not to return, after some drunken hecklers in the back refused to shut up). Will Sandoval’s bewitching art-house act strike a chord with the new attention-deficit generation and its addiction to sensationalism? One can only hope. But in an age of digital escapism, you get the idea that Millennials would rather have rusty forks jammed into their collective eyeballs than to willingly step into an intense sea of raw emotion, which constitutes the essence of Hope Sandoval’s now two-decade repertoire. But then, Sandoval’s music has always appealed to uniquely refined ears, and unpretentious mystery has always been part of her intriguing package deal. It’s hard to say whether Sandoval will stick around long enough to worry about it anyway. But if not, in the meantime, she’s known to tease her fans with sporadic guest appearances with numerous bands, which have included Air, Death In Vegas, and The Chemical Brothers. Staying in that tradition, look for an appearance on Massive Attack’s forthcoming album, Weather Underground in 2010. And if that isn’t enough, Mazzy Star’s long-awaited fourth album with David Roback is rumored to be near completion. “It’s true we’re still together,” Sandoval told Rolling Stone in July. “We’re almost finished [with the record]. But I have no idea what that means.” Meaning: If you’re into Hope Sandoval, go catch her now, because it could be a while before you get another opportunity.
On the BillHope Sandoval & The Warm Inventions plays the Bluebird Theater with Dirt Blue Gene and Brightback Morning Light. The show starts at 8 p.m. on Oct. 1. 3317 E. Colfax Ave., Denver, 303-322-2308.
Respond: letters@boulderweekly.com
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