Beginning with their next album, Up on the Sun, the Puppets began doing things their own way. They bought an RV and reached out to Frank Riley, who booked artists like Violent Femmes, the Replacements, and R.E.M., to schedule tours outside of the SST bubble. They invited Los Angeles Times music critic Robert Hilburn to Phoenix as part of a push for mainstream press. Their intentions were increasingly clear: They wanted to get signed to a major label. Yet in the second half of the ’80s, the work began to suffer. The critically lauded Up on the Sun was followed by a series of hit-or-miss records. “You get into a whole different level of slogging and careering, whereas nothing after Up on the Sun is nearly as brilliant,” Bostrum admitted to Prato. “You get this success and you want to take it further. The only direction that you think to go in is like, mainstream. We’re doing songs that are less quirky, with a greater attempt to replicate standard kind of pop sounds, and not having quite as much success with it.”
Meanwhile, their peers were leaving them behind. By 1990, the Replacements and Dinosaur Jr. had signed to Sire, Hüsker Dü and R.E.M. had signed to Warner Bros., and Sonic Youth had signed to Geffen. A possible deal with Atlantic for the Puppets’ sixth album Monsters was blocked by Ginn, leading to litigation on both sides. Finally, they signed to London Recordings for 1991’s Forbidden Places, which sold 60,000 copies—their biggest hit so far, but still far short of their ambitions.
Help came from an unlikely source. The Puppets learned they were favorites of grunge wunderkind Kurt Cobain through an interview in Spin; shortly thereafter, they were invited to open a leg of the In Utero tour (Cobain used the tour as a sort of showcase of his influences—other openers included the Boredoms, Half Japanese, and Butthole Surfers). Backstage at the Buffalo show, Cobain made an announcement: He had just signed on to play MTV Unplugged, and he wanted the Meat Puppets to play, too. The recording would be in less than two weeks.
It was a gesture of solidarity from the biggest rock star in the world. MTV wasn’t thrilled. They had imagined Cobain’s guest stars would be Eddie Vedder or Chris Cornell, not a pair of unknown brothers playing songs from a decade-old album. But on the night, the Kirkwoods were there, hiding behind matching shoulder-length, curly brown hair. Curt used a quarter to pluck Pat Smear’s red, white, and blue Buck Owens guitar while Cris borrowed Krist Novoselic’s acoustic bass. “That’s Curt, and that’s Cris,” Novoselic introduced them to the crowd. “No, that’s Kurt, and that’s Krist,” answered Cris. “No, I’m Thing 1, and that’s Thing 2,” Curt rejoined. The band, backed by Novoselic and drummer Dave Grohl, played languid versions of “Plateau,” “Oh, Me,” and “Lake of Fire,” with Cobain swiveling in an office chair like a preoccupied child, his voice a softer take on Curt’s wild warble.
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
