This article is a dual review of two similar, but equally excellent records that came out in 2013. The band Meat Puppets is one of the progenitors of what was known in the 80s as the “new american rock’n’roll”. This is not a place to recall their brilliant career through the 80s, their rub with mainstream in the 90s and problems that they were going through after that. Let’s just say, it would make one hell of a bio pic. Six years ago Kirkwood brothers Curt and Cris reunited, first with Ted Marcus and then with Shandon Sahm on drums. Three albums that they recorded in those years were good, but somewhat pale when compared to the classical records that they used to make. Last year, the fourth album since the reunion came out and it’s called Rat Farm. With Rat Farm, Meat Puppets are finally fully in shape. The new album can stand head to head with their diverse 90s mainstream records and poetically reminds of their abstract psychedelic work Up On The Sun. Puppets also sound fantastic live, and those who saw them “back in the day” claim that they are as good as ever. And this is all wonderful news.
Also, in past two years, their old SST catalog got a nice set of reissues on vinyl, all those records are wonderfully mastered and totally worth getting if you don’t have the old ones already. The records were specially pre-mastered for vinyl by Greenhouse Audio, lathes were done by Clinton J. Holey and duplication was done at Cleveland’s Gotta Groove. I also have Rat Farm on vinyl and it’s lavender colored. Vinyl master was done by the Canadian company Vinyl Record Guru and unfortunately, my copy has a slight distortion problems in mid frequencies. But a huge plus is a nice gatefold cover with big Curt’s art on the front and lyrics printed inside.
One thing that’s characteristic for Meat Puppets are Curt’s crispy guitars and great vocal match between the brothers Curt and Cris. Canadian band The Sadies is also lead by two brothers, Dallas and Travis Good. They also have a great guitar style and duet vocals that have a brotherly matching quality. Sadies are known as handling multiple musical styles. They are equally competent in country rock, especially their 2004 album Favourite Colours or in surf rock, as they were on their 2006 release Tales of the Ratfink. They are also hired session musicians for many diverse artists, from Neko Case to Andre Williams. This year they released Internal Sounds. The lyrics have that same nursery rhyme abstractness as the Puppets record Rat Farm and this is not where the comparison with the Puppets ends. The entire record sounds like a really cool lost Puppets record from the 90s to me, all with vocal mannerisms from the Good brothers, guitar solos, psychedelic country mood. Another comparison that makes sense is the Yardbirds, especially their ragas and nursery rhyme psychedelic craziness such as Tinker Taylor Soldier Sailor. The Sadies must be very proud on both of those influences.
Talking about ragas, the Sadies record finishes with one. It’s a song that puts the spotlight on the legendary sixties folk singer Buffy Sainte-Marie. She guest stars on vocals, mouth bow and chips in as a lyricist.
In any case, both Rat Farm and Internal Sound bring back the exciting Meat Puppets sound of their prime, which made me listen to those two records in succession multiple times, which was also why I had to write about these two albums in one single article.
Vinyl copy of Internal Sounds comes in a pretty, shiny gatefold cover with embossed white lettering. The vinyl mastering and duplication is done by the Cleveland team Gotta Groove, but sadly, something went terribly wrong on this one. This is strange since this company had a flawless record so far in my book (I just said some really great things about their work with the Meat Puppets reissues!). Grooves are distorted pretty much throughout the entire record. Starting from the third song on each side, sibilance on high ends becomes pretty obvious. Mid frequencies start falling apart as early as the second song. Perhaps pre-master had some compression that simply wasn’t vinyl friendly in this case? The good thing was that the record came equipped with the download card, which was a must in this case for me.
If you haven’t seen Low Cut Connie live show yet, you should. There is not too many bands out there that put such a fun, carefree show. They would surely prefer to have a full house, but even if there’s an audience of five, they’ll knock the house down. Adam Weiner carries upright piano to every show and it’s gotta be a hell to tune it while on tour, but that piano is a key instrument in the band and some synthesizer just won’t do. Weiner shares song writing and vocal duties with an Englishman Dan Finnemore. Dan sings in a flawless american accent though. The band will sometimes rotate not just vocals, but also instruments at their live show and in short, it’s the hardest working band out there on the tour. 
As usual, at the end of the year, we bring you the list of the best albums played here at The Little Lighthouse in the past season. I think this was an interesting year. Debutant band Games tops the list with a catchy selection of hits. The ghost of Jim Dickinson rules the list this year with several bands paying tributes to him. Memphis is the most frequent city on the list, remaining the capital of rock’n’roll still after all these years.
Things are very complicated this year. There are two excellent bands with the name of (The) Fuzz. Both are special projects from previously well established musicians. There is Fuzz (without “the”) from San Francisco lead by Ty Segall, a band that has captured attention of music fans all over the world. The other Fuzz is The Fuzz, they are from Memphis and they are lead by Harlan T. Bobo. You won’t hear that much about this band in fancy web portals though, except in this one.
San Francisco is maybe the hottest rock’n’roll town at the moment. But, in the world of The Little Lighthouse, the rock’n’roll capital is still in Memphis, TN. On our year end list, six albums are from Memphis and only two are from San Francisco. But only one of those records reflects the spirit of rock’n’roll in its most traditional, old fashioned way and it’s from Memphis and it’s all about Memphis. It’s the Trashed Romeos record Where Dreamers Never Go.
Oblivians are a band from Memphis, the godfathers of the garage underground scene in that city that just broke up when they were getting to be known worldwide in the late nineties. They called it quits after a great collaboration with Quintron in 1997. The band went separate ways, Greg Cartwright established himself as one of the most important songwriters with the new band Reigning Sound, Jack Yarber became the king of the minimalist garage and Eric Friedl was busy running the famous Goner Records label and playing gutter punk with True Sons of Thunder. This year they decided to ditch their real surnames again and return to The Oblivians.
Mikal Cronin was our year end champion back in 2011, 
Chris Cacavas (ex Green On Red) had an album back in 2009 called Love’s Been Discontinued which we 
Today we have a relatively random playlist consisting of some of the most interesting cover songs in the past year or so. The only truly new record this time is Under The Covers Vol 3 by Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs. This time they covered the 80s and we hear their version of the XTC song Towers of London. We also check out Replacements and Arbouretum, each with a Gordon Lightfoot tune, Dan Sarka covers The Records and Steve Wynn covers Townes Van Zandt. We recorded Dax Riggs in Kent with a cover of a Billie Holiday tune and we also check out Carla Olson and Juice Newton belt out a Foster and Lloyd tune and The Walkabouts in Boss’ shoes.
Today we take a roundtrip from Tucson and back via many different places. We start off with Rainer and Das Combo. His legendary first album Barefoot Rock was reissued together with a bonus cd. Also, recall that earlier this year also Ptacek’s old tape Mush Mind Blues also saw the light of day in form of a bandcamp download. The we go to Las Vegas where we check out the new blues rock band called The Lucky Cheats. Than we land all the way down under where we check out the new band called The Straight Arrows form Sydney and a duet of two ladies Super Wild Horses from Melbourne. Both bands were released on the new volume of the comilation record New Centre of The Universe. Then we fly to Europe. Sweden’s Plastic Pals had a wonderful album this year called A Turn of The Tide and we finally get to hear it in this show too. Then we go to Chicago. Phil Agnotti played the entire Zombies Odessey and Oracle, only months after Ben Mason did a similar thing earlier this year. And then, via Chicago, where I recorded his new song, we go back to Tucson and Rainer’s old friend, Howe Gelb from Giant Sand.