I was prompted to write this by seeing the review of Meat Puppets II on Unsung; sure that was a great lp but it is a Da Capo to ‘Up On the Sun’s’ Forever Changes.

Where to start? First, if you are too old or too young to know what it was like to be a teenager in the mid eighties, let me paint you a picture…no, better than that, go and try and watch one of those ‘I love the 80’s’ horror-fests, if you can bear it, and then come back and weep for me. Anyway, suffice to say that 1985, when Up On the Sun was released, was an arid year for oddball outsider psychedelia (with a few honourable exceptions like our Fried hero in a half-shell aside) and this record was a blast of fresh desert air (cheesy metaphors – spot ‘em all and win a prize).

Cut to the chase – why is this thing good?

1. Like many great records it creates its own unique soundworld, however unlike say, Trout Mask Replica you will actually want to listen to it more than once a year. Now this is just a hunch, but could this be because Up On the Sun is full of great tunes that burrow into your head rather than being full of cranky Dadaist blues primitivism that scares the cat?

2. It sounds like you always hoped/imagined the Grateful Dead would sound but rarely did (maybe except Anthem, Dark Star, Sugar Magnolia etc, etc.) Like the Dead the Puppet’s sound sometimes takes little detours down Jazz lanes and Country roads but without ever straying into Country Jazz Hell, a very bad place to end up. What I am saying is that you get that mellifluous and trippy Gerry Garcia guitar thing without the 25 minute cover versions of Rock Around the Clock.

3. It contains some fine whistling.

4. Either due to the fact that they started out as a hardcore band or maybe due to hanging out in the middle of Arizona munching on cacti and armadillo shells, the record is free of all yer standard psychedelic clichés (though god knows I love those psyke clichés as much as the next geek.) yet it is as certifiably psychedelic as a blue pig on a fly agaric binge. This air of contradiction underlies one of this records myriad charms – the band sound barely conscious yet the whole album bounces along at a pace that would have most stoners checking to see if they have mistakenly set the turntable to 45rpm again. (this might work a treat for In A Gadda Da Vida but Up On the Sun at 45rpm would probably give you epilepsy – you’ve been warned.)

5. Being a trio means there is even more space in the already spacious sound. The bass almost acts like a joint lead guitar and sometimes even has a hint of that mid-eighties twangy poppin’ bass thang going on (but in a good way of course – like maybe they kidnapped Mark King from Level 42, fed him peyote and then shut his hand in a door. If that sounds too cruel you weren’t there in the trenches in that dark decade.) Reading the extensive sleevenotes on the mid-price CD re-issue (what you waitin’ for?) it seems that the stripped down sound was some sort of accident due to technological fuck-ups, we were meant to get a Psychedelic epic with overdubs galore, but friends, we got so much more instead.

6.

7. Listen to the lyrics, man.

A long time ago
I turned to myself
and said “you, you are my daughter”

who told you so?
That gold burns slow
Like coal camper’s candles
All lost in the snow

That’s from the title track – I will attempt one and only one track description: Imagine the Meters in a room jamming with ‘Notorius Byrd Brothers’ era Byrds. As they play ether or some similar anaesthetic is gradually pumped into the room. As the musicians stuggle to stay awake, the crazy old men singers wander in and begin muttering, then the whole ensemble lurches into the tune Up On the Sun. That’s the best I can do. 

Oh, and my favourite lyric.. 

Oh Pistachios turn your fingers red
Row your way back home you know
Roll right into bed.

I could go on, they are all great, perhaps Syd Barret if he had been raised on Sesame Street rather than Edward Lear.

Maybe the words lose something on the page but once heard in the Kirkwood brother’s cracked, drawled harmonies they stick in your head something rotten. (To be fair I should point out that neither of the Kirkwood’s can sing at all. They are in the lineage of Rock’s great non-singers, Damo, Bobby, Mark E etc. If you want crooning or bellowing seek it elsewhere).

A brief personal digression for anybody still awake – back in ’85 when this came out I was stuck doing GCE’s. I bought this and got lent all of the Carlos Castenada books in the same week. In my befuddled little mind the two thingz merged into one cosy daylit nighttime desertscape (the same colour as the bad oil painting of a mug that adorns Up On the Sun’s cover.) A landscape populated with mescalitos and weird rock simulcra. Ah, memories. Anyway 17 years later Castenada doesn’t seem quite as deep and I hardly ever get a chance to drop my GCE grades into conversation but Up On the Sun is still as refreshing as a midnight skinnydip in the cool black waters of Arizona Bay.

N.B. Point 6 intentionally left blank – a Zen thing that I am sure you were all tuned right into.