Meat Puppets Vinyl Records
Out of all of the bands that made SST Records a towering force in the American underground during the mid-'80s, Meat Puppets lasted the longest, surviving where other bands fell apart. They were also one of the first bands on the label to drift away from the fractured but muscular punk-oriented sound that had been SST's initial trademark. Their self-titled 1982 debut album was a full-on punk record that only hinted at the eclecticism of their work to come, but with 1984's Meat Puppets II, the band had matured into an amalgam of punk energy, hard rock guitar prowess, country melodicism, and psychedelic exploration, with ZZ Top, the Grateful Dead, and Neil Young as their most obvious influences.