We’ve upgraded the site to the most recent version of WordPress, 2.3.1., which has native support for tagging. New posts will have tags listed just under the title. You can click on a tag to find similar posts. For example clicking on the Old-Timey tag will find you recent posts about old-time country music. Tags are similar to categories, except that they are more fluid and often more specific.

I haven’t gone all the way back through the archives to tag old posts (there are over 600 of them), but this should make it easier to find things going forward.

If your favorite local karaoke bar doesn’t let you croon along to Split Myself in Two, you can use these tracks to sing along to the Meat Puppets seminal second LP. Drummer Derrick Bostrom has been running MeatPuppets.com as a blog, and helping disseminate rare outtakes, live recordings, alternate mixes, and all kinds of other cool stuff. These are the backing tracks from the Meat Puppets II sessions, rough mixes made before Curt added his vocals.

Bostrom’s description of the atmosphere surrounding the making of that record is surprising. The band’s growth between their debut LP and this record is absolutely remarkable. While Kirkwood’s vocals on the first record sound like a gopher caught in a woodchipper (I mean that as a compliment), his vocals on the second record are much more delicate and nuanced. Despite the obvious growth, Bostrom writes that, “Curt agonized over whether to go back into the studio and attempt to redo the vocals, leave them as they were, or just scrap the whole project. Fortunately, he got comfortable with the takes over time, and we moved on to bigger concerns (like convincing SST to let us actually finish the album).”

Equally surprising was the lack of interest their label at the time, SST, seemed to show in completing and releasing the album, which fed an increasingly acrimonious relationship with the label.

Unfortunately, there were those who viewed our efforts as a betrayal of “the form.” Coincidentally or not, “Meat Puppets II” languished unfinished for six months. [SST staff engineer] SPOT became “unavailable,” and no one seemed to be able to locate him or the tapes. We seethed resentment over the delays, and began to imagine conspiracies and ulterior motives at the label, especially after we discovered that Husker Du, the Minutmen and even Black Flag had “post-hardcore” albums in the works. “Meat Puppets II” wasn’t released until the spring of 1984. Even after the album got a glowing four-star review in Rolling Stone magazine, our disatisfaction with SST hardened, and the relationship settled into a stifling atmosphere of mutual suspicion.

You can read all of Derrick’s comments and download the full recordings at MeatPuppets.com.