Meat Puppets Concert poster – 1990s

Description

This is a poster for a concert by the Meat Puppets (with Miracle Legion and former Violent Femmes member Brian Ritchie). The concert was in the greater Pittsburgh area and took place in the mid- to late 1990s. It measures approximately 17 x 23 inches and is printed on heavy stock paper. It is from the P.J. McArdle Collection (the producer of this and many other concerts).
Meat Puppets are an American rock band formed in January 1980 in Phoenix, Arizona. The group's original lineup was Curt Kirkwood (guitar/vocals), his brother Cris Kirkwood (bass guitar/vocals), and Derrick Bostrom (drums).
Meat Puppets started as a punk rock band, but like most of the other acts on SST Records, they established their own unique style, blending punk with country and psychedelic rock, and featuring Curt's warbling vocals. Meat Puppets later gained significant exposure when the Kirkwood brothers served as guest musicians on Nirvana's MTV Unplugged performance in 1993. The band's 1994 album Too High to Die subsequently became their most successful release. The band broke up twice, in 1996 and 2002, but reunited again in 2006.
Miracle Legion was an American college rock band formed in 1983 in New Haven, Connecticut. They earned modest renown, especially in their native New England region, but also in the UK, where they were feted by music media such as NME and Melody Maker.
The original lineup consisted of singer/guitarist Mark Mulcahy, lead guitarist Ray Neal, drummer Jeff Wiederschall, and bassist Joel Potocsky. In their early stages they received frequent comparisons to R.E.M., more for their presence and overall sound than for their lyrical content. Other than a few similar-sounding songs, the respective bands' sounds were largely dissimilar lyrically and musically, and as time passed, the comparisons became less valid. Their first EP, The Backyard, was financed by Brad Morrison and released on the Bridgeport, Connecticut co-op label Incas Records in 1984 and became a college radio hit. Their first full-length album, Surprise Surprise Surprise, was released in 1987 on Rough Trade Records, by which time Potocsky had been replaced by bassist Steven West. In 1988, Glad came out, consisting of new songs and live tracks (which included a guest appearance by Pere Ubu). The same year, Miracle Legion's rhythm section departed, leaving only Mulcahy and Neal in the band.
With the departure of drummer Wiederschall and bassist West in 1988, Mulcahy and Neal continued Miracle Legion as a duo, touring as the opening act for The Sugarcubes. Their 1989 release of Me and Mr. Ray, recorded at Prince's Paisley Park Studios, reflected the band's new direction with its stripped-down instrumentation. The album yielded a single, "You're the One Lee," the video for which received modest rotation on MTV's 120 Minutes alternative music show. That year, the band found a new rhythm section, drummer Scott Boutier and bassist Dave McCaffrey, and signed with the now-defunct label Morgan Creek Records, which funded their 1992 album Drenched, produced by John Porter (of Roxy Music and The Smiths fame). The band had a limited national tour that year in support of the new album, mostly playing clubs and other small venues. The song "So Good" off of Drenched was featured in the 1993 film The Crush.
After Drenched, legal problems with the label left the band and its name in limbo. Interest continued, however, most notably in the form of a Nickelodeon offer for the band to write music for the television show The Adventures of Pete & Pete, which was created by Miracle Legion fans Will McRobb and Chris Viscardi. Neal, disillusioned with the label experience, declined the offer; but Mulcahy accepted. He decided to do the project with Boutier and McCaffery under the name Polaris, a project which lasted three years. Their track "Hey Sandy" became the show's theme song, and the band themselves appeared in at least one episode (Season 1, "Hard Day's Pete"). In 1996, after the legal issues associated with their run with Morgan Creek were resolved, the band put out their final release to date Portrait of a Damaged Family on Mulcahy's own Mezzotint Records label.
Brian Ritchie (born November 21, 1960) is the bass guitarist for the alternative rock band Violent Femmes.
In 1987, Ritchie released his first solo album, "The Blend." In 1989, he released his second solo album, "Sonic Temple & Court of Babylon." Ritchie's third solo album, "I See A Noise," was released in 1990.