Meat Puppets - "Up On The Sun"

Tight melodic bass and hyper-active intertwining guitars recall theTalking Heads, but with Curt Kirkwood's laid-back vocals, sung wisely from a rocking chair on a back porch somewhere sylvan (whittling, perhaps, while singing), instead of David Byrne's ecstatic punch.

Even when the song builds behind him and gets heavy and bright, Kirkwood seems distracted, in his own world. Very careful. And sometimes like a Walkman running out of batteries.

One of Kurt Cobain's favourite bands.

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Captain Beefheart - "Tropical Hot Dog Night"

1. Whatever Beefheart tells you, do not believe that "like two flamingos in a fruit fight" is an analogy for something. It's not.

2. He's "playing this music so the young girls will come out...tonight." But they won't. Because they're scared of both the song and the fact that his name is Captain Beefheart. They don't want to "meet the monster tonight," at all.

3. "Like stepping out of a triangle, into striped light?" Also not an analogy for anything.

4. In the imperative:

"Step out of a triangle, into striped light. Turn around and step back into striped light."

I don't want to do that. How do you do that?

5. Everything's wrong but at the same time it's right.