Lunch of Champions

Meat Purveyors Live at the Turf Club – July 15, 2006

Meat Purveyors | I Got Wise

I know! I know!! I’m about a month and a half late on this one!! How did it happen? I don’t know! But this morning, I was cleaning out my digital camera and noticed a bunch of photos from the show!

Anyway, as many of you already know, I LOVE the Meat Purveyors!! They are an intense speed-bluegrass foursome from Texas. They play FAST!! How fast? Faster than Jesse Jackson running to a press conference. FAST. Faster than George Bush running away from the truth. FAST. Faster than Brittney Spears driving with a baby in her lap. FAST.

View more photos here!

The band consists of:
Jo Stanli Walston – Salty, saucy lead singer
Cherilyn diMond – Tiny, Upright bass player, backup vocals
Peter Stiles – Thrash metal mandolin player
Bill Anderson – Tattooed Punk rocker turned emo guy who plays speed metal acoustic guitar; He also writes the songs.

Stiles basically is the gasoline for all the songs, pounding out solo after solo on his mandolin. I’ve never seen anything like this guy. Then there is Anderson, who plays down-picking rhythm guitar at a rate that Superman would be proud of. diMond is this cute, little girl who plays upright bass in a fashion that says, “I will kill you if you even think about touching my tuner.” And finally, lead singer, Walston kind of just sits in the background like grandpa on a porch with a 40-ounce bottle of Colt 45, belting out stories of chasing men all over Texas. Oh, and according to the Meat Purveyors’ catalogue, she’s also pretty pissed about the 500 times that guys dumped her.

The band blasted through many of their classics as well as some of the tracks off their new album, Someday soon things will be much worse!. Despite taking the stage late in the evening, close to midnight, they totally brought the rock. Keeping the crowd whipped into a frenzy, the band took short breaks to drink shots of tequila and Walston even chugged a beer at around 1 a.m.!

I don’t know how this band keeps on plugging at the rate they are going, but if they aren’t careful, I’m afraid they might all die of workout-induced heart attacks, that is, if their broken hearts don’t kill them first.

As any fan of these guys will tell you, their albums are all amusingly about heartbreak. Stories told from a woman’s perspective about getting dumped on by guy after guy and then getting drunk and looking for the guy. This is probably normal fare in Texas, but up in these parts, it plays like gold! I’m so used to bands singing about how great their girlfriends are…if they could only get them back…Or bands that sing about the good old days of waking up next to their fine lady. So, it’s nice to hear a band fronted by a woman sing about guys from the lady’s perspective, that is – Pancakes ain’t gonna make up for the fact that you couldn’t get it up last night. And getting drunk and tearing up Mr. Cortez’s felt pool table with your high heels.

And here are a couple of videos I shot during the show: