We’re the Meatmen…and You Suck! (Touch and Go, 1983)
This album may merely be a reissue of the Meatmen’s Blood Sausage EP, beefed up with eight ridiculous live tracks, but with its goofy cover art and joyfully offensive music it stands as one of the most iconic albums in American punk history. There are few examples of a band so capably pulling off the oxymoronic feat of intelligently being genuinely stupid. Contained within these grooves are catchy, sloppy hardcore songs that express joy at the death of John Lennon, appreciation for the work of porn star Vanessa Del Rio, and odes to homosexuality and womanhood that could only make gays and gals glad to be different from these juvenile jokesters. Tesco Vee’s semi-inept vocals (despite an impressive tapeworm impersonation) joyfully spew hate evenhandedly. And while it would be easy to dismiss these oafishly offensive tunes as unoriginal and dumb, something about Tesco’s absurdist sense of humor makes these rants actually funny. This album sets the tone for all future Meatmen albums by making ridiculous pop culture references (Grease 2) and boldly declaring what sucks (crippled children, you).
War of the Superbikes (Caroline 1985)
At risk of losing my punk credibility, I declare that despite the timelessness of We’re the Meatmen, this is the band’s finest moment. Somehow a move to DC (known for their hyper-serious punk scene, personified by the members of Minor Threat) and the assembly of a new lineup (including Minor Threat members Lyle Preslar and Brian Baker) made Vee shift from sloppy jokecore to sophisticated comedy rock far more akin to a National Lampoon album than a Black Flag record. This new disciplined crew was capable of seriously shredding, and Tesco uses this skill set to explore ridiculous rock on the melodramatic title track, the breakneck “Abba, God and Me,” and reverent covers of Pagans and Nazareth tunes. The highlight is the hilarious “Punkerama” a tour de force assault/celebration of rockers, punks, and game shows, that outs Rob Halford and Joan Jett, name-checks obscure hardcore band the Clitboys, and demonstrates that Vee is capable of funny voices not hinted at by his grunting singing on the debut.
Rock & Roll Juggernaut (Caroline, 1986/Meat King, 2008)
One might call this the least Meatmen-ish album of the band’s career. Take away the German oompah song and the quintessentially-Meatmen “French People Suck” and this almost seems like a normal rock band making a real album. While far from straight metal (plenty of punk in the mix), songs like “Centurians of Rome” and “Turbo Rock” don’t seem like parodies of grand rock clichés, but rather enjoyable examples of such. The six stellar bonus tracks on the new reissue include live versions of Superbikes and Juggernaut songs.
We’re the Meatmen…and You Still Suck!!!(Caroline, 1989/Meat King 2007)
Not much to say about this live ambush (compiled from shows in DC, Boston, and New Jersey) other than to point out that it is extremely convincing. The minimalist early Touch and Go material, the hard rocking tracks from the mid-eighties, and the cover songs sound great together, surprisingly cohesive in their obnoxiousness. The recent reissue adds a few tracks.
Crippled Children Suck (Touch and Go, 1990); Stud Powercock: The Touch and Go Years 1981-1984 (Touch and Go, 1990)
As the eighties became the nineties Touch and Go decided to get nostalgic, honoring their founder by releasing the eighteen track Crippled Children LP (compiling songs from the EP of the same name plus rarities) and the 39 track retrospective CD Stud Powercock which included virtually every early Meatmen recording (even the not officially Meatmen 1984 release “Dutch Hercules” by Tesco Vee and the Meatkrew, which introduced the hard rocking DC sound). For fans of early Meatmen, this orgy of audio is all you’ll ever need, but metal heads who came to the party a little later may have trouble digesting the raw meat of these lo-fi reissues, demos and live tracks.
Tesco Vee’s Hate Police Gonzo Hate Vibe (Staple Gun, 1992/Meat King 2007)
Not long after Touch and Go got all wistful about the days of early Meat, Tesco theoretically moved forward by starting a “new” band. Considering the revolving door band-member policy of The Meatmen, and the fact that this album–and Hate Police’s numerous singles, compilation appearances, and tribute album tracks, including an infamous cover of REM’s “Losing My Religion”–continued the hard rocking, sensibility-offending tradition of late ’80s Meatmen, the significance of the new name is unclear. If anything, this album strains to be extra puerile as Tesco croons about big boobs, big dicks, two different types of anal ooze, and just in case you didn’t understand he was trying to offend, clubbing baby seals to death. On the Nostradamus tip, the song “Fuckin’ the Dough” predicted the American Pie baked goods copulation trend a good seven years before that fad took off. The 2007 reissue features an overwhelming 11 bonus tracks (REM included).
Toilet Slave (Meat King, 1993)
Tesco’s return to Meatmen branding was released on his own label in limited quantities with cheap looking artwork, but it sounds better than it looks. Though not exactly a departure from the heavier, more metal Meatmen stuff (Heavy Meatal?), with a new lineup, the band became more straightforward bar punk. This CD does contain some nice twists. For example, I assumed the song “Real Men” was using flaccid penis positions as a metaphor calling for a return to Republican values at the dawn of the Clinton era (“real men hang to the right”), but then the album wraps up with a call to murder GOP members. So I guess sometimes a penis is just a penis.
Pope on a Rope (Pravda, 1995/Meat King 2008)
This album features a return to good cover art (love the Mad Magazine font) and good cover songs (Blue Oyster Cult and Gang Green get the Meat-treatment) but overall this is coarser and less fun than previous releases. Without Lyle Pressar’s guitar flavor, some of the harder music here is kind of plodding. Combined with Tesco’s vocals becoming more guttural, this makes this release sometimes sound more like unfunny Mentors music rather than the joyful comedy of classic Meatmen. The new reissue includes five bonus tracks, including the excellent Boris the Sprinkler split EP (Deep Purple cover intact) and the “Green Acres” theme song.
War of the Superbikes II (Go Kart, 1996)
As the title indicates, this isn’t so much a reissue of War of the Superbikes with ten newly recorded bonus tracks, as it is a new album that just happens to open with the original Superbikes in its entirety. As a reissue it would be a disappointment, as the cover art is inferior and the 1985 recordings sound better by themselves, but as a new album it’s reasonably solid. Tesco is in classic form, making fun of Morrissey and grunge and paying tribute to blowjobs and death metal. The highlight here is the masterful cover of Venom’s “Evil in the League with Satan,” which maintains the thundering boogie-metal of the original, but thrashes it up a notch, and somehow makes it funny. Tesco will be reissuing this in 2008, presumably with bonus tracks, which may qualify as War of the Superbikes III.
Blight Detroit: The Dream is Dead (Touch and Go, 1995)
Add Meatmen absurdity to the Fix’s straightforward rock and the sum is…humorless art noise? For reasons lost to time, Tesco’s 1982 band Blight, formed with members of the Fix (the Touch and Go band whose 2006 compilation CD made available one of the all-time most expensive punk singles), was devoted to art damage music informed by hardcore and industrial, but also related to the more ambitious (some might say pretentious) work of Chicago’s ONO and Michigan’s Destroy All Monsters. Tesco’s most serious (and to Meatmen fans, least interesting) work appeared on one obscure vinyl EP, and several impossible to find cassette compilations, making this 1995 reissue pretty unexpected. Tesco trivia: This CD contains his finest trumpet playing.
Evil in the League of Satan (Go-Kart 1997)
This CD mostly compiles previously released nineties Meatmen tracks, including a few from “Toilet Slave.” A somewhat half-assed album, the most memorable cuts here are collaborations (including good ones with Rev. Norb, earth’s greatest devotee of Tesco lyricism, and unfortunate ones featuring vocals by the late Bianca Butthole, frontwoman of Butt Trumpet, which may have been the worst punk band ever). This double disc also features a CD-Rom of live footage and vintage Meatmen images (many of which appear these days on Tesco’s website). This would have been a disappointing swan song for such a mighty band, so it is with both relief and anticipation that we look forward to the forthcoming The Meatmen Cover the World album that will be infecting speakers–and now earbuds–later this year.