Rowdy and raucous, the Meat Purveyors are making bluegrass safe for kids too young or too drunk to remember the real thing. Much like the way the Pogues updated traditional Irish music with a foul mouth and two shots of whiskey, the Meat Purveyors bring some punk fire to the alt-country hoedown. This is not your father's bluegrass.
Whiskey-fueled and case-hardened deep in the heart of Texas, TMP boast a personal history that would shame Fleetwood Mac, and wood shedding that sends so-called roots revivalists, snooty bluegrass purists, and alt-country poseurs into paroxysms of self-doubt and years of expensive therapy.
And just who are these Texans who dare to breathe fresh life into the overly stoic, staid and mossback world of bluegrass? Anchoring this dysfunctional lot with his percussion guitar and gift for lyrics is recent Austin Music Hall of Fame inductee Bill Anderson (we're guessing it can't be THAT hard to get into, fer crying out loud). Diva Jo Cohen is a honky tonk angel gone wrong under a towering beehive, while Miss Cherilyn DiMond delivers piledriver stand-up bass and harmonies directly from the choir (and banter directly from the truck stop parking lot). Mr Peter Stiles, a reformed Deadhead, presents a flabbergasting prestidigitation on the mandolin and it is rumored that he has never played a bad solo. Ever. Darcie Deaville provides the fiery fiddling and the wild-eyed stares that fans fear to love and love to fear.
The Meat Purveyors are doing their best to keep bluegrass from tottering meekly into a dust-covered coffin. Help them, won't you? You don't want them to get TOO riled up.