What are some other great albums that sound like the Meat Puppets' Up on the Sun?

i heard this on the radio today and was so into it. this is the closest i've come to having the UOTS itch scratched by pretty much anything other than UOTS itself:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfSM1fme3xg

I'd say the two Citizens' Utilities albums are in this zone somewhere. Not as proggy. *Lost and Foundered* is a lovely record.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSe0pz-VC_M

fatso jetson gets close sometimes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9t4Mi8l6zKs

^These guys are new to me, can definitely hear the Puppets in it.

I'm with the thread consensus that nothing else hits quite like Up On the Sun, but the closest thing I've heard recently is Scattered Thoughts, the Numero comp of Gary Davenport's early 80s psychedelic jangle-punk from San Antonio.

The vibe is more "Down On the Moon" than "Up On the Sun" but the main sonic elements are there: clean, jangly electric guitars; basic yet solid rhythm section; trippy production flourishes. Amazing compilation if you're remotely interested in this kind of thing:

youtube.com/watch?v=PGfWYwGb0AY

oops, proper link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGfWYwGb0AY

will check this out.

obvious but first firehose album is pretty meatpuppetsy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l94v8u1Cv_o

go seek better than death's "swimman" lp. the "up on the sun"-ness is tempered by a NY no wave slant but it skews enough in that direction, which i assume is dues to mark howell who also brings "up on the sun"isms to zero-pop's 2 lps and timber's "parts & labor"

i feel like i've definitely seen that album cover before, but i might be confusing it with something much more common

oh it was distributed by Twin/Tone. yeah, i've definitely seen that around here in Minneapolis

Kenny Process Team doesn't really sound like Meat Puppets but there's a similar vibe in there somewhere...

gotta say i'm not really feeling any vibe similiarity there, kpt being v much cucumber sandwiches on the cricket green with robert fripp & ronnie hazlehurst, rather than the existential desert bake of the pups.
spinning the howling hex's "the best of" (which isn't a best of, but hagerty's take on norteño music), and feeling something pups-adjacent.
also love camp 7's "where the green ends"
and peglegasus nearly got there

I heard some similarity in Sammlas the Scandinavian RIO band but Meat Puppets were pretty unique which was why I liked them.

Tar Babies seemed to apply some of the same ideas but with funk as a pronounced influence where Meat Puppets had bluegrass. May be closer to earlier Mps though.

I think there was a lot of live MP material from the time too.Which has turned up on sites like Dimeadozen from time to time.

Maybe 73-74 Grateful Dead though it's not as frenetic.

Arbor Labor Union’s “New Petal Instants” is the first thing that comes to mind.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAcMSbQgIRI

I'm not sure you get to sounding like Up On The Sun without being the Meat Puppets and havibg had their experience. Which is one reason it is so good.
The oral history is really quite good. Not sure if it's still available anywhere.

But being a bunch of outsiders who seemed to naturally swim against the tide is part of it. Taking the wrong drugs and looking totally wrong for the scene you're part of may be another. I had a Spin issue ivthink from around the time the l.p. came out but definitely talking about the time just before. Band was onstage supporting I think the Dead Kennedys and playing songs from South Pacific to a generic punk audience while being long haired ahead of the look coming in more wholesale.Black Flag were being flagged off for going metal before it became more widely appreciated for that aspect.just thinking of other contemporaries who were embracing long hair. I think hard-core was still very shorthaired at the time.

& the sound is a melange of different influences. The band had been into the Grateful Dead, Zappa, fusion and other early 70s rock growing up. Had picked up on bluegrass at some point. I think both the Kirkwood brothers learnt to play banjo before the instrument they are known for. Bluegrass is audible in their earlier material and I think less so as they get more rocky a couple of Los later. They navigated their own way through punk and seemed to reinvent their sound to some degree a few times before this. It is really worth hearing live stuff from earlier to hear that in progress.
The sound seems to have an inner glow Which is also pretty unique.

I'm not sure what you boil the sound down to to find another thing that sounds like it. It isn't monolithic to itself exactly is it. So you're only ever going to be matching facets really.

I need to get a new copy cos mine is damaged. Overly scratched.

i really like that Citizens' Utilities song up above! i've never heard or heard of them. i will check out their albums. they definitely sound like people who grew up listening to and loving Up On The Sun. they get the spirit and the feeling. which isn't easy at all.

(whereas that fatso jetson song reminds me of, like, phish, or something. too bad more jam bands didn't devote their lives to Up On The Sun instead of Phish. somehow meat puppets managed to make their goofy hippy lyrics on their goofier songs sound endearing and not annoying.)

There's a kind of early Talking Heads feel to this album in parts.

Theres rock, jazz, baroque, funk and other stuff in there. Folk of some kinds. I started listening to some West African stuff after writing above and am hearing echoes of that in there.
I remember talking to them in the late 80s and them mentioning The Jam as something they'd enjoyed. Probably other late 70s/early 80s UK stuff too.
Plus the show tunes they broke out live.

They got into jamming songs out a while earlier too which I'm not sure how punk audiences reacted to.

I had a tape of various covers they played in the early to mid 80s in the late 80s which had tracks originally by Wire, Funkadelic, I think Beefheart and a load o others on.i definitely remember correcting the cover saying Stanleys On The Verge Of Getting it on to Standing .... and it having them doing Outdoor Miner on. Has been a while so not rembering all of it.
& there's a take on Franklin's tower on the cd of the s/t lp.

(rambling mode and very out-there ideas below, sorry!)

The early Talking Heads comment is interesting, because in a way early TH was very into the idea of re-using bubblegum structures and pop music in a different context... and maybe that's also in the DNA of Meat Puppets? not only the clean tones and bluegrass and country, but kind of a connection to schmaltz, to the pop music not being fanned by the critics. Didn't the first drummer had a zine that was famous for trying to rediscover Tiny Tim and AOR/Soft Rock or something similar? https://fanzinehemorrhage.com/2023/06/12/breakfast-without-meat-13/ yep

You can see some of that attitude when they're talking about Bee Gees in this What's in my bag:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CM_HBKUxeVk

Probably not exactly like Up On The Sun
But I was reminded of this threadcat least by seeing the touring version of this band last night.
A now US resident African griot and a band of old timey/bluegrass players playing together also including an African djembe player and augmented by a harmonica player at times.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUluyTSI6_0

Mandolin player near shreds harmonically at points.pretty sublime live.
They're just touring Ireland at the moment. If they do play near you I'd try to catch them

& I finally get to actually watch the video I had been sent a couple of weeks back in the wake of seeing a different versio of teh band.
Last night had Cheick Hamala Diabate and Danny Knicely plus a different banjoist and bassist and djembe player. So really not sure if it is a permanent project with the 2 consistent or if it si a totally rotating cast thing or what.
Seemed to be more electric than what is shown there at least

I'll enthusiastically second the Arbor Labor Union recommendation. Their last 2 albums always make me think of Up On the Sun, though I don't feel like they're consciously aping the Meat Puppets. Just a similar melange of punk/Dead/surrealism. They can bring it live, too.

yeah, i've been jamming the new one, it's good.

not really but still... (i am really enjoying this whole album a lot.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMkDzMI_em0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVLa0pnYvlA