Live at WFMU on Liz Berg's Show 8/10/09 by Dark Meat

Consider the logistics involved with packing up a band of 12+ members and driving across the country to play shows. Everytime I go out to a restaurant with a crowd half that size it's a minor disaster in terms of space, timing, and finances. Imagine your worst large-group-in-a-restaurant nightmare with the added complication of being on wheels and the whole ordeal lasting weeks. Plan on making a pit stop once an hour because someone will have to go.

Somehow, Dark Meat has managed to make it work for a few years now. Based out of Athens, GA, the band has a rotating cast of up to 15 members. More is certainly merrier if you are lucky enough to catch them live: skronky madness on- and offstage (you may be handed a neon sousaphone with an expectation that you will put out), shout-alongs, ritualistic chants, tribal face paint, and a rain of confetti or 99-cent store tchotchkes.

Dark Meat played live on my radio show this week, opening their set with a Les Rallizes Denudes cover, a sure way to win the heart of any hardcore WFMU fan. The trombone threatened to decapitate a few band members as the room swelled with sweat and southern rock. Take a listen to "Last of the Frontiersmen" below and check out their latest 7" release on Emergency Umbrella.

Although their various side projects are a list long enough to make a bureaucrat's eyes bleary, I will mention that Jim (guitar/vox) and Jason (drums) are involved in a forthcoming recording by the Brooklyn-based outfit Nymph. Quite possibly the best secret the band revealed: Tim (guitar/organ) is the genius behind the legendary outsider "A Collection of 20 Songs About Booties" CD (Found Magazine snagged it and circulated it widely some years back)!