***The Meat Purveyors***
 (No, we haven't gone speed metal on you.)

 Despite their name, The Meat Purveyors fit snugly inside Bloodshot Records' "Home of Insurgent Country" parameters. Armed with mandolins, fiddles, and a slew of other acoustic instruments, TMP tackle bluegrass with a vengeance that only a pack of bloodthirsty Texans can muster. No, brothers and sisters -- this ain't no quaint NPR bluegrass -- this is a band caught up in the classic struggle of "left hand HATE and right hand LOVE."

On the right hand, they've got drop-dead gorgeous, high-lonesome female harmonies, exquisite renditions of classic country anthems from Ray Price, Merle Haggard, Bill Monroe and Elvis (the swollen, Vegas-eara Elvis) and all that goose-pimply
mandolin and fiddle playing. On the left hand, there are songs about shallow graves, long, lost weekends, the Publishers Clearinghouse Sweepstakes and other things deemed unsavory by the contemporary standars of country music, one jubilant
pot-smoking anthem, and "Dempsey Nash" -- a country-fried send-up of an avant-noise Glass Eye tune. There's also a recklessness in their playing, and a willingness to turn tired clichés on their heads, that hasn't been seen since the early days of the Bad Livers. They are bluegrass what Sam Peckinpah is to Westerns. Amen.

Austin's own Meat Purveyors are anchored by lead guitarist/twisted songwriter Bill Anderson (Ballad Shambles, Horsies, Big Foot Chester) and the singing of Jo Walston (Joan of Arkansas, Gretchen Phillips Experience) that combines the intensity and abandon of Janis Joplin with the mountain hollers of Hazel Dickens. Rounding things out are Peter Styles on mandolin and Cherilyn diMond on upright bass and backing vocals. The substantial fiddle duties on "Sweet in the Pants" were masterfully handled by Ralph White (Bad Livers) and Steve Rosen (Robbie Fulks), Brothers and sisters, won't you join them in their mighty struggle 'twixt the left and
what is right? The stakes are high, children -- don't be caught sitting on the fence.

Call on the fold here at Bloodshot for press, bios, photos, band interviews, guest list action, or righteous testimony. We'll proudly preach until our insurgent country pews are packed with proselytes. You know you've been bad. Come home, children. Come home.