Meat Your Mete

The Meat Beetles are vegetarian. The cow in the foreground in the above image was still alive when the picture was taken.

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To Keep And Bear

Usually, when the Meat Beetles use samples of media and political personalities, the intent is to ridicule and insult those people. On this one, however, the voice used is someone for whom the Sloptops have enormous respect: Air America radios host, Rachel Maddow. This was taken from her broadcast the day after a gun owner murdered 5 people on the campus of Northern Illinois University.


The more history we live through the more often it repeats itself.

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Paul's Big Score

Here is another bit featuring the genius of '70s pick up guru, Eric Weber (Weber also played a prominent role in "The Mating Call of the Male Uglo-American"). For this one the Sloptops simply took an entire track from his classic album, How To Pick Up Girls, and superimposed beats and squiggles on top of it. Interesting how things just serendipitously fell together into something approaching a structure. As for the subject matter, there may be or have been women in the world who would fall for a routine like Paul's, but none of the Meat Beetles ever met one.

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Dragsville Cats

Don your beret and shades, tune up your bongos, and pour another cup of espresso. The Meat Beetles have invited you to a beatnik hootenanny. The samples in this one are from the classic 1958 film, High School Confidential . Click here to see the original source material, posted at You Tube.

The Meat Beetles have passed you the shovel--now dig!

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This is My Happening and it Freaks Me Out!

Wowie zowie, let's do your thing! This 1992 recording is the Meat Beetles' salute to the '60s in. It features a cast of, literally, thousands, including JFK, LBJ, MLK, Walter Cronkite, Allen Ginsberg, Mario Savio, Abbie Hoffman, and more hippies, yippies, dippies, commies, and mothers than you can shake a stick at. An improvised two-guitar rave-up provides the backdrop for a barrage of samples, most of which were lifted from a PBS documentary series on the '60s, and from the documentary film, Berkeley in the 60s.

By the way, at least one of the Meat Beetles is 99% certain that the young woman holding the sign in the above photo is none other than Melanie Safka, who had a hit with "Lay Down (Candles In The Rain)" in 1970.

Oops, almost forgot. This one has F-words in it. Listen at your own risk.

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23%

Let's face it; every day more and more people are coming to the realization that George Bush, the "leader" of the "free" world, is a living, breathing joke. But in this go-go world of the 21st century, maybe you just don't have the time to laugh. Maybe you are too busy trying to earn a living; maybe concerns of family and community don't leave you with enough time to laugh; maybe you're saying to yourself, "I'm too busy to laugh today; I'll find time tomorrow." And tomorrow is forever another day away.

Well, if this describes you, don't worry. The Meat Beetles have you covered. We have nothing but time on our hands and will be happy to laugh at Bush for you. And should you ever find yourself with a few free minutes and would like to join the Sloptops and billions of others around the world in laughing at the little twerp, just click the "Play" button below and let yourself go.

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World War 345

The Democratic Party had a lot of low moments in 2007, but the Meat Beetles unanimously agree that the party leadership was at its most despicable in the wake of Representative Pete Stark's floor speech in October. A rare person among the Democrats, Stark actually stood on the floor of the House and did what so few have the spine or integrity to do: he told the truth about our "president". For this he was slapped down and forced to apologize by the Democratic leadership. The Meat Beetles, en masse, went to the nearest post office, picked up voter registration forms, and changed their affiliation from Democrat to Independent.

Anyway, part of Stark's speech was used in this piece. To provide a context, audio recordings of inane blather by George Bush and various cable "news" creeps have also been used.

Happy New Year! Same as the old year?


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Michael, Queen of the Savages

For those fortunate enough to not know who Michael Weiner Savage is, he is one of the most virulently hateful of all hate radio jocks. He's a lot like Ann Coulter, but much more feminine. His contempt for women and his obsession with manhood and masculinity have led the Sloptops to one inevitable conclusion: This guy is a closeted gay man. Come out, Michael, come out. Celebrate who you really are. You'll be better off for it and so will America.

Acknowledgement: The Meat Beetles found the above picture of Savage at Pride Depot.

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Battle Hymn

The samples here came from a PBS documentary about the battle of Iwo Jima in World War 2. The accompanying photo is "Spanish Loyalist at the Instant of Death" taken by Robert Capa during the Spanish Civil war. Two different wars, but really they're all the same--stupid, power-mad scum like George Bush and Francisco Franco start them and ordinary people fight and suffer in them. Maybe someday the human race will evolve beyond this, but probably not. Recorded ca. 1994.

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Poor Elvis

Mid-90s mayhem featuring "The King of Cholesterol". John Lennon once said that Elvis died the day he got on the bus that took him to the army. The Meat Beetles agree.The strained, rumbling sound throughout this one is a short excerpt from the song "Hound Dog" tweaked and processed to the point of being unrecognizable.

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Oath

The Meat Beetles are on hiatus this summer, but we'll be back with new material soon, including our tribute to the 40th anniversary of the Summer Of Love. Meanwhile, here is something from the early 90s. The samples used in this one came from the 1975 film, Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?, a documentary about the Republican-caused depression of the 1930s. Listening to this, the Sloptops are reminded of the loyalty oath that one has to take to attend a speech by "President" Bush (OUR EMPLOYEE AND WE HAVE TO TAKE AN OATH TO SEE HIM BLATHER!!!). The voice at the end of this one is Herbert Hoover, the Republican president whose economic policies were a key factor in causing the Republican depression.

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A New World Odor

Do you ever wonder where George W. Bush gets that streak of amorality? The answer is it's in the family genes. This piece was built around his father's "victory" speech after HIS war against the people of Iraq in 1990-91. It's hard to imagine who has more innocent blood on his hands, Junior or Senior. And let's not forget Grandpa Prescott Bush, who did business with his Nazi pals for several years AFTER the US went to war with Hitler's Germany. And of course there's Mother Barbara, who showed her true colors when she remarked in the wake of Hurricane Katrina that, if people are "underprivileged" squatting in their own filth in a crowded, sweltering sports arena is good enough for them. Shouldn't there be a law against people like this reproducing?
If anyone has ever had the suspicion that The Meat Beetles have too much time on their hands, this piece should confirm that suspicion. At least such was the case when this was recorded in one long weekend session in 1991. This one is different from most of the other things posted here--no beats or music of any sort, just edited samples. As with all the work they did during this period, it was all done with tape--no aiff editors, no graphic readouts, just hit or miss and a lot of hiss. However, they did rerecord it into a computer recently and apply some very judicious editing--a little cut here, a bit of EQ there, an amplitude boost/cut from time to time.
Also used here are samples from TV news and George Romero's classic film, Night of the Living Dead. 

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Pickles

When The Meat Beetles found out about Laura Bush's claim that no one has suffered more than she and W have over the Iraq war, they were apoplectic. The nerve of this sorry excuse for a human being to say such a thing. What has she sacrificed? What does she even know about suffering (besides, what she has learned about suffering from being married into the Bush family)?
Once the Sloptops got over their hissy fit, they realized that there was plenty of fodder for audio collage in the insane rantings of The First "Lady". And is she on drugs or just naturally out of touch with reality?
The picture below was added as a mere suggestion that there may be--just may be--some who have suffered more than she and W have as a result of his choice to go to war.

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Smoked Children

In 1994 The Meat Beetles got their first computer, an Apple LC475. It wasn't much by today's standards--a whopping 160 Meg hard drive, 32 Mb of memory, and 8-bit sound. But nothing would ever again be the same for the Sloptops. This was one of the first pieces they created with their new digital tool. The samples used include a caller to a radio talk show, incensed by the bombing of Iraq, Carroll O'Connor (aka Archie Bunker), and Hollywood director, Cecil B. DeMille. Also putting in a guest appearance at the end is none other than Franklin Roosevelt. Grilled millionaires indeed!
meanwhile, the smoking of Iraqi children continues!

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Death And Hell In A Yellow Submarine

Once again The Meat Beetles explore social views on rock music. This time the vocal chores are handled by Elizabeth Claire Prophet, doomsday cult leader, and Ronald Reagan, the object of worship for the Republican hate/death/fear cult. It was a match made in Purgatory! Also featured are other members of Prophet's cult, a network news interviewer (don't know who), and a cute but naïve hippy with a cute but naïve view of a future that would never come.


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HelloHaloHairdoHell

Another "turn on the TV and record whatever is on" piece from 1987. This time what was on was a sermon from Jimmy Swaggart. These were dark days for the christianist extremist movement. Only weeks after this was recorded Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker had their fall from grace (or whatever it was they fell from), and only a year or so later Swaggart himself would be caught with a prostitute.
Lots of harsh noises in this one and two out-of-sync cheapo keyboard drum patterns. Those were interesting times!

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Fear Up

Of all the "guest vocalists" who have collaborated with The Meat Beetles, the Sloptops all agree on one favorite: George W. Bush. There are two reasons for this, both having to do with Bush's monumental stupidity. First, every time the guy opens his mouth in public something choice is bound to come out; phrase after phrase that just screams "Sample me!" Second, because Bush is utterly incapable of uttering more than five or six words in one go without pausing to think what the next five or six are going to be, there are lots of pauses in his speeches. This is particularly handy when clipping samples out of a large .aiff file.
All of the snippets used here came from two different appearances--his address to the graduating class of the Coast Guard Academy (May 23, 2007) and a press conference (May 24, 2007). The Meat Beetles got into a friendly debate over which incident represented an all-time low in presidential appearances--using a graduation ceremony to make lame excuses for a failed, amoral foreign policy, or threatening the children of reporters. However, The Meat Beetles quickly came to realize that with well over a year left of this "presidency" Bush is bound to sink even lower.
By the way, lest you feel TOO sorry for the reporters whose children were threatened, it should be pointed out that "David" is none other than Dave Gregory of NBC. Yes, the same Dave Gregory who prostituted himself by dancing with Karl Rove (the most despicable blob of protoplasm currently oozing across the surface of the planet) at the recent White House Press Corps dinner. Hopefully Gregory now sees that, even when you suck up to these creeps, they will turn on you like vipers if it suits their purpose. Wait until you see what they will do to David Petraeus when "his" plan for the troop surge in Iraq goes belly up!


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Black Ringo

Sometimes, The Meat Beetles' stream-of-semi-consciousness approach yields unexpected, unpredictable results. This one started out with a sample of Billy Graham blathering about "why The Beatles stay on top" and evolved into a treatise on bigotry and ignorance. Actually it is kind of fitting given that Billy's son, Franklin, (who was sent to Iraq by the Bush administration to promote the christianist lifestyle as "normal") has, like a true bigot, referred to Islam as an "evil and wicked religion". The filthy little puke must have gone over big in the Islamic world!
For the record, while The Meat Beetles find the very idea of worshiping an invisible guy in the sky rather peculiar, they are absolutely opposed to bigotry and intolerance against people simply because they may subscribe to a different superstition than someone else.

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Blood, Brother

Although recent Meat Beetles material belies a fairly high degree of planning and structure, there was a time when the Slop-Tops took a more serendipitous approach. For this 1987 recording they simply patched the earphone output of a portable television into a tape recorder and turned on the set. It turned out that there was a Burt Reynolds movie on at the time (they never found out the title). They then added some rather dense, noisy tracks of their own and, voila, the result was this bit of audio swamp gas. By the way, The Meat Beetles found a MySpace page claiming to be that of Reynolds. Maybe, maybe not. Click here to see for yourself.

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Ann, The Queen of Men

"Guest vocals" by Ann Coulter. 


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