Brother Meat – Extraordinarily Moist and Delicious: #819 of best 1,000 albums ever!

Why is Brother Meat’s Extraordinarily Moist and Delicious on my best 1,000 albums ever list?

You want it, you need it, you got it… you got it!

What does Brother Meat’s Extraordinarily Moist and Delicious mean to me? What does it make me feel? Why is it exciting or compelling?

This is going to be an unusual entry in this here best 1,000 albums ever project.

Some background.

I’ve mentioned Brother Meat a few times before (including the tale of an ill-fated road trip that doomed a nascent relationship and Date Night #3!). It’s exceedingly likely that you haven’t heard of them, let alone heard them, if you can dig.

Brother Meat was a great alternative rock-meets-funk rock band that built up a following in upstate New York in the 1990s. They were special because of the party-like atmosphere they created at live shows and the fun, wildly inventive vibe they conjured through their music.

More than likely I first saw Brother Meat at a small venue in Binghamton, New York called Cheers (a spot I visited many, many times during my undergrad years at Binghamton University). They hailed from Ithaca, New York (home to Cornell University and Ithaca College), a great college town around an hour north of Binghamton. I caught them there a few times, at a venue called The Nines. By the time of my senior year at Binghamton, Brother Meat had built up a very healthy college crowd following.  

What’s super unfortunate about Brother Meat is that for many years, their music was not available on the Internet. Believe me, friends and I would spend an odd moment here and there scouting around and report back on our typical lack of findings.

Every now and then, gold would be struck, such as when “House,” arguably the band’s best song and one of my absolute favorites, surfaced on YouTube.

Extraordinarily Moist and Delicious, the one studio album that Brother Meat produced, frankly doesn’t quite have that same delightfully frantic energy or intensity. However, it’s surprisingly well produced for a band with a relatively tiny following and, I’d assume, budget.

It contains a collection of songs that mostly are a mix of alternative rock with a party vibe or funk rock with an edgy alt rock vibe, such as “U Got It,” “Higher,” and “Dumb White Trash.” And then song titles like “Can U Dance?… (Let’s Dance 2) The Boogie” let you know what kind of a scene you’re in for.

Quite recently, there was breaking news. I’m going to quote from an e-mail that I sent to my old friends Adam, Dan, Lou, and Nirav, under the subject heading of “MAJOR (brother meat) news!”

What we’ve long been waiting for fellas, the brother is back… or at least I dug up a ton of their brilliant live album (and some other stuff that I’m still sifting through!?!?!?) on soundcloud….. I’m freaking out with glee ahahhahahah….. 

The treasure trove of new, old, and still mysteriously TBD Brother Meat tracks that I unearthed on Soundcloud made me happier than any discovery on the Internet that I can recall.

Which is to say the Internet can be good sometimes, people.

Now, that being said, there are no songs as recorded on Extraordinarily Moist and Delicious among those Soundcloud tracks as of this writing, but there are a number of live recordings from EM and D that were originally released as part of Live at the Horizontal Boogie Bar, which is an incredible album in its own right (and keep it tuned here to the Pop Thruster on that score).

“Higher” is a fine representation of the band at its best. I’m reminded, too, of how good their guitarist is and of the energetic performance by way of front man and guitarist Jason Connolly, in addition to “The Brother” himself, who both helmed the drums and provided glorious backing vocals.

On a chunk of songs, The Brother and Connolly would switch up, with Connolly manning the drums and The Brother taking lead vocals, which brought a different (read = party level amped up a few large notches) energy. See: “Get On the Funk.”

One of The Meat’s “signature songs” was “Lesson in Sex.” The studio version is arguably better than this live version, if memory serves, but dig the energy here and just rely on the fact that The Brother knows best.