Quick & Dirty: Dark Meat - by Andrea Grassi - When I heard that Georgia’s Dark Meat tours in a 35-ft lime green bus, I instantly had romantic visions of a Partridge Family-style vehicle melodically swaying as it lumbers across North America. Yes, Dark Meat (full name: Dark Meat/ Vomit Lasers/ Family Band/ Galaxy) is on a mammoth North American tour right now. However, despite their flower-power aesthetic, bassist Ben Clack sets me straight about the sometimes cramped coach bus which holds the band’s 17 to 21 members. “It’s nothing psychedelic or anything," he says. "Just green." The band emerged after Clack and frontman Jim McHugh moved to Athens from South Carolina for school. Forming organically, the meat was cut from a group of friends trying to make money peddling Neil Young and Stooges covers. In a few months, the covers were overshadowed by their own songs and they had a full-fledged bluesy punk band with plenty of early '90s acid hipshake. It's impossible to define their big sound – the spectrum slides from country to psychedelic – a sound so big, in the past McHugh has defined the band as a universe with every player a planet. This variety is impressive because they can carry a range of genres blending sounds and emotions from female lead chants, clapping, wailing guitars, punk tempos and up-beat brass, while still giving their spiraling symphony a backbone. They are chaotically composed, using improvisation in their live shows and on their recordings, but always coming back to a cohesive baseline and lead. “[The stage] is a place for individual expression with improv in order to create the sound we want,” says Clack. In late 2006, after four months of shaping songs and recognizing themselves as an actual creative endeavour, Dark Meat began touring. “Some of the guys didn’t really realize we were becoming a band until it was too late,” laughs Clack. Under Athens-based Orange Twin records, their debut Universal Indians shook indie-rock sheets. Cool cooperatives similar to Dark Meat, such as Elf Power, have since zoned Athens as a young, artisan hotbed. “We feel like we’re part of this weird universe of bands,” says Clack of the bands they both play and tour with. “Creatively, we’re really tight and that’s just a wonderful gift.” Signed to VICE Records earlier this year after getting noticed by their grass-stomping set at SXSW 2007, the band recently reissued Universal Indians with three bonus tracks. Visual performance is definitely part of Dark Meat’s appeal. Their colourful shows have been respectfully likened to those of the Flaming Lips, with whom they will play the Illinois Summercamp festival in late May. While tirelessly touring North America for the past year, the band has also composed their sophomore album. “Our new album isn’t a different aesthetic, just a more refined record. Playing so much, we have become better practitioners,” says Clack. Under VICE, Dark Meat has exposure and bigger, badder creative tools at their fingertips, but let’s hope the sound remains as real and honest as their beginnings. Some Stooges, Boredoms, and Sufis influences have been mentioned, but thankfully, they're planning to to keep the new record as “raw” as possible. With only two Canadian dates on tour, the big green bus arrives in Toronto tonight at Lee's Palace and heads to Montreal tomorrow to hit that stageat Zoobizarre.