The Texas Meat Purveyors began life as a humble Austin quasi-bluegrass band in the early summer of 1996. Jo and Bill had collaborated on a similar project 5 years earlier, Joan of Arkansas, a band with more members than ambition, and decided to try it again in a less laidback fashion. Very early on, Cherilyn and Pete were variously recruited or managed to somehow infiltrate the band. The other founding member, Nora Floyd, soon became too preoccupied with destroying her life to participate further. (Today Nora is alive, healthy, and engaged to be married in Portland, OR. We are all glad that she didn't succeed in her self-destructive efforts.) The ruddy great Welsh bastard Jon Langford, whom Bill had played guitar for on occasion, came to SXSW in the spring of 1997, was cajoled into playing Cherilyn's notorious lawn party, and ended up ordering Rob Miller from Bloodshot to see the TMP showcase. Rob promptly threw a small pile of cash at the band and said, "go record an album." About that time, the word "Texas" was struck from the band moniker to avoid possible legal entanglements with a regional dead-animal supplier of the same name. "Sweet in the Pants" debuted in late 1997. Raucous touring followed. There were many incidents of public drunkenness, fistfights with off-duty cops, profane language and general violations of taste and decency. In short, mistakes were made. In the summer of 1999 the band released "More Songs About Buildings and Cows," and were rewarded with small pockets of heated acclaim. Very small pockets, but it was nice anyway. However the seeds of the band's destruction had been sown months earlier and by New Year's Eve 1999/2000, the dream was dead. TMP was no more. Out of the blue, in September 2001, the band magically reconciled and started practicing again in secret. That December they recorded the aptly named "All Relationships are Doomed to Fail," and played their first show back in January 2002, at the Hole in the Wall, the site of their last show two years earlier. It was a relatively triumphant return, though the band was still rusty --the fast songs weren't quite fast enough yet, and the tolerance for alcohol had to be slowly built back up. But that all would come soon. Really really fun shows in the midwest, southwest, northwest, and even Canada and Alaska followed. The band, as always, seemed to draw a very discerning world-weary yet fun-loving crowd. There were collaborations with the Pine Valley Cosmonauts, Petty Booka, and other esteemed organizations. In the summer of 2004, Bloodshot released the band's 4th album, "Pain by Numbers," recorded amid whiskey, marijuana, and mayhem at Austin's fabled Sweatbox, a mecca for garage bands from all over the world. The Meat Purveyors' story continues, somehow, and now they are about to commence recording another album--"someday soon things will be much worse!". !