Butthole Surfers

Summary.
During the 1980s the psychedelic scene of Texas was relatively subdued, hardly a foreshadow of the following decade's psychedelic deluge. The foundations were laid by the demented hyper-psychedelic punk-rock of the Butthole Surfers, one of the greatest bands of the 1980s. Gibby Haynes (vocals) and Paul Leary (guitar) brewed a synthesis of Sex Pistols' punk-rock, Red Crayola's acid-rock and Holy Modal Rounders' acid-folk on the mini-album Butthole Surfers (1983), a gallery of demented anthems played in a grotesque and noisy frenzy. Psychic Powerless (1984), one of the decade's most significant works, turned out a hysterical, cacophonous nonsense that borrowed from Captain Beefheart's apocalyptic blues, Chrome's delirious space-rock, Pere Ubu's modern dance, the Cramps' psychotic voodoobilly and Syd Barrett's intergalactic signals. The effect was akin to a hippie cartoon or a circus of epileptic clowns. The lysergic chaos of Rembrandt Pussyhorse (1986) was better structured, but still amounted to an encyclopedic annihilation of 30 years of rock'n'roll. Replacing their visionary and infernal imagination with slicker productions, the Butthole Surfers delivered two albums that were tighter and more conventional, Locust Abortion Technician (1987) and Hairway To Steven (1988), and then proceeded to achieve the impossible, i.e. streamline their abominable punk mess for the mainstream on Piouhgd (1991), Independent Worm Saloon (1994), and Electriclarryland (1996). The last bang was in fact a side-project by Gibby Haynes, P (1995), which contained some of his most explosive music ever. Not awkward at all, and in fact quite accessible, the last Butthole Surfers album, Weird Revolution (2001), was an eclectic survey of well-played cliches, incorporating dance and rap music.

Few groups have left their mark on the history of rock music like the Butthole Surfers. Rock music before and after the Butthole Surfers was not the same. Before them, it was more or less a dichotomy between serious music and comic music. After them, that boundary between what is serious and what is comic became blurred; all that remains clear is that music is a state of mind.

The Butthole Surfers were thus among the great protagonists of the creative reawakening of the 1980s. Their masterpieces of the 1983-85 period were the ideal continuation of Flipper's avant-garde hardcore, and paved the way for a reappraisal of punk-rock, heavy metal and psychedelic rock. Their sound reconnected with the lysergic folk-rock of the Fugs, of the Holy Modal Rounders and of David Peel, as well as with Chrome's catastrophic acid-rock, the apocalyptic blues of Captain Beefheart<, the perverse voodoobilly of the Cramps, and most of all the Texan psychedelic tradition of Red Crayola and the 13th Floor Elevators.

Paul Leary (guitar) and Gibby Haynes (vocals) were young miscreants from San Antonio (Texas) when they decided to form a band which, through a misunderstanding, came to be known as the Butthole Surfers. Under the aegis of Bruce Licher of the great Savage Republic, they debuted on the 4^th of July 1982 at Hollywood s Whiskey A-Go-Go.

In the early years they had all the zeal of the most criminal-minded punks, but between the lines one could still pick out notes of the blues. Their sound was constructed on the orgasmic tribalism of the two drummers (King Coffey, an Austin native, and Teresa "Nervosa" Taylor), on the cannibal arpeggios of Leary and on Haynes' agonised and vampiric vocals. Their favourite theme was the squalor of the human condition, but not in revolt against the system, rather as a Dionysian celebration of that state of Degradation.

On the first EP (apparently cut at 69 rpm), Butthole Surfers (Alternative Tentacles, 1983 - Latino Bugger Veil, 2003), also known as Brown Reason To Live (Alternative Tentacles, 2009), their first and unsurpassed anthem, The Shah Sleeps In Lee Harvey s Grave, reigns supreme: a grotesque revision of David Peel's agit-prop sketches, infused with a psychotic infantilism worthy of the Holy Modal rounders: in the general silence, Leary yells an excited and emphatic slogan ( there s a time to fuck and a time to prey/ but the shah sleeps in Lee Harvey s grave and other such mad ravings) which is then followed by a thunderous collective outburst from the group (roughly equivalent to a raging crowd). That the spirit of their nursery rhymes is indebted as much to hardcore as to the old music hall is demonstrated by Suicide. The most cacophonous and lycanthropic nightmare is The Revenge of Anus Presley a mini-concert for the sounds of destruction, piercing distortion, whistles of synth and disjointed spoken recitation. Hey is, surprisingly, an ordinary ballad, with the typical psychedelic folk-rock inflections of the Feelies and just a hint of carnivalesque revelry in the echo which repeats the song's title. A ferocious vocal a-la Tom Waits launches Wichita Cathedral, a swinging and epileptic bacchanal in the purest style of Beefheart. The project culminates with the monumental, gargantuan Something, which (uniting the gothic fanfares of Van Der Graaf Generator to the radio signals of Syd Barret and the modern dance of Pere Ubu) catapults Hayne s homicidal delirium over an android cadence and a tank-tread cadenced industrial funk torn by the monotonous and obsessive riff of the saxophones and by alien vortexes of guitar distortions. Another masterpiece in this style of primitivist dance is Bar-b-q-Pope: sinister bass chords, guitar and violin distortions, a funereal gait and solemn, hypnotic jingle jangles, rattles, a series of savage and skeletal cries punctuated with atonal shrieks of saxophone, and finally the refrain of a rowdy "Beefheartian" blues. Every track is a sonnic holocaust which exorcises the acute pain of quotidian existence: Gibby Haynes tar-thick vocalisms and Leary s monstrous guitar entwine trance with epilepsy, minimalist rhythms with punk hymns.

The first album, Psychic Powerless (Touch And Go, 1984) confirmed their nature as histrionic-anarcho-existentialists. Unhinged delirium (a recital of screams distorted through filters), acute cacophony (a continuous discharge of galactic distortions) and apocalyptic epos (the familiar funereal cadence of the bass) are blended together on Concubine to coin the archetype of a post-Pere Ubu industrial ballad. The gamut of their work ranges from recited/shouted idiocies to brutal streams of scorching noise (the frenetic Woly Boly), reaching heights of vulgarity in the ponderous boogie Lady Sniff, which features the finest mis-tunings since the days of Jeff Cotton; vocalisations made of coughs; gags and splutters; concrete found sounds and a homicidal gait, and culminates with their theme, Butthole Surfers, a galactic thrash dance with a Rocky Horror Show chorus; Wild Man Fisher-style warbling and an atmosphere of goliardic revelry. The principal progenitor of all of their music is, as always, Beefheart: their spiritual father.
Their lighter productions include jokes like Dum Dum, a nursery rhyme for the cabaret at a voodoo-tribal rhythm and with overwhelming solo from the distorted, reverberated guitar, or the pop-jazz of Negro Observers, the rattling rock and roll of Mexican Caravan (with huge guitar convulsions), or the epileptic hardcore of Gary Floyd. Their influence from Chrome and Red Crayola is evident in the manic tape-manipulations, android noises and dissonant maelstrom of Eye of the Chicken, the urgent, pounding, vehement, burning monster-truck rhythm of Cowboy Bob (assisted by a crescendo of agonizing wails) and Cherub, a long sonata for psychedelic guitar FX that makes horrendous mutations in the name of the most grotesque of noise. Their infernal sarabands have now reached the utmost degree of concision and effectiveness. Leary has coined a personal style from the repertoire of reverb and wrong notes belonging to psychedelic groups (Mayo Thompson docet) and Haynes has tempered his grunts with a register reminiscent of the sub-proletarian delivery of Johnny Rotten.

The EP Cream Corn From The Socket Of Davis (Touch & Go, 1985) accentuates surrealism and satire, especially in the Crampsian blues-a-billy of Moving To Florida.

With Rembrandt Pussyhorse (Touch & Go, 1986) the group settled into their classic line-up: Leary, Haynes, Coffey, Taylor and bassist Jeff Pinkus. The record marks the group s emergence out of the fetid alleys of punks and junkies. The quintet refines its head-on attack, born from the fusion of thrash impetus and lysergic chaos, with more composed and elegant arrangements. The guitar still vibrates under the weight of the detuning and Haynes blabbers on emphatically and anal as ever, but the most present sound is that of Coffey s drums all other players are reigned in so as to make the music acceptable for even the general public. The references are explicit (a hyper-tribal hip-hop version of The Guess Who s American Woman, with a hendrixian glissando and vocals shouted through a megaphone, and the theme song from Perry Mason reimagined as a lysergic nightmare). The Surfers immerse themselves in sinister tribalism, in the free cacophony of Waiting For Jimmy To Kick, in the liturgical requiem for organ Strangers Die Everyday in the maniacal arpeggios of Mark Says Alright in the psychedelic-raga vortex of Whirling Hall Of Knives but in general their most caustic and carnivalesque vein seems to have exhausted itself in the name of a more conventional neo-psychedelia. At their best, the group manages to sculpt Creep In The Cellar: a mini slasher flick seen through the nightmare of a heroin addict, with a petulant violin and the martial piano chimes which recall the litanies of Patti Smith.

Their first concept album, and the most curated one from a production perspective, is Locust Abortion Technician (Touch And Go, 1987), whose central theme is a parody of satanic heavy metal (Sweat Loaf -which recycles Black Sabbath s Sweet Leaf - Graveyard and 22 going on 23) between some blues at a crawling gait a-la Chrome (Pittsburg to Lebanon) and some rock and roll indebted to X (Human Cannonball). The noisy interludes (USSA, O-men) have little in common with those of the past, because they are made predominantly with electronics and in any case with little imagination. , 7/10

Their eccentricities continue to stiffen into more conventional formal structures on Hairway To Steven (Touch And Go, 1988), in which each track is represented on the LP label by a corresponding doodle icon, Each audio gimmick, rather than seasoning the song, is the entire piece. The sound that results is colder and more diluted, devoid of truly brilliant ideas. Less and less fun, the Butthole Surfers insist on parodying heavy metal (the lugubrious and exotic litany of the "elk (Backass), the mega-distorted hard rock with tornadoes of Zappa-esque distorted voices of the " baseball" (Jimi), moving from a psychedelic pandemonium in the style of early Pink Floyd ( horse - Ricky) to a swinging rock and roll in the style of Ten Years After ( rabbit and fish - Julio Iglesias), even with some steps of flamenco ( cigarette - John E Smoke). The EP Widowermaker (1989) adds the fuzzed boogie of the title track and the umpteenth heavy metal parody, Booze Tobacco Dope Pussy Cars.

At the end of the decade it seemed the two geniuses of the group had decided to part ways: Pinkus and Haynes recorded Digital Dump (Rough Trade, 1990) under the pseudonym Jackofficers, attempting to apply the cannibalistic process of the Butthole Surfers to electronic dance music; Pinkus also launched Daddy Longhead, a hard rock group who released Cheatos (Touch And Go, 1991); Paul Leary released The History Of Dogs (Rough Trade, 1991), a chronicle of the gulf war arranged in wild madcap fashion (dance rhythms, light arias, heavy metal guitar); and King Coffey started Drain, by far the most interesting project. Teresa Taylor left the band after suffering a cerebral aneurism.

After a three year wait following Hairway To Steven, the new Butthole Surfers album Piouhgd (Rough Trade, 1991) was released, confirming the decline that was already evident on their previous one, although it still boasts some cartoon hippie nonsense (the country & western Lonesome Bulldog and above all the rhythm and blues Golden Showers) and some curiosities from their psychotic funfair (the Suicide-like psychobilly Something and the caveman boogie Blindman). These brief rock one-liners are worth more than the three extended tracks that should be the album s highlights: Revolution 2, an acid-rock chant set to a pow-wow rhythm, Barking Dogs, a neurasthenic version of the Pink Floyd of Echoes, and PSY a soft and hypnotic melody with extended jamming a-la Grateful Dead. Haynes, ever more seduced by the vocal persona of David Thomas, livens up most of these tracks, but the group in general gives the impression of wanting above all to sell its eccentricity to a wider audience.

Independent Worm Saloon (Capitol, 1994) completes the collapse of this historic group, marking definitively the renunciation of their avant-garde pursuits. Behind the chaotic semblance Dog Inside Your Body and Chewin George Lucas Chocolate lie radio hits that retain only a (hypocritical) sense of humour. The heavy metal on Who Was In My Room Last Night and the industrial on Annoying Song are merely the band paying homage to trends (even paying homage to themselves, in the grand finale Clean It Up). The entire sound is controlled and normalised, in the name of crossover appeal (The Wooden Song, You Don t Know Me).

With Electriclarryland (Capitol, 1996) also known as Oklahoma, Coffey, Haynes and Leary are crowned into the Olympus of radio rock. The beginning of the album is not entirely unworthy, and at least conceptually reconnects with the work of their youth. However, the punk rigamaroles of Birds and Ulcer Breakout ultimately don t amount to much. The Butthole Surfers of the 90s are much more musical. They go wild on the psychedelic hip-hop Pepper (their first and only hit, a little too similar to Beck's style), they sing the blues rock epic Cough Syrup (full of references to the classics of their past) and they rattle off the country serenade TV Star (dedicated to the TV actress Christina Applegate). In the group s new family-friendly guise, their stereotypes (distorted singing and drunken guitars) seem a little out of place. And the bulk of the album is padded with fillers that would not amuse even the most doped-up freak.

Gibby Haynes indulged in the diversion that was P (Capitol), an album recorded with a trio of Hollywood actors (Bill Garter and Johnny Depp on guitars and Sal Jenco on drums) and the outside help of Flea (Chili Peppers) and Steve Jones (Sex Pistols). Far from aimless or distracted, the record contains splendid forays into traditional crowd-pleasing genres, beginning with the orchestral country of Michael Stipe, continuing with the explosive rap-metal in the style of the Red Hot Chili Peppers on Zing Splash, triumphing in the deafening ZZ Top-style boogie on Oklahoma (galactic guitar riffs, psychotic roar, a dragging trot drum trot), degenerating into the heroin-addict reggae of John Glen, speeding through the country & western of Mr Officer, getting drunk in the pachydermic blues a-la Jon Spencer on White Man Sings The Blues, crossing into the avant-garde with the cosmic dub of Scrapings From Ring, and finishing with a pathetic ballad worthy of Dylan, The Deal.

This amusing romp through the stereotypes of popular music, conducted with the swagger of Brancaleone, is perhaps Haynes best work since time immemorial.

Over the course of a decade the Butthole Surfers and the general public rushed to meet one another: the former had started as inveterate punks/freaks with a sound that was, at the time, impossible; the latter had now elevated that sound to fashionable background music for post punk nights; the former moderated the excesses while the latter amplified them. The Butthole Surfers and the general public thus met halfway, and the general public discovered that Haynes and Leary were simply ZZ Top imitating Jefferson Airplane a pair of certified rednecks disguised as hippies.

The "lost" album After The Astronauts (Capitol, 1998) was scheduled for release in 1998 but was aborted by the label only a few weeks before completion. The music was rumoured to be only vaguely related to the original Butthole Surfers.
Some of the music recorded for After The Astronauts shows up (revamped taking advantage of the engineering genius of two rising production stars, Rob Cavallo and Chris Lord-Alge) on Weird Revolution (Hollywood, 2001), the long-delayed (five years) follow-up to Electriclarryland.
First and foremost, Weird Revolution is the Butthole Surfers' dance and rap album. Wrapped in sleek, lush production, anchored to smooth grooves, and propelled by solid disco beats, these twelve new facsimiles of 1996's hit single Pepper effortlessly drown catchy melodies (barely spoken or hummed by frontman Gibby Haynes) under blankets of studio tricks. The transformation is made complete by the watering down of their psychedelic goofiness to achieve a mild humour suitable for bourgeois families. Haynes' vocals (the same vocals that were once the musical equivalent of chemical weapons) are now intelligible, coherent and even eloquent. The joke has turned into reality.
All the album's songs sound alike, but each is a maniacally crafted and cynically calculated collage, and the multitude of sonic events helps one forget/forgive the utter triviality of the exercise. The production quality is as stunning as the compositional quality is abysmal. Each second of music adds something to a tune that did not deserve to exist, updating it to the post-grunge and the post-Stone Roses world. Thus, their most banal album turns out to be also their most experimental, a contradiction that could only happen to them.
Even when they decided to sell out the Butthole Surfers had to do it in a unique way. The dilemma of commercial vs art rock has often mirrored the metabolic transition from youthful enthusiasm and irreverence to the financial concerns and sociopolitical indifference of adulthood. The Butthole Surfers fit the pattern perfectly, except that they also jumped ship completely, landing in a dance-pop scene that had never even heard their name.
The carnival of stereotypes begins with The Weird Revolution that exploits Talking Heads' high-tech polyrhythms (compare with Once In A Lifetime) and a grotesque variation on Adrian Belew's elephant guitar to deliver a Malcolm X speech in the format of a blithe disco shuffle. The guitar's drones fill the space in the background, confused voices filter in and out, frantic tapes corrode the beats.
Singer Haynes, drummer King Coffey and guitarist Paul Leary have de facto reinvented their roles. Leary, in particular, is the shadow of his old self. He occasionally wakes up from his hallucinogenic torpor and unleashes a deafening, trippy screech of guitar.
The Shame Of Life, co-written by Kid Rock(the lyrics refer to Kid Rock's trinity of girls, drugs and guns), reveals the commercial potential of this technique by enhancing a sub-standard Beck-ian litany to hit-single status.
The derivative element is embarrassing/captivating in Dracula From Houston, that opens quoting the guitar line from the Velvet Underground's Sweet Jane, and then soars in an exuberant chorus that beats the Oasis at their own game. Haynes' spoken rhymes may sound monotonous, but the backing vocals are infectious and the harmonies even intricate.
Ditto for the dance novelty Get Down, full of guitar pyrotechnics, that hovers at the border between senile imbecility and iconoclast prodigy.
Even an unattractive funk shuffle like Venus boasts enough diversions (bomb shelter siren, tablas, muezzin-like chant, gangsta rap, sitar interlude, syncopated soul organ) to grant it everlasting radio appeal. And The Last Astronaut is practically nothing but sound effects and odd time signatures, like a videogame played in a crowded bar where the tv is broadcasting a political speech (with a John Lennon-style piano litany tinkling in the background).
Once you have lost your virginity with dance-pop, why not prostitute with a country ballad? The once ferocious trio sings the death of a warplane pilot in the plaintive Jet Fighter, sounding almost like a send-up of the great Stan Ridgway.
Yet another front is opened by Mexico (that invokes God, Allah, Zeus, Buddah and Bob Dylan over percolating, scratching synthesizers) and by Yentel (the only track not mixed by Chris Lord-Alge, a hodgepodge of fragmented vocals and atmospheric synthesizers): with these songs the Surfers venture into the trance-global dance genre pioneered by the likes of Loop Guru and Transglobal Underground.
It is almost impossible to find remnants of the old Surfers: perhaps Shit Like That, given a Nine Inch Nails-ian ranting and a monster hard-rock riff; or Intelligent Guy, that boasts a piercing guitar riff, a seismic rhythm, and the emphatic roar of horror-film soundtracks (although it ends up parodying Falco's Rock Me Amadeus); or the ultimate joke, They Came In (loud, pounding drums, juxtaposed to a western-style apocalyptic guitar and symphonic keyboards).
Like countless albums after Pet Sounds, this album has little substance but dazzling presentation.
Butthole Surfers used to be shocking for the way they could be unpredictable. Now what is unpredictable is the banality of their music. In their own way, however, this too is a challenge to common sense.

Humpty Dumpty LSD (Buggerveil, 2002) collects rarities from the 1980s, a tiny part of the material stored on 278 tapes and still unreleased.

King Coffey resurfaced in the second decade of the new century with a new band: Rubble. They debuted on Farewell Drugs (Latino Bugger Veil, 2012), containing the anthemic Waiting To Die and the catchy romp of On The Road South.

Teresa Taylor died in 2023 at the age of 60.