Butthole Surfers reissues on Matador

[Vodkafone]

So far, Psychic...Powerless...Another Man's Sac, Rembrandt Pussyhorse and the live PCPPEP, not sure if the others are gonna get remastered and rereleased or not, although I probably can't be arsed past Locust Abortion Technician. Those first two albums though.. I find some of the songs on Psychic... a bit conventional punk rawk, but Cherub and especially Cowboy Bob, fucking yes mate. Rembrandt Pussyhorse is a bit weirder and I like it for that, but it can also be a bit flat compared to Psychic..., I wish they had released something that was midway between the two in style really. I don't want to be churlish though, there was something quite magical and just different about them at that time, and Cowboy Bob is such a heaving, sweaty, hairy psychedelic mess, I love it.

[xxxx xxx x xxx]

Paul Leary was such an under-rated guitarist around this time.  I've always loved this one from Rembrandt Pussyhorse

I don't think anyone captured an acid trip as well as those guys.  I never saw them live in their prime (only a pretty uninteresting raawk set at Reading in the 90s).  Pity, because just about everyone who saw them in the mid 80s agrees that they were mind- blowing.

[Vodkafone]

Yeah, Leary was great, so much more than a noise merchant. There's an entertaining article in the Guardian about the reissues and the band. Interesting that Leary says

We were more into the art side of it, and then music kind of took over

because more than most bands their music is art, an enveloping thing that absorbs you into it. Their recordings from this period are wild, I can only imagine what it was like to experience them live.

[iamcoop]

A band I 100% need to try and get into as they're massively in my wheelhouse and every time I've tried it's not clicked at all but I know it's just there, waiting to click

[xxxx xxx x xxx]

I'll be re-visiting Hairway To Steven after reading that article - I was never that keen on it at the time apart from the lovely acoustic guitar instrumental at the end of Jimi but we'll see.

[sevendaughters]

Psychic...Powerless...Another Man's Sac is such a brilliant record (and title). That and Rembrandt are their high points. I like stuff after but fuck me those two are wild and different.

Maybe in the 90s they got a bit safer but blazing through 'Graveyard' here they sound like the worst trip ever (on purpose)

[studpuppet]

Yeah, Leary was great, so much more than a noise merchant. There's an entertaining article in the Guardian about the reissues and the band. Interesting that Leary says because more than most bands their music is art, an enveloping thing that absorbs you into it. Their recordings from this period are wild, I can only imagine what it was like to experience them live.

Sweatloaf live was something to behold, always different yet terrifying similar. Only saw it once (Reading '89) but it still packs a punch even now.

[Tarquin]

Best time I saw them was at Reading in 89. They came on played a 1 min hardcore song smashed all their instruments up and walked off.

They came back and played a full set. Always seemed to just do the first album, which I love, and only Graveyard and Sweetleaf from Locust (which I love even more than the first album but fair play it doesn't include many actual "songs")

Blows me away that this was broadcast at 6pm on a Monday on BBC2:

[Tarquin]

Lead singer Gibby's family have even weirder bios than him.

His uncle Fred E. Haynes Jr. (Iwo Jima flag thing and 'Nam) and his Dad Jerry (aka Mr. Peppermint) a kids TV show host who was near the grassy knoll when Kennedy got shot filming his kids show and was the first person to report the assasination.

Best song, for me, is Creep in the Cellar. That fiddle just being randomly left on the tape, if true, is wonderful

[lauraxsynthesis]

*spitting noise from Ladysniff*

[wrec]

*spitting noise from Ladysniff*

Was introduced to the Surfers by a friend who was unhealthily obsessed with them and passed away a couple of years back (not due to the aforementioned obsession). Shortly after I listened to Psychic Powerless for the first time in years (a good chunk of the discography is embedded in my brain but somehow never owned that) and Lady Sniff unexpectedly brought back a vivid memory of him comprehensively miming along to it 30 years earlier, something I don't think I'd thought of since.

I saw them on the tour where they were accompanied by loads of kids. It was good but for such a legendarily anarchic outfit I was surprised how close the songs were to the studio versions, and I think the kids brought a lot of energy and charm that they'd have lacked otherwise.

[jobotic]

I remember playing Lady Sniff to other kids at school on my Walkman and being accused of trying to be weird. Love those first two albums and three EPs. Like to give a shout out to Whirling Hall of Knives.

[another Mr. Lizard]

Loved Leary's 2021 'Born Stupid' LP. A record that probably makes most sense if you are three or four years old.

Circa 1990 I recall John Peel excitedly playing tracks from Neil Young's 'Eldorado' Japanese import, Peely being particularly taken by 'Don't Cry' - "sounds as if old Neil has been listening to the Butthole Surfers".

Outside of the live experience, I'd say that the essence is best captured by Alex Winter's short film made with Gibby and co, Bar-B-Que https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SQNAHoOKxok

[jobotic]

I wish I'd seen them

[Dr Rock]

Saw them at Brixton around '89. They were incredible, the giant screen showing random often disturbing stuff was a good feature as was experiencing the whole thing on a heroic dose of LSD.

[The Mollusk]

Saw them in Texas in 2017 and it was one of the worst gigs I've ever seen lol

ETA: I've told the story here before but in case anyone fancies indulging me again, I rewrote it not long ago framed loosely as a review of Electriclarryland:

it's a bit long

Let me tell you a story. It's December 2017. I'm at Day For Night festival in Houston, TX. My friend and I flew over from London for this killer lineup, and our main draw (aside from Aphex Twin, obvs) was the Buttholes. A reunion show of one of the weirdest, loudest bands ever, right here in their home state? You better fuckin' believe we're doing this.

The festival was great. Everything I'd seen across those two days was awesome, and the time was fast approaching to see BS playing the penultimate set of the weekend. I'd been roaming around on my own for a while and I was thankful to bump into my mate on the way to the stage, not least of all because he was tripping out of his mind on two strong hits of acid and I didn't want him getting lost at the end of the night. With a spring in our step we stride into the crowd and find a good spot. We get chatting with a few people, have a smoke, all's good. The time comes for the band to take the stage, and we wait.

And we wait some more. Like, 45 minutes more.

Eventually, the boys stroll half-assed onto the stage and start to lazily tune up for like 15 minutes. This better be good... and then, finally, the set starts... uhh, why is it so quiet? The guitars in particularly are so low in the mix, the band looks bored as hell and Gibby is stood there with his hands in his pockets, might as well be phoning in his performance. The drummer can hardly keep time and his head is a swollen red beetroot. He looks like he's gonna have a fucking heart attack at any moment.

The crowd are restless. Frequent calls of "TURN IT UP!!" are very much audible above this lacklustre performance. This isn't just "legacy band playing it pretty well but showing their age" standard. This is fucking terrible. The one single moment of joy I experienced during the whole gig is when, at the point where Gibby had brought his toddler son on stage to belt a fucking drum haphazardly through one of their songs (seriously), my friend, not even able to enjoy this through his distorted lysergic lens, turned to me and barked "WE FLEW 5000 MILES FOR THIS, NAGS." It's probably the most hilariously tension-breaking mood-lifting one liners anyone's ever said to me.

Anyway, Electriclarryland. It's not a bad album, objectively speaking. In fact I used to like it quite a lot. But after 2017, on revisiting it in recent weeks the relative safeness of its sound is amplified tenfold. There are landmark weirdo bands who opted to play it safe in their later years to great effect (see: The Velvet Underground's Loaded), and I'm absolutely not averse to edgy or outlandish acts polishing up their sound as they get older as long as their hearts are still in it and their music has logically evolved to that point. That is somewhat true of the discography of Butthole Surfers, and everything up to this point has been basically great if not brilliant, but Electriclarryland is the sound of a band losing steam and getting bored. I can't listen to it without the image of December 2017 - Gibby onstage in front of me with his hands in his pockets, walking off the stage after a dismal 40 minute set without even so much of a wave or a thanks - burning in my head. I doubt I'll ever listen to this again, to be honest.

[close]

[benjitz]

I remember everyone on the dancefloor doing the 'spit' of Lady Sniff on cue at an indie disco in the early 1990s in Newcastle. Can't imagine BS being played on any retro club night now.

I am probably the Buttholes fan who thinks piouhgd is their best. P.S.Y. man.

I ended up with buying a lot of their records due to a chronic case of "wanting to appear cool" in front of the punk shopkeeper at my local record shop, High Fidelity style. I'd go in, intending to buy U2's 'Achtung Baby' or something horribly uncool but always bottle it and emerge from the shop with another Buttholes record to keep my fragile streetcred intact. Don't really regret it.

Never seen them live, and judging from The Mollusk's account above I will certainly not be going out of my way to. The 1980s woulda been the time to do that I think...

[studpuppet]

It was good but for such a legendarily anarchic outfit I was surprised how close the songs were to the studio versions

Gibby used to re-enact the Lady Sniff sound effects live, including on-demand farts and throwing up if he felt the 'creativity' rising in him.

I am probably the Buttholes fan who thinks piouhgd is their best. P.S.Y. man.

There's a live official bootleg called 'Double Live' that used to be available on their website (now defunct) which had it as an instrumental 'Psychedelic Jam' with a gorgeous intro. It's on Soulseek, and has very good live versions of Sweat Loaf, John E. Smoke etc.

[benjitz]

There's a live official bootleg called 'Double Live' that used to be available on their website (now defunct) which had it as an instrumental 'Psychedelic Jam' with a gorgeous intro. It's on Soulseek, and has very good live versions of Sweat Loaf, John E. Smoke etc.
 

Thanks, yeah, a later flatmate had that one, and played it to me once. Remember being delighted that it was the same song (think there were quite a few retitlings, IIRC)

[lauraxsynthesis]

My plans for the day got cancelled by a boy so put on my vinyl of piouhgd. I reckon this is my fave of their albums. I'd rarely get an urge to put BS on even back in the day, and there was always unlistenable shit like lonesome bulldog. Sometimes their stuff would create a little bubble of magical sound or comedy delight, but when I was in the mood for something with a sense of humour I would much more often put on Alice Donut or Flag of Democracy.

[kngen]

Alice Donut

Thank you for reminding me of the entirely weird and specious reasoning I stopped listening to the Buttholes after about 1989. The cover of Widowermaker looked to me like a really horrible rendering of the 'O' in Alice Donut's logo - and that repelled me enough on some level to end my relationship with them. To this day I can't really tell you exactly why that was enough to swear off them, but when I saw them at Reading (in '93, maybe? - around the time of Independent Worm Saloon, anyway) do a very perfunctory and pedestrian set (certainly compared to the storied, hellraising ones I'd only ever heard second-hand accounts of), I felt entirely vindicated - doubly so when Paul Leary joined Stone Temple Pilots onstage 'for a couple of jams'. Boak.

Also, great call on F.O.D - killer band.

Edit: Also also, like most people into weird, on-the-fringes bands (and as alluded to above) there were people waaaay too into them for their own good. A friend of a friend who was a BS completist got really annoyed at me when I asked him if he had a tape of Paul Leary's old band The Hugh Beaumont Experience (or had even had a chance to hear it). I was genuinely interested in what it sounded like, as it was a punk collectors' holy grail at the time, and out of reach of most folk as copies went for hundreds of dollars, even in the late 80s (and it hadn't been booted, to my knowledge, at that point.) He'd never heard of them (not unreasonably) but claimed I was trying to one-up him on his favourite band (rather than, you know, trying to find some common ground. Fanny).

[timahall]

Love the Buttholes but Alice Donut were on a whole other level, one of my favourite bands ever.

[Famous Mortimer]

Love the Buttholes but Alice Donut were on a whole other level, one of my favourite bands ever.

Saw them lads in Newport in...1995? 1996? What a brilliant show.