butthole surfers

Butthole Surfers are an American rock band, founded by Gibby Haynes and Paul Leary in San Antonio, Texas in 1982; the pair met while students at Trinity University. Incorporating elements of hardcore, psychedelia, and performance art, their live shows also made heavy use of strobe lights, background films (of note, footage of penis reconstruction and dental surgery) and naked dancers.

While their line-up has changed frequently over the years, they have maintained a core membership of Haynes (vocals), Leary (guitar), and King Coffey (drums). For much of their career the band also included Teresa Taylor as a second drummer. The band has been through numerous bass players, including Jeff Pinkus (more recently with Honky) and Mark Kramer (of Bongwater and Shimmy Disc).

Early years

The Butthole Surfers released their debut EP Brown Reason to Live in 1983 on Alternative Tentacles with provocational titles like "The Shah Sleeps in Lee Harvey's Grave" and "The Revenge of Anus Presley". This was soon followed by the PCPPEP, a live EP released in 1984, also on Alternative Tentacles.

The Surfers then moved to Touch & Go to release their debut album Psychic... Powerless... Another Man's Sac. Along with The Teardrop Explodes in the UK this album might be said to have begun the psychedelic revival (psychedelia having been extremely unfashionable in the five years since punk). It also showed the influence of heavy metal (especially Black Sabbath), and in marrying punk and heavy metal might be seen as one of the first precursors of grunge.

Their second album Rembrandt Pussyhorse was as much a nod to artists like Throbbing Gristle, Einsturzende Neubauten, Frank Zappa and The Residents, as it was a revival of musique concrète founders', Karlheinz Stockhausen and Edgard Varèse original tenets.

It was their third album Locust Abortion Technician (Touch & Go - US/ Blast First - UK), that really brought the Butthole Surfers to the attention of the music press and public, and some critics still argue this is their best album. It is certainly their most extreme, making full use of tape loops, backward instrumentation, and other features. (The story of the creation of this album is told in Our Band Could Be Your Life by Michael Azerrad (Little, Brown) amidst other tales from the American underground in the 1980s). Their increasingly outrageous live shows were also starting to attract attention.

The band's next album Hairway to Steven was split between material as extreme as their previous work, and a few pieces that might be considered conventional songs. (Pioughd) for Rough Trade Records continued their move toward the mainstream, and featured an increasing use of electronic instrumentation. In 1991 they were part of the first Lollapalooza tour. Soon afterwards they were signed by William Howell of Capitol Records and their increasingly straightforward modern rock songs began to be played on radio and Beavis and Butt-head.

Independent Worm Saloon, their 1993 debut for Capitol Records, was produced by John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin and featured the minor radio hit "Who Was In My Room Last Night?". Their songs also began to turn up on the soundtracks of major Hollywood movies, such as Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet and Mission Impossible around this time.

In 1995, Gibby worked on the side project called P with Johnny Depp, Bill Carter, Sal Jenco, Flea, and others.

Later success

The band finally found mainstream success with its breakthrough radio hit "Pepper" from the album Electriclarryland in 1996. This year the band also brought a legal action to recover rights from Touch and Go to their back catalogue, a case they eventually won in 1999. Those records are now in print on their own Latino Buggerveil record label. At the same time a huge legal battle with Capitol records began which ended up with the band being kicked off the label and signing to Hollywood Records (a subsidiary of Disney).

In the early nineties Gibby Haynes and Jeff Pinkus released a side project (The Jackofficers) which produced a highly psychedelic take on House music. As the nineties went on, the band became increasingly influenced by electronica, with Gibby namechecking Massive Attack, Tricky, and The Chemical Brothers as influences. This culminated in The Weird Revolution (a reworking of an aborted album recorded for Capitol called After the Astronaut) their most electronic album to date. This produced the hit Dracula From Houston which is featured on the soundtrack of the TV series Scrubs. On August 18 2006, Gibby announced a new Butthole Surfers record is in the making.

Some newspapers refuse to print the band's full name, opting instead for altered forms such as BH Surfers or B-Hole Surfers.

Performance

Butthole Surfers' legendary performances would draw fans of punk rock, performance art, and curiosity seekers as well as fans of more typical rock concerts.

Often without speaking to or even acknowledging the audience, sometimes playing in darkness, the band would assault the attendees aurally with four channels of sound placed throughout the venue. This allowed the band the opportunity to "swim" the sound in a circular pattern which, when combined with the visual stimuli would occasionally evoke nausea from those in attendance. With racks of equipment at their disposal on stage, the sound could be sped up, slowed down, distorted or otherwise affected.

Combined with this aural onslaught, a screen (or sometimes a natural surface) would light up with various projected movies composed of stock footage of penis surgery, automobile-accident carnage, pastoral Jacques Cousteau footage, slaughterhouse scenes, and the band's beloved color negative print of a Charlie's Angels episode. Any of this footage might be played backwards or upside-down if the mood struck. Rider-view footage of a roller coaster ride would also be inserted and the combined effect with the swirling sound and the sudden, lengthy strobe-light barrage is said to have caused panic and even seizure in some participants.

Other common elements of the stage show included Gibby's fascination with singing through a bullhorn or smashing a cymbal mounted upside-down and filled with flaming rubbing alcohol, causing flames to shoot up with each rhythmic beat. Gibby had a predilection for taking the stage with a dozen or more clothespins attached to his hair, face and/or body, apparently presenting a dadaist/absurdist depiction of the rock star. For daylight shows, Gibby instead would occupy instrumental passages with shotgun blasts over the audience's heads.

While on tour in Times Square, the band met a woman whose control over reversal of her digestive tract had given her the stage name 'Ta-Da the Shit Lady'. She was brought along and became a fixture of several tours in which, unannounced, she would leap onto the stage and perform a frantic, gyrating dance in the strobe lights after disrobing (it was not a libidinous presentation). Combined with smoke machines, the dual tribal beat of drummers Teresa Taylor and King Coffey, a clear sound system and the off-kilter style of their music, the total effect of the live presentation was unique in popular music. Entertainer Sandra Bernhard was also occasionally part of the touring stage show, which also saw the support of Johnny Depp who, with Gibby, formed the musical project 'P'. Sandra Bernhard also recorded a cover song with the Butthole Surfers which she refuses to allow the band to release. ^{citation needed]} It was a cover of Heart's "Barracuda" in English and Spanish with the Butthole Surfers as backing.

Samples

• Official MP3s of bootlegs (aka "buttlegs") and live shows from ButtholeSurfers.Com (Official Site)
• Download sample of "Pepper" from Electriclarryland
• STW B.H.S. Arhcive

Discography

Albums and EPs

• Butthole Surfers (EP) (1983)
• Live PCPPEP (1984)
• Psychic... Powerless... Another Man's Sac (1984)
• Cream Corn from the Socket of Davis (EP) (1985)
• Rembrandt Pussyhorse (1986)
• Locust Abortion Technician (1987)
• Hairway to Steven (1988)
• Double Live (1989)
• Widowermaker (EP) (1989)
• Pioughd (1991)
• Independent Worm Saloon (1993)
• The Hole Truth... and Nothing Butt (1995)
• Electriclarryland (1996)
• Weird Revolution (2001)
• Humpty Dumpty LSD (2002)

Singles

• Good King Wencenslaus (Xmas 7") (1994)

Compilation appearances

• P.E.A.C.E./War Compilation (1984)
• God's Favorite Dog (1986) (two unique tracks on this compilation)
• Texas Trip (1987) split with Daniel Johnston on Caroline Records

Unreleased album

• After the Astronaut (1998)

Along with these albums, there are countless bootlegs floating around with songs never released on albums, rare versions of songs, and alternate versions of songs. Some of these bootlegs come in various forms of media. These include "The Waco Kid," "Soiled," "The Peel Sessions," "Chewin George Lucas's Chocolate," "From the Lips Of Death," and "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre", among others.

External links

• Official band site
• Official discography
• Fan website with complete discography and lots of pictures.
• Alternative Tentacles' page
• Concert chronology
• STW B.H.S. Arhcive
• 25th Anniversary Interview with Stephen Dohnberg
• The Butthole Surfers collection on the Internet Archive's live music archive