These came out in 1999 – or at least that’s when I got ’em. Here’s what I said about them back then (with some minor editing):
‘Do not try to party with Gibby. Trust us, you can’t handle it.’
When I was in Austin, Tex., for the 1999 instalment of SXSW, I read that in a local paper. It was one of several tips for music-industry types visiting town — and I bet it’s sound advice.
Gibby, if you don’t know, is the notorious Gibby Haynes, singer, lead shotgun player and chief merry prankster of the notorious Butthole Surfers, a band of psychedelic avant-punks who have long been among Austin’s favourite sons and daughters. These days they’re best known for Pepper, their Beckish (and only) hit single of a few years back. And Gibby is tabloid famous for being Kurt Cobain’s roommate during his final days in rehab. But the Buttholes’ story begins much earlier, back in the early ’80s, when Haynes — the son of a Texas kiddie-show host — and the Surfers (chiefly drummer King Coffey and guitarist Paul Leary) were living in the desert, indiscriminately gobbling drugs by the mittful, and recording some of the strangest songs ever put to vinyl. Like, say, The Shah Sleeps In Lee Harvey’s Grave, the opening salvo from their 1983 debut EP, in which Leary primal-screams, “There’s a time to live / And a time to die / I smoke Elvis Presley’s toenails when I want to get high.”
Between the drugs and their hallucinatory live shows — featuring mutant dancers, twisted film projections, and Gibby occasionally firing off a 12-gauge onstage — the band issued four magnificently demented indie albums that have been in and out of print as often as Gibby’s been in and out of detox. Right now, they’re available, remastered and re-released by the Surfers themselves. Here’s the rundown:
Psychic … Powerless … Another Man’s Sac (1984)
Call It: Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test Pressings.
Fun Facts: The band had issued two EPs by this point, but this was their debut full-length release — and no one can accuse them of selling out. Not unless you’ve heard a Top 40 hit lately with flushing toilets, hardcore mayhem, trance-like drones, psychobilly freakouts, primal drums, songs about scoring heroin in Mexico and vocals that are equal parts burping, spitting, grunting and yelping.
Best Lyric: “I could have a real good time, if I had a gun.”
Rembrandt Pussyhorse (1986) / Cream Corn EP (1985)
Call It: Through The Pus, Darkly.
Fun Facts: “There’s a creep in the cellar, and I’m gonna let him in,” are Gibby’s first words. Consider them words of warning; this is the Surfers’ bleakest outing, full of downbeat tempos, reverb-soaked melodies, spooky organs, agitato violins, horror-flick effects and groaning, despondent vocals. This album makes you itch — and I mean that as a compliment.
Best Lyric: “I’m moving down to Florida / And you know I’m gonna have to potty-train Chairman Mao.”
Random Winnipeg Connection: The band’s deconstructionist, lurching cover of American Woman, which approaches the Guess Who classic the way Dr. Frankenstein approached transplant surgery — and I mean that as a compliment, too.
Locust Abortion Technician (1987)
Call It: Surfers, Bloody Surfers.
Fun Facts: Haynes and co. go metal — in their own bizarre way. From the opening notes of the Black Sabbath spoof Sweat Loaf, LAT careens into a universe of cheeseball space-rock bombast, guitar-god riffage, blooz sludge, backwards tape effects, devilish spewing and slo-mo, indecipherable Iron Man vocal treatments. Like every cliche metal album, it even has a Middle Eastern passage.
Best Lyric: “If you see your mom this weekend, don’t forget to tell her … SATAN!”
Hairway To Steven (1988)
Call It: Surrealistic ’Dillo.
Fun Facts: The first of the modern Surfers albums (and the last before their major-label deal) finds them getting it together and putting it all together, fusing the elements of their other albums — the proto-industrial grind, the barnyard sounds, the possessed vocals, the black tar guitars — into strong songs that are eminently listenable without sacrificing their trademark sonic quirks. Plus you gotta love the title.
Best Lyric: “I saw an X-ray of a girl passing gas.”
