Butthole Surfers

Actors often complain that comedy is hard and doesn't get much credit when it's time to pass out the awards. One can make the same case regarding the Butthole Surfers, a band beloved and much deciphered by those who got the joke (and got beyond the joke) while those who didn't went no further than the name. Beyond the joke, the Buttholes were always crazy in frightening, fractured ways reminiscent of folk art by some wacked-out peasant trying to warn his neighbors about the looming catastrophe of...what?

Beyond the psychosis, there was a unique amalgam of alienation from and affection for American culture. They pursued sensuous guitar tones and new noises with an acid-fueled fervor as their lyrics erased the coordinates of whatever cosmos you thought you were inhabiting. People who fit nowhere else in the world found a home at their unique live shows.

Many musicians have been Buttholes over the years. The center of the band has always been vocalist Gibby Haynes and guitarist Paul Leary, who became friends at Trinity University in San Antonio in the late '70s; King Coffey has laid down the tribal drumbeat under their psychedelic explorations almost from the beginning. Touring relentlessly on the punk circuit from their home base in Austin during the '80s, they plowed all their money back into the band, buying obsolete and bizarre electronics to record some of the most original music in rock history.

Their first and second EPs on Alternative Tentacles are now combined on Butthole Surfers Live/PCPEP, released on their own label, Latino Bugger Veil. Sometimes called A Brown Reason to Live, the first EP is still fall-on-the-floor funny, though slightly dated in its pop-culture references. The vision is there, the sound not quite in place yet. The second EP is sort of a joke as a live reprise of their first EP (it being a tad early for a greatest-hits collection), but it is interesting to hear Leary's Dionysian guitar come into its own in a club setting.

Their first full-length, Psychic...Powerless...Another Man's Sac (originally released on Touch and Go), is about as good as psychedelia gets this side of Hendrix. Haynes figures out what to do with his not-naturally-great voice by running it through a bullhorn and various effects boxes that add new dimensions of mystery to his surreal lyrics, while the band careens from chaos to grooved riff-bashing with occasional moments of crystalline beauty. If you're not hooked by "Cherub," a study in atmospheric feedback and psychotic ranting, you're probably just not going to get the Buttholes.

Rembrandt Pussyhorse (the CD also includes their EP Cream Corn from the Socket of Davis) has hilarious covers of "American Woman" (dig the supercompressed drums) and the theme from Perry Mason, two versions of their angst epic "Creep in the Cellar," and the tribute to demented old bluesmen "Movin' to Florida." Locust Abortion Technician opens with "Sweat Loaf," more and less a cover of Black Sabbath's "Sweet Leaf" that was always a frenzied high point of their live show and proceeds as a tour through all levels of metaphysical discombobulation. Hairway to Steven never spelled out the song titles, but you can sorta figure them out from the drawings and lyrics, and Gibby gets real intense about seeing an X-ray of a girl passing gas and reaches a peak with his wordplay in the mini-opera "Johnny Smoke."

The sound quality on Double Live is subpar, but the album does approximate the BHS concert experience. Leary's uniquely fluid guitar bashing and Haynes' hypersonic satire on popular culture (check out his obscene take on Jim Morrison at the beginning of "Sweat Loaf") will make your knees go weak if you heed the advice on the back cover, "VERY LOUD IT PLAY." As one of the biggest underground acts in the country, the Buttholes decided to go the overground, corporate route in the '90s, signing with Capitol in hopes of wider distribution. The results were varied. Pioughed has some good moments but doesn't quite reach the extremes of inspiration and surprise of its predecessors (best joke: "No, I'm Iron Man"). Produced by Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones, Independent Worm Saloon is as close as the Buttholes ever came to producing a punk album. "Who Was in My Room Last Night?" was a high-velocity minor hit with a good video, but "Goofy's Concern" had the better chord progressions and made a rare political statement in the midst of a lot of nihilism ("I don't give a fuck about the CIA").

Electriclarryland contains the Buttholes' sole major radio hit, "Pepper," as close to a perfect song as they'd ever write: great hooks in verse and chorus, wonderfully eerie production (by Paul Leary), and Haynes doing a shell-shocked monotone rap about all his demolished and/or dead friends. After recording an aborted album, After the Astronaut, for Capitol, the Buttholes rerecorded much of it for Hollywood as a new album, Weird Revolution. The title track, a Malcolm X parody, calls for solidarity among the weird to resist the injustice of the straight man. "The Shame of Life," written with Kid Rock, is a dirge rap that sorta celebrates and sorta mourns the rock lifestyle. Funniest cut: "Shit Like That," a rant about your life falling apart. Big hit that somehow didn't get recorded right: "Intelligent Guy." Overall it was their best album since the '80s, but it didn't quite connect with the public as the band toured after 9/11.

The Hole Truth...and Nothing Butt! has live odds and ends; Humpty Dumpty LSD offers demos and recording-studio odds and ends. Both will make fans happy but aren't the place to begin if any of the above intrigues you. (CHARLES M. YOUNG)

From 2004's The New Rolling Stone Album Guide