The prime movers of Texan post-hardcore weirdness, the Butthole Surfers produced some of the most demented outsider punk to ever lurch out of the American underground during the 1980s. The band mashed together whacked-out live antics and notorious drug-fueled carnival-like performances with their lysergic stew of drug-addled noise rock, fucked-up psychedelic punk, pummeling aggression and bizarro songwriting; indeed, there was nothing like the Surfers back when these guys were destroying stages in the 80s. The first four full-length albums from the Butthole Surfers documented this insanity in full, and every one of 'em is recommended - nay, required - listening for fans of mutant punk; most bands are totally diminished by their fourth album, but not the Surfers; by the end of the decade, the band was producing their heaviest and most sinister stuff yet. From their earliest churnings as a wild, LSD-fueled hardcore punk outfit, their album's just kept getting more twisted and more experimental as the decade progressed, from the bizarre avant-punk of 1984's Psychic... Powerless... Another Man's Sac through the tape-collage heavy experiments of 1986's Rembrandt Pussyhorse, from the crushing sludge-drenched heaviness of 1987's Locust Abortion Technician to the scatological psychedelia of 1988's Hairway to Steven. Sure, their subsequent albums would become increasingly of less interest as time went on (their 1991 album Piouhgd is the last Surfers record that I give a damn about), but man, those first four albums make up some of the craziest drug-punk that ever clambered out of the American post-hardcore underground. We now have all of them back in print on vinyl for the first time in over a decade, newly re-mastered and packaged with digital downloads of the album; granted, the reissues are pretty barebones, basically just replicating the original packaging for the original releases, but it's still good to have these classic slabs of bizarro hardcore punk and psychedelic noise rock on vinyl again. We also have all of these crucial albums back in stock on CD as well...
While not part of the late 2013 vinyl reissue campaign for the early Butthole Surfers albums, we've never previously listed the band's reissue of their Pioughd + Widowermaker! recordings on their own Latino Buggerveil imprint, so onto the shelves it goes. Although not as crucial nor as brain-melting as the avant-hardcore and mutant noise rock material of their earlier, Touch & Go-era albums, Pioughd would be the last independent album from the Surfers prior to moving on to the majors. Which is where yours truly officially gets off the wagon. After Pioughd, the Surfers declined into bland alt-rock territory, and I've never had any interest in their subsequent recordings.
Originally released on Rough Trade, 1991's Piouhgd was the band's last true dose of mutant acid punk, though by this point they had pretty much totally left behind the mutated hardcore and extended retardo sludge jams of their previous albums for something a lot closer to Ween territory. The disc kicks off with the two part "Revolution", the first half pounding out some of the Surfers's trademark brand of fucked-up psychedelic punk, a mess of wailing stoner rock leads and deformed jangle, staccato drumming and crazed effects, leading into the longer second half as Haynes comes in with his hallucinatory, drawled vocals and the band starts to chant "Gary Shandling" over the mutant psychpunk stomp, accompanied by honeyed orchestral strings and the sounds of wailing police sirens. Another two-part song follows, "Lonesome Bulldog", an almost straight-faced country-western song complete with accordion and washboard percussion, followed by their now classic cover of Donovan's "The Hudry Gurdy Man", rendered as a breathless, electronically-warped acid rock jam layered with more strings, pipe organs and screaming brain-damaged guitar-shred. "Golden Showers" offers up goofy, carnivalesque choogle with lots of blubbering brass and trippy Hammond organ, and then they crank up the riffage for "Blindman", a demented stew of distorted 70s hard rock riffage, brain-melting tape noise and bizarre vocal gibberish.
The Surfers erupt into some utterly fucked improv rock vomit on another one of their weird Black Sabbath tributes, "No, I'm Iron Man", and the song "Something" is an odd spoof of the early Jesus And Mary Chain single "Never Understand", with the lyrics swapped out for those off of the Surfers own "Something" from their debut EP, and this version getting some additional electro-shock treatment via some insane noise and effects overload. There's more lumbering, infectious psychedelic punk on "P.S.Y.", yet another reprise of that damned "Lonesome Bulldog" song, and the whole thing ends with a long track of experimental tape collage and throbbing, tension-filled synthesizer music called "Barking Dogs".
The reissue also includes the entire 1989 Widowermaker! EP, the band's final release for Touch And Go. It's more abrasive stuff, overall, from the blown-out bass squelch and countrified noise rock of "Helicopter" to the thumping, almost industrial percussion, Hammond organ and swaying fuzzbox delirium of the ominous "Bong Song"; the creepy, almost Paisley Underground-ish psych-pop of "The Colored F.B.I. Guy"; and the maniacal final freak-out of "Booze, Tobacco, Dope, Pussy, Cars", an almost hardcore-like blast of frantic fast-paced drumming and stuttering drum machine rhythms, bellowing vocals and edgy punk guitar.
Comes in digipack packaging.