The Botox Frankenstein Archival Series>The Butthole Surfers, 1989

For the next few weeks, I'll be taking a small break from presenting archival interviews & instead presenting instead previously published & unpublished archival reviews, that you might appreciate, dear readers. But today, you get a bonus; both article & review!!!

The following article on the Butthole Surfers was previously published in the Columbia Chronicle, while I was a senior at Columba College in Chicago, Illinois in 1989 & the review of the show was originally published in weekly Variety, while I was an intern for the Chicago bureau between 1989 & 1990. Enjoy!

Marshall McLuhan, author of "Understanding Media," once said; "The name of a man is a numbing blow from which he never recovers." And very possibly too, nor will the Butthole Surfers. According to Gibby Haynes, the Surfers lead vocalist and guitarist, "It's a great name. It's funny. It's the best name in the history of rock 'n' roll."

Formed in 1981 in Austin, Texas, they went through a slew of members until the mid-1980s, when they settled down with a stable five-person line-up. This past spring however, long-time member and fellow percussionist Theresa Taylor departed, leaving the group with just four matchless members, including guitarist Paul Leary, bassist Jeff Pinkus, Percussionist King Koffee and Haynes.

In light of the fact that the Surfers were formed in 1981, around the same time as hardcore-punk music began to take flight and sprouted such acts as the Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, Castration Squad, Minor Threat and the Necros, the group does not consider themselves punk musicians.

"We've never been accepted by any kind of punk world. We were never a punk band at all," said Haynes. "I don't know; maybe punks came to our show. Austin, Texas, wasn't a very punk place, (it was more like) black leather, mascara, weird-cat hairdos, safety pins and dog collars."

Image, sound and shock are essential elements in the Surfers' repertoire, as they are a creative force, as well as musically inventive. So, when it comes to songwriting, Haynes feels the band does quite well leaving listeners in a hypnotic state of wonder and amazement with such thought-provoking mind twisting lyrics as the following:

"John was a little crippled midget lesbian boy who stood 10-foot-tall with a knife/Pretty soon a mole had appeared on John's left leg and rope-like and extended out 469 different miles and verily, verily equaled 69 different nuns, speaking simultaneously to John in 69 different languages/ And it evolved itself and it was a legless dog that became a cyclone out of John's bodily forehead/ And there it was, like a Twinkie with a halo storm in it..."

Haynes defines lyrics like these along the lines of "purposeful randomness." In further explanation, Haynes said, "Some songs have the same words over and over. Some songs have different words." He added, "It's sort of hard to make up words and not have words mean something next to each other, you know? You might settle on a theme for a few words, switch to another theme or have a transitional theme."

Haynes tends to write songs about anything that walks or crawls on planet Earth.
Along those same lines, it's a little difficult to explain the band's sound. The best way to describe it though; is loud, with a little bit of blues and psychedelic, mixed in with Jimi Hendrix, The Grateful Dead and crushed bugs, concocting a sound similar to that of a train engine emitting gas.

So keeping that in mind, attending a Butthole Surfers performance for the first time could conceivably be a frightening experience, as well as a unique one. At past shows, the Surfers have used topless dancers, and most recently, backdrops of industrial films such as sex-change operations, nature studies and various television episodes of Charlie's Angels projected upside-down and on top of each other. Haynes calls this innovation "trained light."

"It's a light show. It's something to do when you get tired of the 100-plus decibels that are destroying your eardrums," Haynes said. He added, "I think it looks cool, I think it's pretty. I think when you put three films on top of each other; it sort of makes a dynamic, abstract presentation and a random presentation, as well."

Overall, Haynes said that he and the band are in for the ling haul.

"We're sort of like walking under the grandstand of life and peeking up society's skirt. No, I don't know, we're trying to make a living, like we're American artists, man," he said. The Surfers have just released a new 12-inch titled Widowermaker! with a new album slated for release in the near future.

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Butthole Surfers VIC THEATER, CHICAGO

With a new 12-inch "Widowermaker!" set for release, and this past spring's departure of long-time percussionist Theresa Taylor, the Butthole Surfers are well on their way to sounding like a matchless quartet of musicians. The Surfers who began their musical career back in the early 1980s, got tired of finding few places to play in Austin, Texas and audiences who wore black leather, mascara and weird cat hairstyles.

Over this past decade, the Surfers who began their musical career back in 1981 in Austin, Texas, have concocted their own mix of constructive noise and turned it sideways to a sound that
often resembles a train engine emitting gas. The group has progressed steadily with the release of each new album they've churned out, most recently "Hairway To Steven" and judging by the
reaction of the audience to their hour and a half sizzling all-ages set at The Vic, one could probably say they are well on their way to acheiving a strange brand of success.

On their last few tours, the use of films of as sex-change operations, nature studies and various episodes of "Charlie's Angels" projected upside-down and on top of each other have served as a backdrop for their stage act, as well as flashing cop & strobe lights and smoke.

Attending the show for the first time could conceivably be a frightening experience and this show was no exception, as a relatively harmless crowd became a frenzied mob of slam-dancers
in seconds, as Gibby Haynes, lead vocalist for the Surfers mercilessly screamed the song "Sweatloaf" while accompanied by fellow bandmates (guitarist) Paul Leary and (bassist) Jeff Pinkus poised like ballerinas, kicking their legs in time to the drumbeat of percussionist King Koffee.

Allegedly at one point during the set, a 20-year-old woman bared her breast in the audience, while an incoherent man nuzzled it. Sure enough, he was ejected from the ballroom.

Image, sound and shock are essential elements in the Surfers repertoire as they are a creative force. In addition to their powerful stage presence, not only are they a band that can whip
people into shape, but are musically inventive as well. So, it was no surprise to see them run through a number of instrumentals, including blistering instrumental versions of "Ricky" and "Pittsburg," mixed with sounds of car horns, megaphone musings, rambling reverb voice projections and Haynes'own use of flame-broiled drum cymbals thrown in for kicks. If the band was trying to provoke the 1000-plus crowd on hand, then they did a fine job of it.