Butthole Surfers- Classic or dud?

Humpty Dumpty LSD, Widowermaker, Electriclarryland (not that good at all; practically IWS)

I was lazy! I'd hear it all before, of course.

"...and I walked on down the hall, and I saw my father again..."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQ9lCXVLpiY&mode=related&search=

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=butthole+surfers&search=Search

Marmot, ya gotta get Humpty Dumpty if only for the rousing froth-at-the-mouth track "I Hate My Job", which is the only other tune they've ever done that equals "Suicide".

No, there was plenty of '60s US garage psych that was intentionally dumb, intending it as humor. And plenty of it somewhat psychotic as well - though not making a real big POINT about it like the Butthole Surfers. Also plenty of '70s proto-punk w/ garbage-psych aspects that was fucked up as well.

The only thing I can think of is that Spazz song ("Get offa the floor, boy, people gonna think you're a Spazz") from the Pebbles comp and another one called "I Wanna Get Back (from The World of LSD)" or something like that... but I can't think of any where the singer WAS the fool. They were usually talking about the fool or being foolish. Hope you get what I'm saying.

For '70s proto-punk psych: Debris, Twinkeyz, Simply Saucer

I didn't reallize Simply Saucer was '70s. Some dude gave me a cd-r of one of their albums a few years ago and I sort of thought, "well, some things never change," thinking it was the new generation's alternapsyche. I'll have to dig it out again.

I'm pretty much convinced "Concubine" is one of the best songs I have ever listened to.

That is all.

What's this rumor about a 2008 Summer tour of Europe with Teresa & Pinkus? Anyone hear anything?

Total classic, was into them back in the day like some were into the Grateful Dead. Had mad bootlegs of their shows. But they lost it on Pioughd. Still a few good tracks on that lp, but maybe its Paul Learys production, or the upcoming big label support. I gave up on them in the 90s. Still think 'Double Live' is a fantastic record, 'Hairway to Steven' too. Punk, psychedelia, and a sick live show, what more could anyone want? I hear some Surfers in Comets on Fire for some reason, nowhere else though.

Classic, but my view of them these days is as much colored by the whole thing with Corey Rusk and T & G as it is by the swesomeness of Psychic Powerless.

Strange how a band so uncommercial in its amazing heyday should come to mean being all about the money, whatever shit you have to release, whatever friend you have to fuck over. . . .

Classic - for 'Psychic Powerless...' and any live Buttholes show. Humour.
The guitar in 'Mexican Caravan' . FFS. I could smell the desert dust on these deranged fucker's boots trying to score some smack.

Saw Pinkus' HONKY in Austin about 5 years ago. He was the softest, most loveliest piece of shit going. Just had to put his dog to sleep. It was sad.I think I mentioned it before but it's really not that interesting. RIP Pinkus' dog.

Sorry _ it was Jeff Pinkus' dog. It was ill. He had had to put it down before gig.
I wasn't very clear.

Total classic, was into them back in the day like some were into the Grateful Dead.

I hear ya. their stage show between '86 and '90 has never been topped. they bottled up crazy and sold it like lemonade.

all those shows at the old ritz in nyc were pro-filmed. I'm patiently waiting for the day they slip out of the vaults....

mind-boggingly detailed gigography here:

http://www.jasonramke.com/bhs/main.php

from their forum:

"Paul will not be going on the European tour but will likely join for the NY show after the European tour. The only US shows (as of now) will be on the East Coast - like Philly, NY and maybe DC.

Europe - so far looks like Scotland, England, Denmark, Germany, France, The Netherlands and possibly Spain."

scotland!!! so, i will possibly finally get to see them as they never played here back in the day. the question is, do i really want to see the buttholes 2008 version?

I'm asking myself the same question, for the same reasons. Find I haven't heard ANY of their 90's output.

".....probably with a slight flange."

I didn't read this whole thread, sorry if this is redundant. I am, like many of you I bet, supposed to be working!

i think everything up to pioughd is total classic, pioughd is still very good although the magic had started to fade, and everything post-pioughd is crap, bin it. i think they decided to take the grunge/alt rock dollar in order to fund their other projects. and why not?

that jack officers acid house album is a complete mistake though...

OTM except the Jackofficers record was a joke, get it?

everything post-pioughd is crap,

Independent Worm Saloon, Electriclarryland and Humpty Dumpty LSD do contain a lot of great stuff, though. The only ignoreable thing they ever did was Weird Revolution. (Don't know about any side projects, tbh)

I saw them at the Marquee in NYC (that obsessive site marks it as 4/25/91). One of only two shows at which I genuinely feared for my life. I had taken a whole bunch of cold medicine (for an actual cold) and then drunk a 40 oz. of Budweiser, and was somewhere between coma and hallucination for the whole set. The crowd was a massively oversold roiling mass, the films were scrolling, Gibby was shooting fireballs at the ceiling...I was terrified and exhilarated, and will forever regret not buying one of their tour T-shirts (a b&w photo of a newborn piglet being given an injection with a giant needle, with the Newport cigarettes motto "Alive With Pleasure!" underneath).

I recently stuffed Psychic...Powerless...Another Mans Sac, Rembrandt Pussyhorse, Cream Corn From The Socket Of Davis, Hairway To Steven, Locust Abortion Technician and Double Live into my iPod after having not listened to them for about a decade. Brilliantly fucked studio work - I'd forgotten just how great. I'm revisiting Flipper lately, too - wish their second album had come out on CD at some point.

Classic, up to a point. When I was in college I had this little balcony off my bedroom. We'd go out there and blare records from my bedroom. Next door was an irritating little dog that really bugged us. One day, by accident, we discovered that when we played Psychic, Powerless... the dog went crazy; barking and jumping around, etc. So...needless to say, that record got played quite a bit that summer.

And no...I don't feel sorry for the dog. It was really an awful little dog.

http://www.buttholesurfers.com/tourdates.html

Butthole Surfers will be playing shows on the east coast and Europe this summer.
For these shows, Jeff Pinkus will be on bass and Teresa Taylor (along with King Coffey) on drums. This is the rhythm section the band had for most of the 80s and marks the first time this line up has played together since 1989.

Paul Leary has prior commitments and unfortunately can't play the European dates (he will be on stage for the New York City show and possibly more stateside).

However, fear not, our European friends. Joining the band onstage for all shows in the US and Europe will be The Paul Green School of Rock All-Stars. This mob of teenage geniuses will blow your mind, forming a virtual Butthole Surfers Orchestra when they play with Gibby and company.

Check back for more confirmed dates/ticket info (more European dates announced soon).

6/24/08 - Asbury Park, NJ - Asbury Lanes - get tix here
6/26/08 - Washington, DC - 9:30 Club - get tix here
6/27/08 - Philadelphia, PA - Electric Factory - get tix here
7/04/08 - Glasgow, UK - ABC1 - get tix here
7/05/08 - Manchester, UK - Academy 2 - get tix here
7/06/08 - Wolverhampton, UK - Wulfrun Hall - get tix here
7/26/08 - London, UK - Kentish Town Forum - get tix here
7/29/08 - New York City - Webster Hall - get tix here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Green_School_of_Rock

http://www.schoolofrock.com/index.php

No reunion shows in Texas, and only half of them with Paul?

boooooooo

Might have to go to that.

CLASSIC until they started to sound like a Goth band, thereafter DUD
-- DadaFrom way upthread, but funny 'cuz to my ears, a lot of their best stuff sounded goth nearly from day 1 ("Cherub", "Concubine", "Whirling Hall of Knives", "Waiting for Jimmy to Kick", etc.).

Love the Butthole Surfers. Paul or no, I wish they were playing some West Coast dates. (Wish, too, they hadn't been such dicks to Touch & Go, but I guess that's another thread.)

i love the butthole surfers because they just don't give a fuck.

They def give a fuck about $$$$$. At least some of them.

Which is fine. But, as already discussed ad nauseum, the way some of them have achieved this has burned some bridges in lame ways in the past...

Still doesn't stop Psychic Powerless from being one of the best rock records ever.

"Gimme MAH BACON"

(it's about giving head when you're six years old)

it's about coming of age
it's about learning how to do it
it's about learnin' how to experience things the way they ought to be experienced
it's about growing up
it's about licking' the shit off the floor
it's about doing the things that you ought to do
it's about being a butthole surfer
it's about doing promotional work
it's about
it's about PR
it's about all these things
it's about loving yourself
it's about loving your mom
it's about loving your dad
it's about doing the things
it's about going to the go-kart track
it's about loving everything
your pop, your kitty
all the things
the catfood, the little bits of crayons
the melted pieces
the loving friends
all the things you wish you had

GREAT song. Always creeps me the fuck out (in a good way, of course). That's the thing about their early Touch & Go material - it's just seething with raw sickness. I remember reading an interview with the band circa 'LectricLarry, and interviewer guy was trying to get them to admit that there might be something, you know, a bit unwholesome about a song like "Cherub". And they flat-out denied it. Course, they're famous for being assholes to interviewers, but I wonder if in saying it they really believed it. That core of real (or real-seeming) pathology dropped after Locust Abo, in favor of the "weirdness" and strange comedy of Hairway and what came after. Wonder if they noticed the change, if they really understood just how disturbing/disturbed-seeming some of the earlier stuff was.