Butthole Surfers
Butthole Surfers Ep + Live PCPPEp

THE REVIEW

Tall, sculpted physique, sunny Californians, blond. Teeth that sparkle like foil under the midday sun, pure and blissful Americans swaying between the waves of the Pacific. These are the Surfers, the well-off America enjoying the sweet economic boom of the early '80s. Now let's play a game together, let's add just one little word: Butthole. Butt surfers is what we get: the most irreverent, unbridled, and creative spirit of the entire '80s. The band in question was a tangle of musical serpents, the Hardcore of the first era (Dead Kennedy's, Germs), the psychedelia of the '60s (13th Floor Elevators, Red Crayola), and the vocal constrictions of Beefheart converged in the works of the Texan quintet like three famished concubines. Besides the excellent tribalisms set up by the double drums of King Coffee and Teresa Taylor and the precise and carrying bass of Jeff, what quakes is the presence of Paul Leary on guitar, the noise equivalent of Hendrix for rock.

A very personal style, dirty, hypnotic, confused, inspired, and bloody. To finally season this special quintet comes Gibby Haines, a young man of almost two meters who can boast of being among the most erotomanic icons of modern rock, a distillate of madness, perversion, and unparalleled personality. The album starts with the hardcore noise of "The Shah Sleeps In Lee Harvey's Grave," a source of sacred inspiration for Japanese bands like Boredoms and Melt Banana, then moves to the exquisitely Doors-like arpeggio of "Hey" and Leary's Mayo Thompson-style evolutions, follows the heroin-like "Something" with Haynes screaming as if just escaped from the asylum "She told me something when I kicked her in the teeth she was out the door, I'm sure she'll come back for more, I ate rice and cheese today." Hehehe every father would dream of such a caring boy for his daughter. "Bar-B-Q Pope" again revolves around the hardcore-noise-beefheart axis and this alchemy also contaminates "The Revenge Of Anus Presley." "Whichita Cathedral" sees Jeff and Haines engaged in a (yes, you read that right) furious blues dense with cacophonies, "Suicide" is a breath of simple and original hardcore air.

The subsequent live show offers almost all the pieces of the irreverent Texans present on the Butthole Surfers Ep, where Haines displays his inimitable ability as a frontman with vocal off-tunes enviable by the last pub singer on the globe. But they were beautiful like that, with this B-movie charm and anti-chart music. Dadaist art, no-sense, hardcore, all blended together to generate one of the most vitamin-packed, innovative, and pure cocktails of the time. Go get them!!