Vinyl Reissues of Three Butthole Surfers Albums Celebrate a Band Who Rode the 1980s Psych-Punk Undertow

The problem begins with name and form. This is a humming truth of Vedic mysticism and rock music. A band name can be a clue or an impasse.

Like their ‘80s peers and kindred, discontent freaks the Meat Puppets and the Sun City Girls, the Butthole Surfers were a band who outgrew, shed and defied their actual moniker and sound at a near-immediate and unsettling rate. The Meat Puppets are the last mutants standing of the three, still playing and remaining inventive with their anarchic country-rock; from 1979-2007 the Sun City Girls released dozens of albums boasting cryptic ethno-free-improv excursions.

A cursory read of the name “Butthole Surfers” sees more “butthole” than “surf”: scatological, puerile, snickering, offensive, etc. And the Butthole Surfers, first-wave children of the Texas punk scene, could be all those things. 

But from 1984-1989, arguably the band’s peak years, their music was consistently unpredictable. An album side might feature songs that were aggro-punk, ‘60s-drenched acid blues or complete noise. Their legacy affected subsequent music (unsurprisingly, Kurt Cobain was a vocal acolyte) and even free speech—there was a time when the band name would be printed as B***hole Surfers.

Forty years of hindsight is ultimately burdened with decades of tales of the Butthole Surfers’ berserk live shows. The ‘80s revival of the Grateful Dead doubling down on their tour dates found a shadow counterpoint in a Butthole Surfers concert: psychedelics were the routine shared sacrament between performer and audience, and while operating on divergent touring budgets, both bands boasted impressive audio-visual production. (Although the chances of witnessing a strobe-light, fog-machine freakout in conjunction with a film projecting a sex-reassignment surgery was unlikely at a Dead arena show, that was almost certain at a Butthole Surfers club date.) 

However, the Butthole Surfers’ actual sonic legacy surpasses any Gen Xer concert reveries. And like the Meat Puppets and Sun City Girls, whenever possible the Butthole Surfers always seemed eager to record in the best possible recording studios. Particularly with 1984’s Psychic…Powerless…Another Man’s Sac and 1986’s Rembrandt Pussyhorse, the Butthole Surfers made a conscious effort to release higher-fidelity recordings, eventually building their own home studio, with Leary becoming an in-demand alt-rock producer for major label acts. In the following years, he produced one of the Meat Puppets best releases, 1994’s Too High to Die, as well as Sublime’s eponymous 1996 album. 

Matador Records has released three early records by the Texas art-punks on digital download; on March 22, the label is releasing remastered vinyl editions of the same: PCPPEP, Psychic…Powerless…Another Man’s Sac and Rembrandt Pussyhorse. Released between 1984-1986, this music documents a particularly fertile moment for the band, whose core featured vocalist-saxophonist Gibby Haynes, guitarist-vocalist Paul Leary and the dual-standing drum lineup of King Coffey and Teresa Taylor (aka Teresa Nervosa). Until longtime bass guitarist Jeff Pinkus signed on in 1986, the Butthole Surfers had a notorious shifting bass player lineup, and on these three records, bass guitarists Bill Jolly, Trevor Malcolm or Terence Smart are featured. 

Originally released on Alternative Tentacles and Touch and Go, the foundational records from the band briefly explored and then quickly discarded hardcore punk with a prescient attitude. Haynes and Leary were both college graduates and in ‘80s heyday punk zines sincerely namedropped ‘70s Texas bands like Bloodrock and ZZ Top, while mocking the sometimes-coy sternness of the hardcore community.

The Jacksonville Music Experience has picked three cuts from the new reissues that serve as a micro-playlist for the uninitiated and also a reminder to fans of the band’s success at creating remarkably unorthodox musical forms with a truly ridiculous band name. 

“Something” from PCPPEP 

Even the band were unhappy with their first live release, which is essentially their first studio EP played and taped in front of a live audience. Butthole-curious listeners are advised to forgo this album (which, naturally, had a suggested speed of “69 rpm” on the original label) and instead track down a copy of the band’s self-released Double Live 2-LP set from 1989. However, the closing track “Something” is a nice precursor to where the band would be living fully within a year: a plodding beat, death-pluck dirge bass line, and Paul Leary gradually revealing himself to be—horror of horrors, punker—a de facto psychedelic guitar hero. 

“Cherub” from Psychic…Powerless…Another Man’s Sac

Released within months of PCPPEP, the band’s first full length remains a stunner and from the inscrutable cover art, actual title and music contained within, Psychic…Powerless…Another Man’s Sac is where the Butthole Surfers said their final farewell to any overt punk conventions. “Cherub” features the Coffey-Nervosa drum duo, a bass line that is more Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit” than the Clash’s “White Riot,” Leary’s guitar now filtered through wall-breathing vibrato, and Haynes delivering his lyrics through a megaphone (the latter move being swiped and emulated by countless bands since). The album also includes the fun-nausea trance of “Dum Dum,” a direct xerox of Black Sabbath’s “Children of the Grave,” a band who the Butthole Surfers again exalt/rip-off on their 1987 song, “Sweet Loaf.”

“Whirling Hall of Knives” from Rembrandt Pussyhorse

After the release of Psychic, the Butthole Surfers became an increasingly in-demand live performance entity, lugging their lo-fi multimedia setup on the road. In 1985 they released the four-song Cream Corn from the Socket of Davis EP and in April 1986 Rembrandt Pussyhorse was released, featuring nine tracks recorded during sporadic breaks between dates of the band’s perpetual touring. The 1970s looms deep over the record: album opener “Creep in the Cellar” starts with a piano and is an obvious rip-off/salute to Neil Young’s “Heart of Gold,” while the band offers up a still-impressive dub-style reductionist take on the Guess Who’s “American Woman.” On side two of the album, the listener is tricked into the abyss of “Whirling Hall of Knives.” A vortex of Leary’s heavily-processed guitar spins out sickening tremolo and plucked harmonics, the bass guitar and drums are compacted into a woozy drone, and Hayes sings (in a sea shanty melody, no less) lyrics like: “Looking at pages and remembering lies, walk away / apart from the graves and the place they made knives, walk away.”  Radical stuff for sure and within a year the band would release their third and arguably best album, Locust Abortion Technician.

Matador Records reissues of Butthole Surferes PCPPEP, Psychic…Powerless…Another Man’s Sac and Rembrandt Pussyhorse are available on vinyl beginning March 22. Preorder here.