It’s hard to imagine the Butthole Surfers existing in today’s world. Sure, when asked by the The Quietus back in 2017 whether the band might still release an album after so many years, guitarist Paul Leary replied: “Especially now that Trump is president, jeez! If there was ever a time for a Butthole Surfers album it’s fucking now. It just doesn’t get any weirder than that.” Weird times indeed–you might even say “fucked up”–but fucked and weird enough for 1984’s Psychic… Powerless… Another Man’s Sac or the two albums that followed in ’86 and ’87: Rembrandt Pussyhorse and Locust Abortion Technician?
Those were the days when founding members Gibby Haynes and Paul Leary, a corporate drop-out and college drop-out, respectively, as well as bandmates King Coffey, Jeff Pinkus, and Teresa Nervosa routinely licked gobblygook off the floor while subsisting on a strict diet of bong loads and psychedelic candy. Or something like that. Back then, attending a live show of theirs, you might be subjected to a wicked visual mash-up of surgeries and porn, while Haynes lit cymbals on fire and barked lines into a megaphone like: “The white man sold quaaludes to the monkeys/And he watched them all die up in the trees.”
Fortunately, the band’s depraved antics and subversive humor have been preserved in Aaron Tanner‘s upcoming, limited edition book Butthole Surfers “What Does Regret Mean?” due out March 8th via the publisher Melodic Virtue. The fully authorized visual history of the band will include never-before-seen photos, artwork, concert posters, and other memorabilia, as well as a flexi disc of the unreleased track, “Locust Abortion Technician Medley” (originally intended as the B-side for the proposed “Human Cannonball” 7″ single). Additionally, the book includes an introduction by Ween’s Mickey Melchiondo, as well as a host of interviews with contemporaries like Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo (Sonic Youth), Kim Thayil (Soundgarden), Al Jourgensen (Ministry), Dale Crover (Melvins), David Yow (Jesus Lizard), and many more!
If you live in Austin, TX, don’t miss the Butthole Surfers: “What Does Regret Mean?” book signing on March 22nd at Waterloo Records with former members Paul Leary, King Coffey, Jeff Pinkus and author Aaron Tanner in attendance. While you’re at it, don’t miss this live clip of the Butthole Surfers circa 1984 at Metro-Access Studios in New York…
“Well son, a funny thing about regret is, it’s better to regret something you have done, than to regret something you haven’t done. And by the way, if you see your mom this weekend, be sure to tell her: “Satan, satan, satan…” “Sweat Loaf” Locust Abortion Technician EP
