Line #43 Music/ButtholeSurfers


1	[[quoteright:318:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Butthole_Surfers_4157.jpg]]
2
3	->''I don't mind the Sun sometimes, the images it shows''\
4	''I can taste you on my lips and smell you in my clothes''\
5	''Cinnamon and sugary and softly-spoken lies''\
6	''You never know just how you look through other people's eyes''
7	-->--'''"Pepper"'''
8
9	Butthole Surfers is a NoiseRock band formed in San Antonio, UsefulNotes/{{Texas}} in 1981, well known for its bizarre and often disturbing lyrics, heavy synthesizing, and macabre live shows. They also use a lot of BlackComedy in their lyrics.
10
11	The Surfers began in 1980, when lead singer Gibby Haynes met guitarist Paul Leary while going to college in Texas, where they became friends due to their shared overall weirdness and interest in strange music. They published a magazine, ''Strange V.D.'', with a lot of [[{{Squick}} pictures of strange diseases and illnesses]], long before they actually started playing in 1981. Throughout TheEighties, they built up a cult following in the college rock world through their melding of PunkRock and PsychedelicRock, plus a multi-media stage show (including a naked female dancer and grotesque film clips projected on a giant screen) that was an assault on the senses, all capped off with a twisted sense of humor.
12
13	Their mainstream commercial breakthrough finally came in TheNineties, when big labels were scrambling to sign AlternativeRock acts in the wake of Music/{{Nirvana}}'s success. After a decade of releasing their music on small indies such as Creator/AlternativeTentacles and [[Creator/TouchAndGoRecords Touch and Go]], the Buttholes signed with Creator/CapitolRecords; their second Capitol album, ''Electriclarryland'', contained their first big hit "Pepper", which topped the ''Billboard'' Modern Rock charts in 1996. Afterwards, they became featured on many movie soundtracks, such as ''Film/WilliamShakespearesRomeoAndJuliet'' and Creator/JohnCarpenter's ''Film/EscapeFromLA''.
14	----
15	!!Discography:
16
17	[[AC: Studio Albums:]]
18	* ''Psychic... Powerless... Another Man's Sac'' (1984)
19	* ''Rembrandt Pussyhorse'' (1986)
20	* ''Locust Abortion Technician'' (1987)
21	* ''Hairway to Steven'' (1988)
22	* ''piouhgd'' (1991) -- Pronounced Pee-Owed
23	* ''Independent Worm Saloon'' (1993)
24	* ''Electriclarryland'' (1996)
25	* ''Weird Revolution'' (2001)
26
27	[[AC:Studio [=EPs=]:]]
28	* ''Butthole Surfers'' (later retitled ''Brown Reason to Live'') (1983)
29	* ''Widowermaker!'' (1989)
30
31	!!Band Members:
32	* Gibby Haynes - lead vocals, guitar, saxophone 1981–present
33	* Paul Leary - guitar, vocals 1981–present
34	* King Coffey - drums 1983–present
35	* Jeff Pinkus - bass 1986–1994, 2008–present
36	* Teresa Nervosa - drums, 1983-1989, 2008-2009, died in 2023
37	* [[RevolvingDoorBand A lot of other bassists and drummers]]
38
39	----
40	!!Rembrandt Pussytropes:
41
42	[[folder:Songs]]
43
44	* AfterTheEnd: "The Last Astronaut" is a series of messages from an astronaut in low Earth orbit to ground control, slowly realizing that [[spoiler:nuclear war has just broken out, and he may well be the last human alive]].
45	* AnswerSong: "Pepper" is one to Music/{{Beck\|Musician}}'s "Loser," which the band thought was a rip-off of their sound.
46	* BadassBoast: The EldritchAbomination that narrates "Jimi" makes one that borders on a BlasphemousBoast.
47	-->''"What do you know about reality? I '''AM''' reality! What do you know about death? I '''AM''' death! '''AAAHHH!'''"''
48	* BlackComedy: A lot. Especially "Pepper" and "Jimi".
49	* CarefulWithThatAxe: "Jimi", to a disturbing extreme.
50	* CountryMatters: Subverted with their song "Kuntz" -- the clip is edited to make it sound like the other word, but it's really just the Thai word for "itch".
51	* CoverVersion:
52	** Of a more interesting version, "Dum Dum" is basically an original composition over the drum beat from Music/BlackSabbath's "Children of the Grave". They'd revisit the idea of sampling portions of Sabbath songs later in their career when they slightly altered the main riff to "Sweet Leaf" for the opening track of ''Locust Abortion Technician'', appropriately titled "Sweat Loaf".
53	** "Kuntz" is a remix of a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-tqI0D1CAU song]] by Thai artist Phloen Phromdaen the band allegedly found on a mix tape at a takeout place they frequented.
54	** Their cover of Music/{{Donovan}}'s "Hurdy Gurdy Man" from ''pioughd'' also parodies the original version's delayed vocal effect by taking it to extremes, deliberately distorting it beyond comprehension.
55	** They've also covered Music/TheLovinSpoonful's "Summer In The City" for the benefit album ''M.O.M., Vol. 3: Music for Our Mother Ocean'', Music/The13thFloorElevators' "Earthquake" for a Roky Erickson tribute album, Music/TheGuessWho's "American Woman", and the ''WesternAnimation/{{Underdog}}'' theme for ''Saturday Morning Cartoons' Greatest Hits''.
56	** "The O-Men" features elements borrowed from "Termination" by PowerMetal group Omen. The band had once attended a Music/{{Motorhead}} concert where Omen were the opening act, and found the song so "ridiculous" it became something of a CreatorInJoke; Since "The O-Men" was meant to be a metal spoof, they incorporated chants of "Terminate!" and "Cyborg lust!" from "Termination".
57	* EpicRocking: [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] in the case of "They Came In"; It's technically 22:23, but it's really 4 minutes of "They Came In", 17 minutes of silence, and then a short reprise of "The Last Astronaut". As for actual examples:
58	** "Cherub" from ''Psychic... Powerless... Another Man's Sac'', "Sweat Loaf" from ''Locust Abortion Technician'', "John E. Smoke" and "Backass" from ''Hairway to Steven'', and "Dust Devil" and "The Ballad of a Naked Man" from ''Independent Worm Saloon'' are all around 6 minutes in length.
59	** ''Independent Worm Saloon'' also has the 8 minute "Clean It Up".
60	** The two parts of "Revolution" add up to around 9 minutes in length, though part 2 is 7 minutes on its own.
61	** Their longest track is "Jimi" from ''Hairway to Steven'' at 12:38. It beats "P.S.Y." from ''pioughd'' (12:12) by 26 seconds.
62	** Live versions also got pretty lengthy. "Psychedelic" in particular was an live-only jam that was usually around 10 minutes long.
63	* GratuitousSpanish: "Dracula From Houston" includes the lyric "¡Esta Noche enchilada, pinche cabron ni por nada!", which would mean "tonight enchilada, fucking bastard or for nothing!".
64	** Similarly, "Mexico" has the line "eco suda la chinga", translating roughly to "echo sweats the fuck".
65	* HarshVocals: Possibly parodied by "Mark Says Alright", which uses the growls of a pitbull as "vocals". Probably also parodied in "The O-Men" (which WordOfGod says is a HeavyMetal spoof) where the verses consist of Gibby growling nonsense syllables like the [[WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes Tasmanian Devil]].
66	* ICallItVera: Non-weapon example. Lead singer Gibby Haynes named his system of [[http://blogs.houstonpress.com/rocks/BHS%202.JPG distortion pedals/effects]] that he's used in studio/live since the ''Locust Abortion Technician'' era his "Gibbytronix" system.
67	* InTheStyleOf: When they re-recorded their early song "Something" for ''pioughd'', they did it in the style of Music/TheJesusAndMaryChain as a joke. This version is in fact deliberately [[SuspiciouslySimilarSong suspiciously similar]] to JAMC's "Never Understand".
68	** Paul Leary's solo album ''Born Stupid'' features drastic remakes of two songs he originally sang for Butthole Surfers - "The Shah Revisited" turns "The Shah Sleeps In Lee Harvey's Grave" from a noisy HardcorePunk parody to [[LyricalDissonance lyrically dissonant gospel-tinged country music]], while "Gary Floyd Revisited" turns "Gary Floyd" from [[GarageRock garage punk]] to equally lyrically dissonant acoustic FolkRock.
69	* IntentionallyAwkwardTitle: [[ShmuckBait Just try to say Butthole Surfers in a public conversation. Or, the names of most of their songs.]] College radio [=DJs=], wishing to avoid the wrath of the MoralGuardians, usually referred to them as the [[{{Bowdlerise}} B.H. Surfers.]]
70	* JokeOfTheButt: Why else would they have chosen that name?
71	* UsefulNotes/KuKluxKlan: Mentioned in the lyrics of "P.S.Y.".
72	-->''Nikki was in the KKK\
73	and Lisa was a Nazi too\
74	they both had half a brain\
75	so together they were sane\
76	and looked about as smart as their shoes''
77	* LimitedLyricsSong: Other than some wordless screaming and hooting, the only proper lyric to "Booze, Tobacco, Pussy, Cars" is the whole band repeatedly chanting the title together.
78	* TheMasochismTango: "Human Cannonball" appears to be about this kind of relationship.
79	* NonAppearingTitle: Too many to list, but well-known examples include "Pepper", "The Annoying Song" and "Sweat Loaf".
80	* RecycledLyrics: Recycled ''{{scatting}}'', actually - Much of Gibby Haynes' manic {{scatting}} on Music/{{Ministry}}'s "Jesus Built My Hot Rod" was taken from a Butthole Surfers song called "Watlo". "Watlo" was being played live before "Jesus Built My Hot Rod" was released, but a studio version didn't come out until afterward (it appears on ''Independent Worm Saloon'' as "Some Dispute Over T-Shirt Sales").
81	** The rarity "All Day" is effectively Music/DanielJohnston singing the lyrics to his own song "Running Water" over an improv piece by the band.
82	* {{Scatting}}: Used a lot, one notable example being "The O-Men".
83	* SelfTitledAlbum: Their first release (a 12" EP that came out on Music/JelloBiafra's Creator/AlternativeTentacles label in 1983) was originally this, but was retroactively named ''Brown Reason to Live''.
84	* SensoryAbuse: Arguably, in the case of their music. The earlier into the band's discography you go, the more likely their music will fall under this category, especially to those who aren't used to noise rock. Leary even noted in a ''Guitar World'' interview that "I'm surprised we've had ''any'' success. I listen to our old records like "''What were we'' '''thinking?'''" We obviously weren't. It's like we were trying to be bad."
85	** Their live shows during the 1980's on the other hand, are ''undoubtedly'' examples of this trope. For starters, the band would be playing at absurdly loud volumes, flashing strobe lights at the audience at speeds that would induce ''nausea and seizures in some members of the audience'', and displaying a combination of 16mm films Gibby had fraudulently obtained[[note]][[BavarianFireDrill He pretended to be a doctor in order to get films meant to be seen by people in medical school, for example]][[/note]] of things like male to female sex change operations, autopsy footage, driver's ed gore, medical examinations of people with sexually transmitted diseases, and even "innocent" things like episodes of shows like ''Series/CharliesAngels'' - played upside down in reverse, of course. The band would then compliment this with a series of props/stunts (flaming cymbals, dual-drummers, papier-mache dummies being ripped to shreds, copious amounts of fog, a naked dancer...), and improvised various other stunts on top of that to create a complete hellscape of a live show.
86	* TheSomethingSong: "The Annoying Song", "Bong Song" and "The Wooden Song". "Fast" is also known as "The Fart Song" among fans.
87	* StepUpToTheMicrophone: Paul Leary sings three out of the seven songs on their first EP - "The Shah Sleeps in Lee Harvey's Grave," "Something," and "Bar-B-Q Pope" [[note]]Since one of the remaining songs, "The Revenge Of Anus Presley", features a guest vocalist, this means he sings as often as Gibby Haynes does on that particular release[[/note]]. After this, he'd still get a lead vocal part now and then, singing "Gary Floyd", the choruses on "Lonesome Bulldog", the Donovan cover "The Hurdy Gurdy Man", the ''piouhgd'' version of "Something" and "Dancing Fool".
88	* StudioChatter: "Birds" begins with Gibby Haynes saying "Alright, what are we doin' here?" over the intro, then laughing and clearing his throat, before starting the song more properly [[CarefulWithThatAxe with a scream]].
89	** "Lady Sniff" has a brief sampled musical interlude (if it could be called that) where a barely audible "Got it?" can be heard before it cuts back to the song itself.
90	* SurprisinglyGentleSong: "The Wooden Song", a FolkRock-influenced ballad featuring acoustic guitar, is probably the straightest example they have. "Rocky" from ''Hairway to Steven'' also qualifies.
91	* TitleByNumber: "The Colored FBI Guy" is also known as "1401" (on the band's set-lists and on the UK edition of ''Widowermaker!'') - 1401 was the address number of a home the band once lived in together.
92	* TitleOnlyChorus: "Kuntz" again, if you consider that to be a chorus. Also "Hay", except its the ''ENTIRE SONG.''
93	* ToiletHumor: Lots of it, starting with the band name.
94	* WordSaladLyrics: "The Annoying Song", "Lady Sniff", "I Saw an X-Ray Of A Girl Passing Gas"...hell, a decent chunk of their discography.
95	** "Moving To Florida" seems to be written from the point of view of a TalkativeLoon:
96	--->Well I been movin' down to Florida.
97	--->I'm gonna potty train the [[UsefulNotes/MaoZedong Chairman Mao]]
98	--->I'm gonna make the governor write my doodoo a letter, child
99	--->And I'm gonna grind me up a White Castle slider out of India's sacred cow
100	* WordSaladTitle: Almost every album, and many of the songs as well.
101	** ''Cream Corn From The Socket of Davis'' was originally going to make ''some'' sense in context; the original concept for the cover art was a drawing of Creator/SammyDavisJr. with his GlassEye removed and creamed corn coming out of the empty socket. The band commissioned an artist to draw it, but didn't like any of the results and scrapped it in favor of a totally different cover [[note]]the US edition had a photo of a little girl in a pink dress, the UK edition had a woman in a turtleneck and glasses instead[[/note]], retroactively making the title totally nonsensical.
102	* VomitIndiscretionShot: An audio version can be found in "Clean It Up" from the ''Independent Worm Saloon'' album.
103	[[/folder]]
104
105	[[folder:Albums]]
106
107	* AllLowerCaseLetters: The title of ''piouhgd'' is always rendered this way.
108	* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: The album title of ''Locust Abortion Technician'' is pretty much this.
109	* CreditsGag: the labels on their first two [=EPs=] (self-titled and ''PCPPEP'') claim that the records should be played at [[LOL69 "69 RPM"]] [[note]]record players usually have settings for 33 RPM and 45 RPM - there's not really a way to play a record at that speed[[/note]].
110	* EarAche: The cover for ''Electriclarryland'' depicts a pencil being shoved in someone's ear point-first - it's drawn in a cartoony style, but there's some blood. Apparently it was potentially squicky enough that the "clean" version of the album substitutes a closeup of a groundhog (which is one of the pictures inside the booklet of the explicit version).
111	* ExtraEyes[=/=]EyesDoNotBelongThere: The cover for ''Hairway to Steven'' depicts a man with an extra pair of eyes on his cheeks.
112	* HiddenTrack: ''The Weird Revolution'' has a 30-second clip of Gibby Haynes speaking with a distortion effect hidden after the last track "They Came In". This is taken from an alternate version of the song "The Last Astronaut" - the CD edition of the album has it hidden after a long gap of silence, but some digital versions give the piece its own track and call it "The Last Astronaut (Reprise)".
113	* NewSoundAlbum: ''The Weird Revolution'' had a more electronic sound and added more RapRock elements (as did the more experimental MissingEpisode album ''After the Astronaut'', which had different versions of many of the same songs). This new direction was hinted at by some of their late-90's soundtrack work: "Whatever (I Had a Dream)" from ''Film/WilliamShakespearesRomeoAndJuliet'' was a moody trip-hop song, while "Tiny Rubber Band" from the live-action ''Film/{{Spawn\|1997}}'' film also had a trip hop feel and was a collaboration with Music/{{Moby}}. A less direct precursor was The Jackofficers, an [[HouseMusic Acid House]]-influenced experimental electronic side project of Gibby Haynes and Jeff Pinkus, who put out their only album ''Digital Dump'' in 1990.
114	* NoTitle: None of the songs on ''Hairway to Steven'' have titles, instead marked by [[StylisticSuck crudely-drawn sketches]]. However, the self-released LiveAlbum ''Double Live'' features almost every song from ''Hairway to Steven'', and the back cover gives them actual names instead of drawings, which are generally treated as their proper titles. The one ''Hairway to Steven'' track that didn't appear on the live album is pretty much universally referred to as "Julio Iglesias" because of its lyrics.
115	* NonIronicClown: The cover for ''Locust Abortion Technician''.
116	* PunBasedTitle:
117	** ''Hairway to Steven'' is a play on Music/LedZeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven".
118	** ''Electriclarryland'' is a {{Parody}} of Music/JimiHendrix's ''Electric Ladyland''.
119	** "Sweat Loaf" is a parody of "Sweet Leaf" by Music/BlackSabbath. Bonus points for (sort of) using the same riff.
120	[[/folder]]
121
122	[[folder:Music Videos]]
123	* AnimatedMusicVideo[=/=]DerangedAnimation[=/=]SurrealMusicVideo: The video for "Who Was In My Room Last Night" combines all these tropes.
124	* TheCameo: Music/RedHotChiliPeppers' Flea shows up as a bartender in "Who Was in My Room Last Night".
125	* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: Apparently some images in the "Hurdy Gurdy Man" video looked too [[{{Squick}} squicky]], so they had captions put on them, such as "Belly Button" and "Foamy Apple Juice".
126	* FightFurYourRightToParty: Played Straight ''and'' Inverted in the music video for "Shame of Life". Straight examples include a man in a pig mask who eventually gets in a bath with a nude woman while still wearing the mask, and dancers in deliberately creepy squirrel makeup; the inversion involves men in squirrel masks and [[BadassInANiceSuit nice suits]] coming to drag people away and ''stop'' the party.
127	[[/folder]]
128	----
129	-->''"Crazy, crazy fuckin' world! [[SanitySlippage HA HA HA HA!]] Crazy goddamn world! [[LaughingMad HA HA HA HA!]]"''

Context Music / ButtholeSurfers