Matador Records is pleased to continue our reissue series documenting key catalog titles by the iconic Texas band, The Butthole Surfers. Today, remastered audio for ‘Locust Abortion Technician’ (1987), ‘Hairway to Steven’ (1988), and ‘Cream Corn From the Socket of Davis’ (1985) – records that are widely considered to have defined the band’s deeply gonzo and psychedelic imperial phase – have been made available on streaming services with vinyl to follow on September 20th.
Matador’s Butthole Surfers reissue series continues with three of the Texas band’s most insane slabs – ‘Cream Corn from the Socket of Davis’ (1985), ‘Locust Abortion Technician’ (1987), and ‘Hairway to Steven’ (1988) – all originally released on the Touch & Go label.
The period during which these records were first issued parallels the Buttholes’ transition from weirdo Texas outcasts to internationally recognized smut-kings of the American underground. In 1985 they were still the sole province of hallucinogen-soaked punk rock freaks. By 1988 they had toured Europe, had records licensed internationally, and bought a house in Driftwood Texas to serve as their home base. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
‘Cream Corn’ was released before ‘Rembrandt Pussyhorse,’ but that’s only because Alternative Tentacles was still dithering about whether they were going to put it out (they eventually passed). The EP plucked two tunes from ‘Rembrandt’ and added a couple new ones that had been recorded on their home studio 8-track in Winterville, Georgia. “Moving to Florida” (the best example ever of what Beefheart probably sounded like while he was tripping) and the other three tracks blew peoples’ minds by being so precise and fully messed-up at the same time. ‘Cream Corn’ was a perfect bite-sized taster for what would follow.
‘Locust Abortion Technician’ was also recorded at the Butthole house in Winterville (most of it actually being finished before ‘Cream Corn’). By this point Jeff Pinkus had joined as bass player (a role he would fill until 1996) and drummer Teresa Taylor returned to the fold after a hiatus to deal with health and personal issues. Without anyone looking over their shoulders, the band really rose to the occasion. From the opening track, “Sweat Loaf,” which quotes Black Sabbath with results both hilarious and bowel-stomping, to the scuzz-guitar riven “found” vocals of “22 Going on 23,” Locust is a non-stop face-full of hallucinogenic gas. Maniacal sludge guitar figures and Gibbytronix vocals are smeared everywhere with most excellent results. For many folks, ‘Locust’ represents the album with which the Buttholes fully fulfilled their insane potential.
‘Hairway to Steven’ was recorded after the band relocated to Driftwood, at a studio in Dallas. The sessions went fast because the band was more or less laying down new songs from the live set they’d been touring for a while. And although those songs now have actual titles – when the album was first released, the tunes were denoted by small cartoon drawings, in an attempt to assure the impossibility of radio play – the music is a blast, ranging from the blood-smeared guitar-overload of “Jimi” to the acoustic guitar-based sing-along sweetness of “I Saw an X-Ray of a Girl Passing Gas” to the Fugs-like ranting of “John E. Smokes.” Yet somehow, the record managed to get the straight media to actually notice. For all its strangeness, Hairway got rave notices in places that had never paid the band any attention previously. It was the Buttholes’ last album of the ’80s and marks the beginning of their ascendance into something akin to commercial success. Not that the band actually imagined anything at all like that occurring.
When I interviewed them in February, 1986, I asked Gibby about their plans. He said: “We’ve got a bunch of new songs recorded that don’t even have names. We don’t know what they’re called or anything. It’s totally out of control. We have no plans whatsoever. We never claimed to be quick or smart or anything. Maybe we just have one song and we fuck it up so much people think we have more. I guess the album after ‘Locust Abortion Technician’ might be called ‘The Butthole Surfers Buy a Synthesizer.’ We’ve written lots of songs, we’ve forgotten lots of songs. That’s the way it goes.”
Of course, that’s not the way it went. But I don’t think anyone was more surprised about that than the band themselves. And so it goes.
