I saw the Butthole Surfers live once in Austin, Texas.
Not too far from the University of Texas where I was a student. I walked to the show with my friend on a blistering hot summer day. We stopped en-route at the gas station on The Drag to get “the juice.” The juice was a Big Gulp – an obscene amount of your desired soda over ice in something like a 42 ounce plastic cup. It was huge, heavy, and essential hydration under the unrelenting Texas sun.
The trick was to get the juice and drink about half of it while walking to the liquor store.
There you could get a moment of Air Conditioning and buy a bottle of vodka or rum or whiskey as desired. Then split it, pouring it into your giant cup ~ a mixer for the road.
The desired intoxication would begin just before entering the venue. This hot night the juice worked well, maybe too well. I honestly remember very little of the show.
What I do remember noise, sweat, and flashing lights.
Flames.
Smoke.
Screams.
Gibby Haynes in silhouette in the minimal stage light.
A megaphone in hand. Paul Leary working the guitar like a Chuck Berry on acid creating new architectural punk-rock psychedelic shapes and forms. Drums somewhere back there in the smoke on stage. Not one – but two drummers pounding away simultaneously.
The gathered humanoids transfixed absorbing the heavy duty sound waves.
Projected film images. Strobing lights. A haze of flickering images.
Smoke exhaled from joints blowing across the crowd.
Ears buzzing for days after.
The Butthole Surfers created their own show style. Which thrived on chaos. Both planned and unplanned chaos. Perhaps like The Velvet Underground and their “Exploding Plastic Inevitable” via Andy Warhol only much weirder and harsher and way more in your face.
The Buttholes did it without a famous artist as manager their genius was home grown.
Their songs leeched into the hearts and minds of counterculture kids becoming a soundtrack of their lives.
I know — I am one of them.
In San Antonio in the earlier 90s my friend Martin would often pick me up on his way to school – he had a car. We would listen to Independent Worm Saloon on the way to high school. Then again afterwards. The Surfers were like our Led Zeppelin maybe or really something more.
A hometown weirdness.
An anomaly in the “music biz” their sound always changing album to album. Their abrasive sound was also likely not even considered music by some listeners. The power and insanity of their live show propelled the band forward. They got better and better somehow.
Turning out albums on Alternative Tentacles and Touch and Go, cool record labels showcasing the growing underground American punk and hardcore bands.
Then seemingly out of nowhere the Butthole Surfers signed with Capital Records.
The band started writing catchy anthemic songs. Songs so good they made the charts.
That was weird!
I remember rumors of them recording on their own in a ranch they got “once they had made it.” Or people wondering about their studio out loud at parties and how cool it would be to go there. Somewhere The Butthole Surfers were busy. Cranking out songs.
In 1996 they put out Electriclarryland. This album did the unthinkable containing a number one hit! The incredibly catchy sing along song “Pepper” hit #1.
For a band that started in the Central Texas underground punk scene this was absolutely mind boggling. “Pepper” is a great song. It is undeniable as is the whole Electriclarryland album. How the hell did this little band from Texas become hitmakers on some ranch deep down in the heart of Tejas? Now you can find out the truth! See the new documentary The Hole Truth and Nothing Butt.
The film chronicles the rise of the band from a couple of friends from school to a world famous touring band. Gibby Haynes photocopied cockroaches and grotesque photos of skin diseases on the copy machine at work while imagining a band and an escape from being an accountant. Paul Leary had a guitar and some incredible music pent up inside of him. Gibby helped release it. A band, a sound, a spirit. A variety of bandmates followed including numerous bassists in a nearly Spinal Tap kind of progression before Kramer and finally the solidifying Jeff Pinkus. Plus, drummer King Coffey who still sits upon the drum throne.
They also added his friend Teresa Nervosa who doubled the drums for even more rhythmic excitement. Teresa is also recognizable from her enigmatic character in Richard Linklater’s film Slacker. Her image is emblazoned on the film poster. She also appears in the Super 8 short, the Bar-B-Que Movie – a Texas Chain Saw Massacre spoof. The Movie includes Teresa Nervosa and the band are all in the film directed by Hole Truth director Tom Stern.
Stern is the only filmmaker who could have told this story coherently and make it fun to watch. He circles back to his roots. Knowing the band and having their trust allows them to share their individual erspectives. It is an intriguing look at the band and candid portrait of the people behind it. He takes the viewer back through a series of interviews. Flashbacks to the stories that made the band famous – or notorious. From LSD trips direct from Timothy Leary to Lallapalooza Festival antics including a shotgun full of blanks. Stories of on stage nudity, simulated or real sex, surgery films and the creation of a performance art live music show never before seen. The film splices live footage from shows, interviews, and spoiler alert: it even incorporates puppets of the band – really!
The film is a unique and very revealing story telling of this legendary band.
From tiny San Antonio bars like Tacoland and Liberty Lunch in Austin, Texas… the Butthole Surfers created something strangely psychedelic and maybe even stranger a lasting effect!
Go see this film! Ask your movie theater to get it!
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