There was a day when a man would have been frightened to see the Butthole Surfers. And that didn't make him less of a man. Better men than you shit themselves when they smelled the Surfers' tourbus come to town; women would spontaneously abort and the fetuses would get up and do security for the show.
Part of why it is so hard to believe is because the Surfers have been so god-damn [i]awful[/i] for so long now. Anyone remember Weird Revolution? Electriclarryland? (To be fair, "Pepper" was a great song, probably their last great song.) Independent Worm Saloon? You do? Wow, do you have a music blog?
But there was a day when people didn't know what to make of these motherfuckers, and that day is captured perfectly here on Double Live. This was back when Matter magazine ran a one-page on them where the band played up the backwoods vibe, frowning their way through dinner in New York ("What the fuck is this lin-gwine stuff?") and boiling life down to waking up somewhere, getting stoned and drinking beer, and leading the author to opine that they very well might have room-temperature IQs.
The cassette I had of it was type written, with some sort of child with an exposed spine reaching out to the audience on the cover; it came out on their own Latino Bugger Veil Music and the instructions were "very loud it play." And this is exactly what you should do. These people were not stupid, as Corey Rusk will bitterly tell you. They did have musical tastes that ran 'dumb' to the indie tastes of the day; they didn't name their dog 'Mark Farner of Grand Funk Railroad' for nothing. If anything, this might be the cassette that got me listening, however infrequently, to classic rock again. Leary's guitar is prime psych throughout, and who is Gibby Haynes, after all, but Ted Nugent on drugs? Many drugs? All drugs?
(Broken into four pieces.)
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