When the Butthole Surfers come to town it’s pretty safe to say that whatever goes down is going to be interesting. To me they are the soundtrack of your best dreams and your worst nightmares at the same time, the kings of disturbed punk, the very same Texan band that ate all the acid and made the most satanic noise than anyone else and yes, they are back!
It’s been 12 years since they graced these shores and I must admit that before this show I was dreading it, wondering if the good old days of the Surfers could be tarnished by a band that could have possibly mellowed on the other side of rehab. I mean how many of your favourite bands have you seen come back and nail it like the good old days?
This time round, Gibby Haynes and the full original 80’s line up picked a date at London’s Forum on one of the hottest days of the year recruiting a bunch of kids called The Paul Green School of Rock All-Stars on the way to assist them. Intrigue in this new addition to their set was rife before the show but this orchestra of youth delivered the goods throughout the evening reciting classic Buttholes tracks from the off.
“You are gonna make me cry so shut up!” …was Gibby’s reply to the wall of noise that hit them as they cranked out the throbbing baseline to ‘22 Going on 23‘ followed by the spastic tongue muck of ‘Fast Song‘ and then the speedy classic, ‘Suicide’. The band then flew to ‘Florida‘ for their annual space vacation and at this part of the show I realised the sound was shit but this venue has NEVER been famous for its PA’s even with its previous owners. Gibby’s vocal was far to laid back in the mix for me and it wasn’t earsplitting as i had hoped but as Haynes warped his voice through the vocoder and merged it into the rock riffs of ‘Some Dispute Over T-Shirt Sales‘ and the John Paul Jones produced ‘Goofy’s Concern‘ I started to not give a hoof about what it sounded like and headed for more beer.
Throughout the night, the rock school kids kept appearing onstage with different instruments, and credit to them as they turned up the heat making this show extremely interesting to watch which it made for a perfect comeback as the kids did rock!
Back in the day, these guys would show up, get wasted and not really know what was going on, although that is what made it attractive at the time. I wondered if that aspect of it would be missing and for sure it was, but as I had to explain to a friend, you can’t do acid all of your life, but you can for some of it. To this end whilst hearing the feedback jam to ‘Graveyard‘ and the lyrics to Electriclarrylands ‘Ulcer Breakout‘ I wished I was tripping my nuts off even if it was for the crowd value alone! Tonight the crowd is a mish mash of fuck ups like myself, football thugs, hc kids, skaters, goths, punks, crusties, office workers, mum’s dad’s, grannies even. This was a classic audience with probably the best people watching since Glastonbury.
‘These kids are bad ass..’ says Gibby ….’and now for something completely the same!’ What an intro for the musically wonderful ‘Rocky‘. I love these tracks, the light side of the Buttholes, the meaningful Cherokee Indian moments, the love, the beauty ….this setting sets a scene before they are are eaten alive by the sheer noise and Satanic prowess of the infamous ‘Sweat Loaf‘ and the weirdly wonderful ‘I Saw an X-ray of a Girl Passing Gas’. These are definite highlights alongside one of the best Surfer tracks of all time – ‘Jimi’. Very rarely does a sound scape leave me so floored but this tune is a rare treat and goes down like an atomic bomb with the audience, they are lapping it up.
2 of the rock orchestra’s kids get Happy Sweet 16th sung to them by 2000 people leaving room for only one more track. Paul Leary served up ‘The Shah Sleeps In Lee Harvey’s Grave’ and the place went nuts whilst the entire rock school hit the stage and jammed noise for 10 minutes.
Basically to sum up a great night, the Butthole Surfers redeemed themselves as the real deal. Gibby states he IS a vagina, the background video screen may not have penis operations but snoopy and porn is a great substitute. The original line up alongside Gibby was Paul Leary, Jeff Pinkus and the twin drummers King Coffey and Teresa Taylor and you can take it from me that they still rock despite the help of the kids. Lets’ hope it doesn’t take another 12 years for these guys to play the UK again, they were sorely missed.
Emilio Gomez
You can buy the full recording of this show direct from this link here ….it the best quality double CD set I own and definitely worth the money.
Forum Setlist
22 Going on 23
Fast Song
Suicide
Florida/100 Million
Some Dispute Over T-Shirt Sales
Goofy’s Concern
Two Parter/Tornadoes
1401
Graveyard
Dust Devil
Ulcer Breakout
Rocky
Cowboy Bob
Cherub
Sweat Loaf
I Saw an X-Ray of a Girl Passing Gas
Gary Floyd
Jimi/Cartoon
Happy Birthday (Mariella & Gianni)
The Shah Sleeps In Lee Harvey’s Grave
I love The Stupids. There, I’ve said it. I’ve got it off my chest. My love affair started long ago in the mid-80s and of all the punk bands I first stumbled across, the Stupids were the ones that I connected with the most. For a start, they were fun and fun was not high on the punk rock agenda in those days. These were angry times, Conflict were leading an assault against the system and the system was fighting back but the Stupids blew Kool Aid flavored raspberries in the face of police oppression and got right down to creating hyper-speed yet addictively melodic American influenced hardcore punk, the like that had not surfaced from the UK before. They were bratty, obsessed with trashy American culture and carved their skateboards through the 80s music scene, leaving a slew of classic records (all recently reissued by 
As each song charges by the band get more comfortable and hit their stride (despite Tommy suffering from a tragic case of drum slippage) as the classic pop-thrash of the likes of ‘Skid Row‘, ‘Fridge‘, ‘Memory Burns‘ and a ludicrously fast ‘This Is The Norm‘ charges by.
So, finally, but as promised, 
Ted Nugent is a gobshite. This is a well documented fact. His neo-conservative, or as he claims “patriotic”, views on all things from immigration to the democratic presidential candidate Barak Obama are outlandish and close minded. It’s also hard to ignore his stand on guns and his affiliation with America’s beloved National Rifle Association.
Everyone wants to be a DJ these days – it’s so simple, you go on Ebay, and buy some CD players or click on to the net and download something to play tunes in a row off your hard drive – but that’s merely button pressing. When I think DJ, I think 2 (or more) turntables, a mixer and a boot load of vinyl. So when it’s the UK DMC finals it’s time to get the best view possible and nerd out over the real DJs rocking real vinyl in a battle format. MC Trip from SpitKingdom is our host for the night and got us going (and on time) in to the sets, and entertained when the DJs were setting up – definitely need to get to a SpitKingdon show soon, they put the fun back in to hip-hop.
Coming through with the 3rd place was DJ Switch, who set up the crowd with some crafty cuts. Whilst his set was much hotter, he wasted a lot of time with acapella disses when he should have been dropping it heavy for the crowd. Sure he qualified, but I’m not convinced that he is a legit contender; he has 2 months to come up with something for his World Supremacy battle set, its gonna be much tougher in the finals.
DJ Skully, former UK champ and back for his crown, which, to be fair, he took with his usual nonchalance by just rocking straight in to a set and killing it. Utter confidence with his mixing helps him be a little more tricky live than some of the others who perhaps played it a little too safe. He chose to drop heavy scratch routines that actually sounded more musical and fitting than some of the others who just speedily crabbed through any sample that came up on their battle wax. The crowd went mental and the judges were unanimous in choosing Skully as the night’s top man to go to the final, taking a 50″ flatscreen TV, a camcorder, more Drunken Monkey gear than one man can wear plus a bunch of DJ goodies with him.
The Old Blue Last, London
Self proclaimed “local heroes” Peter and The Test-Tube Babies take to the stage and launch in to “Moped Lads” from their debut seven inch (on No Future Records) – probably the funniest ode to teenage revheads on 50cc’s that anyone’s ever bothered to commit to vinyl. Singer Peter is the only original member at present, with guitarist Del away on tour managing duties, but his place is taken by brother Walnut, and augmented by second guitarist Andy “Aggro” another long time fixture on Brighton’s music scene, and their dual guitar attack works really well, adds a heavy edge.
Two years ago London club favourites Mad Dogs & Glory disbanded on the eve of jetting off to California to trash it out on the Vans Warped tour. This left vocalist The Captain and the aptly named Hudson-Upon-Bass in purgatory. After months heavy drinking, weed smoking, bowl skating and jamming sessions with various like minded individuals something happened. Somewhere deep in space and time, atop a high, stormy mountain….from the ashes of dogs came wolves.
Picture the scene – it’s the Saturday before Bastille Day. A line up is announced with Ed Banger’s DJ Feadz, Ghettotech/B-More loving DJ Kazey and the four man turntable crew Birdy Nam Nam. Put the two together and you’ve got a Red, White and Blue party to end them all. Being a Frenchie myself, there was no way this was going to be missed and what a party it was.
Walking into a Mindless Self Indulgence gig is like accidentally stumbling into a giant Claire’s Accessories. Young kids dressed in various black outfits whilst simulatenously wearing pink angel wings or loosely done up pink tie [and they make such a fuss about wearing one to school, pssh] were the order of the night. That said, as I stood at the back of the venue with the mums, the crowd of over 2,500 got a real treat from the American quartet.