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Like I said, “Pepper” doesn’t really sound like any of that. Plus, it fit rather comfortable amongst my other interests of the time – industrial, hardcore, noise rock, punk, post-punk, that sort of thing.
Pepper butthole surfers full#
But upon its release, it came as a surprise shock to the system, full of fucked up fusion, a cacophonic blender of styles and genres that somehow meshed into this really interesting sound collage. About the only holdover that sort of stuck was the psychedelic angle, which tends to be an undercurrent throughout most of their work, eight albums in total.įor me, the standout album is still 87’s “Locust Abortion Technician,” their third LP, which understandably isn’t for everyone. But I can tell you that most of the material before this release is pretty different … sludgy and grimy to loud and heavy, very punkish and full of noise modulation and manipulation, and strange forays into tape editing (these days, that’s left to the apps). In all honesty, I haven’t kept up with these Texans since the release of “Electriclarryland,” where “Pepper” hails from. It’s also one of their only songs that broke the mainstream – hence B.H. It actually sounds like an early Beck song, but slightly more fucked up, weird, and subversive. This one’s a curious effort from the Buttholes.
Pepper butthole surfers series#
“Pepper” came to mind because it was featured in episode eight of season two of “ The Umbrella Academy.” Incidentally, the sophomore run of the Netflix series has some excellent music choices, but you can check that out on your own. The last time being a few years ago, when a millennial coworker asked if they were a real band, because she thought the name was hilarious.
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And I was living in San Francisco, which had a thriving club scene to match.Įvery now and then, Butthole Surfers would re-emerge in my life. But during the mid-’90s, I was knee deep into the electronic scene – ambient, techno, trance, house, etc. The song’s called “Pepper,” and it’s actually from ’96, a whole seven years past said event. And even to this day, I wonder whether I should’ve been there, or did I actually dodge a bullet.Īnyway, today’s choice pick for the day made me think of that old chestnut of a story. I wasn’t present at the time, so I have no idea what he wanted to say. Unfortunately, i don’t have a copy of it anymore.īut the published interview elicited some response from Haynes, because on the day of the show, he came to the UCLA Daily Bruin office, one of my music journalist haunts, asking to meet me. But most of the answers were an odd redneck sort of glossolalia, somewhere between gibberish, drunken-speak, off-center rhetorical questions, and the occasional lucid response. I asked all the usual questions that a curious fan would want to know. It was an odd phone exchange, since he and fellow Buttholes were somewhere on the road. I also remember interviewing frontman and provocateur Gibby Haynes, a few days before said show. But that seemed enough to blow out a fuse and flood the limited confines of the auditorium with a thick enough haze that you couldn’t see the person next to you. I can’t recall how much of all that made it into the Ackerman show, other than the strobes and fog. And they took up a lot of space and resources to do it. I bring all this up, because Butthole Surfers (or B.H Surfers, which was the mainstream media’s safe name), used to put on a pretty wild show – a wall of strobe lights, crazy amounts of fog, a nude stripper/dancer, costumes, stage dives, fake blood, and a lot of other things that still seem a bit over the top, even by today’s standards.
Pepper butthole surfers movie#
There was also a retractable movie screen above it. On the other, was a curtained stage, big enough to house a small act, but probably better suited to a minimal stage production or university choir. The college radio station KLA was located at one end, beneath a projection booth. They were scheduled to perform in Ackerman Ballroom, which was like an extremely dated open-floor high school auditorium … but bigger … and deeper. My first proper experience with Texas troublemakers Butthole Surfers was back in 1989, when the San Antonio-based experimental psychedelic noise outfit came to UCLA.