The Butthole Surfers have been one of my favorite bands for most of my life. That could be an exaggeration or overstatement, but "roughly half, at least" is certainly true. The peak of my interest in them was in the summer of 2001, so my fourteen year-old heart was pumping wildly in anticipation for The Weird Revolution, particularly after shelling out the hard-saved and snuck-away dough on the Mission: Impossible II soundtrack for "They Came In."
At the time, I managed to convince myself that The Weird Revolution wasn't a total pile of garbage that justifies their lack of new material for the last twelve years, but that didn't even last long. Anyone else who has heard that album would much rather forget as well. It's like a no-easy-excuse Squeeze. Yet, despite all that it came out of an album that was quite good. Although I'm one of the few that will endorse 1991's Pioughd I would go so far as to say this is their best album of the 90s. It is, in fact their best album since Locust Abortion Technician... maybe. Either way, it has more in common with that one than it does Independent Worm Saloon or even Electriclarryland.
Most of these songs appeared in vastly inferior form in 2001, such as "They Came In" which set some (maybe just my) expectations too high on the M:I2 soundtrack, and the more absurd, less discomforting "Weird Revolution." "Jet Fighter," likewise appears in a more dramatic, yet also sincere form making it one of the album's best tracks. However the tracks which would not make it to the revised version are most memorable with tracks like "I Don't Have a Problem" and "Junky Jenny in Gaytown" hearkening back to their 80s peak, with the latter being something of a new take on "Kuntz." This was the last recorded evidence of the Buttholes sounding like themselves, and the first in a long time. It's truly "Turkey and Dressing." Find it. I did.
The Butthole Surfers - After the Astronaut (1998)
No comments:
Post a Comment