In Case You Missed It: The Butthole Surfers

The 90's were a great decade for music. So were the 80's, in sort of a backward, laughing-cause-otherwise-I'd-be-crying sort of way. The 70's were rock-solid, and the 60's, magnificent. "In Case You Missed It" is a shamelessly stolen title weekly special that aims to balance your musical diet with a healthy dose of olde schoole, to bring you back to those favorites you listened to in high school or elementary school, or that your parents listened to in high school or elementary school. I hope that, if you've enjoyed these tracks before, its at least been a while. And if you haven't experienced them before, I hope its a decent first go round.

So, without further ado, and with the risk of completely alienating a crowd with disturbing images and ridiculous names, I give you the Butthole Surfers.

"Cinnamon and sugary
And softly spoken lies
You never know just how you look
Through other people's eyes"

I remember first hearing the Butthole Surfers on the radio in the 7th grade: That means that we must be in 1996, which is a great year in music for so many reasons. I'm probably just sitting around, listening to the radio, waiting for my mom to get home so she could take me and the other teen virgins to the mall where we'd walk around not buying things wondering whether we would go to Sam Claycombe's house and get drunk on gin from his parent's liquor cabinet that weekend. But instead, something happens. The radio DJ probably says something like "And next up, we have a new track from... (hushed voice) Can I actually say this on air? Are we actually playing this? Really? Christ. (loud voice) From the Butthole Surfers, folks. You heard it first on 107.5 The River." And on comes this song. Its like nothing I've ever heard before. Some guy is talking over a loud drumbeat about all kinds of weird shit I thought you weren't supposed to say on the radio. I have no idea what's going on. I think I just heard him say that Flipper died. But then, on comes the chorus. Its mind-blowing, in that first-time-I-saw-a-rated-R-movie sort of way. Just spectacular. And before I know it, its over. And, it being 1996 and all, my computer experience consists of a pre-Napster Prodigy internet connection and Duke Nukem 3D, so my illegal downloading options are limited, which leaves me with the primary option of asking my mom "Can you take me to get the new Butthole Surfers album?" which even my tiny 7th-grade-sized brain knows is not a feasible option. So for weeks, I am left to only experience this joyous track when it occasionally appears on the radio or MTV2. After an eternity, I finally get the chance to swing by Sam Goody, overwhelm the apathetic 16-year-old working the counter, and blow my allowance on the PARENTAL ADVISORY plastered Electriclarryland. The album is terrible, but at least I get my fix of this song, "Pepper". I hope this track is as much of a homecoming for you as it is for me.

2 extra pieces of must-know Butthole Surfers trivia:
1) If you read about them on the blogosphere, critics almost unilaterally refer to them as "The Buttholes" for short, like its completely normal. e.g. "On the Buttholes' latest release, Weird Revolution, they move into new territory."
2) In 1988 (these guys have been around forever), they put a faux-Zeppelin album out called Hairway to Steven. That is hilarious.


The Butthole Surfers - Pepper