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Promo: 'Locust Abortion Technician', mid-80s
'This album starts off with waves of blissful, ethereal music. Calming strings, harps, bliss...and the following dialogue: "Daddy?" / "Yes, son?" / "W-w-w-what does regret mean?" / "Well, son...a funny thing about regret is that it's better to regret something you have done, instead of something you haven't done. And if you see your mom this weekend, be sure and tell her...SATAN!!! SATAN!!! SATAN!!!" ... and we're shot headfirst into a sludgy, slow, bashing mangling of Sabbath's "Sweet Leaf", with Gibby snarling something that sounds like "RAPE!!! OF DESIRE!!!" through a pile of delays and other electronic rubble. The effect of going from that intro to THIS is about as close as you get musically to the experience of being thrown into a pit of alligators.Welcome to Locust Abortion Technician, folks...one of the two arguable peak products of the Texan juggernaut of sheer psychosis known as the Butthole Surfers.
'To attempt to describe everything on this album is pretty much impossible. Just trust me when I say that ANYWHERE you put the needle down on this slab is going to be totally over-the-top insanity, like some deranged miswiring of rock machinery from Cologne, Detroit, Houston, and Alpha Centauri hooked up in some way that's almost certain to cause the whole mess to explode!
'This thing is a total mental meltdown. That's really the only term for it. It's beyond psychedelia, and off into some turf that would land average people in the rubber room. Musically, it's primal, primitive, assaultive...and damn close to unique. Even their previous effort, "Rembrandt Pussyhorse", while still being a real brain-roaster, doesn't have the attack stance this does. There was once a rave sampler called "Only for the Headstrong"...but those who thought they were down with that would probably be psychologically incinerated by "Locust Abortion Technician". It just ain't right, as they say down there in the Lone Star state. If you think you can handle this, be my guest, but don't come complaining to me when the back of your head explodes JFK-style all over the wall behind your couch. I _warned_ you, dammit. ' -- Julian Cope, Head Heritage
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Track 1: 'Sweat Loaf'
''Sweat Loaf' utilizes a warped riff similar to the verse riff from the Black Sabbath song 'Sweet Leaf.' Sounding like the soundtrack to the mind of a deranged psychopath and then some more, it belongs in the pantheon of "Most Repulsive Songs Ever Committed to Tape".' -- Earthworm Jim
Studio version w/ fan video
live version at the Variety Arts Center, Los Angeles 1987
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Track 2: 'Graveyard'
'The first version of "Graveyard" lurches and crawls all over your forebrain, tape running at the wrong speed, everything dragging like some sort of hybrid of NEU!'s "Super 16" and The Stooges on dental anaesthesia.' -- Julian Cope
Studio version w/ fan video
live version at Lollapalooza, 1991
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Track 3: 'Pittsburgh to Lebanon'
'"Pittsburgh to Lebanon" is basically a Chicago blues played in Surfers-mode and with suitable lyrics ("When I crawled out of my mama, well I was blind as could be, I bought my first shotgun at the age of thirty") that mercilessly abuses the genre.' -- guypetersreviews
Studio version w/ fan video
live version at Paradise, Boston, 2009
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Track 4: 'Weber'
''Weber' is 35 seconds of what is basically noise. It's no-holds-barred experimental approach is bold and daring, tried only by the fearless, and listened to by the same. Some of it may admittedly be a racket, but it's a fearless, edgy and focused racket which is presumably meant to provoke a reaction in the listener.' -- J. Roberts
Studio version w/ fan video
live version at Music Hall of Williamsburg, 2010
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Track 5: 'HAY'
'The song "Hay" is actually a redone, reversed version of "22 going on 23." The last part of "22 going on 23" what seems like mooing, is actually the main lyrics of "Hay", only reversed and stretched. Also,in the final part of "Hay", there is something that seems to be a high-pitched voice speaking gibberish. This is the speaking in the beginning of "22 going on 23", including the repeated words.' -- Wiki
Studio version
Studio version slowed down and played backwards
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Track 6: 'Human Cannonball'
''Human Cannonball' is probably the most straightforward piece of rock music on the CD - that's not saying it's still not bizarre - it's a hard-driving, bass-heavy mosh pit-inducer full of some ultra groovy lead guitar work and Gibby's enthusiastic singing and screaming.' -- teamfreak16 @ epinion
Studio version w/ fan slideshow
live version in Houston, 2002
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Track 7: 'U.S.S.A.'
'The first track of side 2 was my first intro to the Buttholes. I had spent the previous evening on some particularly heavy acid, and while coming down paid a visit to my collaborator in my ambient ensemble at the time. Jim had this manic grin on, and said "Have a seat...I have something YOU need to hear...RIGHT NOW!" And he dropped "USSA" on at full-blast. I have yet to recover from this. The whole thing starts off with industrial hammering while Paul Leary spuzzes along in the key of R. Then some sadistic bastard grabs the tape speed controls, and everything lurches violently, then Gibby starts screaming "USSA!! USSR!! USA!! USR!!!" through a fatally-damaged prison PA system as someone starts scratching a record. No, not as in hip-hop. Literally. Brutally dragging the tone arm back and forth as 'percussion'. Good Christ. Leary returns to play such great notes and "KREEANNG!!" and "SPRAIIIGNNN!!!" and "BLEAAANNNGG!" over the whole demonically-possessed mess before it all just stops.' -- Julian Cope
Studio version
live version in 1989 (audio only)
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Track 8: 'The O-Men'
'Sometimes considered their best song, this tour de force of metal, hardcore, bad acid and juvenilia is alternately one of the most hilarious, most experimental and most sincerely disturbing turnes of all time. "The O-Men" is the closest anyone has ever come to truly recreating the sounds of a nitrous oxide hit. Not that many other bands have even tried.' -- Mike McGurk, Rhapsody
Studio version w/ fan video
live version at Music Hall of Williamsburg, 2010
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Track 9: 'Kuntz' (unknown Thai artist)
'"KUNTZ" takes a Vietnamese pop tune and subjects it to electronic manglery to get the vocalist to start going "KUNTZKUNTZKUNTZKUNTZ..."...which gets worse and worse and more brain-damaged as this short treatise on what NOT to do with effects continues.' -- Alternative Tentacles
Studio version w/ fan video
The original Thai song w/ fan slideshow
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Track 10: 'Graveyard 2'
'"Graveyard" is a slab of droning sludge, with incomprehensible lyrics, impossibly low and grinding bass and a pace that's terrifyingly slow and only bands like The Melvins dare to employ. Paul Leary squeezes the weirdest solos imaginable out of his guitar, often sounding like Jimi Hendrix on a bad acid trip, or a slow motion version of Tony Iommi.' -- Rockeroll
Studio version
live version at CBGB, 1986
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Track 11: '22 Going on 23'
'The song "22 going on 23" brought the band to wider UK attention when it was voted number 44 in John Peel's 1987 Festive Fifty. "22 Going on 23" gets started with a snippet of radio psychology about someone who 'cannot sleep' before the sludge-o-tastic Surfers kick in over the top in a groove that sounds like a poppy and upbeat...ahhh...Melvins? Over this, swirling around in stereo like evil spirits, are voices repeating fragments: "...sleep problem...", "...anxiety...", "...medicine...", and the woman at the beginning who keeps releating "I cannot sleep..." It sounds like pure insanity. It IS pure insanity. And with the sound of cows mooing, the whole episode is over.' -- Julian Cope
Studio version w/ fan video
live version in Barcelona, 2008
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p.s. Hey. ** Armando, Hey, man. After the real Ziggy and I got back in touch for a while, we lost touch again unfortunately. He was sort of moving around, so I have no idea where he is. But he's a fascinating guy. Yeah, there's definitely comedy in 'TMS', but it doesn't run the show like it mostly did in 'Ugly Man'. I hope you like it, obviously. Sometimes certain old Leonard Cohen albums work for me when I'm depressed, i.e. presenting a bottomed out place whereby I can right myself by comparison, and he's still alive, and that helps too. Take care. ** ASH, Hey, man! Really nice to see you! Thanks about my stuff. How can I read yours? Possible somehow? I'd love to. Nice latest blog entry by you. I need to get that new PJ Harvey. I still haven't for no good reason. No England readings planned at the moment. I'm going to London in early June for an art show thing that I'll be saying more about here soon and maybe also if the ICA presents one of the theater pieces, which is in 'talks'. How's stuff with you? ** David Ehrenstein, There are still Hard Rock Cafes in the States, for better or worse. At least two in LA, last I checked. Planet Hollywood is the one that went defunct, although there's still one of them over here on the Champs Elysee catering to the foreigners who really should know better. Yaki Soba sounds quite tasty. I'm going to see if I can find it or do something with the ingredients or something. Hope you had fun with your text-based doppleganger! ** Colin, Hey, man! ** Sypha, Hi, James. It's sad when wispy twinks try to escape their hallowed destiny. Twink porn stars often try to butch up in their mid-20s hoping to extend their careers, but it only works one of out of maybe a dozen times. 'The Celestine Prophecy', wow. I haven't heard that title mentioned in ... decades? One decade at least. How was/it that? ** Bernard Welt, Thankfully for me, Alan was an interrogator of the golden age type, Walter Cronkite without the ... Cronkite? Oh, goodness, I'm sorry to hear that about the lunch. I suppose it would rude to propose instead a picnic along the banks of a hot tub? ** Bollo, As much as I like the idea of an evil museum wing, I hope you're right too. Business cards ... well, aren't you fancy. I personally much prefer it when people hand me their business cards than promise to text me their info. That's what those little pockets in wallets are for, right? Hope the paintings finished up at your command. ** Andrew, Yes, I did. Weird. She must have paid for her utilities awfully far in advance. She must have had very disinterested friends. I mean, that's the weirdest part for me. I hope some wing of the media sticks around that story long enough to solve its niggling mysteries. ** L@rstonovich, No, they don't, in a word. Or, rather, I'll find out, but, to take a guess, no they don't. East coast trip, nice. Where and for how long? What's on your Eastern to-do list? ** Math, Hello! ** Schoolboyerrors, It's not only priceless, it's absolutely true, which is why it's priceless, ultimately. You can't put a price on truth. You're doing pretty damned good for a blocked guy. I've read comments by blocked people that would make your hair stand on end. You're doing good, man. I'm cool with tattoos, I just don't want to get any. Well, I wasn't so cool with all that modern primitive tattooing back in the mp/radical fairy fad days. I mean I was cool with it, but I thought it was kind of, I don't know, lame? Or something. Yours sounds top drawer, btw. Albers, abstract structures meets the organic, etc. I'm all for and into that. A photo once it's implanted please? ** Steevee, Nice going on the pounds, man. The only thing by Melanie Gillian that I've seen is this multi-part series also called 'Crisis in the Credit System'. Based on the short maybe? It was pretty interesting. I couldn't get a feel what exactly what she does in general from it, but it was smart and stylish and intriguing. Curious to hear how that piece is, if you go. Some interesting things in the MIgrating Forms Festival this year. Wish I was there for it. ** Pisycaca, Aw, thanks, pal. Earliest I could get my new laptop is Friday, so ... we'll see. Love from me. ** Alan, Hey, man. Thanks, you know, a lot again, you know. No, the break-ins surely helped. It's just that in computer years, mine was already pushing it a year ago. ** The Dreadful Flying Glove, 'Immortals' is an interesting test. How many weird, interesting artists have said, oh, if I was rich and successful, I could even more and better weird, interesting things, then, upon finding said success, quickly blanded out? Well, I don't have that number at my fingertips, but there must be a lot. Guitar, good, that's no lose choice. Be like Fahey. The world needs a new Fahey. We've had a million new Dylans but no new Faheys or any that spring to mind this morning. ** Polter, Hey! It's always so nice to see you! Exams definitely wouldn't help spring be what spring is supposed to be, which is ... what .. a time of flowering and rebirth, I guess, historically or mythologically. That's true and beautifully said about dreaming what you see more realizing it's there. Wow, that was nice. I think maybe you're thinking more clearly than you think you are? Living on the stars with living stuffed animals would be a really nice death. It's guess it's remotely possible? Very, very remotely possible? I hope so. I had pets as a kid, and they all dried tragically, so maybe not having had them has a positive side? I'd love to see you whether you cut the strings or not. But of course you will. Cut mine while you're at it. Love from me. ** _Black_Acrylic, Well, unfortunately the real PR interview is a whole bunch of me meandering on about substructures and stuff. The storm after the calm. ** Alfonso, Hey. That's probably just a problem of the brevity of your encounter with him. I suspect he was just talking about himself, and you were, due to the surprise and quickness, functioning as a trigger of his own past, and that if you guys had talked longer, the real stuff he thinks about you would have come spilling out. I'm with you about thinking the past was meant to be that way and fuck wishing you could revise it. Yeah, Calhoun was based on a real person too. He and I are still good friends and have never stopped being so against the odds, which is great. It really does sound like the right direction is where you're going. I'm looking forward to following your progress. Oh, yes, Ricci Forte. I know about 'Macadamia Nut Brittle', and I've been in touch with them a little via Facebook, but I didn't get the chance to see that piece. I can't remember if it played in Paris or not. I'm very curious about it, naturally, and they seem very cool. Great that you're doing a workshop with them. If you want, let them know that you and I are pals and say hello to them for me. ** Christopher/ Mark, Hi, Mark! Yeah, I think Hard Rock Cafe still has a firm grip on certain parts of America. You can't even get iced tea at Starbucks here. It's bizarre. Really, the only places in Paris where you can get iced tea that's not some horribly artificially flavored and bottled item is at Hard Rock Cafe and this tiny little restaurant in the Marais called American Breakfast that specializes in, yes, American breakfasts. I hope you're doing great, man! ** Ken Baumann, If they made a movie about the life of Michael Bay, which I suppose they will some day, and if Leonardo DiCaprio played Bay, which is not inconceivable, I suppose, then there could be a really moving scene where 'Bay' writhes in agony and gesticulates at a cruel God while trying to figure out the tone problem in his work. I'll co-write the screenplay with you, if you're game. You're so lucky about the Herzog., Fucking France, man. Wtf?! ** Chris Cochrane, Good name for a drag queen too. ** Bill, It's weird when writers' books start to kind of bloat once they get successful. Clive Barker, De Lillo, Phillip Roth, and on and on. I don't think 'Dhalgren' counts as best seller, no. Not to me. Was it a best seller? If 'Dhalgren' was, it seems like it must have been one of those lucky break best sellers like 'Infinite Jest' or, uh ... I'm trying to think of another best seller that was also pretty great. And I can't. How was the Villaronga? ** Inthemostpeculiarway, That cockroach story was a true story. Man, you want to talk about being grossed out. I'm just counting the minutes until the combination of the Apple factory in China and the unlovely French postal service solves my Mac problem for me. For now, I'm still typing like I'm holding a little mirror under a possible dead body's nostrils. That was intense about your angry/ crying friend. I liked the paragraph that both was and wasn't a dialogue. It was quite formally interesting. Oh, gosh, about your friends' theatrically cutting roommate. I wouldn't know what the right thing to do was. Call their ... boyfriend/ girlfriend, best friend, mom, ... ? I don't know. Or maybe, yeah, the tough love approach like she's doing is right? I'm glad I'm not her much less the cutter. Based on how you wrote it, it doesn't seem sexist necessarily to me. It's quite odd and telling about something or other about him though. Your song of the day was moody and nice. I guess I have a song of the day because it was playing on the sound system of the supermarket, and then it got stuck in my head only because was a big hit here a few years and has a catchy thing going on in it, and this is it. My day yesterday was actually pretty busy. Uh, first this guy Isaac from Love Magazine came over to interview me. He was really cool, and it was actually fun and interesting to talk to/with him. He even said he would put together a guest-post for the blog about ... well, you'll see. Then it was time for the photo session, so he and I cabbed it over the 13th arr., which is this part of Paris where you never go unless you live there unless I'm missing something, because Love Magazine was using a studio there to shoot the portraits of the Paris-based interviewees: me, Christophe Lemaitre, and Charlotte Rampling, not in that order obviously. So, anyway, the photographer and all the magazine people there were very nice, and they managed, thanks to an undercoating of organic white cotton, to dress me up and style me to a point where they were okay with me and I wasn't suffering apart from a slight numbness that I get when the allergy thing is set off in a mild way. I was in a high collar Dolce & Gabanna shirt, a Kooples jacket, a bowtie by some fashionable bowtie designer whose name I didn't catch, and with an Alexander McQueen overcoat draped over my shoulders. I turned down the hats and gloves they wanted me to wear. They let me be myself from the waist down because they were doing a roughly head and shoulders portrait. Then they shot me moving my head and eyes around slightly at their commend for about forty five minutes. They asked me if I wanted to see the photos, and I said no, but I did see one of them in the corner of my eye as I was leaving, and I thought I looked like an eighty year-old vampire, so I don't want think about the portrait anymore until it's published and I have to. Then Isaac metroed back here with me, and he went off to take a nap before, I think, interviewing Charlotte Rampling. So, it was okay, and hanging out with Isaac was cool. Then I ate food quickly, met up with Kiddiepunk, Oscar, and Yury, and we went to see Hunter Hunt-Hendrix perform at the gallery where the show of Gisele's photos is currently on display. H-HH might be familiar because I posted something by him in the last Varioso, and he heads up the band Liturgy. So, he performed -- chanting which he looped and looped into this dense drone then played complicated drone guitar over which he looped and looped and then chanted again and looped that until he was finished. I really liked it. Afterwards, I talked to him for a while, and he was cool, and he was already interested in the theater pieces by Gisele and Stephen and me, and we made plans for all of us to meet up when Liturgy comes back to Paris on tour in the fall. Then I came home, did some internet stuff, watched an episode of 'Twin Peaks' dubbed into French on Arte, and crashed. That was my day. How was yours? ** Misanthrope, Is that true about big heads? Interesting. But ... what about the Elephant Man? Wait, I guess he was successful in a kind of horrible (for him) way. Let them eat sheet cake! ** Okay, your gig this time centers around an ultra-great album by the younger and ultra-great Butthole Surfers, so everyone wins today, and congratulations! See you tomorrow.
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