Almost always performing in full nudity, setting guitars on fire and bringing weapons onstage was all in a day’s work for the Butthole Surfers, the legendary Texas band formed in the early 1980s after two accounting students, Gibby Haynes and Paul Leary, crossed paths. Their psychedelic rock, steeped in radicalism, chaos and unpredictability, left a lasting mark on a generation of musicians, from Nirvana to The Flaming Lips, as well as the early era of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
It took until 1996 for Gibby Haynes and Paul Leary’s band to achieve their first major hit: Pepper, from the album Electriclarryland. For many, this was the gateway into the band’s universe. But anyone who arrived here, arrived late. Before that, there had already been Psychic… Powerless… Another Man’s Sac, Rembrandt Pussyhorse, Locust Abortion Technician, and Hairway to Steven. And lingering at the doorstep is not advised. You have to step inside without fear, explore the dark basements and attics of this burning house that is the Butthole Surfers, a cult band, an underground legend, masters of the absurd and of chaos.
Tom Stern fully understands the mission of making a film about the band. This could never have been a conventional film —and fortunately, it isn’t. From the parody of the ever-changing number of bassists and drummers who passed through the group, to the eventual stabilization with Teresa Nervosa and King Coffey, and the infamous 1986 show at the legendary Danceteria club in New York, we are taken on a journey through the iconography of North American alternative music and culture of the 1980s and 1990s. Along the way, there is room for the lucidity of Steve Albini, the final days of Kurt Cobain, the early films of Richard Linklater, and the supergroup P., with Flea and John Frusciante, performing at the legendary Viper Room, Johnny Depp’s club, where River Phoenix died.
This is one of the most brilliant and funny North American bands in the history of music, a band that was once called The Inalienable Right to Eat Fred Astaire’s Asshole. (Carlos Ramos)
