Butthole Surfers

Butthole Surfers

Weird Revolution (Hollywood/Surfdog)

It goes without saying that Weird Revolution is neither as weird nor as revolutionary as any of the Butthole Surfers' pre-1990 efforts, notably 1987's groundbreaking Locust Abortion Technician. There's no topping the Pistols/Beefheart sound effects library blast of a "Lady Sniff" or the general "found sound" Drain brammage of a "Kuntz" (though Revolution's "Yentel" resembles a sort of a New Age attempt at following up the latter). Still, it's not surprising that the Butts' long-in-coming debut for the Hollywood label is, with the early success of the "Pepper-y" first single "Shame of Life," aiming to make some Capitol executives choose hara-kiri as their means of departure after tossing the band following the commercial breakthrough of 1996's Electriclarryland. The Butthole model for the 21st century is one of slick trip/hip-hop, subverted, converted, and perverted so that its message is now one of nonconformity, high weirdness, and low humor. In one way, dance music suits the band better than the squinchy experimental noisiness of yesteryear; after all, how tough was it to decipher the twisted lyrics of "Cherub" and "Lady Sniff" back in the day? Now you can actually hear what Gibby Haynes is saying, and sometimes you can even understand. God help you, though, if you can identify with "Wider than a double-wide, his wife was pretty mean. His kids beat up his mother, and his dog drank gasoline"; or "There were girls petting squirrels and there were squirrels smoking crack." The Revolution isn't all pseudo-"Pepper" rehashes, however. There's Ministry-type noise as represented by "Shit Like That" and even a sort of Barenaked Ladies-sing-"Sweet Jane" popfest with the unlikely title of "Dracula From Houston." Albums like Locust are the true revolution, but sadly they preach only to the converted; such revolutions receive little or no airplay, and are certainly not televised. By subverting currently popular musical forms using the equation "shake the booty and the mind will follow," this Revolution makes it clear that the Buttholes don't intend on making that mistake again.