It was one of the first spring days of 1985 and we were bored. Having spent the better part of the day drinking iced coffee by the gallon at the Village Café, the small group of us debated how the rest of the afternoon should be spent when Dave Hubner came up with a grand caffeine fueled idea: Let’s have a noise rally. Having nothing better to do, we all quickly agreed that Dave’s suggestion would be a glorious way to kill the afternoon. “Tell everyone we know to meet in Tampon Park at 4,” Dave said with a maniac enthusiasm that made him a beloved figure in our loose circle of aspiring artists, musicians and deviants, “I’ll call the TV stations to get them to put us on the news.” Within 30 minutes Dave had printed up handbills for our just-thought-up event and we all were handing them out to anyone who would take one. Suddenly, the afternoon had a purpose.
 
4 o’clock rolls around and, sure enough, there’s a camera from every station in the city filming the 40 or so of us making an unholy racket for no apparent reason other than to make the afternoon more interesting. We were all screaming non-sequiturs as the cameras rolled over the cacophony of banged telephone polls, park benches and various drums; pots & pans and other noisemakers people had brought to our little noise fest. The whole thing lasted about 20 minutes before our inspiration ran out, but, and I think I can speak for everyone who was there, all the nonsensical merriment did us all a world of good. Later that night as we watched Channel 12 news to see our beautiful mugs on TV, my two seconds of fame consisted of me repeatedly hitting the Grove and Harrison traffic light poll yelling, “the new Butthole Surfers record is out!” at the top of my lungs.
 
It’s hard to explain the impact the Butthole Surfers had on us to those who didn’t experience them first hand. They were light years ahead of everyone at the time in terms of vision, dedication and musical ability and the record I was screaming about, the 1985 release of their Touch & Go classic, “Psychic…Powerless…Another Man’s Sac”, became my personal musical manifesto of everything I strived to be as a maker of sounds: daring, committed, twisted and, most important, undeniably awesome. For a short period of time, the Butthole Surfers were simply the greatest band on earth.

To this day, I have never seen a more profoundly disturbing, yet thoroughly liberating, band than the Butthole Surfers. They played in Richmond often in those days. I remember a particularly frail hippie guy I knew who, against my pointed advice, took a heroic dose of acid and went and saw them play at Rockitz (now the Empire on the corner of Broad and Laurel). He was never the same after that. To be fair, he wasn’t the brightest of bulbs before seeing that show (he was a hippie after all), but after witnessing the group’s sinister tribal pyschedelia, genital mutilation films and erotic nude dancing, he was playing with even fewer cards short of a full deck. It was sad. Not sad because I think seeing them caused him irrevocable harm; it was sad he didn’t realize that he had just witnessed true greatness.

The band’s classic line-up is back together again after brushes with mainstream success, drug problems and the loss of artistic vision to reclaim their title as the most perverted route to nirvana. From all accounts of their recent tour, they are in stellar form, mind fucking one packed club after another with their unique brand of sonic release.

You may not be able to go home again, but it’s nice to know that the good things in life never go out of style. Long live the Butthole Surfers.

WEB | http://www.buttholesurfers.com