Butthole Surfers: Pioughed (p-oed)

Back in the days of the iconic "Parental Advisery: Explicit Lyrics" stickers, I often saw those stickers as an indication of something worth buying. Perhaps it was no coincidence that listened to and loved Butthole Surfers, because their albums are always full of strangeness, that sometimes clears away to give glimpses of coherent and quite skilled song writing, only to offer lyrics that can play with the mind much like the chaos of their experimental tracks. I like them because unlike some bands who have strange album art, or a strange image, there is absolutely nothing normal about this band. If you were to look at their album covers, and were on the fence thinking, “Now this looks like some crazy shit, but am I going to open it up, and just hear rock songs that I’ve heard a thousand times by a thousand other bands,” you would be safe buying it, As long as you bought anything released in 1991 or before. I cannot speak for their later works, because they are nothing without the context of their earlier works, and I don't listen to them much with the exception of "Independent Worm Saloon." I remember thinking that same thought when I bought Pioughed, but bit the bullet anyways having faith in one of my favorite bands.

The first audible words of the album are, “Something very odd,” and the last two words echo a few times before the music continues in to a loud, yet structured two minutes of music that make up the first track. Few words have ever foreshadowed an album so much as those words foreshadowed what is to come for listeners of Pioughed. But really, if the listener had read, and tried to pronounce the title of this album, or seen the cover art of it, they would have expected nothing but strangeness and oddity out of the album.

“Revolution Pt. 1” transitions almost unnoticeably in to “Revolution Pt. 2” which is one of the, for lack of a better term, actual songs on the album. For many years, “Revolution Pt. 2” was my favorite song on the album, and one of my favorite songs by any band, and I often listened to it first thing in the morning. While it is a song, with a structure, it has several sound effects, and much reppition including the catchy and maniacal chants of, “Gary Shandling.” It ends with a lot of samples such as a telephone ring, and a siren with semi-clestial keyboards, and a steady, and rocking drum beat. It appears to be going to a fade out, but doesn’t.
The next song is “Lonesome Bulldog,” which is embarrassing to listen to from the start just because it sounds absolutely stupid, but I found myself wanting to listen to it, and wanting to see where it went, and found that the lyrics gave a heavy dose of Butthole Surfers’ signature un-Politically Correct lyrics that have something vaguely to do with Ghandi, and his “strangely turbo charged penis head.” The song ends with a barking puppy dog.

The next track is “Lonesome Bulldog II,” and after hearing the first part, I guess that most people would either skip the second part, or just want to turn the album off. However, if they were to listen to it, they would realize that it was an instrumental reprise that lasts under a minute. I also want to point out that while the “Revolution” songs are numbered with Arabic numerals, the “Lonesome Bulldog” songs are numbered with Roman numerals for no apparent reason.

The next song is a cover of Donovan’s “The Hurdy Gurdy Man.” While the song is played well, and without much noise, and not very loud, the singing style, or effect on the singing makes the words unintelligible unless you happen to know the lyrics from listening to the original, which I don’t, and don’t really care or care not to. The song ends with a pretty sweet guitar part.

Next is a song called “Golden Showers,” which, to me really sounds like a typical Butthole Surfers song, if there were such a thing. It features some guitar, some sax, it moves, doesn’t exactly rock, doesn’t exactly not, and leads well into the next song which is “Lonesome Bulldog II,” which is another short reprise that leads into another ‘typical’ Butthole Surfers song, “Blindman.”

Unless, like me, you follow the tracks of the album closely, you may not notice when “Blindman” stops and , “No, I’m Ironman” begins. “No, I’m Iron man” is a short track, and a joke, but also scary chaos, and if you were to be on psychedelic drugs, the entire track would probably ensue strong laughter, that might actually hurt, and turn in to paranoia just about the time the next track starts.

“Something,” the next song is pop with some noise in the background and is completely listenable, and seems almost normal until you start to understand what the singer is saying. The song starts like a love song, and sounds like a love song, but ends with the words, “When I kick her in the teeth, she goes out the door, I just know she’ll be back for more, uh huh huh,” then ends on a psychedelic note with some muffled wailing.

The wailing leads to the next song which lasts over twelve minutes, and is called, “P.S.Y.” officially, but I have also heard it reffered to as “Psychedelic Jam.” It really delivers, and has some of my favorite lyrics starting at about six and a half minutes. “Nikki was in the K.K.K., and Lisa was a Nazi, too. They both had half a brain, so together they were sane…” The singing of all these lyrics is also excellent, gritty, vintage Gibby Haynes.(sp?)

After that excellent track, the song goes in to one last “Lonesome Bulldog” reprise, before going to the last track which is a semi-self explanatory noise track called “Barking Dogs.”

It’s a nice, ambiguous end to a great album, that will give you plenty of, “What the fuck am I listening to?” “Should I be listening to this?” “Is it o.k. to be listening to this?” “Is it o.k. to be liking this?” And, “What the Fuck did I just listen to?” moments.

While many fans may see this album as signaling the begging of the end of the artistic phase of Butthole Surfers, I have to say that all history, major vs. minor label talk, and cool-to-like factors aside, this is a well arranged album that is strange and has a few nice surprises.

***

Song list:
Revolution Pt. 1
Revolution Pt. 2
Lonesome Bulldog
Lonesome Bulldog II
The Hurdy Gurdy Man
Golden Showers
Lonesome Bulldog III
Blindman
No, I’m Ironman
Something
P.S.Y.
Lonesome Bulldog IV
Barking Dogs

"Welcome to my party" (Nishino, Kana)

Ever since I was a child, music has been a major influence on my life. In my youngest years, I enjoyed Tim Noah, Ray Parker Jr., and many songs on the radio. My first band was a band that I made in the first grade called The Frankenfarters. The one song of ours that I can remember was called, "I Farted on the Gapevine" which was a cover of one of my favorite acts, the California Raisins*. The lyrics were fairly obvious, "I farted, I farted, I farted on the grapevine, just about to loose my mind," and, "I know a man aint supposed to cry, but you farted right in my eyes."

Though I have learned to like them now, my parents took me to several concerts that I did not appreciate at a young age such as multiple trips to see John Denver at the Pyuallup fair, and Paul Simon at the Tacoma Dome. I also have decent memory of seeing Gladys Knight and the Pips at Bumbershoot, back in the days before Bumbershoot cost fists full of over inflated dollars.

In fact it wasn't until I was about 12 years old that I really went to a concert of my choosing, and that concert was a double bill of Stone Temple Pilots, and Butthole Surfers. Though I was more interested in STP at the time, Butthole Surfers has withstood the test of time, and I still listen to their recordings fairly often. Therefore, they will be the first album I review. The post should be up in the next few days. We'll see where it goes!

Thanks for reading,
D