BUTTHOLE SURFERS: REMBRANDT PUSSYHORSE (1986)
1) Creep In The Cellar; 2) Sea
Ferring; 3) American Woman; 4) Waiting For Jimmy To Kick; 5) Strangers Die
Everyday; 6) Perry; 7) Whirling Hall Of Knives; 8) Mark Says Alright; 9) In
The Cellar; 10) Moving To Florida*; 11) Comb*; 12) To Parter*; 13) Tornadoes*.
On here, the Surfers are attempting to get a
little more serious, though you certainly would not know it from the album
title — which not even the real Rembrandt would have appreciated, I think, no
matter how iconoclastic a picture is being painted of him in various urban
legends. But then I guess, if you put the word «Rembrandt» in your album title,
there's no getting away from at least trying
to do something important. Even if it is followed by the word «pussyhorse».
Okay, not that important, perhaps.
Most of these tracks rise high above basic
street hooliganry, though not always above the level of parody — some sound
like an absurdist take on Joy Division (ʽWhirling Hall Of Knivesʼ) or Nick Cave
(ʽSea Ferringʼ), and some are noisy, irreverent deconstructions of classics
(the Guess Who's ʽAmerican Womanʼ). The true name of the game, though, is
«experimentalism», and the band tries on everything that works and some things
that don't, with spontaneity and unpredictability as their chief guides.
One of the legends states, for instance, that
they were recording ʽCreep In The Cellarʼ on a used 16-track tape without
having previously erased a country-western fiddle track from one of the
channels — which played something completely different, but they liked it and
left it in, so here we have ourselves some dark piano pop with a merry fiddle
«underdub» playing something almost straight out of the Beatles' ʽDon't Pass Me
Byʼ. Does it work? Maybe it does and maybe it doesn't. More important is the
fact that such was Fate's decree, and if you call yourselves The Butthole
Surfers, you just don't muck around with Fate.
Everything here is weird, largely because the
Surfers have finally gotten used to the possibilities of the recording studio,
and are using the whole power of effects, overdubs, loops, and samples to their
benefit, if that might indeed be the right word for it. Some basic knowledge of
American pop culture, as usual, wouldn't hurt to appreciate the record deep
enough, but is hardly necessary: perhaps knowing that ʽMark Says Alrightʼ
utilizes the growl of a pitbull named Mark Farner, in «honor» of the leader of
Grand Funk Railroad (a band that could hardly be further away from the Butthole
Surfers' ideal than any other — but then, at least secretly, deep down inside
everybody really loves GFR), makes the track a little more hilarious — but its
real charm lies in how it combines elements of musical suspense with musical
clowning, starting off with surf guitar trills and then melting them into a sea
of chiming noises and wobbly interlocking soundwaves. What's Mark Farner got to
do with that, anyway?
But essentially, this is a record about
madness, not as heavy and frightening as, say, The Birthday Party, yet every
bit as deranged — already ʽCreep In The Cellarʼ begins with the line
"there's a hole in his brain where his mind should have been", an appropriate
tag for everything that goes on here. If there is a problem, it lies in the
fact that almost as many albums had been recorded about madness by 1986 as
there had been about breakups, and the Surfers aren't giving us any previously
uncovered angle, although it helps that they are not being too serious about it: for instance, a surreptitious slice of social
criticism is heavily disguised in ʽPerryʼ, an adaptation of the Perry Mason theme for organ,
schizophrenic guitar, and distorted, barely identifiable vocals. A zombie
mutant Vegas anthem, words, music, and meaning all corroded.
I would not go as far as to fall in love with
the record, though. Like many experimental «try anything for kicks» records,
this one has some brilliant musical ideas (like the flanger effect on ʽWhirling
Hall Of Knivesʼ, drilling a nice see-through hole in your skull in four and a
half minutes), some odd stuff that overstays its welcome (did the
electro-tribal drumming on ʽAmerican Womanʼ really have to occupy five and a
half minutes of space?), and some completely pointless tracks — for instance,
the "church organ" + "bubbles" + "distant vocal
noise" combination of ʽStrangers Die Everydayʼ simply does nothing other
than undermining the solemnity of the church organ with the silliness of the
bubbles. So what was that all about again?..
The CD issue of the album increases its length
drastically by throwing on the EP Cream
Corn From The Socket Of Davis (from the previous year) as a bonus, adding three
more tracks in the same (lack of) style and one, ʽMoving To Floridaʼ that would
have been a better fit for Psychic...,
what with its vocal lambasting of the redneck stereotype. However, I am not certain
that forty nine minutes is a good span for an album like this — what with the
songs tending to drag so much and the sonic weirdness of it all not always
coinciding with sonic amazement, so to speak. Of course, in the overall context
of 1986 («the worst year for music», as I like to call it, although mostly in
reference to the major label commercial stuff), Pussyhorse is a marvel of human ingenuity. But in the overall
context of human ingenuity as such, I would refrain from a thumbs up judgement:
there is not much here that I openly enjoy, be it with a giggle or with a
shiver, and too many tracks that are too boring to respect.
"at least secretly, deep down inside everybody really loves GFR"
ReplyDeleteUh huh, now it comes out. Hater.
"in the overall context of 1986 («the worst year for music», as I like to call it, although mostly in reference to the major label commercial stuff)"
Uh huh. And this came out that year and STILL was better than 98.4% of the new stuff: http://www.discogs.com/Various-Electric-Seventies/release/3234685#images/5981130