BUTTHOLE SURFERS: HAIRWAY TO STEVEN (1988)
1) Jimi; 2) Ricky; 3) I Saw An
X-Ray Of A Girl Passing Gas; 4) John E. Smoke; 5) Rocky; 6) Julio Iglesias; 7)
Backass; 8) Fast.
A lot of people swear by this as the last great
Butthole Surfers album, but... I'm not all that sure. I'm not even sure about
the title, which is a kinky spoonerism worthy of a Mark Prindle review, but on
the whole, seems just «silly» rather than «absurd» — and not even all that
offensive, either, if you want to make a key point on the Butthole Surfers'
importance as the ultimate Sacred Cow Irritant to be unleashed on a stuck-up
world.
But outside of the title, the record seems like
an attempt at relatively tame, even normal
— for the Surfers, that is — psychedelic rock, with a heavy nod to their
predecessors. It may well be so that, like many sensible people do, Gibby and
Paul got tired of merely fooling around and decided to finally «make progress»,
«mature», or something like that (this rational assumption is almost destroyed to smithereens if you
take the lyrics of ʽJulio Iglesiasʼ into consideration, but this screaming
exception just proves the general rule). And this is not such a perfect idea,
because the "songwriting" here is essentially centered around lengthy
and/or repetitive grooves — almost jam-like grooves, and as much as I
respect Paul Leary as a guitarist, jamming is not what this band is truly
about. Although, in a pinch, some Butthole Surfers jamming may be good (and,
shh, don't tell anyone, but it is definitely more fun than the Grateful Dead anyway).
Unlike Hairway
To Steven, ʽJimiʼ is a good title — this opening 12-minute epic is clearly
dedicated to Hendrix, which is reflected both in Leary's guitar style and in
the band's heavy playing around with speeding up and slowing down their vocals;
together with all the astral noises and guitar meltdowns, this is highly
reminiscent of the opening «alien sketch» on Axis: Bold As Love. But ʽEXPʼ was over in a couple minutes, whereas
this one goes on long after it has revealed all its potential, and even if you
built up a case that Paul Leary is a much better Hendrix interpreter than
Stevie Ray Vaughan (totally possible, if you value the «psycho» aspects of
Jimi's playing more than his «blues» aspects), this is cool, but not
jaw-droppingly amazing/original guitar playing by the standards of 1988. The
unexpected transition into acoustic folk-rock jamming with chirping birds and
crying babies all around during the last five minutes is kinda cool, but also
most definitely overlong. Take five minutes off the first part and three off
the second, and you have something nice and adequate going there.
Once we get to the shorter songs, we experience
the problem of what it is when the Surfers sound «normal». Found face to face
with a psycho-folk backing (e. g. on ʽRickyʼ and ʽRockyʼ), Gibby Haines begins
sounding suspiciously close to Marty Balin, whereas Leary, when he is not
paying tribute to Hendrix, seems to be surreptitiously tearing pages out of the
Syd Barrett riffbook (ʽRickyʼ, I believe, uses some chord progressions from
ʽInterstellar Overdriveʼ at least). That wouldn't be too bad if they used these
influences to good effect — but much too often, it just sounds like humble
tributes to their betters. I mean, it's probably good that the songs sound so
timeless; remembering the sound fashions of 1988, it is nice not to see them
reflected here in any way. But timelessness also comes at a price, and the
price here is that this brand of groove-based, relatively humor-free
psychedelia just does not seem to make a lot of self-autonomous sense.
The problem is, you either have great melodies
or you have impressive atmosphere (if you're really lucky, you can have both),
but these melodies aren't too great
(at best, they're passable variations on stuff we already know), and the
atmosphere is confusing. ʽI Saw An X-Ray Of A Girl Passing Gasʼ — is this
supposed to be a parody, or is this the Butthole Surfers' twisted way of a
lyrical and musical interpretation of what seems to be a routine visit to a
local clinic? It's too twisted for
the former, but too crude and offensive to be taken seriously. And if you pay
no attention to the lyrics (or even the vocals), it is just another syncopated
rocker with a predictable acoustic rhythm pattern — although when Leary gets to
the solo, he has a nice way of taking it high up into the stratosphere, I'll
admit. But then, if we're heading into the stratosphere, we are no longer in
the local clinic, so count me confused.
And, naturally, with tunes like ʽJulio
Iglesiasʼ, where Gibby lambasts poor Julio ("Julio he had a mole / Went to
the doctor with a fiery pole / Saw the nurse what did he see / Loved to watch
his sister pee") to a frantic neo-rockabilly beat; or with tunes like
ʽJohn E. Smokeʼ, a lengthy pseudo-live send-up of the country-western tell-tale
subgenre, it is hard to take the
album seriously. In the end, it's just a little frustrating: the record tries
to be everything at once, and in doing so, fails rather than succeeds as a
whole. Individually, there's plenty of good moments to be had — and the short
coda ʽFastʼ, featuring the band packing a tight punch and Leary excelling both
on rhythm and heavily processed lead guitar, might be one of their best songs
ever. But as a cohesive (or even as an intentionally dis-cohesive) LP, Hairway To Steven is a first misstep
that would ultimately lead to the band's losing it altogether.
Guess it's time to tighten up the old comment settings.....
ReplyDeleteanyhow, I do enjoy the immediate predecessor and the next 2 more than this meandering disc.
I agree. I even like Weird Revolution more.
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