In honor of today's Lollapalooza announcement, check out this backstage photo of the original tour lineup in 1991—Jane's Addiction, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Living Colour, Nine Inch Nails, Ice-T with Body Count, Butthole Surfers and the Rollins Band, all together. I had blast speaking with some of these musicians about Body Count, and loved reading the upcoming Lollapalooza oral history book compiled by Richard Bienstock and Tom Beaujour. Let me know if you read it!
Mission of Burma, "That's When I Reach for My Revolver"
Mission of Burma, "Academy Fight Song"
Minor Threat, "Straight Edge"
Minor Threat, "Minor Threat"
Hüsker Dü, "Don't Want to Know if You are Lonely"
The Replacements, "Can't Hardly Wait" (Tim Version)
Sonic Youth, "Teen Age Riot"
Sonic Youth, "100%"
Sonic Youth, "Kool Thing"
Butthole Surfers, "Human Cannonball"
Big Black, "Kerosene"
Dinosaur Jr., "Freak Scene"
Dinosaur Jr., "Start Choppin'"
Dinosaur Jr., "Feel the Pain"
Fugazi, "Merchandise"
Fugazi, "Repeater"
Mudhoney, "Touch Me I'm Sick"
Mudhoney, "You Got it (Keep it out of My Face)"
Beat Happening, "Indian Summer"
Jenny, who reads more than nearly anyone I know and loves punk rock enough for me to wish I knew her in high school, has never read Michael Azerrad's terrific account of punk and indie in the 1980s. Now that she has a birthday coming up (and is coincidentally visiting New York City this week,) I'm getting her a copy, plus a corresponding mix tape.
Rather than make a generic Best of Our Band Could Be Your Life, I tried to sculpt something more Jenny-centric. She probably already has Zen Arcade and You're Living All Over Me, but maybe not Candy Apple Grey or Bug. I hate to boil the entire Butthole Surfers' discography down to one song, but I'm guessing she'd enjoy "Human Cannonball" more than "Sweat Loaf." For some bands, like Sonic Youth, I'm providing the standard intro tracks, but for the Replacements, whom Jenny loves as much as I do, I had to dig deep and find a rarity. I like how "Can't Hardly Wait" sounds without a horn section.
Happy birthday, Jenny. Maybe the next mix will have "The Shah Sleeps in Lee Harvey's Grave."
Edgar Wright's excellent new film The World's End, like all of Wright's movies, has a terrific soundtrack. I'm guessing that his latest will inspire a lot of viewers to check out Sisters of Mercy and/or Primal Scream, the latter of whom's "Loaded" is regularly quoted by a few of the film's characters. Yet on my way out of the theater, it was Mudhoney's "In 'n' Out of Grace" that was on my mind.
Over a year before "Loaded," a little-known Seattle band used the same "We wanna be free" sample (from Roger Corman's The Wild Angels) on their EP Superfuzz Bigmuff. "Grunge" and "Sub Pop" were not household names yet, and Mudhoney never really would be, but that EP holds up with the best rock music from that era. It doesn't need context, but if we're going to provide it, one could hear Superfuzz Bigmuff as Ten and Nevermind's cooler, noisier older brother.
Superfuzz Bigmuff is chock full of classics, especially on 1990's Superfuzz Bigmuff (Plus Early Singles) reissue. But "In 'n' Out of Grace" gets extra points for its hilariously antitheistic lyrics, and for blowing down the conventions of punk song structure--a drum solo, why not? Songs like "In 'n' Out of Grace" weren't going to get Mudhoney on the radio, even if Nirvana fever temporarily won them (along with the Melvins, the Butthole Surfers, the Meat Puppets and more) a major label deal. But 25 years later, they're still here for those of us who want something a little nastier.
If not for the Butthole Surfers, I may never have started writing about music. Like many middle schoolers in the '90s, the Surfers lured me in with "Pepper," arguably the decade's most left-field hit that isn't about whiskey drinks and vodka drinks. But unlike most middle schoolers, I liked "Pepper" enough to pick up Psychic... Powerless... Another Man's Sac, which promptly knocked my brain out the side of my head. Nothing I had ever listened to before sounded the same.
Psychic... Powerless certainly wasn't Third Eye Blind. Once I regained composure, I started checking out more bands on Touch and Go and Alternative Tentacles and never looked back.
Mason, one of my favorite concert buddies, also enjoys "Pepper" and recently told me that he wished he knew more about the most infamously-monikered band in history. I didn't know whether to start him off with the catchier but less challenging Electriclarryland, or something as outright unhinged as Locust Abortion Technician. So I made a mix.
Butthole Surfers
"The Shah Sleeps in Lee Harvey's Grave"
"Bar-B-Que Pope"
"Butthole Surfer"
"Lady Sniff"
"Gary Floyd"
"Creep in the Cellar"
"Moving to Florida"
"Sweat Loaf"
"Human Cannonball"
"I Saw an X-Ray of a Girl Passing Gas"
"The Hurdy Gurdy Man"
"Who Was in My Room Last Night?"
"Pepper"
13 tabs of Surfers history, narrowed down to some of their most memorable experiments. I still don't know what to make of these songs, which is partly why I keep listening to them, but hopefully Mason will offer some insight. Finally, I didn't come up with a creative title for this mix because I didn't know how to compete with Locust Abortion Technician, Independent Worm Saloon or Hairway to Steven. Those will be next for you, Mason.
Bill and Ted 3 buzz has some people wondering what Alex Winter has been up to since his Bogus Journey. If you were alive in 1993, maybe you remember that he starred in and directed Freaked, the best ever movie about talking, walking, machine gun-toting Rastafarian eyeballs. But thanks to YouTube, Winter's most enduring directorial work would be Bar-B-Que Movie, a 1988 short about a family vacation starring the Butthole Surfers.
That's future Oscar nominee John Hawkes (Deadwood, Eastbound & Down, Winter's Bone) as the dad.
Even over ten minutes, Bar-B-Que Movie wears thin, although film buffs should note that its "found footage" style predates Man Bites Dog, The Blair Witch Project, REC and Paranormal Activity. Still, it has some funny lines, and of course it's worth watching for the Surfers' performance. Something was not right with those guys.
Here's a playlist that I came up with while making my next mix CD. If you can correctly guess the theme, I'll send you a copy.
1. Led Zeppelin, "Trampled Under Foot"
Even with a clavinet in the mix, Led Zeppelin could do no wrong on Physical Graffiti. Lyrically inspired by Robert Johnson's "Terraplane Blues," this would later become the basis for Mastodon's "Trampled Under Hoof."
2. Rush, "Red Barchetta"
Carenheit 451.
3. Megadeth, "Mechanix"
If classic rock is your bag, imagine that Keith Richards and John Lennon wrote a song together in 1961. Us headbangers have "Mechanix," a Dave Mustaine/James Hetfield composition that predates Killing is My Business and Kill 'Em All. Metallica rewrote it as "The Four Horsemen," and Mustaine is still bitter enough to introduce his version this way.
4. White Zombie, "Black Sunshine"
20 years removed from La Sexorcisto: Devil Music, Vol. 1, "Black Sunshine" sounds like MTV star Rob Zombie doing Punk Godfather Iggy Pop a solid. More so was Jim Osterberg lending his support to a fledgling suzz-metal band that couldn't get much more than a CBGB gig at the time.
5. Ministry, "Jesus Built My Hotrod"
Ministry roasts industrial metal on a spit under the nastiest scatting in recorded history, courtesy of the Butthole Surfers' Gibby Haynes. This should be played at NASCAR events.
6. Deftones, "Be Quiet and Drive (Far Away)"
Had the Deftones never played Ozzfest or the Family Values tour, "Be Quiet and Drive (Far Away)" could be on Pitchfork "Best of the '90s" lists. Instead, we'll have to wait for metalgaze to become a thing.
7. Metallica, "Fuel"
Please. Give that man his dabajabaza.
8. Rob Zombie, "Dragula"
One out of every six post-1998 action movies includes this song, and one out of every two needs it. Bonus points for the music video's Night at the Roxbury moment.
Weirdoid rock took a hit this week when Ween announced their breakup. My guess is that they'll reunite some day, but it will be at least a few years before Gene and Dean drive anyone crazy with that boogie oogie oogie oogie.
At best, such as on 1994's Chocolate and Cheese, Ween were the rarest kind of experimental band, the kind that gets stuck in your head. They parodied pop, rock, R&B and country as lovingly as Spinal Tap parodied metal, spewing out ingratiating melodies that made you want to dance even when the lyrics made you want to throw up. More cheerful than the Butthole Surfers, more singable than Mr. Bungle and more versatile than Primus, they leave a gaping hole in the alternative universe.
Ween's performances were even more unpredictable than their albums, but one treat was seeing them cover metal and hard rock standards. By not playing to a metal audience, they gave new life to classics by Motörhead, Van Halen, Nirvana and Black Sabbath.
"Ace of Spades"
"Hot for Teacher"
"Heart-Shaped Box"
"War Pigs"
There's a hint of silliness in all of these (except for "Heart-Shaped Box," which will always sound unsettling). I'm sure that the band that wrote "Spinal Meningitis (Got Me Down)" doesn't mind the thought of offending some humorless Sabbath fans. But I like the goofy tinges and the are-they-or-aren't-they-kidding debates that these covers raise. My take is that no one would go out of their way to learn "Hot for Teacher" just to make fun of it.
Lest anyone still doubt Ween's metal credit, they recorded the best Motörhead impression ever performed by anyone not named Lemmy. "It's Gonna Be a Long Night" is an original from 2003's Quebec, but I could hear it next to anything on No Sleep 'til Hammersmith.
Ween are pushing th' little daisies now, and they deserve a break. But if they ever come back, I bet they've got a great metal record in them.
