Between 1985 and 1989, I saw the Butthole Surfers play several absolutely unforgettable gigs in New York City. They were a swirling, lysergic tornado onstage, producing a dirty, unholy wall of sound that was so utterly unhinged and deranged—and yet weirdly beautiful—that I feared for the sanity of the musicians making it. Few acts I’ve seen before or since have achieved anywhere near the sonic or psychic intensity of an 80s Butthole Surfers gig. With their demonically-possessed go-go dancer Kathleen Lynch (who I have written about here) and the violent bedlam of the music, no other group of the era came close to the brutal skull-fucking they subjected their audience to (except for maybe the Swans and Einstürzende Neubauten, although I’d still give the Surfers the edge).

Let me put it to you another way, who except the Butthole Surfers would hire GWAR as their opening act without fearing in the slightest that they would be upstaged? That’s an achievement! It’s well-known that Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love met at a Butthole Surfers concert and this makes perfect sense.

I saw the Butthole Surfers at the Pyramid Club, Danceteria, CBGBs, The Cat Club, The Ritz, The World, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music. A “typical” evening with the Butthole Surfers involved nudity, tearing stuffed animals apart, strobe lights, Gibby lighting his own hand on fire with lighter fluid (he’d stare at his flaming hand like a drooling moron before putting the fire out by sticking his hand down his pants) and then the drumkits.

The last time I saw the group live, it was at The Lyric Theater, a faded 42nd Street porno palace that was about to be torn down. It smelled of semen and bleach and the floors were sticky. The fact that this fleapit was going to soon be leveled seemed to give the band—and the audience—the license to destroy it early.

I have it on good account that the promoter of the show gave lead vocalist Gibby Haynes six hits of acid before this performance, thinking he was giving him enough for the entire band, only to see him pop them all into his mouth at once. Watching him on-stage that night, as the group played a berserk version of Gordon Lightfoot’s folky epic “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” I wondered if he, or the audience, would ever recover.

Gibby screamed into a bullhorn, the dual drummers hit flaming cymbals and they projected 16mm films of bloody operations, people with Down’s syndrome dancing in top hats and tails and a man with a gigantic sombrero that was revealed to be much larger than a house. If Beelzebub himself would have come out to jam with the band for the encore, no one would have been the least bit surprised.

If the music they made in the 1990s is anything to go by, the bad-living caught up to them. After 1987’s Locust Abortion Technicians, they quickly became an uninspired parody of themselves, tarting up their sound to appeal to MTV’s 120 Minutes audience. I’ve had copies of all their albums since and I could seldom get past one listen.

Sadly the brain-crushing early work of the group has become somewhat obscure and I don’t think a lot of younger people know much about them. This is a real pity. Their Psychic… Powerless… Another Man’s Sac (1984) is a flat-out masterpiece. A stunner. Nothing—and I mean nothing—else sounds like it. 1986’s Rembrandt Pussyhorse and Locust Abortion Technician (1987) are also quite amazing albums. Here’s a sampling of some of their finest moments

“And son, if you see your mom this weekend, be sure and tell her….” Listen to one of the Butthole Surfer’s most infamous numbers, a tongue-in-cheek Black Sabbath tribute called “Sweat Loaf”
 

 
My favorite Butthole Surfers song, the bone-crushing “Cherub”:
 

 
Below, a moment edited from the laugh-out-loud funny “Bed In” interview from the Blind Eye Sees All live video. (See complete video below)
 

 
This video somewhat captures the infernal, chaotic insanity of a Butthole Surfers show and you can (more or less) see what Kathleen Lynch got up to onstage with them at about 30 seconds in. Shot in Bremen, Germany in 1987.
 

 
The Butthole Surfers and friends backstage after a 1986 show at the 688 Club in Atlanta. This was shot by the late Nelson Sullivan, a New York-based video artist who I was friends with (see more of Nelson Sullivan’s video work at The Five 9th Avenue Project). This piece of video is outrageous. If you are a fan of the group, it’s unmissable (I’ve had a copy of this video since the month it was shot). Nelson was wearing an extremely loud plaid outfit and matching cap. He is “the wild dude” Gibby is heard referring to but we never see him since he was behind the camera.
 

 
Below, the entire Blind Eye Sees All live concert video, shot in Detroit in 1985.