These Austin punks spent a decade playing underground clubs and sleeping on floors next to the cat-litter box before scoring an unlikely commercial breakthrough with this 1996 album. The key to the highway was the modern-rock radio hit "Pepper," a novelty rap tune that reinvents Lou Reed's "Walk on the Wild Side" from the perspective of postpunk nihilism, Texas-style. Another rock-rap track, "The Lord Is a Monkey," grafts a lyrical nod to Snoop Dogg over a mutilated Jimi Hendrix guitar lick. The rest of the album alternates pop-punk rave-ups ("Ulcer Breakout," "Ah Ha") with noisy acid freak-outs ("My Brother's Wife," "Space"). The Buttholes have not released an album since Electric Larryland. But it's all right, Ma, they're only bleeding. --Rick Mitchell

It takes only seconds to realize that Psychic... Powerless took everything one step further in 1985. Hardcore wasn't a genuinely relevant context for the Butthole Surfers' first full-length, nor was noise, experimental improvisation, or any sibling, cousin, or neighbor of rock & roll. Psychic... Powerless just took everything, including a compelling sense of postpunk music as a premise for extreme (and often very funny) drama, and mashed it together under Paul Leary's unshaped guitar. Gibby Haynes's Texas wail perked up with his free-verse associations over the guitar and bass and the roiling, repetitive drums, and the whole thing sounded like brilliance. Lest one think it came from a graduate-school course in postmodernism, it warrants pointing out that the Buttholes were genuinely as mad as their sounds; they ratcheted up the temperature on their experiments and LSD-drenched road shows over the course of their next several albums (Rembrandt Pussyhorse, Hairway to Steven, and Locust Abortion Technician). But Psychic... Powerless remains a towering achievement--or a tunneling achievement, digging under the skin for a fully visceral impact that sticks to the ribs like nothing else from the 1980s' postpunk panoply. --Andrew Bartlett

The aural equivalent of a nightmarish acid trip and arguably the band's best album (or worst, depending on your point of view), Locust Abortion Technician tops the psychedelic, artsy sonic experimentation of Rembrandt Pussyhorse while keeping one foot planted firmly in the gutter. The record veers from heavy Sabbath sludge (even parodying that band on "Sweat Loaf") to grungy noise rock to progressive guitar and tape effects to almost folky numbers in one big, gloriously schizophrenic mess. Gibby Haynes debuts his "Gibbytronix" vocal effects unit here as well. ~ Steve Huey, All Music Guide

BUTTHOLE SURFERS Wierd Revolution (2001 US 12-track CD album in cool lenticular picture sleeve)

"There's a time to **** and a time crave, but the shah sleeps in Lee Harvey's grave."

So begins The Butthole Surfers' first song on their first record, a tune that paid tribute to and killed American hardcore once and for all while single-handedly ushering in a new Post-Everything era. Over the course of the next 20 minutes listeners hear the band raving about a Bar-B-Q Pope and the revenge of Anus Presley, thoughts of suicide, and eating cheese and rice. There's even a three-minute pop song ("Hey"), just to confuse matters more.

This legendary Butthole Surfers EP was made by a couple of young ex-accountants with bad hair, who, despite Yankee reviewers' claims, had never even heard Captain Beefheart or Faust. Mixing Flipper with fart jokes doesn't sound like the stuff of legend, but like a fat Elvis or fatter Brando, humor and horror can make interesting bedfellows.

As a follow up, the band went to a bar in their hometown of San Antonio and recorded their live set, for the Live PCPPEP. Many feel these EPs were the best records the band ever recorded and both have been only available on vinyl until now.

As if the first two Butthole Surfers EPs on one portable CD isn't a sweet enough deal, there are bonus tracks: a two-song encore ("Gary Floyd" and "Matchstick") added to the live EP; "Sinister Crayon," recorded for the first EP and not mixed until 2002 (it appears on the vinyl version of Humpty Dumpty LSD); and an early demo version of "Something."

The final album for the Surfers' legendary run on Touch and Go got a reception probably not even the band figured on -- lead reviews in major music magazines, increasingly higher profiles, and more. As it is, though, Hairway is actually a touch lazy in comparison to the previous releases, sometimes sounding almost all too normal. When it connects, though, Steven works wonders, whether continuing in the punk/psychedelic fusion vein of the past or exploring a gentler, tuneful side. The lengthy opener "Jimi" is the album's high note, and as one might guess from the title it's something of a tribute to Hendrix -- at least, if "Third Stone From the Sun" sounded like it was recorded in a sewer tunnel and was even more gone than it already was. Haynes' alternately deep and hyper-high-pitched vocals work perfectly against Leary's searing, crazed guitar noises, while the Pinkus/Coffey rhythm section lays down a massive beat. Everything concludes with deceptive peacefulness: acoustic guitar, tweeting birds, sounds of bowling, and the like. Other highlights include "I Saw an X-Ray of a Girl Passing Gas," a relatively straightforward, mostly acoustic-plus-rhythm section number sung clearly (!) by Haynes, and the mock live recording "John E. Smokes," with Haynes often sounding like a rural preacher gone mad. The humming guitar buzz of "Backass" and the quick blast of "Fart Song" concludes Steven with vim. As a final note, the song titles themselves can't be found anywhere on the release -- instead, and quite notoriously, a series of cartoon drawings stand in for them. Some are fairly calm, but most show things like nude women displaying their butts and rabbits taking dumps on deer. Juvenile? Of course, but the Butthole Surfers never pretended to be nice and sweet. ~ Ned Raggett, All Music Guide

With Rembrandt Pussyhorse the Butthole Surfers didn't really get any weirder than they were on Psychic... Powerless... Another Man's Sac, they just became more entrenched in their own sonic world. Rembrandt is demented, for sure, but where it excels is in the realm of experimental technique, playing with tapes, overlaying disembodied voices and new instrumental combinations atop an increasingly warped rhythmic soundscape, and singing intentionally freaky songs in a very freaky way. Throughout Rembrandt, the band is enmeshed in dense or droning (or both) areas where the rants are unbuckled and Gibby Haynes's voice is unleashed in its characteristically manic, slow wail. With the Cream Corn from the Socket of Davis EP appended on the CD, this episode in the Buttholes' 1980s postpunk menagerie is fleshy and fully important. --Andrew Bartlett

BLIND EYE SEES ALL:LIVE 1985 - DVD Movie

2007 reissue featuring two classic Buttholes on one disc! The Widowmaker EP was originally released in 1989 followed two years later by the full length Pioughd. Possibly the strangest band in Rock history, Gibby Haynes has led these Surfers through more than two decades of complete weirdness while still wowing the critics and surprising the fans! Latino Bugger Veil.