Butthole Surfers "22 Going on 23" - scariest song ever?

thats on locust abortion technician right? that was the first vinyl lp i ever bought (it had already been out a few years by then so i don't know why that was the first). i think butthole surfers are one of those bands that seem to have been written out of history (certainly in the uk, don't know about in america though). i think there is a tendency to focus on them as 'schlock rockers' and yes, in a way, they were, but they were much more than that.

i've often thought of them as the american happy mondays (up til 88, at least)in a way, something of the other about them, and the murky derangedness, just on the cusp of falling apart (the sound, not the band, well, yes, them themselves obviously) - some sort of sludge/funk/punk adelia (if that wasn't the horrible thing that 90s bands made that)

i like the way the guitars come back in after the spoken words bit, like they almost grind back in.

is this your first exposure to butthole surfers kilian? if so, check hairway to steven. also psychic powerless, rembrandt pussyhorse, and also the early 80s ones (that are a bit more band like)

no 'cause the scariest song ever was "a figure walks" as heard on headphones on a distant static-y radio station late one night in 1980 or 81. but yeah that butthole surfers song is pretty cool.

Locust abortion iso one of the great alb. of the period. David Stubbs wrote abt this alb which appeared as an article for Uncut.

''i think butthole surfers are one of those bands that seem to have been written out of history (certainly in the uk, don't know about in america though).''

It's always like that. 'History' tends to focus on the 'major bands' (a lot of them who went on to major labels and had some success there) but forgets others. Only when you buy records regurlarly you are able to see that.

really? i never thought they were written out of the history - maybe it is a UK thing. i remember reading an 'oral history' of them in an issue of Spin while i was in high school, and they are in that book Our Band Could Be Your Life currently making the rounds. also there's that sample of Sweat Loaf in that Orbital tune.

"'History' tends to focus on the 'major bands' (a lot of them who went on to major labels and had some success there)"

Didn't this happen to the Butthole Surfers too? I don't know if they signed to a major label or not, but they did go on to have success with more conventional material.

Here's whats scary-Their advance for the record Pioughd that came out on Rough Trade put that label under. Then they had the never to sue Touch and Go for their master tapes after turning down an offer 70% of the profits of their sales..Fuck Them

i think thats the same album with "cunts" which is possibly the funniest song of all time...

"22 going on 23" is a good contender for scariest song ever...BUT...

i wouldnt count out that Steroid Maximus tune with the crazy asian throat singing shit at the beginning, or that Joe Preston tune that starts with the "apocolypse now sample".....on another note it is scary how often i forget the names of songs!

dave phillips "IIII" cd - scary musique concrete but with an interesting toilet humour fixation (& various noise/metal blurts) analogous to the buttholes - try it, it's great! tooth sharpening ritual in a pygmy rainforest BANG! slammed door. cow moos (in rhythm) kettle boils. locust was great, but i don't think there's anything else quite up to scratch in the proto grunge sludge genre

Surfers: awful people, brilliant musicans up until Gibby turned them into a poor man's ministry. 22 going on 23 was a real moment for them, but they had many others(hey, tornadoes, etc.). It's always relative as to what frightens; a Whitehouse song scared me so much i had to take it off and sell the record to this bloke i know who lives in a squat and drinks poppyseed tea every day. Come To Daddy freaked me out as well - but that may have been due to accompanying video as opposed to song itself.

It seems genuinely mean. I can't get past that.

RS- I thought it was 'funny' myself (the whole rec is like that) but can you expand on why did you think it was GENUINELY mean.

Julio, they are taking a snippet of some person calling in to a radio talk show. The person is obviously pretty emotionally disturbed. (I can't even remember the details now.) Given everything the sounds they surround the conversational snippet with, they seem to be making fun of her suffering. I realize that you could say: it's the Butthole Surfers, what do you expect? But I think I like them in spite of this sort of thing (though I don't mind their evocations of madness, per se).

apparently that person was a pathological liar who called the radio show every night, but that's just what Our Band Could Be Your Life sez

OK I'll listen to this tonight (either that or iancu dumitrescu, they are both 'funny').

ejad, then there should be footnotes or something (on the CD). I can see how a caller like that could inspire the song, if she was indeed a pathological liar. Of course, she could still be a deeply disturbed pathological liar.

we're all children of the 60s/70s => we're all disturbed!

I always assumed that it was a tape of Gibby calling the station and pretending to be a female survivor of sexual assault, myself.

I think it's an awesome record (the whole of Locust Abortion Technician) and yes, can be genuinely scary. It was the first record of theirs I heard and (being Texans) I used to picture them as being just one step away from the family in Texas Chainsaw Massacre, making their fucked-up records in some shack in the middle of nowhere that you wouldn't want to stumble across by mistake.

I've had a couple of scary moments listening to them as well. Made the mistake one time of putting on Locust Abortion Technician after ingesting rather a large quantity of mushrooms with some friends. The start of Sweatloaf, which I thought would just be funny in the circumstances, set everyone off on pretty much the worst trip of our lives. Pit of hell stuff.

And I saw them live at Brixton Academy some time around Hairway to Steven. They were projecting 2 films superimposed on each other behind them throughout the course of the gig. You couldn't always work out what they were, which way up, or whether they were running forwards or backwards. At the start of one song they started showing a film featuring surgery on a penis. Now because you couldn't tell which way the film was running it could've been a sex change op or reconstruction after a rather grim accident. And I'd normally count myself as being pretty unsqueamish, but it wiped me out. Didn't find it disgusting mentally so much, but a very strong physical effect. A very extreme gig all round.

After all this I was rather disappointed when they started to become merely 'quirky' later on.

I was at that Brixton gig...somebody next to us fainted & was carried out during a particularly gruesome part of that surgery footage.

The last time they played here, at the Forum, was a huge, huge disappointment. They'd become just another band.

Well it wasn't me! Didn't quite faint, but I had to have a good sit down afterwards.

I love the ealy Butthole Surfers stuff. It's just a shame that they became so utterly dreadful after that initial mentally deranged period. I mean, c'mon, co-writing songs with Kid Rock!!!??? Does Gibby now have no shame??
Oh, and to the guy who freaked out over Sweat Loaf on Mushrooms; Don't listen to 22 going on 23 whilst in thrall to illicite substances. I could hardly piss straight with fear afterwards.

I always though "22 Going..." was juxtaposing the two callers, to illustrate how the second caller's problems seem petty and insignificant when compared to the first (hence the mocking cow noises at the end). It's hard to muster up sympathy for someone who's husband won't let her go on holiday, after you've heard the woman who was sexually assaulted.

You know, kilian, I used to think the two callers were the same person. Then when I relistened after posting to this thread, I realized they weren't. I now admit that I don't know what the song is really about. For all I know, the first caller could be Gibby. So anyway, I know longer think it's mean; I'm too unclear on what is even going on. Nice guitar work.