Butthole Surfers

Butthole Surfers is an American rock band formed by Gibby Haynes and Paul Leary in San Antonio, Texas in 1981. The band has had numerous personnel changes, but its core lineup of Haynes, Leary, and drummer King Coffey has been consistent since 1983. Teresa Nervosa served as second drummer from 1983 to 1985, 1986 to 1989, and 2009. The band has also employed a variety of bass players, most notably Jeff Pinkus.

Rooted in the 1980s hardcore punk scene, Butthole Surfers quickly became known for their chaotic and disturbing live shows, black comedy, and a sound that incorporated elements of psychedelia, noise, punk rock and, later, electronica, as well as their use of sound manipulation and tape editing. Butthole Surfers have a well-reported appetite for recreational drugs, an evident influence on their sound.

Although they were respected by their peers and attracted a devoted fanbase, Butthole Surfers had little commercial success until 1996's Electriclarryland. The album contained the hit single "Pepper" which climbed to number one on Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks chart that year.

Butthole Surfers (EP)

Butthole Surfers is the debut studio EP by American punk band Butthole Surfers, released in July 1983. It is also known as Brown Reason to Live and Pee Pee the Sailor (see "Title controversy"). All songs were written and produced by Butthole Surfers.

The album was originally released on Alternative Tentacles. Butthole Surfers and 1984's Live PCPPEP were reissued as Butthole Surfers/Live PCPPEP CD on Latino Buggerveil in 2003. The 12-inch vinyl version is still available from Alternative Tentacles, and is listed as Brown Reason to Live.

The center label on Butthole Surfers' vinyl printings invites listeners to erroneously play the record at "69 RPM," a joke referencing the famous sex position. The album's back cover features a mildly distorted image of famed Mexican luchador Santo. Kurt Cobain listed the EP in his top fifty albums of all time.

Music

Butthole Surfers introduced themselves to the world with seven songs full of throbbing bass, crashing drums, and heavily distorted guitar topped off with largely nonsensical, barely intelligible lyrics, alternately sung by lead vocalist Gibby Haynes and guitarist Paul Leary. Haynes also plays saxophone and drums on some tracks. Unlike later Butthole Surfers albums, no electronic instrumentation is present.

American Woman

"American Woman" is a song by Canadian rock band The Guess Who, first released in January 1970 on the album of the same name and later in March as a single, which reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. Backed with "No Sugar Tonight," Billboard ranked it as the No. 3 record of 1970.

The song has been covered by many rock artists, including Krokus, the Butthole Surfers, and Lenny Kravitz. The song was included in Guitar Hero World Tour and Rock Band 2.

Versions

The album version begins with an acoustic blues intro:

American woman, gonna mess your mind.
American woman, gonna mess a-your mind.

The intro then proceeds to spell out the title, then repeats the first verse before fading out and entering the hard rock portion.

The single version omits this intro and goes straight to the hard rock portion of the song.

Background

The song's origins took the form of a live jam that emerged during a curling rink concert in Southern Ontario (various recollections include Kitchener and Mississauga, while Burton Cummings, the lead singer, recalls the curling rink was "The Broom and Stone"—a popular Scarborough location for concerts at the time). Lead singer Burton Cummings was late returning for the second set, so the rest of the group began improvising a rhythm when the crowd started getting restless. When Cummings dashed onstage he began improvising lyrics to fit the music. They liked what they had played and noticed a kid with a cassette recorder making a bootleg recording and asked him for the tape. The subsequent studio recording features the original almost completely unchanged; only a few lines were added.

American Woman (novel)

American Woman is a 2003 novel written by the American writer Susan Choi (ISBN 0-06-054222-5). The novel is based on the 1974 kidnapping of Patty Hearst by radicals of the Symbionese Liberation Army. It was a finalist for the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

References

External links

American Woman (album)

American Woman is the sixth studio album by Canadian rock band The Guess Who, and the last to feature lead guitarist Randy Bachman until a reformation effort in 1983. The album peaked at #9 on the Billboard Pop Albums chart. It stayed on the charts for over a year and was their most successful release.

In addition to the title cut (the group's most successful song), this album also includes the number one American and Canadian single "No Sugar Tonight/New Mother Nature," as well as a remake of "No Time," a song the group previously recorded for Canned Wheat. The newer version was released as a single and is the one most familiar to listeners. The album's musical styles consists of psychedelic rock and hard rock.

American Woman was re-mastered and released on CD by Buddha Records in 2000 and included a bonus track, "Got to Find Another Way". A Quadraphonic mix was available on the Quadraphonic 8-track cartridge format.

Track listing

All songs written by Randy Bachman/Burton Cummings except noted