Led by the impossibly tall and invariably naked Gibby Haynes, were a maverick troupe of acid freaks, deadbeats and outcasts whose early work gleefully twisted punk and psychedelia into grotesque, distended shapes. On stage, terrifyingly, they were aided by graphic footage of sex change operations, and worse. Matador Records’ Buttholes reissue programme kicks off with the band’s debut full-length album , whose highlights include , an increasingly frazzled space rocker that tells of a search for heroin; the delightfully disgusting, phlegm-powered ; and the hallucinatory , an ever-spiralling, post-apocalyptic acid-fantasy in which Haynes jabbers in the manner of a someone who’s undergone a partial lobotomy. Follow-up was more of the same, only more sinister, from the warped and woozy opener , via the punch-drunk drone of , to a cover of so demented it sounds like a fairground being dismantled. The live mini-album captures much of the band’s on-stage intensity and climaxes with a completely unglued version of (not song) on which guitarist Paul Leary is dominant, somehow hauling maniacal riffs and psychotic solos from the maelstrom as it swirls. Genius. Online Editor at Louder/Classic Rock magazine since 2014. 38 years in
music industry, online for 25. Also bylines for: Metal Hammer, Prog Magazine, The Word Magazine, The Guardian, The New Statesman, Saga, Music365. Former Head of Music at Xfm Radio, A&R at Fiction Records, early blogger, ex-roadie, published author. Once appeared in a Cure video dressed as a cowboy, and thinks any situation can be improved by the introduction of cats. Favourite Serbian trumpeter: Dejan Petrović. Slash interview: Growing up with the blues, assembling Orgy Of The Damned, meeting Peter Green, and the crazy journey behind that
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