Customer Reviews

Hole Truth & Nothing Butt

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This has the reputation of being a poor man's Humpty Dumpty LSD, a collection of demos and b-sides released in 2002. However, I think that this is far from that. This is a collection of live recordings, 2 demos and a hilarious interview. And if you get it new or are careful about it, you can get a sticker of the CD cover (without the 2 black side bars) and one of Trance Syndicate. It's quite different in all honesty. Unfortunately since Trance syndicate no longer exists this record has been out of print for some time, and most likely will stay that way. The Hole Truth... is more like a second Double Live. (Something also out of print) So if you get it off eBay or something and you want the stickers, then you are going to have to be careful about it. Definitely a must have if you are a big Butthole Surfers fan, especially if you are an 80's fan, as the only song from the 90's is the Wooden Song. And I agree with another reviewer saying that that song just feels misplaced. Awe well, since no one here has covered all the songs and I'm sure some people are wondering about them, I'll just go ahead and do it.

1. Butthole Surfer: a 1983 demo that is easier to make out the words, but quality isn't as good.
2. Something: the SAME 1983 DEMO that appears on Butthole Surfers/Live PCPPEP, pretty good.
3. Moving to Florida: the classic and hilarious song off Cream corn from the socket of Davis, it's pretty good here.
4. Hurdy Gurdy Man: an earlier live version 6 years before they recorded it. Good quality.
5. Come together: A beetles cover, and it works rather well, especially with the 2 drummers. A shame its only 54 seconds long.
6. Cherub: and EXCELLENT version of cherub. The funny intro with Gibby talking to the audience, and the drums and megaphone all work brilliantly here, my personal favorite.
7. Graveyard: different show, different quality, it's the fast version in case you are wondering, its pretty cool.
8. U.S.S.A.: Ok, the cracks are starting to show, Gibby sounds really tired here, and the drums aren't as good. The version on the Double Live is way better, but this one still listenable.
9. Lady Sniff: the hilarious song, that is just as good live, quality is a little poor, but it works.
10. John E. Smoke: different show and Gibby doesn't sound tired, great quality to a great song.
11. 1401: later to be renamed the Colored FBI guy on the Widowermaker! EP, its great.
12. Psychedelic: different concert again, and it's an instrumental, like it should have stayed.
13. Bon Song: Different Concert and it's a live version of the bong song, now I wasn't a big fan of the original, but it's beautiful.
14. The Wooden Song: Different concert and like I said, it feels out of place, but it the opening with the gibbytronix is pretty cool.
15. Pittsburgh to Lebanon: You can actually hear Gibby shooting off a shotgun into the crowd! Don't worry, he did it often and it was filled with Hollywood blanks (you know, the only that just flash and nothing more).
16. The Shah Sleeps in lee Harvey's Grave: Hilarious, most of the time, when they perform it live, it doesn't go over as well as it does here.
17. WNYU Interview: This Alone should make the disc worth Paying for. A hilarious 5 and a half minute interview, unfortunately it seems like it was cut off, I would have loved to hear the entire thing.

Well, the Hole truth...and Nothing Butt! is a gem for the fanatic. But towards the end, it just doesn't have the same feel; it must be the lack of the second drummer. It isn't 5 star worthy but it's pretty close. All in all it's definitely worth your time if you are a Butthole Junkie. My advice is to try and get it with the sticker, because there aren't many of those. Hoped this helped. Support the Butthole Surfers and support John E. Smoke, the crippled little Midget lesbian boy who stood ten feet tall with a knife!

Released somewhere between the unremarkable Electriclarryland and what Im sure is the latest mock of a formerly fun and wild band, this probably gave a few "Pepper" fans a kick in the pants. A nice present from the Buttholes(or Trance Records), to give us an idea of the mayhem they'd unleash on stage, before Lollapalooza and after. Essential for old fans dying to get hard to find demos as well; especially because the demo of "Something" which appeared in lame form comparatively on "Pioughd" is fiendishly demented. If your'e not a fan of really bad noise, stay the heck away from this disc. You could lose some friends should they be in the passenger seat while the live version of "USSR" is on. Then again, that may be just what you want. And also worth noting, a six minute radio interview containing a hilarious line by Gibby in which he demonstrates how Elvis Costello would sound if he were writing a song about the second coming of christ. And, hearkening me back to the days where you'd actually get something inside your albums when you bought punk stuff, I got a bumper sticker.

Like so many BS fans, you either love the 80's (Psychic, Pussyhorse, Cream Corn, Locust, Hairway) and hate the 90's (Pioughd, Worm Saloon, Larryland, Weird R) or vice versa. Although, I haven't met too many that prefer the 90's Surfers to the 80's, unless they're 12 years old and they've just been introduced to the band (I have a nephew who loves IWS, because, as he says, "it's totally hard thrash, dude").

This CD, compiled in 1995, is a poor man's "Humpty Dumpty LSD" (which would be released in 2002). "The Hole Truth...And Nothing Butt" is a compilation of rare versions of some of their prime, mid-80's psycho-tunes. The original 1983 version of "Something" (not the bland 1991 version from "Pioughd") starts the CD off with a bang, and there are also some live versions of some of your old favorites, like "Hurdy Gurdy Man" (you can actually make out the lyrics!), "John E. Smoke" and "Bong Song" as well as some alternate recordings of other classics like "Lady Sniff", "Moving to Florida", a cover of "Come Together" and "USSA". I'd have to say even though I like it, "The Wooden Song" just doesn't belong on here.

I can't give the CD 5 stars for one simple reason--production and sound quality. This recording reminds me of those old cassette tapes we used to "dub" off our friends back in junior high, circa 1985. Remember how bad the tape sounded when you made a copy of a copy of a copy from a tape your buddy recorded with a hand-held tape deck at the back of an auditorium during a concert? This sounds worse in some parts. Still, if you're a big fan of the old Surfers stuff, you need to get this, along with "Humpty Dumpty LSD" (another compilation of old Surfers' stuff with better sound quality, but the choice of songs is not quite as good as "Hole Truth") to put closure on your BS inventory. Now that both are out on CD, I recommend getting both, kinda like a 2-disc box set, as each compliments the other (no tracks are repeated--each CD offers different rare stuff, and "Humpty D" is full of weird instrumentals).

Don't have any of the Surfers' newer CD's, like Saloon, Weird or Pioughd? Dub 'em onto a cassette tape. Their worth about that much.

A good compilation of odds and ends of the Surfer's material,originally put in circulation as a bootleg.However,after a certain point,Surfer's drummer King Coffey had decided to make it a legit release.Beat that.Apparently,the sound quality is pretty dang good,no?Total of seventeen tracks with a duration of 74:55.Plenty of live tunes,I noticed.Was liking their two covers here,Donovan's "Hurdy Gurdy Man" and the Beatle's "Come Together",as well as much of their original songs,like "Psychedelic","Lady Sniff","1401",the list goes on.If you're a long-time fan of the Bunghole(er,I mean BUTTHOLE)Surfers,you should get many enjoyable spins from 'The Hole Truth...'.A should-have.

I love tracks 10 thru 13 ! & 15 too.
But track 13 is the ultimate!!!! -can't live without this song!

This album started out as a bootleg released by Totonka, but instead of cursing the darkness, Butthole Surfers drummer King Coffey lit a match and released a copy of it on his own Trance Syndicate label, a la Frank Zappa and his "Beat the Boots" series. Problem solved! Made up mostly of live recordings of the band, it probably doesn't quite match the Surfers' 1989 DOUBLE LIVE album, but it comes close, and it covers a lot more territory.

The first two songs are early demos: the group's title song "Butthole Surfer" (which is actually where they got their name; prior to that, they just picked a new band name for each show) is pretty similar to the recording that ended up on PSYCHIC...POWERLESS...ANOTHER MAN'S SAC, but the demo of "Something" is miles and miles away from the Jesus and Mary Chain parody that was on PIOUGHD. With truly unhinged work from singer Gibby Haynes and guitarist Paul Leary, it's a perfect example of the band's early aesthetic, and seems completely at odds with their later mainstream makeover. Speaking of which, the rest of the tracks here are live recordings from throughout Butthole Surfers history, starting with their damaged art-punk beginnings and ending as a fairly professional alternative rock band. The Butthole Surfers made extensive use of studio production to create their fractured sound, so a couple of these songs, like their cover of "The Hurdy Gurdy Man" and later tune "Bong Song" (mistakenly titled here as "Bon Song") suffer in comparison to their album versions. But quite a few songs here are equal, or even superior, to what was recorded in the studio. "John E. Smoke" ups the manic factor and has a great intro by Gibby, and "U.S.S.A.", "Lady Sniff" and "Moving to Florida" are comparably great. "The Wooden Song", a track from the band's mainstream breakthrough INDEPENDENT WORM SALOON, sounds a little slapdash, but the album ends strongly with the breakneck "The Shah Sleeps in Lee Harvey's Grave".

The end of the CD also contains a short interview with the band on WNYU, and it's almost worth the price of purchase on its own. The band swears like sailors, talks gibberish, and plays a bass-heavy version of "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald". If you're already a Butthole Surfers fan, this is a completely awesome CD to own. If you don't yet own anything by them, pick up a couple of other albums first. You'll appreciate this one more once you can put the songs in context.

Aaron Carter is better than this? Please, this collection of songs from the Surfers is a outstanding purchase for any fan of psycho-billy music. If you bought all the original albums on tape in the 80's (like I did) you can convince your wife to let you spend the money on just one disk that she hates instead of 4 or 5. Great version of Cherub on this album! Buy it.

What the goat gives the ram takes. A spasmodic conclusion of decades of rock n' roll barbarism. One last cry from the throat of a dying fig tree. Like finding a brown starfish in your corn flakes and then some, or as the kids in Austin say "Just Groovy, Needle Man!"

The Hole Truth... And Nothing Butt! is nothing short of a masterpiece. The Butts are possibly the best band in America today, and, "The Hole Truth..." is their White Album. These Guys rock like crazy...Dr. Quality, GoGaGa Brand Radio

Well, if you own the WEE-ird revulsion....
hmm, are you a emo kid? if so, run away. would you like to hear poorly-taped tinny carp recordings of sensational live concerts?
does it get any better than this?
the end interview was, is, and always shall be hilarious.

In the end, this is a perfectly imperfect antedote to your radio, i might be wrong, but if you have ears, you'll be able to tolerate this, unbeleivable, come, as you are, prepared for this, for you are a shining light, girl, you're my angel, your face is a homunculus...

I would suggest this to you if you become seriously depressed when listening to the radio, as I significantly do.

My friends, what we really wanted is RARE SONGS, not exact copies of studio versions recorded on rice!