Locust Abortion Technician [Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered]

Butthole Surfers | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (August 3, 1999)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered
• Label: Latino Bugger Veil
• ASIN: B00000IL20
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,272 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #27 in Music > Alternative Rock > American Alternative > General

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

The Butthole Surfers were never more playful and psychotic than on Locust Abortion Technician, which opens with the tender dialogue between an inquisitive, sweet son asking his father the meaning of regret. The father, it turns out, is Gibby Haynes (uh oh!), who spouts something comfy--"it's better to regret something you have done," he opines, "than to regret something you haven't done"--and then adds, "By the way, if you see your mom this weekend, tell her..." Then the band explodes into a ragged, tweaked metal riff, with Gibby screaming "Satan" in the background. Nothing could touch this in 1987 and nothing since has been as convincingly bent, as close to postpunk music theater gone madly haywire. Haynes growls and warps and pleads and the band drones and thuds and rocks, and the whole mix is so demented that it's almost touching to think that in a farmhouse somewhere in Texas, a bunch of acid-dosed punks were not only making this kind of racket, but also making it in the grand 1980s punk market of endless tours, crappy venues, and, well, more and more and more of the same. Including the acid. --Andrew Bartlett

Product Description

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

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars the Holy Grail of sponge rock Texas cosmic acid, August 19, 2005

By 

S Shepark "redclayrambler" (Kansas City) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Locust Abortion Technician (Audio CD)

How to say it?
The Butthole Surfers' music is sacred to me. I look at their first four albums as works of art. The most transcendentally wigged-out rock and roll music ever recorded. Period.

And Locust Abortion is the creme de la creme of the Surfers music. A short but bursting to the brim sonic sponge bath carefully engineered to hit you where it hurts.

I go back and forth over which track is my favorite. Both versions of "Graveyard" are gleaming sinister perfection. I decided a few months ago that the version played at regular speed is the greatest song ever recorded (it's between "Whirling Hall of Knives", "Edgar", and "Jimi" - Surfer fans should know them all).

Pittsburgh to Lebanon is the sludge that life is made from. Total beauty. The hollow moans at the end are actually quite lovely.

A word about the slowed down version of "Graveyard". You should probably listen to the songs in order, so you hear "Sweat Loaf" before "Graveyard". "Sweat Loaf" basically primes your head for the drop into "Graveyard". (whoever said that listening to the Surfers was like taking drugs was NOT lying. It really is).

Other great songs: "Kuntz" . I could listen to this again and again (and I do). "22 going on 23" is another free-floating dangerous masterpiece that will even out your mind.

I have this CD in my car always and usually listen to it at least once every couple of days. Sometimes it won't leave my CD player for days at a time. I love it.

Now, a quick word of warning. If you have never listened to this CD (or any Surfers' CD) be careful (heh-heh). You may want to start with one of their easier albums like Psychic Powerless. If you listen to this album first, it could freak your head out a little (course you wouldn't listen to it in the first place if you didn't enjoy that sort of thing from time to time) - I KNOW I do.

Have fun. disappear. Fall in. Embrace. This is it.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perhaps you're not ready, September 15, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Locust Abortion Technician (Audio CD)

to be submersed in the dark oozing subliminal world of cigarette smoking beligerent clowns. Perhaps you have no desire to intertwine your consciousness with the liquid of insanity. Maybe you can't handle the denizen's of your mind frolicking about in the real world. Don't listen if any of these apply to you. You're better off, trust me. This is the soundtrack to the twisted world you know exists, but no one ever talks to you about.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This CD should come with a warning label..., March 25, 2005

By 

M. Macaluso - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Locust Abortion Technician (Audio CD)

Because it can warp and twist your mind like no other music can. First there's the cover art...two blissful clowns playing with a cute dog. Nothing could possibly be more misleading. But turn to the reverse side and you'll see a photograph of a baby that looks like he has Down's syndrome. And we're off to Locust Abortion Technician!!!

Easily one of the most bizarre, nightmarish, acid-drenched albums ever to bubble up from the gutter, Locust Abortion Technician will make you redefine the meaning of "wierd." This is the Butthole Surfer's best and most avant-garde album, filled with tapeloops, slowed/sped-up/reversed vocals and sfx, sludgey distortion and chaotic song structure. It is a crazy, schizophrenic mess that will get inside your head. I love it.

The Butthole Surfers prove to be masters of the studio, as they create "music" that you would think spilled out of an insane asylum from a freaky netherworld. This is THE album to play if you want to freak out or disturb all people within listening range.

Sweet Loaf: 10/10 - Variation of Black Sabbath's Sweet Leaf. Goes on for about 8 minutes. A bit repetitive, but still cool.
Graveyard: 10/10 - A sludgey, distorted song that sounds like it was recorded under 10 feet of dirt. Slowed-down lyrics accompany Leary's choking guitar.
Pittsburgh to Lebanon: 8/10 - Blues, Butthole style.
Weber: 3/10 - This song seems like a fragment of a different song. Its only 35 seconds, and is the only useless song on the album.
Hay: 10/10 - Now this song is scary. People screaming HAY in the background while rapidly reversed sound effects and scratching overlap. Very, very, freaky.
Human Cannonball: 8/10 - The most "normal" song here. You can actually understand the lyrics, and it has a followable structure. Sounds like late 70's punk.
U.S.S.A: 8/10 - Distorted, whining guitars, high-pitched sceaming.
O-Men: 10/10 - Gibby making Tasmanian Devil noises as a thrashing guitar and drums play. Also features disembodied high-pitched vocals, slowed-down segments, clanging and clashing sounds effects. Very noisy.
Kuntz: 10/10 - Probably the strangest song I've ever heard, even more so than anything by Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart. The Surfers take an old Thai song and mess around with it. They use multiple layers of tapeloops, slow-motion and fast-motion to create a truly pyschadelic mess.
Graveyard 2: 9/10 - Different version of Graveyard 1.
22 going on 23: 10/10 - One of the best songs on the album. A radio show involving a female talking about how she was sexually assualted plays in the background as the Sufers play music that sounds straight out of hell. The words "medicine," "guilt," "anxiety," "I cannot sleep," and "depression" echo and repeat over and over in the background. The albums ends with cows mooing away in a field, along with crickets chirping.