Butthole Surfers - Hairway to Steven
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Artist: Butthole SurfersEdition: Music CD
Format: Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered
CD Release Date: 1999-08-03
Music Label: Latino Bugger Veil
Soundtracks:
- Jimi
- Ricky
- I Saw an X-Ray of a Girl Passing Gas
- John E. Smokes
- Rocky
- Julio Iglesias
- Backass
- Fart Song
Free Music Notes for Hairway to Steven
Free Music Review: A classic recording
Hit: 5 Stars
On this classic BHS recording one hears the influences of just about every art-music genre (electro-industrial, trance, psychedelia, noise, grunge, etc.), yet each song is well-crafted and they all seamlessly flow together into one organic whole.
For me, track one seems by far the most powerful and creative. In part we listen in on a child-abusing father and his victim daughter whose innocence is completely destroyed. Part II seems just as powerful and haunting as we hear soothing guitar and farm sounds in the background. It gives the listener a chance to reflect on the sad lives of the characters, and how, although on the surface life seems tranquil and "normal", there is a very disturbing vibe carried over from part I (in part brought on by the father's mostly incoherent ramblings in the background) that undermines the otherwise peaceful sounds. A less daring and creative band would have told this painful story from the third-person narrative, but BHS takes the listener upfront into the psyches of both the attacker and victim. This makes the experience all the more powerful. Regarding the subject matter of this track, I want to emphasize that the essence of BHS lies in creating art through music. And much of art involves creating unique views of human experience and the human condition. And for this listener track one evokes much sadness and pain, because it in general speaks of human brutality towards other humans. I believe this is the effect the band wanted to achieve. For example, the father is provided one of the most demonic sounding voices one will ever hear on a music recording; but very appropriate when heard from the perspective of a child.
The other bookend to this cd are the last two tracks which seem very experimental but alluring due to the driving rhythmns and heaviness brought on by layers of electro-industrial sludge, screeches, screams, and distorted/fuzzed guitar.
Sandwiched in between these bookends are very creative yet catchy pop-rock tunes; each one having its own interesting BHS twist.
Obtaining this cd along with Locust Abortion Technician, and Rembrandt Pussyhorse will IMO capture the very essence and best of BHS.
Hairway to Steven Poster
As you descend into Hairway to Steven, Butthole Surfers' last studio recording before their ascent to major-label... status, there are few handles to orient you. You get dropped, headlong, into Paul Leary's moaning, shrieking guitar, Gibby Haynes's megaphone-grown growl, and the thundering two-drummer rhythms that throb and contort this classic 1988 mind-bender. There are no song titles, and as for the songs themselves, they're layered so thick that teasing even a thick strand from any of them is a task. In the late 1980s, when they recorded Hairway (and Psychic... Powerless... Another Man's Sac, Rembrandt Pussyhorse, and Locust Abortion Technician), the Buttholes were in the midst of an endless road show full of freakish displays--Gibby with clothespins on his nipples, Gibby shredding feather pillows on stage amidst pounding strobes, the ever-present mix of sex-change films and naked women dancers gyrating as the band screamed through their set. Hairway catches the sensory overload of it, the fire walk over structure and total chaos, the incipient humor of what was a fantastic, outrageous, vitally important stage in the career of one of punk's most whacked bands. And dig the fifth cut, the single the Buttholes could never have gotten any credit for in the S&L drenched 1980s, with Gibby doing some bouncy "Nah nah nah's" and "Hey, hey, hey's" and believably opining, "Well all of our friends, baby / They're going insane, now." --Andrew BartlettAlternative Rock Music CDs
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