Butthole Surfers were once a major force in underground rock music. Due to a combination of bad luck and bad decisions, poor management and selling far fewer records than the likes of Nirvana, however, they have unjustly found themselves relegated to a scanty footnote in music’s history books. One of the pieces of bad luck that led to this story state was their record company, Capitol burying and refusing to release their 1997 album After the Astronaut – claiming it as “unsellable”.
In fact, the album was eventually heavily remixed, with some new tracks added and others removed for the 2001 release, Weird Revolution, but no-one was happy with the final result, and it was a major influence in the band pretty much pulling the plug on themselves a decade ago but releasing nothing new since. This has given After the Astronaut a somewhat legendary status among the band’s still significant fan base, and so the announcement of the release of the original version has caused ripples of excitement that might seem surprising to those with no experience of Butthole Surfers’ extreme strangeness.
Is this release really worthy of the fuss though? Remarkably, it is. For a start, of the 12 tracks on After the Astronaut, only eight turned up on Weird Revolution and these are indeed far improved without the nips and tucks that were subsequently imposed on them. Rearranged back to their original state, tracks like “Weird Revolution” and its demand for separation from squares society and the shuffling groove and psychedelic jazz vibes of “Venus” are reborn as brain-fizzing bombs of bizarre disorientation that feel like a real tonic when held up against contemporary rock music in 2026. Similarly, the previously unheard musique concrète of “I Don’t Have a Problem” and the lively “Turkey and Dressing” sound far more vital than merely sonic artefacts from some 30 years ago.
Of course, in a time when any music from any time is immediately available online, tunes from a different era can sound completely modern to ears that have not heard them previously. After the Astronaut is as woozy and discombobulating now as when it was first recorded and should at least give the band the recognition that they really deserve – and maybe even encourage them to get back in the saddle and make music weird again.
Add comment