Butthole Surfers

I have a pretty cool two-room office suite (although I am expected to move my office to our new house - we move this weekend), and when my son comes home from school he "works" (homework, practice his bass, listen to loud music, fart around on his computer) in the other room of my office.

Today when he came home he played the Butthole Surfers, which was really cosmic because he doesn't ususally play the Butthole Surfers, and eleven years ago TO THE DAY I attended and reviewed one of the strangest concerts of my life by, you guessed it, the Butthole Surfers.

1991

I wade into the exotic human aquarium that is a Butthole Surfer show amongst the unmistakable cries of a profoundly wounded woodland creature. Or perhaps it is the opening act.

I am concerned about the proper reading of the name "Butthole Surfers." Perhaps the name reflects the perjorative sense of "butthole," i.e.: one who surfs but is unkind to others. Other images are more disconcerting still. This is a name meant to confront and to unsettle. "Butthole Surfers" has frightened off radio airplay and prohibited reference to the group in family publications [I subsequently learned that "butthole surfer" is an old cross-country running term for when you slip and fall on very wet grass and go "butthole surfing," especially down a hill].

The taboo name challenges and ridicules a system implemented through the written and spoken word. Many primitive societies attach existential weight to the names of things. To borrow an animal's name is to borrow its essence. A name inexpressible in the mass media generates the show biz equivalent of invisibility.

The Butthole Surfers have grown steadily in popularity and now stand perched upon the threshold of visibility. This threshold is critical because once the band crosses the line, it must justify its vision to the world at large and not merely preach to the converted.

These ruminations are chased from my mind like dustballs when the band takes the stage to the deafening approval of their awaiting minions. Suddenly, I apprehend the obvious. The Butthole Surfers are a cult. A rock group-as-cult generates an entirely different set of responses and expectations than does a rock group-as-entertainment. The cult band is selling a world view, not songs. To the cult fan, the enveloping membrane of a world view supersedes the importance of the actual music. In this case, the fans view the world through butt-colored glasses.

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Article Author: Eric Olsen

Career media professional Eric Olsen is honored to be the founder and former publisher of Blogcritics.org, and former publisher of Technorati.com, which both rule. He is now editor, co-founder, and CEO of The Morton Report.

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