My first instinct would be to say that my lack of participation in SXSW over the last several years is due to my age, but what I’m reading from other people is that it’s not really the same in several phases over the last 10-15 years. Andy Langer posted a pretty good assessment of it for Texas Monthly The pandemic forced changes like it did for a lot of businesses. I remember that I had just gotten back from a trip for work to Toronto in March of 2020 and they announced the day I returned that they had decided to cancel SXSW.
Anyway…this is about the one thing I did attend for SXSW 2025 and it was a screening of the Butthole Surfers documentary at AFS Cinema a week ago Wednesday. It’s lovingly titled “The whole truth and nothing butt”. The title is not surprising and you’d think it was more of the same from a band that doesn’t take itself too seriously but the more surprising thing is where the documentary went and how heavy it got.
Living in Austin for as long as I have, I’ve crossed paths with a few of the members of the band, most often, it’s been King Coffey, the longest lasting drummer, but not the only one. He and his husband, Craig, who recently passed away from a dementia at a way too early age, were very involved in the Austin music scene and ran an independent label, called Trance Syndicate. They featured bands in the 90s that I loved including johnboy, Starfish, Cherubs, Ed Hall, Bedhead, Sixteen Deluxe and several others. I was acquainted with members of Sixteen Deluxe and Starfish and even played with Ronna and Jason once at Hole In the Wall when they appeared as the “FuckAntones” (a play on the FuckEmos – that’s another story) and there was a call to play a Starfish song and they said they needed a drummer so I got up and did “Kliff or Dave” with them. Definitely a highlight for me as I loved the band and that song (all respect to Scott, the original drummer). Later, Jason’s son took lessons from the same piano teacher that has taught all of my kids, Jeanine Attaway of Ugly Beats. (She’s the best piano teacher in Austin if you want to get lessons for your kid.) Craig also headed Emporer Jones records which released the third album from the The Crack Pipes. I’ve played in several bands with BillySteve Korpi (Daddy’s Drunk, BarleyPop, ShowOffs, Victims of Leisure), the guitarist with The Crack Pipes. I also shared a rehearsal space in South Austin near what was then Penn Field location of Opal Divine’s with King and Craig’s band, Rubble, when I was in Bad Rackets.
As I stood in line to get into the screening, I realized I was right behind Lyman, the drummer from Ed Hall. I don’t know him, but he’s tall and lanky like me and I thought we had mutual friends but that later turned out not to be the case. I didn’t bring this up even though I should have. There’s a line in a Butthole Surfers song about regret that Flea also quotes in the solo track that he did for the Basketball Diaries soundtrack. He’s also in the documentary. Also while standing in the line, a guy came by from the line that didn’t have pre sale tickets (I’ll get to that in a minute) asking if people like “zines” and handing out a zine that he helped produce. As I looked through it, I realized it had several ticket stubs from the 1990s in Austin and a few of them looked REALLY familiar. I happen to have scanned most of my stubs into a collection on Flickr so I could compare them to what was in the zine. Turns out that they used at least one of mine (you can tell because the tickets are numbered) and they didn’t credit me. I was flattered but also annoyed. Again, I thought about calling the guy out but decided to not bother. Was that the right call? Dunno. I kind of regret not doing it. (See what I did there?)
My history with the Butthole Surfers starts with Bill’s Records & Tapes on Spring Valley Road in Richardson, Texas. I grew up a few miles away from what was arguably one of the great independent record stores in Texas in the 1980s. Bill was a character. So much so that there was a documentary about him as well. I started going there somewhere around 1986. One of the first things I remember seeing is the Butthole Surfers EP on the back wall. It was distinctive because of the band name and the album cover art. I knew about punk at the time but I was more focused on metal so I didn’t buy the record but I wish I had in retrospect.
I tracked the current and later records but never really got into them until Independent Worm Saloon. I did notice their influence though. I attended a show at Theatre Gallery in Dallas in Deep Ellum in May 1987. That was Suicidal Tendencies with Rigor Mortis opening and they showed scenes of ReAnimator projected behind them as they played among other things (they had a song based on the movie). I had heard that Butthole Surfers also projected medical procedures and things behind them as they played. I also knew about Gibby and his lighter fluid on the cymbal schtick as well. Musically, I really got into them with Independent Worm Saloon. I think I liked the first single but then the entire thing was great. It was their first major label and straight rock record. Also produced by John Paul Jones from Led Zeppelin. There are some amusing stories in the documentary about that. They went on to even more mainstream awareness with Pepper about three years later. I saw them play at the Austin Music Hall with Reverend Horton Heat.
I didn’t know it at the time, but Theresa Nervosa, the second drummer for many years, was the “Madonna Pap Smear” character in Slacker which was released my freshman year at UT right after I moved here in 1989. In one of many connecting threads, Scott, the drummer from Starfish (and Glass Eye at the time) is in that scene and it’s right near Liberty Lunch, an iconic music venue in Austin that was closed and torn down by the late 90s.