The gig ended in chaos as Haynes assaulted the soundman and was escorted offstage by security.Д®verything started happily enough. But when the seminal band returned to New York this week, frontman Gibby Haynes clearly had sound on the brain. For onstage antics - sure! For brain-buzzing psychedelics вЂ“ of course! And certainly for volume. A fun-loving guy, Gibby.Concerts by the Butthole Surfers were never known for the pristine quality of their sound. Channeling horrible noise into runaway power riffs, they maintain a style of momentum reminiscent of Gibby's sometime collaborators in Ministry-messier, which is their calling card, but not that much messier. All John Paul Jones does is improve their entertainment value. Barnum than Salvador Dali in it, and more Salvador Dali than Swamp Dogg. Gibby Haynes t.c.b., their freak show has always had more P.T. Upped a notch or two for concept, attitude, hype, bullshit, somewhere in there. But their claque's idea of accessibility is Iron Butterfly on bad acid digging deconstruction, yet another version of the touching avant-garde truism which holds that the proper study of incoherence is incoherent. I respect these guys, really-their dedication to dementia is a rare and wondrous thing. Truly repulsive music imposes the most stringent of aesthetic standards-who wants to listen if it's just good? So while I'm sort of impressed by the (relative) accessibility of their first full-length LP-guitar that might actually win over some wayward metal freak seeking X-rated thrills-I must report that only 'Lady Sniff,' punctuated by perfectly timed gobs, pukes, farts, belches, and Mexican radio, lives up to 'The Shah Sleeps in Lee Harvey's Grave.' B+ Oh well-at least they'll evolve toward big-beat no wave (performance art?) rather than heavy metal. So now I'm wondering whether they mightn't be an original posthardcore band whose outrageousness is truly arty, or whose emotional power is truly a fake. But soon I noticed that one of the three new songs-striking statistic in a band whose recorded output comprises two longish EPs-was a noise interlude. Live Pcppep ДЄt first I detected an emotional power signifying something more than an arty posthardcore band whose outrageousness was truly original. Rarely has such demented caterwaul reached vinyl in recognizable form. Yet sustain it they do, not because necro-copro is such a powerful idea, but because the guitar noise crests and roils like a river of shit-because, though I hate to put it this way, there are actually songs down there. As nihilist grossout goes, pretty neat and impossible by definition to sustain.

More axioms: 'Jimi Hendrix makes love to Marilyn's remains,' 'I smoke Elvis Presley's toenails when I want to get high,' etc. For openers a guy comes on and shrieks, 'There's a time to fuck and a time to crave/But the shah sleeps in Lee Harvey's grave.' Then there's a lot of guitar noise. Unlike most horror-show hardcore, their tales from the crypt eschew the reassuring glow of celluloid, yet they don't smudge like pulp, either. Independent Worm Salon A-Д«utthole Surfers.Robert Christgau: CG: The Butthole Surfers

Butthole surfers