David Stubbs interviews The Butthole Surfers, 2nd April 1988
January 17, 2010
David Stubbs interviews The Butthole Surfers, 2nd April 1988. Photos by Andy Catlin.
You can either read this for the outrageous Stubbsianisms that pepper this interview, cf. “Plunging in at the anus and excavating, tunnelling a giant point of exit at the sockets, they are one part giant surge of flesh, one part holy revelation.” or for Gibby’s quotes, which ironically, sound a lot like Stubbs alter-ego to be – “Hue and what? Fuck me…Humourless and Cry [more like!]”
Either way it’s worth reading. And if you’ve never heard of the Butthole Surfers then why not track down Locust Abortion Technician or Hairway to Steven
The Butthole Surfers on the cover of Melody Maker, 2nd April 1988
January 16, 2010
The Butthole Surfers on the cover of Melody Maker, 2nd April 1988. Photo by Andy Catlin.
This because I was in the office the other day and The Butthole Surfers came on the stereo.
“Wow! Who put the Butthole’s on?” I asked.
“Oh I dunno who it is…it’s the Dumb and Dumber soundtrack”
Gah!
Steven Wells R.I.P.
June 25, 2009
I’ll leave it to his contemporaries to write the perceptive, insightful, emotional stuff.
ET has collected a list of tributes here.
There’s also the ever brilliant WSC forum too.
In James Brown’s piece he says “Anything loud or unhip became his domain” which seems particularly astute in the context of the few measly scraps I can offer.
Carter USM, Jesus Jones and finally, perhaps fittingly, Snuff.
Snuff said.
Indeed.
Steven Wells interviews Carter USM, 19th November 1994. Photos Roger Sargent & Derek Ridgers
Steven Wells interviews Jesus Jones, 1st July 1989. Photo Lawrence Watson.
Steven Wells reviews Snuff Said by Snuff, 18th November 1989
Allan Jones reviews R.E.M.’s Green, 12th November 1988
March 13, 2009
Allan Jones reviews R.E.M.’s Green, 12th November 1988. Photo Tom Sheehan
David Stubbs interviews Mark E Smith, 12th November 1988
March 12, 2009
David Stubbs interviews Mark E. Smith, 12th November 1988. Photos by Joe Dilworth.
After the Loop interview something more conventional. David Stubbs is persuaded that Mark E. Smith is maligned only by idiots. Should probably also hilight the reference to the fanzine When Saturday Comes in the fourth paragraph, as I know some of you take an interest in such matters.
Jonh Wilde interviews Happy Mondays, 12th November 1988
March 11, 2009
Jonh Wilde interviews Happy Mondays, 12th November 1988. Photos by Mike Morton.
Look at baby faced Shaun in the photos! No time to read this tonight unfortunately. Is it any good?
Simon Reynolds interviews Loop, 12th November 1988
March 10, 2009
So while I listen to Suede B-sides and O2 try to flog me Jackson tickets via txt here’s Simon Reynolds interviewing Loop, 12th November 1988. Photo Tom Sheehan (bet those pimples would be zapped in Photoshop these days eh Tom?)
Cos I know a lot more people visit these pages than actually click through to read the interviews I’d like to urge you to read this, even if you’ve never heard of Loop – remembering all the while, that this is an interview about a rock group. Reynolds presents us with a delicate entrée of Pynchon and flowery adjectives before the main course begins.
Reynolds (in reference to Robert’s aims for musical repetition and a ‘trance-like effect’): It sounds like you ought to be in sympathy with the Acid House scene
Robert: Oh no, that stuff’s just nonsense. Sure it’s repetitive but in a bland way. We like to think we build on our repetitiveness. With Acid House, they just sit on a synthesizer for half an hour and make squiddley-diddley noises. [and then it gets really embarrassing]
All of which makes me wonder about the quality of drugs Loop were actually taking to be left so cold by acid house, kinda reinforced by Robert later when he says “The drugs thing has been totally overblown though: you don’t have to be out of your face to get into repetitive music”. No Robert but it helps doesn’t it? It really, really helps.
Then Reich, Cale and Satie get name checked in a rather academic discourse about the schizoid experience before the conversation seques into a mediation on death in its myriad, vividly romantic forms, before ending with some conventional stuff about what the next record might be like and an apology from Reynolds for being “unable to simulate in words what Loop do”! For thickies like me this stuff’s still as dense today as it ever was.
Loop on the cover of Melody Maker, 12th November 1988
March 7, 2009
Going back now…way, way back.
Loop on the cover of Melody Maker, 12th November 1988. Photo by Tom Sheehan.
Sarah Champion on Manchester’s Acid scene, 22nd October 1988
November 23, 2008
Sarah Champion on Manchester’s Acid scene, 22nd October 1988.
The other 2 pages of the NME feature on the acid scene for everyone joining from Faith Fanzine forum. Do you want more of this stuff?
Paolo Hewitt interviews Paul Oakenfold about Acid Culture, 22nd October 1988.
You could sum up this whole piece with “Take drugs kids, they’re amazing and everyone is doing them”. Of course, the NME couldn’t come out and say this directly, especially when they’ve started the piece by accusing the media of being out to kill the acid scene because of the drugs the media assume are involved. So you get quotes from Oakenfold like this,
“Obviously, drugs are involved but I don’t know to what extent. It’s impossible to say”.
Er, yeah…sure Paul. Maybe it’s impossible to say because you’ve already taken so much Ecstasy your brain resembles swiss cheese.
He continues with this gem, where if you replace the cipher word ‘fun’ with ‘drugs’ does actually sum up the scene perfectly.
“The key,” he [Oakenfold] explains, “the secret to the whole thing is fun. People have never had so much fun. People thought they would never be able to dance again. I’m 26 and I thought I’d never dance again. Now I go to clubs and dance. When you’ve got something that is so much fun everyone wants a piece of it.”
Haha! Who did they think they were kidding? Drugs have always been at the heart of every vibrant music scene. With the Acid/Rave scene they were at the heart, lungs, eyes, feet and every other part of the body. The real reason why so much modern music sucks so badly is because society sorely lacks for a new drug to kickstart it.
One of the brilliant things about the web is how so many of these records are being archived and made available on themed mp3 blogs. Audio.Out is particularly good, especially for the rarer stuff. Indeed it’s just posted Balearic Beats Volume 1, Part 1 which ties in nicely with this interview.
Oh and if you fancy saying hello to Paolo Hewitt he’s just launched his own blog
Who watches The Watchmen? The Daily Mail of course.
Archived Music Press 