Gibby Haines & His Problem

[blind-fitter]

On another thread I recently recommended Gibby Haines & His Problem, which prompted me to thinking why I didn't "Get The Word Out" here instead. For the uninitiated, Gibby is the former vocalist/frontman of The Butthole Surfers, a band reputed for wigged-out degenerate drug-addled punk-psychedelia. The review I quote below provides some insight into the public perception of that band, but also does a good job of comparing and contrasting Gibby's former and current outfits.

In my other post, I indicated that Surfers guitarist Paul Leary is involved with "His Problem" too. Articles I've read since then suggest otherwise, so for once, perhaps, I may have been mistaken.

The eponymously-titled album reviewed below came out in 2004. Gibby & His Problem are apparently in the studio recording its follow-up.

My earliest memories of the Butthole Surfers—a band still universally regarded as having one of the most demented names in all of rock history (perhaps only equaled by Scrapin Foetus Off The Wheel)—comes from a twisted long-form video of theirs from the late '80s in which feral, inbred hillbillies, masturbation, fried eggs, and incredibly distorted, mutated psycho-delic music played a prominent role. The Surfers were always kind of viewed as the rabid crazies who mixed raw feedback, booger soaked experimentalism, and just plain strangeness into a bugged out aural stew that resided somewhere between the borders of freakishness and dementia. In a nutshell, mainstream radio was scared of them. Hell, count the entire multitude of mainstream society, for that matter. All of that changed when they dropped "Pepper," their lone radio "hit" in 1996. Yet despite that brush with commercial acceptance, the band still remained outsiders who persisted in crafting often difficult listening experiences.

Needless to say, all of this was bubbling through my head as I slipped Butthole Surfers' frontman Gibby Haynes' first bona fide solo project, Gibby Haynes and His Problem into the CD player. The group's website alone continued the depraved antics of the Surfers, featuring mutated images and schlock feast euphoria. But despite the freak show appearances (or perhaps in spite of them) Gibby Haynes and His Problem is an incredibly infectious, easy on the ears slice of indie rock psychedelia that owes serious nods to the garage movement of the mid-60s, the acid drenched mystery of the late-60s, and the guitar driven pop aesthetics of the early '80s indie boom. In short, it's an accomplished and highly entertaining romp through the various idioms of American rock and roll.

Haynes' voice gets the mild echo, eerie whisper treatment on the opening track, "Kaiser," a phasered-out guitar driven number that pierces the ears with head nodding psychedelic vibrations, fuzz buzzing in the right channel while crisp guitar solos careen in the left making it an essential headphone listen. Lyrically, it's all tripped out dada abstractness: "I'll be the Kaiser/you'll wear the diapers/We'll go through money like it was nothing/We will be famous in California/I'll be the doctor…" And while Haynes verbal obscurity may leave you scratching your head, it really doesn't matter since the delivery of the words of confusion meld perfectly to the music.

The band adopts a decidedly '60s roots/country/psychedelic approach on "Woo" sounding like any number of long forgotten garage bands that were able to drift between crazed abandon and crisp and clean introspection (knowing full well that they were never a garage band, this song evokes the images of The Animals or at least Eric Burden crossed with some dusted desert schism). Haynes and crew shift into liltingly infectious pop on "Superman," a wonderful little gem that rolls along to jangly guitar, loping basslines, and snare and cymbal rhythms and wonderfully droll lyrics: "Superman has killer weed/he gets it from Dan Rather/they both fly at the light of speed…"

From the brilliantly whimsical the album shifts into full-blown chug and thunder and vocoder madness on "Charlie." Guitars are compressed into a turgid wall of electricity and the requisite solo flips from a burbling pierce to a cremated blues juggernaut. If you have your headphones clamped down tightly you'll also notice a smattering of back masked garble, thus creating an otherworldly undercurrent. All the time Gibby stresses the refrain "It's been a long time since I lost my mind/Didn't really know until I went blind…"

The band slips back into a laid back, easy groove on "Stop Foolin'," which sounds like a long lost '70s rock classic, swaying along to a clean guitar jangle, sweet keyboards, and Haynes smoothed out, warm vocals. With "Letter" the band conjures up images, both lyrically and musically, of the Box Tops' classic of the same name, mixed a bit with similar, albeit much kinder and gentler, thematics of the Velvet Underground's "The Gift." This may be the most straight forward, simplest love song Haynes has ever crafted and it's a gem, to be sure.

The rich psychedelic slant continues on "15000," the track actually reverberating with an ever so slight Psychedelic Furs vibe, mostly due to Haynes' treated whine and the controlled fuzz drenched guitars. Interestingly enough, the somewhat recurring theme of blindness rears it's head again as the chorus chants "15,000 people going blind…" With "Nights" the band shifts back to the early garage movement sound, evoking that classic American rock sound that was continued into the '70s by the likes of BOC, a group that this track evokes considerably.

The final three tracks continue to stay aligned to the psychedelic "I Need Some Help" glowing with loping bass and strange, manipulated voices bouncing from channel to channel as the guitars waft about in a thick, warm haze. Haynes' voice again adopts the dark whisper, lending the track an almost Stygian aura. "Dream Machine" shifts to happier sounding psychedelia, floating acousticality intermeshing with cosmic blips and burbles to create the feeling of drifting in and out of a somnambulistic state. The album's closer "Redneck Sex," almost feels like a BHS outtake, thanks to its sleazy title, excessive use of the "F" word, and the skirling, raved-up rock guitar blitz. It's a fitting climax, to be sure.

Gibby Haynes and His Problem is an accomplished romp through the annals of American rock and roll, from the bump and grind of the early garage movement on through the triplistik swirls of psychedelia on into the blues drenched period of pre-punk and the atonal infection of post-punk. It's quite possible that Butthole Surfer purists may be dismayed by the lack of disturbing imagery and crustified experimentalism, but few will be able to deny the acute musicality, the tight knit precision, and the hypnotic undercurrent of catchiness that runs throughout the 11 tracks contained herein that make this a minor modern masterpiece worthy of repeat listens.

D. Spence

[MindCrime]

Butthole Surfers, that's it, I was just thinking when I saw this, that the lead singer's name sounds familiar but could not place off hand. An old close buddy of mine claims that he met him outside of a Safeway groceries parking lot.

Who was in my room last ? Who the hell was in my bed ?