Watching YouTube videos of the Surfers
YouTube takes you places. Last night I landed here. The Butthole Surfers had a place in my past. Their albums always had a catch, a hook. One song per side it seems. Their cleverness and satire I liked but I didn’t look too deeply. Like a lot of things when I was younger, I could see it but I would take it for granted and not really peel back the onion.
1987 Tony Burger, Dean Griebel and Ryan ?, head to Clearwater for a Surfer show. Ryan is from the area, so we do an early trip down there. We are set, and drop acid to get the full surfer experience. I do not remember my guys much at this point of the day/night. Its blurry but we are in the show, the energy is real high. It seems very happy. Then the surfers open with Sweat Loaf and my life has been changed for ever. Its not an acid thing, but just an expression that I saw on the stage that has made a deep impression. The fat, wall of sound. The video screen. The willingness to have a nude woman dancing on a pedestal. The two drummers standing and beating the skins. Then in the middle of the first song,
For instance, Patino recalls a Butthole Surfers concert at the Clearwater Armory in 1987 that erupted in violence when the crowd started harassing the band's nude dancer, Kathleen Lynch.
"(They) basically smashed their guitar over a kid's head in the audience, kicked a girl in the face that was in the front row, broke her nose," he said. "Because the skinheads were on the stage getting all over this dancer they had, this female topless dancer. That show ended quick."
The opening lines of the song go: Daddy, what does regret mean? Well son, its better to regret something that you have done than something that you haven’t. By the way son, if you see you Mom, tell her SATAN, SATAN, SATAN.
I was four people deep from the stage. Saw the skinhead kids attack the women. Saw the band go into the crowd and fight. Saw the band return to the stage and cuss the crowd out and turn off the lights. There were no cops, security that I recall. Nobody got shot. Was this dangerous? How many 100’s were tripping balls? Where does this happen today? I was 21. Are 21 year olds better for it to be at a surfer concert, tripping and watching a total meltdown of the event.
My memory is that I remained unwilling to accept that the show was over. I stood, Gibby Haynes was on stage. I repeated something like play more, or something stupid. Finally I approached him and said something that did not land. The concert was over before the first song ended. But the trip was not.
Ryan knew some bar or two. We ended up in some dive bar. I remember navy dudes, not sure why. I don’t recall any navy bases in Clearwater. Seemed kind of a gay bar too, all dudes. The drive back to Gainesville was my job, while Tony and Dean slept. It was another moment that I will not forget. As I hit the last miles on I-75, Ted Nugent’s Wango Tango song arrived. I got a fifth wind for the night and delivered us home.
Then I see that a documentary is coming out, The Hole Truth and Nothing Butt regarding the surfers. Its hard to see if the movie ever completed or not, looking for it. Not getting to see the entire concert, the one and only time that I know that the Surfers ever came to Florida in my youth. It was prime time surfers, they went mainstream in the early 90’s. That show in Clearwater had a lot of potential.