Length 32:34 Artist Butthole Surfers Label Touch and Go Records | Producer Butthole Surfers Release date 1987 | |
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Released March 1987 (US)
1987 (Europe), (Australia) Locust Abortion Technician
(1987) Hairway to Steven
(1988) Genres Punk rock, Alternative rock, Psychedelic rock Similar Butthole Surfers albums, Hardcore punk albums | ||
Locust Abortion Technician is the third full-length studio album by American experimental rock band Butthole Surfers, released in March 1987. All songs were written and produced by Butthole Surfers, except for "Kuntz", which was by Thai artists Phloen Phromdaen and Kong Katkamngae, who were originally uncredited for their work. The album was originally released as vinyl on Touch and Go, and was remastered to CD on Latino Buggerveil in 1999.
Contents
Locust Abortion Technician's front cover illustration of two clowns playing with a dog was painted by Arthur Sarnoff, entitled "Fido and the Clowns".
Kurt Cobain listed it in his top 50 albums of all time. It is also featured in Robert Dimsey's 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.
Music
Locust Abortion Technician harnesses aspects of punk, heavy metal, and psychedelia. "Sweat Loaf" utilizes a warped riff similar to the verse riff from the Black Sabbath song "Sweet Leaf". Not all the tracks are guitar-oriented, though; the song "Kuntz" was created by processing an original Eastern recording by a Thai artist through Gibby Haynes' "Gibbytronix" system.
This album marked the debut of bass player Jeff Pinkus, as well as the return of co-drummer Teresa Nervosa, who had left the band in December 1985. It was also the first Surfers full-length album to feature lead singer Gibby Haynes' Gibbytronix vocal effects, which feature on the songs "Sweat Loaf" and "Human Cannonball" (though Gibbytronix were employed on "Comb" on the Cream Corn from the Socket of Davis EP a year earlier).
The Butthole Surfers regularly play songs from Locust Abortion Technician during their live concerts, including "Sweat Loaf", "Graveyard", "Pittsburgh to Lebanon", "U.S.S.A.", "Kuntz" and "22 Going on 23".
Background
Locust Abortion Technician was the first Butthole Surfers album primarily recorded at the band's home studio, which was originally assembled in a rental house they were sharing near Austin, Texas in 1986. A private studio did not mean an end to the sub-standard equipment that had plagued their previous recording sessions, though. In addition to having just one microphone, they also used an outdated 8-track tape recorder instead of the 16-track gear used on Rembrandt Pussyhorse. However, guitarist Paul Leary believes that the inferior equipment forced the band to be more creative than they might otherwise have been.
Additionally, the new studio freed the band from having to worry about recording costs, allowing them to experiment even more than on previous releases. Jeff Pinkus has also said that the home studio gave them the luxury of taking extended breaks for drug use.
Many of the album's tracks also underwent extensive in-studio development. Although doing this had become a Butthole Surfers tradition, Locust Abortion Technician was one of their last recordings done in such a manner; on subsequent releases the band would go into the studio with more fully formed songs. Pinkus has expressed the opinion that the earlier, more chaotic recording sessions resulted in much of the spontaneous creativity that had propelled the group's early albums.
Track listing
All songs written and produced by Butthole Surfers, except where noted.
Personnel
Songs
Sweat Loaf6:09
Graveyard2:28
Pittsburgh to Lebanon2:30