Paranoid Ironmen and Fairies are dining on Rat Salad.

Paranoid Ironmen and Fairies are dining on Rat Salad.

In the VH1 series Behind the Music episode which profiled Black Sabbath, a critic whom I sadly cannot remember his name said something to the effect of “If in the 60’s you did not feel loved and felt completely alienated, Black Sabbath was singing for you”.  In the 60’s musicians like The Who, The Doors, Cream, Jeff Beck Group (with Rod Stewart on vocals), Yardbirds, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, and several others created a firm foundation for what would become heavy metal…and then came 1970 and with it came Black Sabbath!!

Transitioning back to my childhood at an exceptionally young age I was very well versed in heavy metal.  My father especially loved AC/DC, Van Halen, Rush, Scorpions, Styx, Journey, Deep Purple, and Kansas when I was a kid as well as a wide range of music which my brothers and I enjoyed listening to with my Dad.  My father liked Black Sabbath very casually, but his take on them at that point in the 80’s was he had bought Paranoid in 1970 and could not really get into it (however, he did see Black Sabbath live in Salt Lake City in 1972).  Other than sporadic airplay of “Ironman” and “Paranoid” I did not know the music of Black Sabbath all that well.   But thanks to an amazing chain of events in 1987 would introduce me to Black Sabbath and greatly influence my musical direction.

Shortly after my older brother Alan started middle school in 1987 he crossed paths with a friend that had a cassette of Paranoid he was trying to sell and Alan bought it from him.  I still remember coming home from school that day and Alan had ‘Ironman’ cranked up on his bedroom stereo and just being thrilled.  As much as Alan gave the cassette a few listens, like my dad, other than the very classic songs ‘Ironman’ and ‘Paranoid’ he could not really get into it either.  One of my favorite activities as 10 year old kid was going bicycling through my neighborhood with my cassette Walkman cranked up and a hip bag full of cassettes to pick from (I am so glad they invented the iPod).  From the moment I pushed play on my cassette Walkman and the opening chord of ‘War Pigs’ I was completely flabbergasted!   My energy went through the roof as I biked through my neighborhood like I was being chased by Wile E. Coyote as I listened to Paranoid for the very first time.  Forgiving the fact that the song ‘Planet Caravan’ did not do much for me at age 10 (but I would grow to love ‘Planet Caravan’), this cassette was awesome.  As much as I was already a fan of heavy metal, something clearly set Black Sabbath apart from other bands, even other heavy metal bands.  The guitar heavy and dark, the bass was cranked up, the drumming very quick, intense, and methodical in the vein of Keith Moon and Ginger Baker, and the vocals of Ozzy Osbourne had defined and for me at the point redefined heavy metal.

With Paranoid at age 10 I have really discovered a gem.  In the 5^th grade there were a lot of my classmates that liked Bon Jovi and other metal that was way main stream as well as all things top 40 pop, however, only one other kid in my grade into metal other than me, which made me very different amongst my peers.  I was literally the only person listening to Black Sabbath (and for that matter AC/DC, Rush, and all of the other stuff I was into at that point).   Through my life since elementary school Paranoid has become one of the standards I have used to judge a lot of metal music.

It’s tough for me to narrow down what my favorite song is on Paranoid, the first one to come to mind is ‘War Pigs’.  In the 60’s as the Vietnam War was in full force many bands wrote countless anti-war songs.  As much as many of these songs are hailed today as classics (“Take It Back” by Cream, “Subterranean Homesick Blues” by Bob Dylan, and “Fortunate Son” by Credence Clearwater Revival are some of my personal favorite 60’s antiwar songs), however some of these songs to me are very fluffy and the central thesis was more about we can defeat war by dodging the draft, free love, and using drugs.  ‘War Pigs’ in my opinion is the greatest antiwar song ever written.  The lyrics make a very bold statement about the political motives and all out horror of war without sugar coating anything.

My most favorite song on Paranoid is “Fairies Wear Boots”.  This is going to sound weird, but to me this song is in many ways the heavy metal equivalent of “A Whiter Shade of Pale” by Procal Harum, in the respect that it just has a haunting feel to it that I have never quite been able to put my finger on.  I especially love the guitar solo that ends the song as it fades into an unknown destination.  To this day my car stereo and my iPod get cranked up a little louder for “Fairies Wear Boots”.

When I was 14 years old my parents gave me a bass guitar they had purchased from my uncle and I started to learn how to play.  By the time I was 15 I was good enough at bass that I could get around on the instrument.  I was ready to learn more challenging bass lines and I looked to Geezer Butler of Black Sabbath.  Bass guitar books in 1992 were hard to come by and because this was before the glory of the internet, the only option I had to learn Black Sabbath on bass was to put on my tapes and figure out the songs.  I used to listen to Paranoid over and over again while attempting to play along on my bass and in less than six months I had the whole album figured out, which was a huge milestone for me on the bass guitar.  For the first time I felt I was a good bassist.

As time went by I would later purchase the Master of Reality and Sabbath Bloody Sabbath and some of Ozzy Osbourne’s solo albums which I also really enjoyed, however, Paranoid was always the album that stuck out the most.  When I turned sixteen years old I got a job washing dishes with my older brother at the Chin-Wah Restaurant in Sandy, UT.  At this point I was earning a lot more money compared to my paper route and I bought my first CD player.  One day I was going through the bin of $9.00 CD’s at a records shop and I bought the first Black Sabbath album…little did I know what I was in store for (see my next blog).

Let’s Say Hello to Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

Let’s Say Hello to Goodbye Yellow Brick Road



While I was growing up in Sandy, Utah, I was proud to be part of the metal scene.  Because I started going to concerts with my Dad at age 11 I had a lot of way cool rock t-shirts and for the most part I always looked and acted the part of the passionate rocker when I was in middle and high school.  However, to this day I have discovered that when someone discovers that I am into heavy metal, they automatically assume that metal is the only musical form that I listen to, which has never been the case throughout my musical journey.  On my iPod when I put it on random it can literally go from The Beach Boys to Motorhead, Billy Joel to Alice in Chains, Tori Amos to Steely Dan, and Depeche Mode to Rush.  Variety is truly the spice of life and music is not an exception. 

One of my favorite singer/songwriters ever is Elton John.   My parents’ were able to catch him live a couple of times in the 70’s and are fans of his music.  My brothers and I starting building our individual music collections at a very young age and we would borrow from each other’s collections very regularly and often without asking permission.  When I was 9 years old my older brother Alan had the cassettes of Elton John’s Greatest Hits and Greatest Hits Volume 2.  I would borrow these quite a bit from him.  However, Alan was pretty addicted to these tapes as well and I was not the best at asking for permission or returning them in a timely manner.  One day Alan was at the end of his rope and asked for the tapes back immediately.  The next day I snuck into his room and took the actual cassettes of Elton John’s Greatest Hits and Greatest Hits Volume 2, but I left the cassette cases in his room.  Several weeks went by before Alan even noticed they were gone.  However, the inevitable day came when Alan was in the mood for some Elton John and opened up the cassette cases to discover to his dismay that the cassettes were not present.  He was pretty furious and I once again returned the tapes to him.  This game of cat and mouse would continue for years.

When I was 11 years old I landed my first job as a paper route delivery boy and I was making an amazing $80.00 a month, which was excellent money especially at my age, and the rapid expansion of my cassette collection began.  One early morning while I was doing my paper route the Elton John song “Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding” came on the radio.  I had never heard this song before and I was completely amazed by what I had heard.  However, because the length of the song is over eleven minutes hearing it again on the radio was a narrow possibility.  But I just could not get “Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding” out of my head.

A few weeks later I was at the record store with my Dad thumbing through the cassettes and I came across a copy of ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’ by Elton John.  Where I was a little intimidated is the cassette was over an hour long and I only knew 5 of the 17 songs.  It was a lot more of a time commitment than I was used to.  But I decided to buy it.

The next day when I did my paper route I listened to side one of the cassette and I was completely blown away by it.  Not only was it awesome to hear all of the hits songs, but the songs that were not released as singles were just as good and “Grey Seal” and “This Song Has No Title” very quickly became favorites.  All in all side one of ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’ was way cool.

The following morning I listened to side two of ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’.  I thought that “Sweet Painted Lady” and “The Ballad of Danny Bailey (1909 – 1934)” were both pretty good; however, the second side has a very different feel and personality.  Side one was the commercial/radio friendly side, where side two, many of the songs had a darker theme to them and was very much a big step away from side one.  I didn’t hate that side of the cassette, but at least at age 12, other than “Saturday Nights Alright for Fighting”, I just couldn’t really get into the second half of ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’.  It was just so different the Elton John I was used to.

A couple of years later when I was 14 I was running some errands with my mother and suddenly to my surprise the Elton John song “All the Young Girls Love Alice” came on the radio (to this day the one and only time I have ever heard this song on the radio).  This song did not do much for me two years earlier, but now I thought the song was way cool.  I gave the second side of ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’ another listen on my paper route the next morning and this time I caught the vision and “All the Young Girls Love Alice”, “Dirty Little Girl”, and “Harmony” quickly became favorites.  In the two years since I had last listened to side two of ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’ my musical tastes had grown and devolved further. 

What I think makes this album so special to Elton John fans is the range of musical styles and genres Elton show cases on this album.  ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’ stays true the style of the hit songs that made Elton famous with “Candle in the Wind”, “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road”, and “Bennie and the Jets”, dabbles with country music on “Roy Rogers” and “Social Disease”, explores Elton’s dark side with “Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding”, “All the Young Girls Love Alice”, and “Dirty Little Girl”, and straight up rock and roll with “Saturday Nights Alright for Fighting”.  There simply is not a weak song on this album.  What amazes me the most is once Bernie Taupin presented Elton John with the lyrics, Elton John composed the music for ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’ in three days.  Elton John had successfully caught lightning yet again.  In addition, the album fully show cases the musical talents of Elton John’s guitarist Davey Johnstone.  In my opinion Davey Johnstone is one of the most underrated guitarists in history.  Elton John’s music throughout his career has explored many genres and styles and Davey Johnstone can play all of them flawlessly.  On ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’ Davey’s guitar work perfectly complements and enhances every song on the record and really gives an edge to ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’.  To me it’s a real shame that Davey Johnstone has not received the credit he deserves for being such a great guitarist.

Every time I listen to ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’ I am reminded of one of the most intense evenings of my life.  When I was 17 years old in 1994 my mother’s lower right leg was starting to swell up and was causing her a lot of pain, a condition called Cellulitis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellulitis).  One particular evening the Cellulitis was causing her an intense amount of pain and she wanted to go see an urgent care doctor.  My father most of life worked night shift and asked me to take my mother to the doctor because he was getting ready to go to work for the evening.  I grabbed my cassette of ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’ (when driving around with my mother I always make sure that I am listening to something she enjoys), put it in the cars tape player, and my little brother and I drove her to the urgent care Doctors’ Office.  My mother was in a lot of pain and I was driving like a mad man on the freeway to get my mom to the doctor.  It was very intense as Scott and I waited in the waiting room hoping that the doctor would be able to help out my Mom.  Later, the doctor entered the waiting room with my Mother in a wheel chair and instructed us to take her to the hospital immediately.  At this point it’s close to 10:00pm.  We once again helped my mother into the car and I drove like an Indy 500 driver on the freeway to get my mother to the hospital.  When we arrived at the hospital there was a nurse waiting for us with a wheel chair for my mother and she was very quickly whisked into the hospital.  The doctor and nurse would not allow Scott and me to follow her up to her hospital room and asked me to go to the Emergency Room and help them check my mom into the hospital.  The first question the woman at the desk was if I was over 18 and I told her I was not.  She then told me that by law I could not legally check my mother into the hospital and that they would not allow me to go up her hospital room (ultimately because in my opinion the doctors did not want me in the way while they were taking care of my mother once she was admitted to the hospital).  This made me pretty mad and I became very insistent that I be allowed to go see my mom, or minimum get the phone number of the room they were putting her in.  My brother Scott, thankfully being much calmer than I was in this situation whispered to me “settle down or they’re going to call security”.  I begrudgingly accepted defeat and exited the emergency room lobby with my little brother.

After such an intense ordeal I decided that we would take the long way home, just so I could at least calm down.  As Scott and I cruised State Street back into Sandy, UT, we listened to the last five songs on ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’ (“You’re Sister Can’t Dance (But She Can Rock N’ Roll)”, “Saturday Nights Alright for Fighting”, “Roy Rogers”, “Social Disease”, and “Harmony”) and it helped cut down the tension and frustration I was feeling as well as Scott immediately started telling jokes and using his great sense of humor to ease the situation.  When we arrived home Scott and I said a prayer for our mother.  The hardest part for me was my father worked night shift at the main United States Post Office in Salt Lake City and we were not allowed to call him at work unless it was an emergency, so I had to stay up and wait for my Dad to call home during his break.  Scott went to bed and I listened to ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’ quietly on the living room stereo.  My Dad called home a little after midnight and I filled him in on what went down that evening.  I’ve never been happier to just go to bed in my entire life. 

Throughout my life it never ceases to amaze me how music has such a calming and soothing effect regardless of the intensity of any situation, which has been the case with ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’.  It’s the perfect combination of melodic pop, straight up rock, and experimentation with a wide variety of musical forms.  Currently, this is Elton John’s largest selling studio album at 7 million copies and is #91 on Rolling Stone Magazine’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list.  ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’ has successfully passed the test of time and I still consider it to be some of the finest music from Elton John’s very extensive and successful career.

Octavarium: The Beethoven’s 9th of heavy metal or how I learned to love and embrace Dream Theater.

Octavarium: The Beethoven’s 9^th of heavy metal or how I learned to love and embrace Dream Theater.

The decade of the 90’s was a very interesting and transitional decade in my musical journey.  I still loved heavy metal and I was very loyal to the bands I got into during the 80’s.  But where the 90’s became very difficult musically for me was when heavy metal went through the power ballad phase.  There are several power ballads that I absolutely love (“More Than Words” by Extreme, “Save Your Love” by Great White, and “Patience” by Guns n’ Roses are three of my very favorite metal power ballads).  However, it got to a point with heavy metal where many metal bands felt like they had to do a power ballad (even Metallica did one) and heavy metal was softening up.  In 1991, Nirvana put out Nevermind, which completely blew me away, greatly influenced my future musical direction, and to me was more metal than what metal was at that point.  However, I still loved and was loyal to the heavy metal bands I grew up with, but Nirvana introduced me to a whole new music scene, specifically punk, and I started to explore a lot of music outside of the realm of heavy metal.  Unfortunately, there was still some great heavy metal emerging through the 90’s that got lost in the shuffle while I was exploring other music.  I think Rich Wilson, Dream Theater’s biographer and author of Lifting Shadows, Dream Theater’s official biography, summed up this period of the 90’s for the heavy metal scene while discussing the Dream Theater album ‘Awake’, “In spite of the plentiful redeeming features on Awake, press reviews were generally subdued. It must of course be remembered that it was released just as the shoegazing, miserable purveyors of the fad known as grunge were taking hold. The British press in particular seemed dazzled by the work of Kurt Cobain and his cohorts, and anything that wasn't based around three chords or packed with lyrics championing depression as a lifestyle choice was in for a hard ride”.

In 1992, I was initially introduced to Dream Theater when Salt Lake’s KBER used to play “Pull Me Under”, which I thought was a way awesome song, but it wasn’t quite enough for me to buy the CD of ‘Images and Words’.  Two years later when Dream Theater released ‘Awake’, many of my friends who remained very loyal to metal after Nirvana made it introduced me again to Dream Theater.  However, at this point it was 1994, I loved the early days of grunge (specifically Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, and Stone Temple Pilots) but I did not really like the direction grunge and alternative rock went.  At that point I am listening to a lot of Smashing Pumpkins, Weezer, Black Flag, The Misfits, Rollins Band, Sex Pistols, Danzig, and Ministry.  I thought ‘Awake’ was an ok CD when my friends played it for me.  But I was having issues with metal and I did not give ‘Awake’ a fair chance.

Now we travel forward in time to 2007.  Dream Theater was coming to Salt Lake City on July 30, 2007, and several of my friends were way exited for the show.  In addition, Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, Jr., signed a proclamation making July 30, 2007, Dream Theater Day in the State of Utah.  As it turns out the Utah Governor as well as two of his sons are huge fans of Dream Theater.  I did not attend the concert, but several of my friends did and gave the show very rave reviews.  At this point Dream Theater was on my radar.  I thought to myself that the mere fact that Dream Theater was even able to survive the 90’s, a decade that was not friendly to their brand of progressive metal, was a pretty miraculous feat and I started to feel like perhaps I had misjudged them.

In October 2007 one evening I walked from my apartment to Graywhale CD by the University of Utah and started thumbing through CD’s and I eventually end up in Dream Theater’s section and I looked over a copy of ‘Octavarium’.  I immediately noticed that the song ‘Octavarium’ was 24 minutes long.  I have never shied away from long songs and I am a fan of the music of Genesis, Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, Yes, and Rush, all of which have few very lengthy songs that I just love.  I thought to myself that the song ‘Octavarium’ is either the most boring jam session on Earth or it’s a total masterpiece, there just can’t be any middle ground.  My curiosity got the better of me and I bought ‘Octavarium’ forgiving the fact that I had never heard any of the songs off of it.

Once I get back to my apartment I got cozy on my couch and put ‘Octavarium’ in my CD player.  The moment the song ‘The Root of All Evil’ came across the speakers and my reaction was immediately “holy crap Batman!!!!” I could not believe how awesome this song was and I immediately turned my stereo up.  The next song was ‘The Answer Lies Within’.  It was the first mellow metal song I had heard in ages and I was impressed.  In fact, it was awesome to hear a power ballad that was so much the opposite of the standard metal ballad.  I was extremely impressed how Dream Theater could go from straight up metal to a power ballad so flawlessly.  The rest of the CD was just as awesome and then it finally came time for the song ‘Octavarium’.  The song begins with a very Pink Floyd like atmosphere and evolves through several movements and as the song progressed I was just more and more blown away by it and when I didn’t think the song could get any better, then the ‘Razor’s Edge’ movement begins and the orchestra joins in to wrap up the song, it was the most amazing song I had heard in ages.  With ‘Octavarium’ Dream Theater pulled off a 24 minute masterpiece that I now hold in the same regard with the songs ‘2112’ by Rush,’Karn Evil 9’ by Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, ‘And You and I’ by Yes, and ‘Supper’s Ready’ by Genesis.  Within one year of my first listen of the CD of ‘Octavarium’ I would own all of Dream Theater’s CD’s.

When it’s all said and done, Dream Theater is the worst case of me misjudging a band in my musical journey.  If I gave these guys half a chance back in 1992 I could have gotten into them in high school.   However, because I did not rediscover and embrace Dream Theater until 2007 not only did I discover ‘Octavarium’, but I discovered an extensive catalog of amazing music and I felt like I had discovered a gold mine.  In addition, Dream Theater reintroduced me to the metal scene which at that point I had not really followed since 1996.  I have discovered so many great bands currently making awesome music through Dream Theater.   Throughout their career Dream Theater has successfully combined everything that is awesome about heavy metal with everything that is awesome about progressive rock and have established themselves the premier band of the Progressive Metal scene, one of the best live bands in music, and they have some of the most serious and passionate fans and I am extremely glad to be one of them.

Dream Theater with Governor Jon Huntsman, Jr, and the Dream Theater Day Proclamation on July 30, 2007.

You are now entering ELECTRICLARRYLAND. Population?!?!?!?!?!

You are now entering ELECTRICLARRYLAND.  Population?!?!?!?!?!

“Have you ever heard of the Butthole Surfers?”  One time I asked my buddy Jeremy this question when we were about 12 years old and we both had a good laugh and it became a running joke.  When we were in high school there was a Butthole Surfers song on the radio and Jeremy asked “What band is this?” and I said “It’s the Butthole Surfers”.  Then Jeremy asked “Really, what band is this” and I again said “The Butthole Surfers”.  Jeremy was a little shocked and said “Brent, I thought you made that band up!”

I had first heard of the Butthole Surfers in the mid 80’s when I was growing up in Sandy, Utah.  They got no airplay in Salt Lake City and finding indie punk albums in my hometown was fairly difficult, but the name had my attention.   By the early 90’s other than the occasional video on MTV’s 120 minutes and very rare airplay on Salt Lake’s X96, I still did not know much about these guys other than stories about their live shows, but the very few songs I had heard by them I at least liked.

I got my introduction to the Butthole Surfers when I was serving as an LDS missionary in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania in the summer of 1997.  I had a new companion transferred into the area and he musically was a fan of industrial, punk, ska, and alternative rock and had a soft spot for swing (the Squirrel Nut Zippers were starting to happen at that point).  One day when we had finished working for the day we arrived back at our apartment and a box had arrived from BMG for my companion and ELETRICLARRYLAND by the Butthole Surfers was in the box.  We were playing the board game Axis and Allies when my companion put this CD in the player.  From the beginning the song “Birds” immediately got my attention, “Cough Syrup” was the coolest song I had heard in ages, and “Pepper” was so different than anything I had ever heard and we were only three songs into the CD.  While we listened to ELERTRICLARRY land my companion ended up kicking my butt at Axis and Allies while I was more paying attention to the music coming out of the CD player.  When the CD ended I asked my companion what he thought and he said “it’s ok”.  I said back “What do you mean it’s OK?! This is freaking awesome!” we gave it a couple of more listens and he still didn’t like the CD all that much and it just got better and better when I was listening to it.  The Butthole Surfers had taken the basic vision of punk and added elements from psychedelic, heavy metal, electronica, classic rock, as well as the bizarre and abstract (Zappa-esque) and created a punk/alternative album that had an amazing amount of depth in its sound and finally the Butthole Surfers received some commercial success for being that weird punk band from San Antonio, Texas.

When I returned home from my LDS mission in 1998 ELECTRICLARRYLAND was one of the first CD’s I bought.  I was starting to learn how to play guitar (I am a self-taught guitarist) my approach was to put on a CD and just play along with it and ELETRICLARRYLAND was a CD that I played along with regularly.  I still remember how thrilled I was when I got “Cough Syrup” figured out completely on my own and this album was crucial in my evolution and development as a guitarist.

Where ELECTRICLARRYLAND became especially endearing to me is when I was attending the College of Business at Utah State University from 2003 to 2005.  I was one of those rare college students that would wake up at 5:00am to study until about 1:00pm on the days I didn’t have class, go to work, in the afternoon, and then go to the gym or do something fun in the evening.  I hated having to study or do homework in the evening and I went to great lengths to avoid it.  But when midterms and finals started to approach I would buy some two liter bottles of Mountain Dew and study into the wee small hours for a few days completing those last minute semester projects and cramming for midterm and final exams.  The recipe of ELECTRICLARRYLAND with Mountain Dew and sleep deprivation in the name of University education was a pretty magical combination and got me through some pretty intense all night study and project work sessions.  After I graduated college I later found out that Gibby Haynes and Paul Leary of the Butthole Surfers met when they were Business students at San Antonio’s Trinity University (Haynes graduating in Accounting and Leary was one semester shy of completing the Master of Business Administration Program).  Perhaps that is part of why these guys sounded so good when I was in the College of Business.

The audience of the Butthole Surfers is a very unique one.  In October 2009 I went to see the Butthole Surfers at the Urban Lounge in Salt Lake City.  As I walked from my apartment to the concert I couldn’t help but think about what kind of people would be at the concert, since I was pretty used to being the only weirdo in my group of friends who was a fan of the Butthole Surfers I wasn’t sure what to expect.  When I arrived at the concert there were three other guys were in line with me.  Slowly, but surely the other 200 weirdos showed up and got in line.  I felt a very odd and strange sense of community.  The one factor all of us had in common is that all of our musical tastes were very odd and went all over the place (I got a lot of complements for the King Crimson shirt I was wearing.  I was not expecting one person at this show to even know who King Crimson was).  Because the stage at the Urban Lounge is only 1.5 feet high getting into position by the stage is very important and was able to get right at the front of stage.  Paul Leary and Gibby Haynes were directly in front of me the whole show and it was a lot of fun.  Above all this is one of the most unique concerts I have ever to and the audience at the Butthole Surfers is one of the most unique groups of people I have ever been around.

And now the most controversial part of this blog.  In my opinion ELECTRICLARRYLAND by the Butthole Surfers is what I consider to be the best album of the 90’s (I’ve had several of my friends debate with me pretty intensely over this).  The 90’s were a decade where being alternative and non-mainstream was the train of thought in the music scene.  Some bands were able to pull this off and became legends (in my opinion bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots, Soundgarden, Beck, Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, and Offspring), but when alternative became mainstream to me it lost some of its edge and the bands did not have the depth that the bands I view as legendary did.  But in 1996 the Butthole Surfers, a band that had been strange, unique, non-mainstream, and had definitely been doing their own thing since the early 80’s emerged with ELECTRICLARRYLAND and to me definitively define what the heart of grunge and alternative rock was all about in a way no other band could without sacrificing what makes them unique.