Of Astronauts and Marionettes: Paul Leary's A History of Dogs, plus other Butthole Surfers-related news!

Paul Leary and Milo, his pet furshark 

There's some happy news in the world of the Butthole Surfers - a reissued solo album by Butts' guitarist Paul Leary, a book about that's back in print, and a movie that is being made. We'll start with the album... 

Paul Leary's first solo album was 1991's A History of Dogs, the original cover of which had a photo of Paul Leary's now departed dog, whose full name was Mark Farner of Grand Funk Railroad, as I understand (but Paul just calls him Mark Farner). Farner travelled with the band, guarded their gear, and once even growled at gear thieves who were menacing the van when Leary himself was sleeping in back of it. 

That album has been out of print for years, but I re-acquired it before interviewing Leary, and found it holds up pretty well, having more than enough interesting aspects to keep a thoughtful and musically sophisticated listener happily engaged, though by and large it is not as attention-grabbing, Dadaistic, playful or extroverted as, say, anything Butthole Surfer's vocalist Gibby Haynes has been involved with, which may have been what people expected at the time. It's more of an album for listening to, is even, uh, kind of mature - way moreso than Born Stupid, Leary's album from 2021; if A History of Dogs were a Led Zeppelin album, it would be Houses of the Holy - something you maybe can best understand by listening to "The Birds Are Dying," the album's opening cut, which is kind of what it would sound like if Zep had written "No Quarter" as an ecologically-themed protest song...   

Sadly, neither the press nor the public were very enthusiastic about the album at the time - I originally got it out of a delete bin for a buck a year or so after it was released - and some reviews (Paul remembers them vividly) were even kind of nasty. Leary tells about "taking boxes of it to the dump –  probably a hundred [of them]," because he "just couldn't stand looking at them anymore." At the urgings of Kramer and the newly-reinvigorated Shimmy-Disc, he tells me today via email, 

I remastered the album from the old mixes and added a couple of bonus tracks. I basically tried to make it sound better. I think I did. Hope I did…. It was a little weird putting myself back 30 years. That album came from a dark place that I do not miss.

The two bonus tracks on the reissue, due June 17th, are "Speedo Man" ("intolerably stupid but very dramatic - Kramer at Shimmy Disk wants a video for this. Yikes.") and what Leary tells me is the earliest recording of “The Adventures of Pee Pee the Sailor,” with Danny Barnes on the banjo (Barnes is from the Bad Livers, who recorded their own version of the song around the time when Paul was producing an album for them - as did the Meat Puppets. whose Too High to Die was produced by Leary, all of which we also discuss in the interview). This song is also on Born Stupid, and recently acquired a video - this from the 2021 album, which was Leary's first official release of the song, if not the original recording.

Probably my favourite song off the album is "Apollo One," the second track on that full album link above, about a fire that killed all three crew members on a manned spaceflight back in 1967. 

Left to Right: Gus Grissom, Ed White, Roger Chaffee

When I spoke to Leary for Big Takeover last year, I had to ask him about that song. I'm going to offer a teaser here, taken from part one (issue 88), but fans are encouraged to buy a backissue and to seek out part two in the current issue (89) in whatever good magazine store you  have access to (note that I also interview Sparks, with the help of David M. of No Fun).I was mildly surprised to discover, in asking Paul about "Apollo One," that Leary is a space geek, something that in fact makes sense; you can see traces of it elsewhere in the Butt's penumbra, from obvious places like After the Astronaut and "The Last Astronaut" to slightly more obscure ones, like Gibby Haynes' project with Johnny Depp, P, and their dub-inflected “John Glenn (Mega-Mix).” Leary was ten years old when the Apollo One accident took place, and ten year old boys sometimes have a fascination for space exploration:

I was hugely into the space program, growing up. I would run to the window of my house in San Antonio when they launched those old Mercury spacecraft, thinking I would see them out the window. And when John Glenn orbited the earth, they gave him a parade – across the nation there were parades, and he was in a parade in San Antonio, and I went to see the parade, and they were selling souvenirs. One of the souvenirs that my Dad bought me was a cardboard-tube Mercury rocket that you would pump up and it would shoot into the air. And the first time I launched it, it hit me right in the eye and gave me my first black eye. I was in school when the announcement came that the three astronauts had died aboard Apollo One, and that was just a really dark day. That was, to me, as bad as the Kennedy assassination. I mean, those were my heroes. I grew up in the Space Age, and I can remember watching John Glenn take off, and Allen Shepard even, taking off. To lose Ed White, Gus Grissom, and Roger Chaffee – that was heartbreaking. Ed White’s being the first American to walk in space made him a hero. It’s still sad to think about.

I observed to Leary that it's a surprisingly driving tune - not exactly somber in tone, more of a rocker, such that you don't even notice how grim the subject matter is until you read the lyrics' Leary explained he was trying to capture "how frantic that must have been" during the eleven seconds when the fire was burning, the three men trying to contain it. 

Leary's revised cover for issue 89, as lifted off Facebook; I am amused 

And then there's the book - a numbered softcover reprint of the Butthole Surfers' coffee table book, What Does Regret Mean?, which features two photos from a show at the Vancouver PNE taken by local treasure Bev Davies. The book is beautifully-made, though highly image-centric, with art, photos, and ephemera taking up much more space than the writing. Even in softcover, it is one of those rare books that will likely appreciate in value; the equally limited hardcover was selling for a few hundred dollars online when I talked with Leary (as I recall, we had some chit-chat, possibly not printed in the mag, about the price of the thing), and as unreasonable as those prices seemed, they have all apparently sold since, so...   

I know less about the Butthole Surfers' movie, as yet unmade,save that it promises to be the "definitive documentary that will reveal the hole truth and nothing butt." There is a Kickstarter page for it, which looks to have surpassed its goal. Mostly I got excited to see - because I'd just been talking to Zander Schloss about his own marionette-centred rock video - that there was a Gibby Haynes' puppet made for the movie, for hte purposes of re-enacting some of the Butts' more demented shows (yes, Vancouver readers, I do talk to Leary in BT about the Graceland "stabbing" incident).

The remainder of this informative but brief interview can be read below, in Q&A style, with me in italics.

 

How was the marionette made? How will it be used? Has Gibby reacted to it? 

I’m not sure how the puppet was made. Gibby seemed very happy to interact with it and to operate it, so I’m guessing he likes it. It’s pretty badass. There will be puppets made of the rest of us. They could probably just use a bowling pin for mine.

Were you happy with the reception been for Born Stupid?

I am very happy. I released it sort of as a vanity record, but we’re going on a third pressing now, and it’s been fun making videos for the songs. [See here for one of several, the demented, vegan-friendly "Do You Like to Eat a Cow?"]. I’m looking forward to making another.

Is there any news about possible live shows or such?

I don’t believe I will ever perform live again with anyone. I’m very content to be a washed-up rock star. It’s a lot more fun than I thought it would be.

Are you working on anything new, now, music-wise or otherwise?

Right now I’m producing an album for Carty Talkington, who wrote and directed the movie Love and a 45. It’s very different than anything I’ve worked on before. Also, I’m midway through a second album for my other band “Cocky Bitches” [hear a track off their first album here]. It’s a lot of fun, and I can’t wait to get it out.

Thanks, Paul!