Locust Abortion Technician vs Yerself is Steam

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My brother asked me recently what that butthole surfers album i have sounded like, and the first thing that came into my head was "It's a bit like 'Yerself is Steam'!" Why did I say such a thing? They're both quite SLUDGY records in places, with dark-yet-absurd senses of humour. Baker seems like an acid-munching loony in a similar vein to gibby. I could almost picture "Very Sleepy Rivers" as a Buttholes song.

There are quite a few differences, admittedly. there's more sensitivity in Mercury Rev, even at the noisier, more chaotic end of their career. 'Locust...' is ugly pretty much from start to finish, while there are Pretty moments on Yerself is Steam.

Which of these two Very Good albums do you enjoy more?

― weasel diesel (K1l14n), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 12:15 (twenty-two years ago)

There's nothing really unsettling or disquieting about Yerself Is Steem like there is about Locust Abortion Technician. Thus, the Buttholes win.

Also, Yerself is Steem may be my least favorite album title/bad pun of all time.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 13:37 (twenty-two years ago)

Yerself for me. As can be seen here, but to draw out the specific comparison, while I like a couple of songs on Locust mighty fine and all, I can't say I ever obsessed over it as an album. Yerself, in contrast, was something I really got into, and while time shows the roots from the Flaming Lips more clearly to me it still feels like its own strange, wonderful place.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 13:50 (twenty-two years ago)

These are the only albums I can really get into by either band. I like Mercury Rev better all around though. I agree with Ned on the whole "strange, wonderful place" thing - it takes me somewhere a Butthole Surfers record has never taken me.

― Johnny Badlees (crispssssss), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 14:56 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm with Alex on this one. Locust Abortion Technician for, if nothing else, Swwet Loaf and Human Cannonball. Although Yerself Is Steam does have the very fine Frittering...

Still the Buttholes though, if only because Jonathon Ross plays them (and primo Buttholes tracks at that) about once a month on the normally sedate Radio 2, whereas he only ever plays Mercury Rev tracks off Deserters Songs.

― aldo_cowpat (aldo_cowpat), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 15:47 (twenty-two years ago)

I would never expect a Butthole Surfers record (let alone Locust...) to take me anywhere were the adjective "wonderful" is applicable, unless your definition of wonder involves mental pictures of an abject, drug-fueled psychosis where degradation and yowling, inescapable horror bloom like a million foul-smelling flowers during springtime in Hell.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 15:50 (twenty-two years ago)

I love that the Buttholes take me places I would neither want to go nor even imagine existed. I actually like both these albums a lot, but LAT has the sentimental fucked-my-brain-up-in-high-school advantage here.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 15:52 (twenty-two years ago)

unless your definition of wonder involves mental pictures of an abject, drug-fueled psychosis where degradation and yowling, inescapable horror bloom like a million foul-smelling flowers during springtime in Hell.

Yours doesn't? Alex, I am disappointed in you.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 15:54 (twenty-two years ago)

yerself is steam sucks. i had it once and it repelled me so that i had to get rid of it. effects pedal stoner rubbish. the buttholes circa locust.. were just ever so crafty and surprisingly subtle. i don't care how many drugs they took or whether gibby went to toilet on a dwarf stripper it has no bearing on the music. the tunes are superb beautifully skewed pop nuggets and mercury rev's piece of shit album stinks

― bob snoom, Thursday, 4 December 2003 12:19 (twenty-two years ago)

''i don't care how many drugs they took or whether gibby went to toilet on a dwarf stripper''

that's an image.

yeah I sold my copy of yerself (though i really liked that last track, but jesus lizard are better at this stuff).

'Locust abortion...' is one of the great psych records for me.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Thursday, 4 December 2003 12:41 (twenty-two years ago)

isnt hairway to steven a better comparison album?

― charltonlido (gareth), Thursday, 4 December 2003 12:50 (twenty-two years ago)

maybe, but i haven't heard it. :-)

― weasel diesel (K1l14n), Thursday, 4 December 2003 12:58 (twenty-two years ago)

then you must buy it! and also rembrant pussyhorse, psychic...powerless...another mans sac, and a brown reason to live

― charltonlido (gareth), Thursday, 4 December 2003 13:02 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh dear lord. I'd have to say LAT. But only because I think YIS is inferior to BOCES. BOCES would have LAT in a New York Minnit.

― Citizen Kate (kate), Thursday, 4 December 2003 13:04 (twenty-two years ago)

yeh boces would probly knock hairway into a cocked hat but i would still wager that locust smothers it with a pillow in the dead of night while we are all asleep

― bob snoom, Thursday, 4 December 2003 13:21 (twenty-two years ago)

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