Album: Paul Leary - Born Stupid | reviews, news & interviews
Album: Paul Leary - Born Stupid
Album: Paul Leary - Born Stupid
Butthole Surfer keeps the freak flag flying high
“I could have been a doctor or a lawyer, playing golf with my rich friends at the club” bemoans Paul Leary on the title track of his first solo album in 30 years.
Born Stupid may not have the Black Sabbath-esque riffing, disturbing samples and punk rock heft of the Buttholes, but listeners who are familiar with their off-kilter and irreverent LSD-soaked strangeness will find themselves in very recognisable territory. There are even covers of “The Shah Sleeps in Lee Harvey’s Grave” and their tribute to the Dicks’ lead singer “Gary Floyd”, as well as early 90s’ out-take “The Adventures of Pee Pee the Sailor”. Not that any of these tunes sound much like the originals. Instead, they are reworked variously as: a Negativland-like deranged take on circus clown music; an acoustic strum-along; and a crazed sea shanty.
Elsewhere there are weird and unhinged nursery rhymes like “Do You Like to Eat a Cow” and “Sugar is the Gateway Drug”, the stretched and disfigured Tex-Mex Country and Western of “Mohawk Town” and “Throw Away Freely”, which comes over as light opera soaked in a stew of particularly potent brain spanglers. Middle of the road, light weight rock this most certainly is not. Indeed, Born Stupid will raise plenty of belly-laughs with its black humour and, while only “What Are You Gonna Do?” veers particularly close to the Butthole Surfers’ dark and trippy psychedelic sound, it will also have many wishing that Paul, Gibby, Pinkus and King Coffey would get back into the studio together and fry some minds again.
rating
Share this article
The future of Arts Journalism
You can stop theartsdesk.com closing!
We urgently need financing to survive. Our fundraising drive has thus far raised £33,000 but we need to reach £100,000 or we will be forced to close. Please contribute here: https://gofund.me/c3f6033d
And if you can forward this information to anyone who might assist, we’d be grateful.
Subscribe to theartsdesk.com
Thank you for continuing to read our work on theartsdesk.com. For unlimited access to every article in its entirety, including our archive of more than 15,000 pieces, we're asking for £5 per month or £40 per year. We feel it's a very good deal, and hope you do too.
To take a subscription now simply click here.
And if you're looking for that extra gift for a friend or family member, why not treat them to a theartsdesk.com gift subscription?
Add comment