Butthole Surfers’ 1983 debut was extremely timely. US hardcore’s structures were already codified with tensed-up machismo and hierarchical scenesterism, often simply substituting a tattooed but otherwise equally uptight scene superego for society’s rules. So this cantankerous blurting of acid orneriness from the bowels of Texas was a much needed reminder of how rock ‘n’ roll could still get loose and fly its freak flag high. Vocalist Gibby Haynes, guitarist Paul Leary and their mutant crew took cues from Devo‘s arch social satire, but replaced its urbanity with pure awopbopaloobop rock ‘n’ roll gibbering, drugs and bodily functions colliding with icons and folk devils. None of which would have had amounted to more than a disruptive and brief diversion were the group not brutally, undeniably accomplished. They were musicians in the tradition of Beefheart, Hendrix and Funkadelic blasting away the illusion of oppositions between bestial rawness and virtuosity, chaos and control, freakout and groove — Leary in particular ripping hypersexualised pulsating streams of noise out of his guitar in a way that very few bar Hendrix have done before or since. This was, and remains, a joyous re-affirmation of the dirty and barely (if at all) controllable impulses at the very core of rock music.