Butthole Surfers: Pepper (From Electriclarryland)

wuat:

Butthole Surfers - Pepper

True story (from the ’90s, so you know it must be true): Back when the internet was an idea mainstream media outlets understood the importance of, but didn’t fully grasp, chats were an extremely common form of famous people interacting with their fans. (Evidence: Here’s a newspaper listing of online chats on AOL, MSN, Prodigy and Compuserve.) In August of 1996, “Pepper” was inescapable, so MTV decided to hold a live chat with the band on what was supposed to be AOL. But something broke, so it was on IRC at a point where IRC was just ahead of Usenet in its mainstream lifecycle. Being 15 at the time and just enthused at being able to ask the Butthole Surfers some questions, I asked the kind of things 15-year-olds ask. And the band being who it was, they handled the medium with hilarious contempt. (Me: “What’s your next video going to be like?” Gibby Haynes: “A long, warm tunnel.”) A bizarre time — to be on mIRC, chatting with Gibby Haynes — with like 300 other people, all there because MTV told them to stop by. If the Butthole Surfers were getting radio play these days, they’d just have a Tumblr. (Fun fact: The album cover used here is the safe-for-kids version. We’ll let you go find the other one.) — Ernie @ SFB