Crucial reissue of video documentaion of the kings of experimental Dada hardcore punk.

Released on VHS tape by Touch & Go back in 1985 and recorded at Traxx in Detroit, Michigan between the band's seminal releases Locust Abortion Technician and Rembrandt Pussyhorse, this live document is a classic of outre 80s hardcore insanity, a visual and sonic blast of unhinged Texan weirdness conjured from a band at the absolute peak of their power that has made an indelible imprint onto the grey matter of anyone who's seen it. This later DVD reissue of Blind Eye Sees All makes sure this overload of truly outsider hardcore punk ferocity is further archived and saved for continued exposure, while adding on some "bonus" material that's fuckin' fantastic; seriously, anyone who's a devoted fan of 80s era Surfers needs to at least see this video wig-out once in their lives. It's filled with all of the scatological humor and imagery, spazzed-out cartoonishness that defined the band's brand of HC, coming across like some unholy spawn of Dead Kennedys and William S Burroughs and Hawkwind and Timothy Leary, crushed together into a gibbering abomination. The depraved harlequin merry pranksters of the 1980s post-hardcore underground.

First, the original VHS tape content: this tape material is goddamn critical for fans of the original blazed-out berserker punks and acid-hardcore of 1980's-era Surfers, ramming a thirteen-song set-list at top speed into your skullplate. Gibby shouts at you outside in the cold, completely nude, and then we move into the venue. Shit goes nuts as soon as they open with the mutant hardcore thrash of classic "The Shah Sleeps in Lee Harvey's Grave" offa 83's Brown Reason To Live 12", insane high-speed pandemonium and Dionysian circle-pit mayhem splashed in spirits and decent ditchweed, two drummers freaking out high-power, necromantic stream-of-consciousness fantasias spat out against an almost noisecore-level wall of freeform chaos. Now that is how you start a set, pal. It's followed by a wiggy stretched out psychedelic rendering of their classic P.E.A.C.E. compilation track "One Hundred Million People Dead"; rare spazz-attacks space-noise-rock rituals, his tremulous singing sounding divine and ecstatic on three-chord bangers like "Hey", "Bar-be-que Pope" (all off of the '82 Butthole Surfers 12" on Alternative Tentacles ) smeared in Beefheartian slugfuck blues twang and primitive saxophone bleats. The perrcussive sledgehammer and howling dervish cow-punk crunch of "Cowboy Bob" (94's Psychic... Powerless... Another Man's Sac ) makes an appearance, as well. There's a bunch of tunes from Another Man's Sac , in fact: the rumbling effects-drenched freakout "Dum Dum", spiky rapid-fire post punk frenzy with "Mexican Caravan", the caustic scatological noise rock of "Lady Sniff", and "Cherub"'s megaphone blasted laughter and slow burn frolic converging into madness.

On the older tune "Something", here's where the big horns come lumbering out and the audience is hammered by some of that killer quasi-Sabbathian slo-mo slugpunk skronk the Buttholes were so infatuated with, one of my favorites. They then use their infamous cover of Grand Funk Railroad's "Mark Says Alright" to launch the entire room into high orbit, before closing with the long form psychedelic noise-rock jam "PSY" that sprawls out all over the audience and out the door.

Even with the members hopping over each other, Gibby's antics, the standing drummers, all of the barely controlled chaos, this transforms into a pre-millennial ritual, tabs dissolving on tongues amid the lunacy of pending nuclear war and conservative American values, the visions of a flatulent shaman, ceremonial pandemonium with tuba. Sixty-five minutes of blotto, interspersed with bizarre interview and ranting style segments, mostly with the band all together crammed under a duvet in some dump, buried in beer cans, a Siamese cat, a dog, and Domino's pizza boxes, and what seems like all of the band members are wearing each others undergarments - did Gibby ever write a book? If he didn't, man is that a fuckin' loss. His hallucinatory ramblings scattered throughout this concert film are incredible.

The sound and video quality is nicely polished up a bit without sacrificing that inherent videocassette aesthetic, I appreciate and approve of that. Multi-angle camera shots, impeccable editing; as things get headier and more improvised towards the end of the set/ritual, the filmmakers utilize some bizarre visual overlays that lean from the dreamlike to the nightmarish to primo effect. Really maintains the feel of the era. The DVD offers the entire original concert tape, as well as menu options that allow you to jump around from song and interview segment. Bonus materials include this weird "karaoke" track list that has the various vocalists lyrics subtitled, a brief but eye-melting video of the Surfers performing "Negro Observer" in 1991 on a bigger, more tricked-out stage as the band has fully morphed into a slicker 90's psych rock outfit, and a photo gallery of assorted ephemeral weirdness, pics and Paul Leary's sinister drawings, flyer and poster designs, set to what appears to be a previously lost recording of the band's cover of "American Woman". It's crammed, man.

They were gods at one moment, witness it here. How the fuck was this madness picked up by a major label in an attempt of commercial appeal?