Sonic Super Friends Showdown!!!! Gibby Haynes & Johnny Depp and Project "P"

You and Me

Ain't no Movie Stars....

Diarrhoea For The Soul

Here's a little tidbit from the bowels of the alternative rock world. P is a little known collaboration between the world of film and the rock world. Imagine a band containing both Gibby Haynes of the infamous Butthole Surfers and Johnny Depp. Not many people know that Johnny Depp plays guitar, and prior to his fame on the silver screen, he played in a number of bands, most notably The Kids. But turnabout is fair play. I'm still waiting to see the two collaborate on a movie.

With Mr Haynes leading the charge on lead vocals, it is somewhat of a Butthole Surfers lite album. Crazed and inane, the album is actually pretty entertaining. If you have an interest in Capt. Sparrow and know little about the Buttholes you might be a little stunned by this album. On some songs you may do a double take, and say to yourself "did he just say what I think he said?" The best way to describe the Buttholes is this--imagine if The Grateful Dead and the Manson Family had demon spawn together. But it's all good fun to me. There is a lot of genre bending, name checking and satire here, and also plenty of deranged self indulgence, from the spacey reggae dub treatments of John Glenn (mega mix), to the gut bucket country drivel of Mr. Officer. Depp trades off on bass and guitar on this album with Bill Carter, while on drums is Sal Jenco.

The album begins with the strange but head scratchingly radio-ready I Save Cigarette Butts, a nice bit of sonic folk art done up Beck-style. And then you have your White Man Sings The Blues where Gibby shows off one of his great contributions to modern music--he trailblazed his way into legend by trading in the harmonica for a megaphone. I thank him deeply for this, though ultimately it did pave the way for a lot of knuckleheads.

Hilarity ensues throughout this album--check out the bands wonderfully incoherent mumbly take on ZZ Top, Oklahoma. Absolutely perfect. I could play this on repeat for hours. If nothing else though, you will want to own this album for the fairly creepy but uncannily reverent take on Abba's Dancing Queen. It's actually a better idea than mashing the tune into a wood chipper, much more unexpected. It's pretty good--but I think most importantly that knowing that such a version of Dancing Queen exists fills me with evil warmth. Even funnier is that this album came out on Columbia Records. Those guys let these guys make these songs.



Even more fun!! Flea of the Chili Peppers and Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols are guests on the album!! Hear Gibby channel Elvis Presley on the grim ballad Die Anne. It's his Can't Help Falling in Love! Marvel at their amazing REM parody Michael Stipe!!! Gibby fondly reminisces about that magical time when he touched President Jimmy Carter's suitcase with a certain part of his anatomy........



What are you waiting for? Buy this today and amaze your friends, punish normal people for the cowards they are. Send the born again into a temporal purgatory. How many albums do you have that have a song that name-checks Martin Landau? If this is too tame, another weird side project of The Buttholes is Gibby's descent into electronic music with Jeff Pinkus, The Jackofficers. Aside from that, I guess I have to be content saying a prayer each night for a sequel to P, adding that to my nightly prayers for a release of  "Police Academy Part 9".