Butthole Surfers
The weirdest band to come out of the Austin scene and a direct line from the Butthole Surfers' early records to pretty much every confrontational / psychedelic noise rock band of the last forty years. Live shows were infamous: strobe lights, fire, projected surgery footage, Gibby's custom-built demonic vocal processor. Locust Abortion Technician and Hairway to Steven are the ones. Later years got weird (major-label success with 'Pepper', legal disputes with Touch and Go) but the original run is untouchable.
People
Butthole Surfers' frontman and one of the great weirdo showmen in American rock. Ran shows with strobe lights, fire, projected surgery footage, and a custom-built vocal processor that made him sound like a demon at a used-car lot. Behind all the chaos a real songwriter lurks — Paul Leary's guitar gets the credit but Gibby wrote the words and they hit.
Butthole Surfers' guitarist and one of the most inventive noise guitarists of the 80s. Manipulated feedback, tremolo, and tape delay into something that still sounds like nothing else. Also became a wildly in-demand producer — Meat Puppets, Sublime, U2 (yes really), Daniel Johnston.
Butthole Surfers drummer since 1983 and the founder of Trance Syndicate Records. Put out Cherubs, Pain Teens, Crust, earliest Trail of Dead, and dozens more out of Austin throughout the 90s. The rare instance of a rock drummer running a genuinely important label on the side.