15 September 10 - 16, 2026 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents The Hole Story A new documentary traces Dallas’ Gibby Haynes from Mr. Peppermint’s son to punk icon. BY PRESTON BARTA F or generations of Dallas-area kids, Mr. Peppermint was a local institu- tion. Jerry Haynes, in his can- dy-striped blazer, taught generations of North Texans their manners between car- toons and life lessons on TV, much like Mister Rogers and Captain Kangaroo. What few of those wide-eyed children knew back then was that his son would grow up to front one of the most glori- ously deranged bands in American rock history. That son is Gibby Haynes. And “Butt- hole Surfers: The Hole Truth and Nothing Butt,” the new documentary from direc- tor Tom Stern, finally tells the whole strange, sprawling, sometimes tender story, and with a spotlight that keeps swinging back to Dallas. A band built from chaos The Butthole Surfers weren’t made in a garage. They started in a classroom. In 1981, Gibby and Paul Leary met at Trinity University in San Antonio, and were just two clean-cut students studying account- ing and stocks, before their shared love of the bizarre pulled them somewhere far weirder. Their live shows became the stuff of legend and litigation: strobe-lit fever dreams stitched together with smoke, fire, grotesque films and enough naked chaos to make even seasoned punks blink. They churned through a revolving door of more than nine bassists. Even the name was an accident. The band cycled through countless monikers until Big Boys’ Chris Gates mistakenly shouted the title of one of their songs as if it were the band’s name. It stuck. The Dallas threads For local audiences, the film carries an extra charge. Gibby grew up here, in the long shadow of his beloved father’s fame. Toward the film’s end, we see Gibby re- turn to his Dallas home, confronting his own pain as he’s never done before, and it’s one of the film’s quiet gut-punches. And the Dallas roots run deeper than biography. The band’s arguably biggest song, “Pepper,” draws directly from Gib- by’s memories of people he knew as a teenager in this city — friends and ac- quaintances caught up in violence, disease and recklessness. One of the song’s most striking images involves a character los- ing his leg in Dallas, a line that hits differ- ently when you know it isn’t fiction but a distorted reflection of real lives Gibby watched unravel right here in our back- yard. The documentary gives those ori- gins context, making “Pepper” feel less like a rock radio staple and more like a eu- logy for a specific time and place. The band also left fingerprints all over our music scene. Anyone who haunted Deep Ellum in its scrappy early days re- members the pull of the now-closed The- atre Gallery and Club Clearview, where the Surfers were part of the noise that gave the district its outlaw shimmer. Why and where you should see it “Butthole Surfers: The Hole Truth and Nothing Butt” is a portrait of transforma- tion, a love letter to weirdness, and, for us, a Dallas story hiding inside a national legend. It’s goofy as hell but really touch- ing, too. Plus, it’s neat to see these punks thrash about in places you may know and love. ▼ RECORDS SINCE SHE’LL BE GONE NOW THAT ‘THE KELLY CLARKSON SHOW’ HAS ENDED, WE’RE REVISITING THE BURLESON NATIVE’S ALBUMS, HOPING A NEW ONE IS ON THE WAY. BY ALEX GONZALEZ I t’s been nearly 25 years since the world was introduced to Kelly Clarkson. From the moment we saw her on the inaugu- ral season of “American Idol” in 2002, we knew she was destined to be a star. Since then, the Burleson native has de- livered on her promise, with hits that stick like grits, a strong musical body of work and a presence that feels familiarly North Texan. There’s never been a moment where Clarkson hasn’t felt like a house- hold name, and she solidified that status in 2019, with her beloved talk show, “The Kelly Clarkson Show.” During the show, Clarkson would have thoughtful conversa- tions with celebrities, as well as platform people in various communities who were making a difference. All the while, she never let viewers forget that she’s one of the best living vocalists, notably with her Kellyoke segment — during which, she would cover other singers’ songs. It be- came a running joke among viewers that other artists would get scared that Clark- son might cover their songs, given that Clarkson’s versions often outshone the originals. Now The Kelly Clarkson Show aired its final episode, and fans are likely to have al- ready found themselves missing Kellyoke. Her final segment of it featured a gorgeous cover of Huntr/x’s “Golden” from “KPop Demon Hunters.” But while she can slay renditions of pop hits, let’s not forget the robust catalog that she’s built over the past 25 years. In fact, we’re hoping that the show’s ending means she’s already at work on her next album. Across each of her eight albums (holi- day albums are divisive, so we’ve left those off), Clarkson has a wealth of hits, and a lot of her deep cuts can go head-to-head with those of the main pop stars of the times they released. While we mourn the end of her talk show, we’ve revisited Clarkson’s impressive discography, ranking them in order of least to most favorite. ▼ Music Provided b Michael Cain Before the acid-soaked chaos and a No. 1 hit, the Butthole Surfers were just Dallas kids raising hell in Deep Ellum clubs. >> p17
