Thursday, March 18, 2021

Pain Teens - "Sacrificial Shack" + more




 Finally a new post!
The original creator of this site, Mark Twistworthy, accidently locked himself out of his account and can't remember his password, so there haven't been any posts in a while.  I also post content here but I have been very busy and my record played shit the bed so I wasn't able to digitize anything for a long time.
However I'm going to try to post more starting now.

The Pain Teens need no introduction to anyone from Houston in the old days or probably anyone in the U.S. who was into underground art/ avant garde/ punk stuff.  Bliss Blood used to work at local Houston record joint Record Exchange (later Sound Exchange) on Westheimer (even later moved to Richmond and now located on Milby) and Scott Ayres was a fixture of the local scene in many bands of the time up to the present day (he just played guitar on a Pixies cover by Mike Haaga formerly of dead horse among many other bands that you can watch the video of here). 
They played so many shows in Houston opening for so many national acts (including Nirvana before they hit it big) as well as local shows that you there was almost no way you could miss seeing their memorable sets.
Bliss later did a marijuana-themed lounge project with the grind band Exit 13 and moved to New York and has fronted several jazz projects in the city.


above: a pic I took of Bliss from the Axiom Sabbathon.
Below: a flyer for that show.


Here is the story of how I first heard their "Sacrificial Shack" single:
I used to go up to the Funhouse show and bring music up for them to play that Chuck didn't have (there wasn't much he didn't get, but I managed to have some of it).  So one night in 1991 (I believe) I went up there but Chuck wasn't there- he had Mr. Charlie from the 'Monster Island Beach Party' show (also on KPFT) subbing for him so he could go to the Sonic Youth concert.
He called up there to check in tho, and Mr. Charlie put him on the phone and I told him I had brought a bunch of punk to play, and he told Mr. Charlie to let me have at it because tho Charlie had a lot of weirdo stuff, he didn't have much punk.
But Chuck also told me something awful- when he came back the next week, he was going to do the last Funhouse show.  He was ending it.
This bummed us out, but we promised not to tell anyone so he could announce it himself.  And that's how I got to guest DJ the second-to-last Funhouse show.
You might wonder what this story has to do with the Pain Teens.  I was getting to that.
While we were doing the show, Bliss walked in with a brand new hot-off-the-presses Pain Teens record- "Sacrificial Shack", featuring a cover of a Zeni Geva song on the B side.


We played the B side that night.  We probably should have played the A side too.  It's a great record, and I'm putting it up here for download.

above: A pic I took of Bliss backstage at the Axiom (with Alpo of dead horse photobombing).

As a special bonus, I am also putting up my favorite Pain Teens recording- side B of their "Narcolepsy" tape.  Why not side A as well?  I don't have it digitized and my tape-to-mp3 reorder died.  I have that effect on electronics (the B side is better in my opinion, anyway, and even includes an Alice Cooper cover).
This is a big file because it is in wav format so you get the highest quality of this awesome release, and it's a no-frills thing with no cover or even song titles (tho you can look them up on Discogs here)
I did bother to separate the tracks so I guess it's not totally no frills.

So, here is the "Sacrificial Shack" single:
1991; C/Z records

1. Sacrificial Shack
2. Sweetheart

DL: Pain Teens - "Sacrificial Shack" 7"







And here is your bonus no-frills "Narcolepsy" tape, side B:

1988; Anomie Records

DL: Pain Teens - "Narcolepsy" tape side B














1 comment:

  1. In the Narcolepsy file, do you have any idea who/what the tracks "01 - At the Crossroads Mall" and "05 - 2" might be?

    ReplyDelete