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The Pain Teens were formed in Houston, Texas by Bliss Blood and Scott Ayers waaaaaay back in 1985 (although it took them two years to get around to gigging and putting out an album). Originally a punk band with metal leanings (check out their early cover of the Stooges' "I Got A Right" and their eerie, soul-crushing cover of Black Sabbath's "War Pigs" for evidence) aligned with Houston's punk scene, they soon mutated into something else altogether -- a chaotic and sinister hybrid of punk, noise, tape loops, found sound, samples, exotic instrumentation, and pure unbridled creepiness. (This is what happens to you when you live in Houston too long.) |
Distinguished mainly by Scott Ayer's guitar playing -- a unique sound that combined swamplike psychedelia and twisted, effects-laden sounds -- and Bliss Blood's disturbing lyrics and icy delivery, the Pain Teens sounded like no other band on earth. For the record, their best song ever (in my opinion, anyway) is the still-obscure "Happy Razors," from the cassette-only release PAIN TEENS IV.
| The Pain Teens began releasing their own 90-minute cassettes the same year they formed; and followed that with their first LP, PAIN TEENS, on their own Anomie Records label in 1988. (They also released a single by Sugar Shack, some other odds and ends, and appeared on at least one CD in the MANIFESTATION series, among other things.) After self-releasing CASE HISTORIES in 1989, they were added to the Trance Syndicate roster and CASE HISTORIES was issued with BORN IN BLOOD nationally in 1990. In 1991, Frank Garrymartin (drums) and joined them and Kirk Carr (bass, who had joined in 1990) for the purposes of touring. Over the next four years, they toured several times and released two more albums, STIMULATION FESTIVAL and DESTROY ME, LOVER. Following a national tour in 1994 with the Boredoms and Brutal Truth (half of which Bliss would join again two years later on th e Relapse release SMOKING SONGS, a tribute to the joys of hemp), Frank and Kirk left the band, and Bliss and Scott returned to working as a duo to finish BEAST OF DREAMS, which was released in late 1995. |
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It now appears that BEAST OF DREAMS was the last statement of the Pain Teens; Scott and Bliss have gone totally separate ways and the Pain Teens are no more. Scott and Frank have resurfaced as one-half of The Walking Timebombs, an extension of Scott's earlier bedroom-project into a full-on band; Bliss is now living in New York City, where she plays in The Moonlighters and occasionally appears singing on albums by Swans, Melvins, and the like. See below for more info:
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