Bands that time forgot: Tex and the Horseheads

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Though Tot Zien, their live album, is their most hated work, I really like how raw it sounds. It's probably my favorite. All of their records were pretty good. Anyone remember 'em?

― roger adultery (roger adultery), Friday, 16 April 2004 17:33 (twenty-two years ago)

I remember a track of theirs on a compilation called Enigma Variations (put out by the short-lived label, Enigma) and kinda diggin' it. I think I was put off initially by their cowpunk/goth (cow-post-punk?) schtick, but I remember Texacala having a really cool, husky voice.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 16 April 2004 17:38 (twenty-two years ago)

Texacla recently...

http://www.ioproductions.com/vinerepylenoma/texacala_itv.jpg

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 16 April 2004 17:39 (twenty-two years ago)

And then....

http://www.scarpati.com/music_lax/page_three/images/texandthehorseheads.jpg

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 16 April 2004 17:40 (twenty-two years ago)

Didn't that enigma variations album have "A Blind Man's Penis" on it? I loved that song. "wolves eat my nipples, vomit on me baby, yeah, yeah yeah."

― scott seward (scott seward), Friday, 16 April 2004 18:21 (twenty-two years ago)

ah yes, how could i forget:

http://www.sa-wa-ro.com/Compilation-Pages/compilation-ev1.htm

― scott seward (scott seward), Friday, 16 April 2004 18:24 (twenty-two years ago)

then again, maybe there is a reason that i have forgotten about The Pandoras and The Screamin' Sirens.

― scott seward (scott seward), Friday, 16 April 2004 18:25 (twenty-two years ago)

Not only do I remember Tex and the Horseheads, I actually MENTIONED them, for possibly the first time in my decades-long rock critijism career, in a review only a couple weeks ago!:

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0414/eddy.php

― chuck, Friday, 16 April 2004 18:28 (twenty-two years ago)

And Metal Mike Saunders actually mentioned the Pandoras in the VOICE THIS week!:

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0415/saunders2.php

― chuck, Friday, 16 April 2004 18:29 (twenty-two years ago)

it's a conspiracy.

― scott seward (scott seward), Friday, 16 April 2004 18:30 (twenty-two years ago)

i'm not mentioning 45 Grave in the next thing i write. or maybe i will.

― scott seward (scott seward), Friday, 16 April 2004 18:31 (twenty-two years ago)

THE REVIVAL NOW. Of the revival then.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 16 April 2004 18:31 (twenty-two years ago)

That enigma album is afriggin' cavalcade of forgotten bands!

― scott seward (scott seward), Friday, 16 April 2004 18:32 (twenty-two years ago)

does anyone listen to naked prey? still.

― scott seward (scott seward), Friday, 16 April 2004 18:32 (twenty-two years ago)

Every time you say Enigma I just think of chanting monks.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 16 April 2004 18:33 (twenty-two years ago)

or the jet black berries? i shouldn't even ask. ned you are probably going to a jet black berries show next week.

― scott seward (scott seward), Friday, 16 April 2004 18:33 (twenty-two years ago)

It'll be some wacky caper where I'm walking down the street and fall into a wormhole and end up on stage with them.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 16 April 2004 18:34 (twenty-two years ago)

This is one of my favorite stories. When I was eighteen & nineteen years old I lived in Portland, Oregon, and I was a great big chemical mess. I'd moved up from southern California, and I had some goth leanings, and I liked Tex & the Horseheads pretty well. One night during the last week I lived there, they were playing at the Satyricon and I wanted to go, but couldn't get in: not 21 years old yet. The day after the show, though, my girlfriend and I walked up to the gas station to get cigarettes, and a big ol' van pulled up just as we got there, and out spills young Texacala Jones, black hair teased out to here, permanent hangover giving her the sort of forced grace that seemed really romantic to me at the time: I asked her if she was who she looked like, and she seemed surprised to get recognized, and said how we should have come to the show, and we made smalltalk for a while. Nice sunny late spring day, 1986.

OK. Eleven years later I'm a one-man act doing business as the M*untain G*ats, and I get an offer to play Portland. For me this is a meaningful show if even nobody shows up, because I got me some demons to conquer in Portland; I show up at the club - the Satyricon, natch - and who's my opening band? None other than Texacala Jones & Her TJ Hookers, whose singer I'd last seen just before fleeing the city. Like whoa. The years had not been very kind to her, and I've seldom seen someone get that hammered before showtime, but the L.A. world's-about-to-end-so-let's-fucking-rock vibe was in full effect. This is one of my all-time favorite personal coincidences.

― J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Friday, 16 April 2004 18:34 (twenty-two years ago)

are cathedral of tears still playing around L.A.?

― scott seward (scott seward), Friday, 16 April 2004 18:35 (twenty-two years ago)

That's amazing, John! What a story.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 16 April 2004 18:36 (twenty-two years ago)

I never heard anything else by them, but "Shadow Drive" by the Jet Black Berries was a great track.

Best song on Enigma Variations, for my money though, was "Juvenile Justice" by KRAUT!

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 16 April 2004 20:29 (twenty-two years ago)

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