Out of the Mists of Time: TX Punk/HC Treasures, Now Online

Holy fuck, I am loving this. Longtime Texas (and ex-Houston) scenester Mark Twistworthy has a new blog/site, Texas Punk Treasure Chest, where he’s started putting up classic albums/EPs/etc. of Texas-based punk, hardcore, emo, & whatever else from the past few decades for folks to download and enjoy.

And while I probably shouldn’t even need to say it, yes, it’s awesome. There’re a ton of Austin/DFW bands I don’t know much about, but on the H-town side of things he’s got stuff up by amazing, long-gone folks like Defend The Ghetto, The Trigger Quintet, Cedar Of Lebanon, The Desert Jet Set, Blueprint, The Stalag Seventeen, Sore Loser, Beast, Jessica Six, The Ka-Nives, The Tie That Binds, Vast Majority, and, most recently, Refuse To Fall. Every damn day, there’s something new up there, which is both a huge public service and a mind-boggling amount of work. Hell, I don’t post things to this blog every day, and I don’t need to convert ’em from vinyl when I do post… (Yes, I know, I suck.)

Seriously, this site is like the collection of 7″s I managed to amass back in the ’90s made electronic, and that’s a beautiful, beautiful thing, because I myself have barely been able to get the time to convert any of it over myself (although I’m still planning on converting some ancient cassettes I picked up way back in the day, real soon). I did manage to get a few into MP3 format a while back, but TPTC already has all but the Act Your Age Comp. up there, and their conversion is probably more polished/better-sounding than mine, so y’know.

Best of all, Mark and cohort James are taking requests in the chatbox over on the right-hand side of the page; if you’re looking for something punk(-ish) from the ’90s, let ’em know. They may already have it ripped & ready to go, you never know.

James, Mark: thank you, thank you, thank you. I’m now going to go melt my brain.