Sound seas

Sound Seas Performance Wherehouse was an art and music performance space in El Paso, Texas. The mainstay of the club was hardcore punk and skate rock. It was first located at 1903-B Texas Avenue from 1984 to 1986; it moved around the corner to 1910 Texas Avenue from 1986 until closing briefly in 1987. It reopened again in late 1987 on Montana Avenue in El Paso County before shutting down for good. The club's manager was Mike Jennings, guitarist for the West Texas ska band Abandon Ship.

The first location was little more than a tin shed with a foot high stage and carpet baffles hanging from the ceiling. The second location was larger, a gutted storefront that became a crash pad for local and traveling scensters. The final rendition was a quonset hut located adjacent to a pig farm.

Sound Seas provided a venue for local bands to play, including The Rhythm Pigs, Abandon Ship, The Moral Cripples, Creation Attempt, FT-13, Hernia Briefs, Neon Race, and One Second Zero.

Sound Seas also hosted numerous touring hardcore bands, including Black Flag, The Descendents, Dead Milkmen, Gang Green, MDC, JFA, Soul Asylum, Corrosion of Conformity, 7 Seconds, Sand in the Face, Suicidal Tendencies, Beyond Possession, Agression, The Edge, Short Dogs Grow, Jerry's Kidz, Power of the Spoken Word, The Fuck Ups, UPS, Opinion Zero and Th'Inbred, just to name a few. Other touring bands, including cowpunk acts Blood on the Saddle and Tex and the Horseheads, played Sound Seas as well.

Online tour diaries of The Descendents and Dead Milkmen note several dates playing Sound Seas, the latter describing El Paso as "depressing". Henry Rollins heaped further accolades on Sound Seas, though not by name, in his 1994 Black Flag tour diary "Get in the Van" in which he detailed a "depressing" show on 01/16/1986.

References

*Rollins, Henry. "Get In The Van", 2.13.61 Publications, 1994, P. 263.