House O' Pain was a punk-oriented zine published during the early-90s by Donnie and April Kendall and Troy Pigue. Donnie was a pretty well-known musician on the local Nashville punk scene, a member of the legendary Rednecks In Pain and Fun Girls From Mt. Pilot. Donnie and April also promoted some really cool all-ages shows, dubbed "Migraine Matinees," first at the Pantheon Club and later working with Mary Mancini at Lucy's Records.
My relationship with
House O' Pain started off rocky but got better as time passed by, and I became friends with Donnie and April (still dunno about Troy, tho'). Like most small local rags at the time,
HO'P came out with an editorial against
The Metro, Nashville's local (commercial) music magazine. Their anti-
Metro bitchlist consisted of the usual complaints -- not enough coverage of "alternative" music (i.e. punk), too much advertising, blah, blah, blah. So it goes...I disagreed with their perspective (which also amounted to a criticism of my work with
The Metro) and we went back and forth for a few months. We later buried the hatchet, however, and I did my best to support
House O' Pain's efforts, including the indie record label that they launched and their all-ages show.
Like most punk-oriented zines of the time, the lay-out for
HO'P was heavily indebted to '80s-era "punkture" graphics, i.e. lots of white print on black pages, strips of text laid on top of photos, pages that appeared torn, etc. Unlike most of the punk zines I remember seeing at the time, however,
HO'P had a better quality of writing and criticism, and Donnie, April and Troy went out of their way to grab interviews with some important musicians. Shortly after this issue, number seven, came out in February 1992, local FM station WRLT ("Radio Lightning") purchased
The Metro and converted it to a much slicker, even more commercial music mag. It was left up to
House O' Pain to write about the edgier artists that I had been covering for
The Metro and they did it well, influencing a generation of young Nashvillians.
(Click on thumbnail to see larger picture)VITAL STATISTICS:• Issue #7
• February 1992
• B&W, 44-pages (including covers)
• Style: punkzine
ARTICLESHenry Rollins
Firehose
The Fixtures
U.K. Subs
Trusty
The Shindigs
--> also album reviews, live show reviews, local music news
Labels: House O' Pain, Lucy's Records, Nashville, punkzine
It took a while for them to get it out on the street, but with issue #10, Nashville's House O' Pain continued to grow both in size and influence with the growing local underground rock scene. House O' Pain's Donnie and April Kendall were working with Mary Mancini at Lucy's Records to promote some great all-ages shows, the zine was landing very cool artist interviews (like Green Day two years before their breakthrough, or legendary punkers Jawbreaker), and the HO'P record label was expanding with released by Teen Idols, The Fixtures and Load. This issue came with a 7-inch vinyl compilation that included Teen Idols, Lethargic, Floor and Cannibal Holiday.
