Hailing from New England (Maine), this was another band called THE STAINS. They released this very rare 7″ in 1980 before disbanding in 1983. LAte in the 80s, a posthumous LP was issued – and other than that, I don’t know nothing about THE STAINS. There’s a wikipedia page which says the band was often mistaken as being the Boston STAINS, but I can’t think of any Boston band with that name. Can you? There were the Texas STAINS (pre-MDC) and the L.A. area STAINS (with the killer SST LP) – but Boston? As always, feel free to add any information!
The 7″ has 4 songs, all recorded live as it says on the backcover and the singer is obviously sounding very british or irish. I like this 7″ quite a bit for its musical naivety; it’s really sloppy and snotty and if the songs were just a little shorter, they’d sure be even better. The last song which I omit is a cover of “Submission” by SEX PISTOLS, but it’s very, very bad.
What is a bit untypical for a punk band is the multicolored vinyl which you’d rarely see in 1980, as it’s pretty expensive in production. It’s also of lesser pressing quality, unfortunately, but it sure does look great. Here’s a scan from the side with the printed label. The flip just had a plain red one:
Feel guilty.mp3
Give Ireland back to the Snakes.mp3
Sick of being sick.mp3
13 Comments
another record i’ve never heard of. thanks.
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There was no boston stains.the only reason some get confused as this band did play boston a bit in their career.
i know these guys and live in maine.
i also put together a LP for them that was released on Rave Up and i did all the rstoration and mastering from old cassettes source.
i am gorehound and i have to keep posting as anonymous as there is some kind of bug with my browser maybe
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Was quite sure I’d have known of any Boston STAINS if …
How does that LP sound then, gorehound? Is it better than the 7″?
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The band was from Portland, Maine. Two of the members were Beth Blood and George Ripley. Beth has a shop in Portland where she is a seamstress/costume maker, and sells really cool clothing. One of my best friends had a costume wedding last year and was the Bride of Frankenstein. Beth made her outfit.
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There was a Stains from Toledo in the late 80′s as well.
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Hello all. Just wanted to drop a line and say it’s really cool to find this EP posted here. My sister and I have been looking for this thing for a while now and this is way cool.
Let me introduce myself – I’m the Lead Guitarist that your hearing here. My sister was the BASS guitarist – Beth Blood. George Rippley – Guitar, Dave Buxton – Lead Vocals, and Joe Potter – Drums were our other members. Joe, Beth, and George all went on to form Ghost Walks another great band from Maine.
Beth’s shop in Portland has closed it’s doors to business, so it’s kind of hard to catch up to her these days!
Well, enough for now but if anyone is interested, I have a photo here of the original Stains lineup – it was taken at the Downtown Lounge. As a matter of fact I have two – one of us performing the other in the Dressing Room.
Later.
Dave M.
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Kudos to you for posting this. Yes, the Boston Stains and Portland Stains are one and the same. Eventually the band morphed into Ice Age, another interesting and very overlooked New England musical entity. The Stains were probably the first punk rock show I ever saw at some YMCA in the Portland area and they were amazing. George, the rhythm guitarist, had a real affinity for Roky, the Yardbirds, and lots of sixties sounds. This gave them a little something extra in the influences department. Dave, the lead singer, was in fact English and was living in NYC last time we crossed paths a very long time ago. If I remember correctly there’s a 4th song on the single, right? I have a copy but am too lazy to go look at it. Hey how about some Drops of Red, Shark Attack, or Lou Miami posts?!?
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Nice, this is cool. I was just curious to see if there was any information about Ghostwalks on line. I’ve found tons of stuff about the Stains but it seems Ghostwalks is a ghost. Ironically 3 of the original members from The Stains created Ghostwalks and were very prolific. Dave Buxton , lead vocalist from The Stains wrote lyrics for Ghostwalks along with myself. We were a power trio band many times and also had a variety of lineups. Jello Biafra was one of our friendly critics and kept in touch with George Ripley on a regular basis. In recent years I would see Jello when he was intown working with the green party. We had some interesting times.
George Ripley is the keeper of the tomb, in case you have an interest in finding out about our recordings. I assume George is in charge of thestains.com where you could contact him about us. Oh, my favorite Boston band of the 80′s was The Real Kids, along with many others. Maine had a short lived band named Scouts in Action, they were great !!
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this is awesome. i fucking love it! thanks erich.
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what the fuck? i fucking donloaded an incomplete record? fuck this!
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Elliot, you’re geting annoying. I’ll ban you if you keep posting senseless crap like that all over this blog.
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actually erich can you delete that last comment i made? i found the other track and yeah it’s sloppy as hell. sorry about the me being like that thing man.
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“L.A. area STAINS (with the killer SST LP)”
please, please, please!!! people need it. thanks.
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