Band: Napalm Beach
Album: Teen Dream (aka self-titled Napalm Beach)
Recorded: Triangle Studios, Seattle, Washington, with engineer Bill Stuber, 1985
Remixed, remastered: Seattle, Washington, with producer Jack Endino, 2023
Release date: January 25, 2024
Label: Skullman Records (self-release)
Guitar, vocals – Chris Newman
Drums – Sam Henry
Bass – Terry Gwartney
all songs written by Chris Newman
Originally called The Untouchables, Napalm Beach was a long running project of Portland, Oregon songwriter Chris Newman. The project that became Napalm Beach had roots in Longview, Washington and San José, California but by summer of 1980 the band called Portland, Oregon home. Playing their earliest shows with burgeoning underground bands like the Wipers (Greg Sage), the Rats (Fred and Toody Cole), and pre-Poison Idea Imperialist Pigs (Tom “Pig Champion” Roberts), Napalm Beach were one of the founders of Portland’s original punk scene. Like the Wipers, Napalm Beach was unconcerned with fitting into the typical short/fast/loud punk aesthetic, drawn to the scene because of common roots in the 1960s and 1970s underground, most interested in the community and in the freedom to experiment artistically. Chris’ 1979 “drummer wanted” poster sought a “loud, dynamic drummer” who was into The Ramones and Led Zeppelin.
In late 1981, Sam Henry, who had been the drummer for the Wipers, then the Rats, joined Chris to form the core of Napalm Beach. A second guitarist, Longview-born Mark Nelson, played with the band off and on between 1981 and 1985. Bassists came and went during the first nine years of Napalm Beach’s existence.
This album, Teen Dream, was written and recorded in 1985 after the band had returned from a two-year hiatus in the San Francisco Bay Area. It was recorded at Triangle Studios in Seattle, on state of the art (at the time) 24 track tape with engineer Bill Stuber. Chris wrote about the experience in his unpublished memoir: “Sam Henry and his then-roommate, Chris Chalenor, rode up with me on the Amtrak train to Seattle. We had a good old time. We used to play RISK, the board game of world domination.”
With limited finances, the band completed the entire album in two ten-hour days, recording all eleven tracks on the first day and mixing them on the following day. It was then self-released and self-distributed, first on cassette and then, in 1986, on vinyl. Although happy to be on vinyl, Chris was never fully satisfied with the mix, or with the design of the album. Still, the album appears to have been influential. It showcases what was then Chris’ signature psychedelic textured sound, created through the use of a Fender Twin tremolo effect, an Electro-Harmonix Big Muff fuzz and/or Univox Superfuzz, and an Electro-Harmonix Small Clone chorus pedal.
In 1986 Triangle Studios was acquired by Reciprocal Recording, and in the skilled hands of musician-producer Jack Endino and his partner Chris Hanzek, it became known as the birthplace of grunge, producing albums such as Soundgarden’s Screaming Life (1987), Mudhoney’s Superfuzz Big Muff (1988), and Nirvana’s Bleach (1989).
Chris always wanted to re-mix and re-release Teen Dream, and in anticipation of that eventuality, in 2013 he arranged for the master tapes to be digitized by Jack Endino. After Chris’ death in 2021, I asked Jack if he would go provide me with a digital copy of the album. After some conversation, he decided to remix it. The result is amazing: similar to the expert restoration of an old painting, there are colors and textures in the album previously unheard. It is particularly meaningful to have had this work done by a producer and artist who was a contemporary of Chris and Sam.
Before there was “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana and before there was Teen Dream by Beach House, there was Napalm Beach’s Teen Dream.
