Sonic disturber Tex Kerschen releases “shockingly plaintive” debut album THE BLUE LADY on vinyls May 1, 2025 via Freaks Label (Oakland, CA)
At home, but never at home, in Houston, Tex Kerschen wrote these sketches of people he loves, some of whom he’s lost.
The Blue Lady is dedicated to his brother Danny Kerschen, a visual artist and activist. For six years Danny lived with the pain of cancer and cancer treatments, never letting go of either beauty or laughter. He loved beautiful colors and named his opioids accordingly. As long as Danny could, he resisted heavy meds. By the end, however, he had to bang on the side of his hospital bed for anything to relieve some of the horrors that beset him. He regretted that capitalism outlived him, and so too does everyone who knew him.
And who is Tex Kerschen? People may know him from his former band, Indian Jewelry, now known as Studded Left, or from Coxcombs, or the production house, Pleasure 2, or as half of the World’s Worst DJs.
In his own words, "I'm a soft boy. I clean minds. I delay the inevitable."
Yes, he is now older than he once was. More useful leather than patent leather. Buzzing the alarms in a moribund hive. Alive with pleasure 2!!
What they say:
“Tex Kerschen’s offerings strongly uphold the distorted gutter glamor that the band has come to be known for. The man once said, “I don’t trust anyone who doesn’t have dirty hands,” and his songs on the record exude a purple haze that is specific to Houston, a sentiment and mode of creation of which the late DJ Screw would approve.” Jordan Redmond, Tiny Mix Tapes
“The angular industrial stomp of Houston’s Indian Jewelry has much in common with the sonic depravities of Faust, Suicide and fellow Texan weirdos the Butthole Surfers. Their live shows are seizure-inducing whirlwinds of evil, stroboscopic energy and throbbing power electronics delivered with the force of being hit by a Mack truck, but by all accounts, bandleaders Erika Thrasher and Tex Kerschen, a happily married married couple with a newborn baby girl, are two of the nicest and most well-adjusted people around who also happen to make ear-splitting rock and roll drones for a living.”
Richard Metzger, Dangerous Minds
“We believe this force – which some call a band, which some call a cult... to enlist the tools of amplification, electronics, passion, paranoia and drums, drums, drums, in an effort to dramatically demonstrate and radically remind us of something the very, very dead William “Free Gold!” Burroughs once said: “Rock music can be seen as one attempt to break out of this dead soulless universe and reassert the universe of magic.” Revolt of the Apes
What he says:
"Rita Jean is a song I wrote for my mother while she was bounced between county mental hospitals, halfway houses, and other institutions..
Cold Gentleman is for Brandon Davis of Actual Figures, the Real Cool Orchestra, among so many more groups. Happily, he is still alive.
Oh, Boy is for his friend and former bandmate Rodney Rodriguez, who died too young.