Pik-N-Pak: It's Back!

Send us your stories from the legendary punk ice house - if you remember...

Pik N Pak on Facebook

Next weekend, Pik N Pak rides again. For those of you, like us, who are too young to have actually gone there, Pic-N-Pak was a Montrose ice house that used to be across Waugh from Rudyard's. From everything we hear about the place, people who used to frequent Pik N' Pac don't remember much more about what happened there than those of us who never went.

Enough physical evidence about Pik N Pac survives that Rocks Off can confirm it was an actual place. No one seems to remember how to spell it, though - of the six Pik N Pak flyers on the Ozone City Outrage Web site, the ice house's name is spelled six different ways.

Pic-N-Pak was built in the 1920s, and became one of Houston's leading underground rock/punk/noise venues after Ralph Ullrich bought it in the mid-1980s. From what we have heard and read, Ullrich, a plumber who ran for mayor of Houston last year, presided over a rowdy atmosphere of cheap beer, people hanging from the ceiling, frequent blackouts of the non-electrical variety and a long-running residency by the one and only Rusted Shut.

"The joke was that if a scud missile hit Pik-N-Pak during a Rusted Shut show (ah, the first Gulf War) the entire Houston music scene would be wiped out!" Sound Exchange owner Kurt Brennan commented on our blog about Ullrich's mayoral run.

The joint shut down in the early '90s. Rocks Off is working on an article about Pik N Pak for next week's print edition of the Houston Press, and would love to hear your stories. Please email them to chris.gray@houstonpress.com before 11:59 p.m. Thursday (tomorrow), with some variation of "Pic N Pak" in the header.

Obviously we'd prefer to use your name, but if it makes you more comfortable - and makes a better story - feel free to leave it out.

To jog your memory, here are a few comments Rocks Off culled from the Pic N Pak reunion Facebook page:

• Jesus Lizard was an awesome show! There was about a dozen people there and David Yow ran up to some girl and started dry-humping her rolling around on the floor humping this girl. I thought to myself someday I want to be so cool that I can do that and everyone will think it great.
• So many great memories in that building. Mostly of people hanging from the ceiling during Dixie Waste shows.
• First bar I ever bought a beer at!
• One morning I sauntered into Pik n' Pak hungover. [Man's name] was behind the "bar." I told him of my condition and he pulls a giant bottle of Midol out of his pocket and asks me if I need some. I said, "[Dude], what are you doing with a giant bottle of Midol?" He said, "I stole it from my girlfriend. I figure if it can fix all the stuff that girls have to deal with, it should be able to fix me too, do you want some?" It did help my hangover, he was right.

See the reunion schedule on the next page.