The Neckbones

August 29 - September 5, 1 9 9 6 [Off the Record]

*** The Neckbones

PAY THE RENT

(Zee Bin)
On a recent trip to Oxford, Mississippi, I caught the Neckbones playing to a hothouse crowd at the Gin -- one guitar player pitching drunkenly off stage onto a table loaded with beer bottles (and not missing a note), the drummer holding his beer cup in his teeth and draining draft after draft by tilting his head while he played, and the other two guys haranguing various members of the audience while performing songs about smoking crack and hating the radio and defending Southern belles. It was a great gig, pumping fresh venom into that toothless old snake, garage rock. This CD's not quite as vigorous a bash-'em-up, but it's loaded with trailer-trash spirit, the same soft-brained stories, and a real dedication to playing rock and roll as if they meant it down to every last flickering braincell.
What makes the Neckbones different from the many Boston-based garage rockers? Well, for one thing, they're not self-consciously mimicking the Lyres or the Prime Movers or their spinoffs; provincialism seems to have no place in their music despite their small-town roots. So if the Stones, Iggy Pop, Television, and a number of other worthy influences seem apparent, all the better compared to the dull urban in-breeding we hear in Boston clubs.
-- Ted Drozdowski
(The Neckbones play Bill's Bar on Lansdowne Street this Tuesday, September 3. Call 421-9678.)