Box Elders, Alice and Friends
Featured Album
Ramshackle rock and pure teenage-rapscallion joy at its finest
Go ahead, call 'em goofballs, but no one in Omaha is having more fun making tossed-off, basement-band-practice rock'n'roll than these guys. After naming themselves for the bugs that infested their childhood house, longhaired brothers Clayton and Jeremiah McIntyre started Box Elders as a Friday night jam session with their mom on drums. They eventually replaced her with Dave Goldberg, who saw the McIntyres play a free show in the park and was so moved that he agreed to play drums and organ for them — simultaneously. Together, they inject every garage-pop rave-up on their full-length debut with the ramshackle rock and pure teenage-rapscallion joy that's become Goner Records 'trademark. The title track perfectly sums up their whatever-works m.o.: "So you joined a band / bangin 'pots and pans / singin', 'Anything you want to do / should be alright!'" And they bang those pots with vigor: Goldberg puts extra stomp-power into his kick-drum and cranks up the fuzz on his organ while the McIntyres speed-strum each psychedelic riff, testifying about their favorite things — wildcats, girls, playing ball — until they're literally growling or hollering. If you don't laugh out loud at the awesome, ecstatically out-of-tune yodel at the end of "Ronald Dean," you either have no ears or no heart.
