Grizzled. Scraggly. Scruffy. Craggy. If Sergio Leone hosted a backyard barbecue, the Pine Box Boys would be tailor made to serenade any crusty cusses in attendance.
Dubbing themselves “the World’s Premiere Horror-billy Band,” these sleazy urban cowboys strum banjoes, fiddles, and gee-tahrs. Like a perverted Johnny Cash, frontman Lester “Tombstone” Raww belts out torrid, musty, dirt ‘n dust lyrics about coffins, killers, and cussin’. “I Kept Her Heart” involves a pissed-off husband pondering alternatives to divorce, while “Pardon Me, Ginger” concerns a predatory scoundrel’s effort to woo a churchgoing widow.
These guys can play. Steven “Your Uncle” Dodds pounds merrily away on drums, donning both a sweatband silk-screened with cannabis logos and a mangy, low-rent goatee. Possum Carvidi adds to the band’s hellfire hoedown by pickin’ a mean banjo, while Col. Timothy Leather wields an cello-sized upright bass like it’s an ammo-blasting Gatling gun. Adding to the country-tinged cacophony is agile fiddle-player Yoon-Ki “Rotgut” Chai.
“Good Evening Folks, We’re the Pine Box Boys” acts as a VHS-recorded showcase for this amusing group of bolo-wearing, beard-sporting hillbillies. Recorded at the Café du Nord in San Francisco, “Good Evening Folks” is a raucous, redneck shindig. Is it polished and professional? Hell, no. The Pine Box Boys prefer a warts ‘n all, bootleg aesthetic for their rootin’, tootin’ Wild West show.
If you enjoy painting the town red, downing a few brewskies at the bar, and hanging out with ten-gallon hat wearing shitkickers, savor the sleazy twang of the Pine Box Boys. If your tastes run more Air Supply than Charlie Daniels, however, avoid this unrefined musical moonshine at all costs.
