Southern Culture on the Skids

Boston has its own Redneck Fest, but here’s the real shit: a North Carolina band who’ve been preachin’ about drinkin’, lyin’, smokin’, drivin’ gun-rack pick-ups, and livin’ in trailers for more than 20 years, all set to a soundtrack that blends trim cocktail-kit drumming with the mad riffery of surfabilly. Recorded over three nights at Chapel Hill’s Local 506 club, this live disc draws tunes from their previous six albums — but the damn thing’s so full of fire, there’s nothing retro about it. Frontman Rick Miller has some great raps, too, introducing the charging “ ’69 El Camino” as a tribute to the “mullet” of automobiles. And the whole band tear through fan favorites like the ode to white-trash domesticity “Double Wide” and the twangin’ Tex-Mex blast about booze and big-hair-filled Saturday nights “Liquored Up and Lacquered Down” with the kind of blind conviction that belongs only to savants (like their late idol Hasil Adkins) and genuine bad-ass punks.

On the Web
Southern Culture on the Skids: http://www.scots.com/