Boy In Love The Peehole Sessions 7"

The whole "folk" revival thing is taking over; I can't open an indie-leaning magazine without some picture of a bearded guy crouched on all-fours, sporting a crusty acoustic guitar on his back. Sure, some of this stuff is nice, and I can appreciate a return to nature and roots and eating dinner in the kitchen with your family (television turned off, or at least on mute), but when I need to hear some rootsy American music that really speaks to me, I'm going to dig into my archives and pull out whatever Wheelchair Full of Old Men releases I can find. This Ohio-based label is a vivid time-capsule that will someday really explain what the Midwest was like for real, middle-class white guys in the wake of the old millenium. Real guys; guys without scholarships, or ice-hockey agility, or social skills. Sockeye were easily the most successful act to come out of the WCFOOM camp (and rightfully so, with such memorable classics as "I Ate a Pizza with Ulysses S. Grant On It" or "Buttfuck Your Own Face"), but all points keep leading me to Boy In Love's sole vinyl contribution, The Peehole Sessions.

Most likely an infrequent side project (weren't they all?), Boy In Love offer four clueless stompers on an appropriate shade of transparent yellow vinyl. Musically, they seem to have more of a hard rock influence than the other projects of their members, most likely because MTV was playing some Aerosmith or Saigon Kick right before they started practice that day. It's chugging, poorly-played, and the perfect setting for the singer's incessant ranting, like a wimpy Rollins worried more about eating a whole box of fruit snacks than the violent apathy of modern society. If you grew up with a joystick in your hand and your butt planted firmly in a leaky bean-bag chair, you can relate.

"Up Grandmother's Skirt" is clearly the inappropriate gigglefest you'd expect it to be, standing as a hallmark for the WCFOOM aesthetic: disgusting, absurd, immature jokes, appropriate only in dad's basement amidst the company of friends and Doritos, that somehow become shamefully-catchy punk songs. The other two tracks continue in a similar fashion, loud shouting bouncing between vulgar and silly while the rhythm section hopes they don't have to go back to Guitar Center for more sticks or strings. It all makes for a fun listen. I can't see many girls enjoying this record, knowing all-too-well how they hate finger-in-the-butt humor performed by ugly dweebs, but it's not for them. It's for us.

"My Bible's A Boy" is what brings home The Peehole Sessions as the true gem it is. The riff could legitimately cause heads to bob, but it's the loony spoken-word shuffle that would be enough to twist Sam McPheeters's tongue. Could anything explain the redneck attitude better? Why write a song denouncing jocks, and bullies, and rednecks, and Christians, when you can become them, all in the course of a three minute rock song? "My Bible's A Boy" fits it all in, pulls the sheet off the hideous Midwestern crime scene called "the popular guys in school", and makes you count your blessings (zits) that you were born with a brain and one day will leave town, go to college, re-create your identity and soon enough be hiring and firing the same jerks that tried to fit you in a half-sized locker. I could go on, but instead I'll present the full lyrics to "My Bible's A Boy", in hopes that this glaringly-honest slice of Americana does not die in my record box.


I gotta bible and it's a boy
It drives a truck it's a fuckin boy
It gets me drunk goddamn it's a boy
I love my bible it's my boy
I fucked a chick to get it it's a boy
My boy takes me to see the Twins play
At Metropolitan Stadium
My bible's a boy you hear
My bible kicks some ass
Goes to Crass shows and fucks up
In the pit
That's my bible that's my boy
Don't you fuck with my bible boy
It invented Iron Maiden
My bible's a boy do you understand
You hear me
My bible's a boy he's a wise boy
He drives a semi-truck
And plays baseball and football
In the back yard
And he gets all the prettiest chicks and fucks em
My bible's a boy you hear
He ain't no sissy boy
My bible will fuck you up
My bible get drunk
My bible bowls a perfect game
My bible once saw Dock Ellis pitch a no hitter
On acid against San Diego
My bible's a good looking boy
My bible will fuck you up if you cross his path
It's a strong boy got a lot of pages in it
My boy's got big pages
Look at my bible that's my boy
He looks like me cuz that's my boy
I love my bible I love my boy
Gets me all fucked up on cocaine
Then my bible hops in the car and drunk drives
He's hardcore
My hardcore bible's a boy
Look at his testicles
Look at the book of Job 3:4
And it'll tell you that he's a boy
It says and then he came in and he
Had testicles
That shows you my bible's a boy
And if it was a woman it'd have a cunt
Don't you fuck with my bible
Don't you fuck with my bible boy
My bible's a boy
It has facial hair
It has tattoos and a scar on it
And he killed a man and spent
58 years in prison
But it's a boy
It never got raped
My bible knows how to take care of himself
My bible will fuck you up man
My bible also likes to watch TV