The Bottle Rockets

The Brooklyn Side (TAG/Atlantic)
by Joshua Brown

To your average punkster/banger-of-one’s-own-cranium, the Bottle Rockets may sound a little too reminiscent of middle-aged mom heartthrob rock, e.g., the Bruces Hornsby and Springsteen. Look a little deeper. While said Bruces now sit in the lap of luxury and entertain fantasies of life in ramshackle Middle America, the Bottle Rockets are the real deal. Whether you’ve got grease under your fingernails that will never really wash away from working on cars all day so your five kids can all have Pop Tarts, or you’ve been drinking cheap beer and watching TV waiting for the next welfare check to arrive (and you’re white), this is the stuff you want to hear at the bar at the end of your day. It’s their cleverness and sense of timing (a poignant blend of seriousness and sarcasm) that should enable the music of the Bottle Rockets to cross boundaries of class and taste (though probably not color).