by Anna Solomon (@chateau.fiasco)
If Boston ten-piece The Chives weren’t so unpretentious in their straight-ahead garage punk bangers and piss-take humor, I’d definitely have to call them a “collective” or something like that. Among EJ Pills, Messy Nessy, Jackie Scooter, Johnny Staples, Nancy Dew, William Pills, Vicky Sticks, Aidan Spleen, Dirty Denz, and Young Hot Brad, everyone sings, and no one plays anything other than guitar, bass, or drums. [Ed note: stage names aside, The Chives includes members of Blue Ray, Brittle Brian, @, Squitch, The Calendars, etc.] They put out their raw self-titled debut in late 2020, boasting a hooky lo-fi sound that might’ve come about much earlier if one of the “The” bands from the early 2000s (Strokes, Vines, Hives, take your pick) blew their advance on weed and could no longer afford amps or much studio time. Nonetheless, The Chives produced such hits as “Your Mom’s a Bitch” and “The Chives Buy Guns,” and its follow-up, Supervision, is due out July 1st.
Lead-off single “Labonte’s Auto School” is more of The Chives doing what they do best. Upbeat drums and fuzzy guitars underscore a tale about the frustration of driver’s ed (and running a red light and hitting a cyclist), brimming with youthful energy. Messy Nessy shouts out how “this car is killing me!” before some playful guitar dueling in the post-chorus. Ultimately, it’s a track that’ll leave you wanting to hear more, barely breaking two-minutes before fizzling out with the bummed-out declaration that “even The Chives have a bedtime.”
About the song, Messy Nessy says, "This song is dedicated to fellow Massachusetts townies. If you've ever crashed a car during drivers ed because you were over-medicated on SSRIIs that made you dissociate, this one’s for you."