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Music

There Once Was A Band Called Nantucket, And These Aren't Them, But Fuck It

George Smith

Tuesday, December 30th 2003

Englishmen Ten Benson have the image of the rural Yank heevahava wrong on Benson Burner. The bottoms of the chicks slung over their shoulders are too perfect, the legs too smooth, the panties unnaturally clean. Wimmen who can be cajoled into visiting the hunting shack never look like that.

OK, Ten Benson's a dump on us American swine, but the satire's best when less ham-hocked—virtually indistinguishable from the real thing. I mean, if they'd actually known of something as red-blooded as the Hegins Pigeon Shoot, they'd have had better meat to riff on than the jerky "I am the Robot Tourist."

Who Ten Benson want to sound like is Nantucket—North Carolinian hard-rock stooges of confusing image who played the part of cannon fodder on late '70s AC/DC tours. Ten Benson take Nantucket's "What's the Matter With Loving You?" for "Under Heavy Riffage" and smartly drop all the emotion and lousy lyrics in favor of just yelling the title over crashing chords.

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Nantucket, while ready to boogie about being "Born in a Honky Tonk," were forbidden by antique major-label etiquette to go on frankly about sucking teen knockers and enjoying Thai ladyboys, subject recognition of which is necessary for max enjoyment of Benson Burner's "Tits." Its shouts of "Cock . . . holiday! Cock . . . holiday!"—which I believe to be great—would rouse the local lynchmen anywhere from Ft. Bragg to Pottsville, ancestral home of Yuengling and John O'Hara.

Ten Benson don't do lead guitar as well as Nantucket, but overcompensate with brassy fuzztone in Consumer Report cliff notes of "I Don't Buy It" and the fine highlands moan of "Oh General." So take your pick: Americans who muff the opportunity of a title like "Girl You Blew a Good Thing," or foreigners with bad hick accents growling, "Mmmmmmm, hot sausage!"

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