Free Album Friday: Balboa

Balboa is the Big Kahuna of local indie rock, the founding fathers who blazed the trail for all Knoxville rock bands of any importance to follow. The group is universally revered by all longtime Knoxville scenesters, and rightly so. The brainchild of local mad scientist guitar guru Terry Hill, Balboa also featured the guitar artistry of Hector Qirko, bassist Richard Battaglia and drummer Steve Housewright. The combination of Qirko's blues and country swing techniques with Hill's more avant garde guitar mangling created a unique mix, and the rhythm section hammered it all down into a precise and even logical sound. It made perfect sense, and still does. Back in the day, Balboa was considered to fall somewhere under the nebulous umbrella of punk rock, a genre that wasn't nearly as stilted and regimented in the late '70s as it is now. The band's independence, idealism and freeform artistry definitely fit into the punk aesthetic, which was—at the time—about creative and political freedom. The first wave of punk was inextricably linked with the art world (see the Velvet Underground, Patti Smith, Television, et. al.) and Balboa was an art-rock band that purposely steered clear of pretension. What makes the tunes on Live Like This (plus) sound so classic is that they are not bound within a time-specific context. To this day, the songs sound urgent and modern. Get Live Like This (plus) here.