The V-Roys
Are You Through Yet? (E-Squared)
This is the epitaph of a coulda-been American treasure that instead died young. After a mere two studio albums — the blazing Just Add Ice and disappointingly bland All About Town — the pride of Knoxville, Tennessee, disbanded, leaving only this live album as a farewell. It’s pretty standard stuff and mostly expected by anyone who managed to catch them onstage. Interspersed between the Merseybeat-turned-Southern-punk bits are a handful of covers, Neil Young’s “Motion Pictures,” the La’s “There She Goes,” and Bap Kennedy’s “I Want My Money” among them. The seemingly odd selection only underscores the short-lived brilliance of the V-Roys; no matter what went in, it all came out sounding like the handiwork of adolescents adept at cooking with rock & roll’s two best ingredients — angst and booze. It’s only fitting that late into the album the V-Roys tackle the Replacements’ “IOU” and the line “Want it in writing, I owe you nothing.” Yeah, your favorite bands don’t. At least having three V-Roys albums from which to choose when the need to raise a cold beer in one hand and a middle finger on the other strikes is better than only having two.
This article appears in November 10 • 2000.