Neats

Formed in 1979, the Neats were one of the great enigmas in Boston's fertile 1980s club scene. During these years, one did not have to look far for a bill that might include any combination of the roots-rocking Del Fuegos, the Nuggets garage rock-worshipping Lyres, and the drunken hardcore punk slamming of Gang Green. The Neats were yet another item altogether; a decidedly collegiate group of clean-cut, straight-faced brooding guys who played evocative and melancholy music that encompassed the pre-psychedelic1960s-era folk-rock of the Seekers, Baroque pop of the Left Banke and the Zombies, and the bluesy moods of the early Rolling Stones and Them. Their closest contemporary American cousins were bands like the Feelies, Dream Syndicate, and the band they often shared a national bill with, early R.E.M. They also had a kinship with New Zealand pop outfits like the Clean and even British groups like Echo and the Bunnymen -- though without the high level of romantic drama of the latter; the drama of the Neats was manifested in a more introspective and subdued manner. Like those bands, on their first EP, The Monkey's Head in the Corner of the Room (1982), and debut LP, Neats (1983), the Neats favored clean guitar swaths, ebbing and flowing washes of strummed rhythms, and single-note melody lines over traditional improvised soloing. Always there was a melancholy sort of punk rock edge shadowing the music, a feel and sound that somehow links to a Boston tradition that can be traced through such bands as Mission of Burma to Galaxy 500 and beyond. And then...the Neats changed. Dramatically. First they disappeared for about four years and then came roaring back with Crash at Crush (1987), which polarized their audience. Those audience members who first witnessed the band's...