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.

I could go on and on about how great this is and all the accompanying memories it conjures—about how the band sounds like King Crimson meets Richard Hell & the Voidoids, about how cool it was to sneak into the legendary Cumberland Avenue cesspool Bundulee's Lounge and hang out with all the other underage skinny tie new-wavers, about the legion of Knoxville rockers who took their inspiration from the band...

Hearing these great old songs brings back the innocence of a time when it seemed like things really were gonna change. That sense of optimism and "we can do whatever we want" is what transforms garage rock into high art. Balboa had all the right ingredients at the right time and it was sheer magic.  John Sewell, Metropulse.

 

Live Like This (Plus)

  1.   104
 2.   Wall of Smoke
 3.   The Big Sleep
 4.   Dance Lessons
 5.   Live Like This
 6.   Single Sound
 7.   The Night
 8.   Can't Stand It
 9.   Alaskan Gloves
10.  Be Somebody
11.  Emergency Dance
12.  Image Free
13.  Is This It?
14.  Writer and the Artist		 Click on songs to listen or download

 

Balboa:     Terry Hill                   guitar, vocals
                 Hector Qirko            guitar, vocals, drums (3)
                 Richard Battaglia       bass, vocals
                 Doug Klein               drums (5,9,10,14)
                 Steve Housewright    drums (1,2,6,7,8,11,13), vocals

with:         Larry Tomaso            bass (5)
                Jeff Seitz                    drums (4)

 
Recorded at Camel house studio, Knoxville TN, (3,5,9,10,14)
Thunderhead studio, Knoxville TN (2,6,8,13)
Balboa house studio, Westfield, NJ (1,4,7,11,12)
circa 1979-1980

All songs written by T. Hill (Single Sound Records) except 3,4,8,12 by H. Qirko (Image-Free Music, BMI)

Remastering 2006 by Richard Battaglia.  Thanks to Glenn Reynolds and Wonderdog Records, who produced and remastered the original Live Like This (Plus) compilation in 2001.