Sat, Aug 8, The Pine Box Boys

When a band sings about a fellow who’s got a “horseshoe up his ass,” good guess it’s either novelty or one of the deepest, darkest murder ballads you can imagine. San Francisco’s Pine Box Boys somehow make such a notion fall smack dab in the middle of funny and frightening. It’s not all jokes, however. “Maiden’s Eye” is a delicate love song for a one-eyed lass, while “Dark in the Holler” roughens up a classic country sound with a pyschobilly edge. Sometimes the four-piece is just downright silly—see “Child of Calamity,” from the quartet’s third album—but when they do hit upon that marriage of the macabre and comical, it makes for an inglorious thrill. 129 E Street in Davis; www.pineboxboys.com.