ASK A MUSICIAN about their artistic influences, and chances are pretty good they’ll play coy.
At best, you’ll get a thoughtful response that makes sense. Those are rare. More likely, you’ll get some hemming and hawing, and then a short list of carefully curated artists selected to showcase maximum cool. At worst, you’ll just get the hemming and hawing.
And then there’s Portland’s Honey Bucket, who have nothing to hide. Last year the trio recorded a bunch of great covers in one day and called the resulting cassette Honey Bucket Plays the Classics. The tracklist reads like a who’s who of post-punk and jangle-pop-rock, with covers of Television Personalities, the Clean, the Fall, Half Japanese, Devo, Alan Vega, Richard Hell, and so on. Lots of people have rad record collections, but few synthesize those sounds into something that’s uncomplicated and irresistible.