This came out in 2002 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
Any band that names itself after Appalachian hillbilly banjo demon Dock Boggs is OK with me. (Hell, any band that’s even heard of Dock Boggs is OK with me.)
But New York retro-folk buskers The Boggs are more than just casual name-droppers; their magnetic debut disc We Are The Boggs We Are shows they also know a little something about Dock’s approach and attitude. These 20 tracks of drunken, authentically ramshackle folk and bluegrass seem as out of place on CD — and in today’s bubblepop world — as a spitoon on a space shuttle. From Jason Friedman’s Carter Family murder-ballad melodies to the loosely freewheeling, Pogues-style performance to the tin-can, gloriously lo-fi mono production, this disc sounds like it just plopped in via some sort of wormhole in the fabric of musical space-time. You can’t really tell if it’s from the past or the future. Either way, you have to figure Dock is digging it wherever he is. And that’s more than OK with me.
