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HEARTY PLANTATIONS

It's nice to see a band without an attitude, a chip on its shoulder or an ax to grind, and that description fits Bruce Joyner & the Plantations, who performed at the Lingerie on Friday. A sturdy little pop quintet short on ambition but long on heart, the Plantations are under the sway of all the standard classic pop influences, but the L.A. band's so golldanged good-natured about the whole thing that originality is beside the point. Racing along with the airborne momentum of R.E.M. and punctuating things with a country twang evocative of Rank and File, the Plantation's music is, above all else, Southern tales of hell-bound trains, voodoo love and burning mansions coast on Bo Diddley rhythms and an occasional rumbling surf-guitar riff.

Dressed in a black suit and string tie, the Georgia-born Joyner looked like a country gentleman, and has the manners to match his threads. The former leader of the Unknowns is an uncommonly gracious performer and a first-rate pop vocalist.

The Plantations are a sort of classy garage band, and since big money (read MTV) is gobbling up garageland at an alarming rate, knockabout bands like the Plantations are as important as they are easy to love.

Kristine McKenna - Los Angeles Times - Monday, April 8, 1985