Neo Boys

Emerging in the late 1970s from Portland, Oregon’s raw punk underground, Neo Boys stood among the city’s earliest all-female outfits in that scene. The quartet coalesced in 1978 after singer KT Kincaid, bassist Kim Kincaid, guitarist Jennifer Lobianco, and drummer Pat Baum left behind their prior project, Formica & the Bitches. They performed steadily at both obscure clubs and bigger stages, including support slots for Television and the Wipers. In 1980 the band cut its first release, the EP Give Me the Message, under the guidance of the Wipers’ Greg Sage. After Lobianco relocated to Hollywood that same year, Meg Hentges joined on guitar, bringing a more refined technique that expanded the group’s sonic range. With this revised lineup Neo Boys issued the 1982 EP Crumbling Myths, whose tighter performances and sharper, socially charged words reflected their growing command. Hentges departed Portland in 1983, prompting the band’s dissolution. Although most members stepped away from music thereafter, Hentges maintained an output both as a solo act and within a duo alongside her wife Jude O’Nym. K Records later assembled the full retrospective Sooner or Later in 2013.