Boris the Sprinkler are a pop-punk band from Green Bay, Wisconsin, formed in 1992 and led by former Maximumrocknroll columnist Rev. Nørb. They have released eight full-length studio albums, including front-to-back covers of the Ramones' End of the Century and the Circle Jerks' Group Sex, as well as two live albums. Their latest studio effort, Vespa To Venus, was released in 2019 on Beer City Records.

Boris songs, particularly those written by Nørb, are often loaded with geeky pop culture imagery ranging from Mighty Isis to Desmond Howard and from Taco Bell to Bam Bam Bigelow – sometimes in the same ten seconds. These references pepper songs that frequently address getting laid, trying to get laid, not getting laid, and/or jerking off. All of these elements are tied together in lyrical passages that may occasionally seem like nonsense, when in fact they are extremely specific inside references that nobody could possibly untangle without the help of The Annotated Boris, an exhaustively footnoted explanation of every Boris song to date. It’s quintessential nerd music.

While their sound has a lot of the same Ramones, Dickies, and Rezillos/Revillos DNA as their 90s Lookout! Records-aligned peers, Boris also draws a healthy influence from garage rock and first/second wave UK punk. Even more definitive is Nørb’s delivery as a vocalist, a rapid and ceaseless assault of syllables, assembled meticulously and delivered at light speed – you’re gonna need that lyric sheet (or, you know, this site). And in terms of live performance, nobody does a show like Boris the Sprinkler.