Regarding their name, Austin Lounge Lizards guitarist and founding member Conrad Deisler said: "I think it was a slang term I'd heard my grandmother use to describe gentlemen of easy virtue who hung around in bars. When we started out, that's just what we were doing -- hanging out and playing for beer and tips and stuff like that." The Lounge... [+] Read More

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A primitive swamp-rock duo comprised of Ben Reynolds (vocals, electric guitar, percussion) and Brant Slay (vocals, harmonica, washboard), the Chickasaw Mudd Puppies were proteges of R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe, a fellow Athens, Georgia resident who teamed with John Keane to co-produce their 1990 debut White Dirt. Chicago blues legend Willie Dixon... [+] Read More

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Retro-rockabilly maniacs the Flat Duo Jets paired singer/guitarist Dexter Romweber and drummer Crow; though based throughout much of their career in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, the duo first gained widespread exposure appearing live in the 1986 music documentary Athens, Georgia: Inside/Out. Despite critical acclaim, they did not issue their... [+] Read More

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One of the most popular bands in the alternative country movement's rock & roll wing, Old 97's hailed from Dallas and drew their inspiration from classic country, bar band rock, the raw sound of early punk, and -- especially on their later records -- the tight songcraft of power pop.

The band was formed in 1993 by singer/guitarist... [+] Read More

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Don Reno, Red Smiley, and the Tennessee Cut-Ups were a bluegrass band of such high quality that they gave serious competition to Flatt & Scruggs in the '50s. Reno, an unsurpassed master of the banjo, played for Bill Monroe in 1948, replacing Earl Scruggs. With a smooth and mellow baritone, Smiley made a perfect partner to Reno, singing lead to... [+] Read More

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True to their name, North Carolina's Southern Culture on the Skids offer an affectionate parody of local white-trash trailer-park culture, matching their skewed outlook with a wild, careening brand of rock & roll. SCOTS' music is a quintessentially Southern-fried amalgam of rockabilly, boogie, country, blues, swamp pop, and chitlin circuit R&B,... [+] Read More

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The Kansas-based post-punk progressive bluegrass outfit Split Lip Rayfield was comprised of vocalist/banjoist David Lawrence, guitarist/dobroist Kirk Rundstrom and one-string bassist Jeff Eaton, whose instrument was fashioned from the gas tank of a 1965 Ford. An outgrowth of the group Scroat Belly (though it didn't take long for them to outlive... [+] Read More

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A staple of the Austin, TX, club scene, singer/songwriter/harmonica wizard Ted Roddy paid his dues alongside the likes of Dale Watson, the Reverend Horton Heat, and the Bad Livers. Born in Corpus Christi, Roddy played his first live shows in the late '70s, eventually moving to Dallas to form the Midnighters with blues guitarist Mark Pollock.... [+] Read More

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