Austin Lounge Lizards
Few elements of the pop culture invite satire as much as country music. So it's always good to hear someone fresh sending up the excesses of Nashville. The Lizards—Conrad Deisler, Hank Card, Richard Bowdan, Tom Pittman and Boo Resnick—have actually been around for 18 years and have built a cult following with such tunes as "Jesus Loves Me but He Can't Stand You" and "Paint Me on Velvet." The most country-specific track on this album is "Stupid Texas Song": "biggest egos, biggest hair, biggest liars anywhere." But "The Dogs, They Really Miss You" is a nice play on those maudlin country songs about the children of divorce. And "Rocky Byways" suggests one of John Denver's schmoozy pastoral ditties gone even more wrong.
But the Lounge Lizards don't limit themselves to things southern. "Leonard Cohen's Day Job" lampoons the Canadian troubadour of the moribund, casting him as a garage mechanic: "To the streets of New York from my tower of song/I come down to work where the common folk throng/In my famous blue shirt with the patch that says 'Len'/Then I go back to write songs again." Pittman can't sing as croakily as Cohen, but the satire succeeds swimmingly anyway. (Sugar Hill)
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