WACKY WEDNESDAY: In Praise of the Austin Lounge Lizards

They didn't start in Austin. And they're  not really lizards.

Here's a Wacky Wednesday cheer for a little string band from deep in the heart of Texas.

Actually, however, the group's origins go back to the late '70s when two Princeton students, Conrad, Deisler and Hank Card met and began playing country, folk and bluegrass. They moved to Austin in 1980, teamed up with banjo/dobro player Tom Pittman and The Austin Lounge Lizards were born.

The line-up of the band has shifted through the past, but they've faithfully kept their original vision, which, according to their website is "spoofing topics American families try to avoid at the Thanksgiving table: subjects like politics, religion, romance, and themselves."

I'll go ahead and quote their website again:  "The Austin Lounge Lizards are arguably the perfect pairing of their hometown’s slogan, `Live Music Capital of the World,' and its unofficial motto, `Keep Austin Weird'.”

The first two songs I'm going to post here are the songs that made me realize I was an Austin Lounge Lizards fan. A friend of a friend played these at a pickin' party I went to sometime in the mid 80s. The FOF (whose name I forget) explained  the tunes were from an album called Creatures From the Black Saloon .





The Lizards do bluegrass justice to this Pink Floyd classic. Truly they are a band less reverent than Spike Jones, but more punctual than George ...



And through the years, the Lizards have sung more than their share of stupid songs about Texas ...